davetapson

Yeah - I (still) have two 12v Bosch drills that I used to use double handed - one with drill, one with with square driver for screws. Was fantastic - drill/screw/drill/screw, no faff. Problem is there is only one battery that still works, and that is only kind of, so they're pretty useless. I mean to re-pack the batteries myself, but it seems to be at the bottom of the pile of jobs to do. Interestingly, the one Bosch drill will grip really narrow drills (2mm, whatever) which one of the other Bosch drills and the Ryobi won't. Which is annoying when you want to drill 2mm holes. Not spending the money niggles at you in various ways. I'm not sure anything I do would require impacting, but one of the boat builders in the States told me that once he picked up an impact driver he never put it down again, so there must be something in it.

PS: anyone notice lockdown weather is back - the sun is out, the sea is flat...

Impact wrench is what I'd have gone for, but I only buy Festool *cough* And Ryobi. If it's battery powered for me, it needs to match the rest - i.e. the cheap green stuff that isn't so cheap. The rest being one drill of course... Have we had the impact driver conversation yet? Why are they better than a drill with a clutch? Apart from driving 10" screws into railway sleepers, which I don't currently do.

Thought I'd help you out there... [emoji6]

Question: is there Kiwi Twitter? Anybody follow anybody who might have something interesting to say in NZ?

Yeah, it's a great idea. I wonder if it's Kiwi or Russian? So 'Rona, she's back. But 4 cases does not an epidemic make. Who those cases have touched might be another story. I see men's shed has closed. I've been there twice with timber (I was going to say wood [emoji848]) in hand, to find out closed. This working gets in the way of real life.

Have a look at the boat shop this guy recommends. Dang... http://www.outbackboats.nz/category/Solar-Inflatable-Jet-Hulls

$299 for Aus coded PLB (apparently makes no diffs where it is coded) http://www.adventuresafety.com.au/survive-at-sea-range/kti-safety-alert-sa2gn-personal-locator-beacon-plb/ Can pay an extra $40 for NZ coded version.

No one could accuse the Kiwis of not finding ways to have fun with what they have... And you get to gut and carry it yourself too... The one thing that always gets me is just how empty all the ecological niches are here. In Africa you drop a crumb, there is a fight between the flies, ants, geckos, birds to get it, and one or two of each gets eaten by the others in the process. Here, nada. Crumb is still on the ground three days later. Something dies in the bush in Africa - there's an entire ecosystem involved in breaking it down from beginning to end. Here, well, the pigs will probably get it, and after that, there isn't a whole lot.

As everyone who has pressed the button would say, the price is nothing after the fact. Not that I've stumped up for one yet - but as soon as the boat is done, it's going to become compulsory in my eyes. I've seen them in the $300's - $370 odd if I remember right.

Hehe... the mindfk in working that one out must have been interesting...

Which probably leads to a Good/Bad/Ugly all in one... NZ bush is something else. You may think you have mamba navigation skills and could walk across the Kalahari with a pair of shorts and two hansas, but in NZ bush... ai yi yi. Dense, can't choose where to navigate due to terrain (gullies, but 20m or whatever deep) and matted vegetation, can't see out of it to keep land marks / navigation points. Once you've taken 13 detours to get to the place 50m across the gully, you've walked 800m, don't know where you are, let alone the original spot you were trying to get to. And every move from there on consists of repeats.

For the bundu bashers - have a look at NZTopo50 app - there are two, one for N Island, one for S Island. I have Android, dunno if there is one for sheeple. The benefit is that the entire 1:50000 map data is downloaded to your phone (just less than 2gig for both) so you don't need reception to use it. In my experience, where you'll need it, there is no reception and there is nothing more frustrating than standing in the bush looking at a blank map with a whirly thing spinning and no data reception... Also, PLB's are a good thing. And if you have one, and are in a situation where you think you should probably use it but are too skaam, press the button. The responders say that the main problem with PLB's are that folks wait too long to press the button. As you were.

Nicely done...

Dunno if that company has much of a social media presence, but if it does a couple of coordinated tweets / posts linked to that company with 'Hey, xxx, do you think this behaviour is acceptable?' might generate a response from someone higher up in that characters hierarchy.

There is a yellow recyclers bin near one of the local garages, between the garage and public parking. Was chucking a fiew boxes in it once when the forecourt jockey came out and gave me lecture about how he didn't mind me using 'his' recycle bin as long as I broke the boxes down flat. Given that it has recycling company branding on it, and that he is the pomp-jockey, I had some internal opinions about how much it was 'his'. That he was a long-term ex-saffa made it a bit strange. Garage was then bust for doing dodgy WOF's, so there is that.

Bought our first car from Turners when we arrived. Paid cash (it wasn't much), the lady behind the counter went clickity-clickity click and said "Ok, done." I asked where the cert of reg was and she said "What?" I kept feeling like I was being ripped-off - it was too easy and too non-bureaucratic - something must be wrong...

Following on from which, I couldn't see who would be sending me food boxes when I'm 90 and SA is properly farked - hence emigration. Dogs come real low on the list.

I've been supporting a charity that takes boxes of food up to destitute pensioners in Zim. They probably were like you or me in terms of making a plan for old age but the multiple economic crashes in Zim have wiped them out - several times. I can't see any of them saying 'Yep, I'm glad I didn't get out when I could have because it would have meant leaving my (now 20 year dead) dogs behind...

This is, like, the best comment I've seen in, like, whoa, the whole day, man. All those dumbasses who said/say/will say "it's just like frogs..." - no dumbass, frogs are cleverer than YOU... even a cold blooded reptile knows when things are too uncomfortable not to move... and it doesn't wait long either. Edit: they also make damn fine bait as far I can remember...

Chirundu... one time we were staying in Willy Reed(?)'s camp and had gone up to the trading store near the main road to buy beer. Was sitting in the car watching an elephant standing under a tree near the store. A local comes out of the store with a loaf of bread, jumps on his bicycle and takes off with elephant in hot pursuit, seemingly after the bread... Didn't look like the first time it had happened either

We re-homed two of our dogs, and had one put down - she was old and not of a desirable breed for finding an interested other family. Was a bit tough, but it is what it is. Edit: It's an interesting thing, this 'pets are part of family and thus no expense is too much.' I don't buy this (and I often wonder what the driver for this belief/feeling/emotion is) but it's obvious folk invest huge emotional capital into pets that leads to some strange (to me) decisions. Smoking R60k to get a dog somewhere...!? That's a nope from me.

I've given some thought to the DIY thing, and I think my final feeling is: If things are simple - you have an easily defined profession and career, few job changes etc, then DIY is probably quite feasible. In our case, things were more complicated, including a kid that wouldn't be considered a dependent (over 18) etc, and having an agent who could advise options made a difference.

Did the same sort of thing at Kanyemba - had an epic descent into the valley - had an old Mk1 Range Rover that caught fire, a new Isuzu KB that popped a front shock, a Nissan bakkie that popped it's front hubcap covers off... When we finally got on the river, the other guys had taken off up stream and was me and a mate left. We jumped in a boat, cranked the motor and headed up after them. Me: "Paul, isn't this motor supposed to have a tell-tale?" (Stream of water to show the water pump impeller is working...) Paul: "Yeah-um-maybe?" Looks longingly upstream... "Whatever." 400m upstream, just past a huge pod of restless hippos... *put*put*stop* Just sat there looking at the pod of Hippos that we were being washed back down to and thought "Damn, all that **** getting here, and we're going to be eaten by Hippos on the first 10mins on the river..." We managed to paddle ourselves out of harms way, but it was a close run thing. I love that river. Edit: I was picking up books for the kids in the Browns Bay Library and came across this - it's a great read... https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Wankie-Place-Colonial-Africa/dp/1568251653

I've had quite a few jobs coming through for positions in CHC (this is IT, but where there are companies that need IT, there will be companies that need CA's?) - we're pretty much stuck in AKL but looks like we could make a good go of it there easily enough. We used an agent that WP suggested back in the day, no regrets at all. It's probably possible to DIY, but if you want to get one and done, just stump up the bucks and put it in an experts hands. We would not have put some of the stuff on the forms that they did, so they may be able to pivot your application to look better in INZ's eyes than you probably might know how to.