davetapson

Ahh. He's a flpn disaster. His qualifications point to his abilities in his role...

Yeah, Mike Hosking was giving her a roasting on the minimal radio I listen to... JA: " The system let us down..." Hosking: "When are you going to realise YOU are the system dumbass?!" Was quite entertaining.

We got caught out with last minute snafus that took 6 weeks or so to resolve, so feel some of your pain. We had taken the kids out of school as they had started school holidays, and by the time we finally got them in to school here, they'd missed about three months of school. It's caused some issues. Let's hope they pull finger. Problem with Jacinda is she's good at responding to crises and a good communicator, but she's crap at getting things planned, organised and done. The health minister is a frkn disaster and she's not doing anything about him. So at the moment the world thinks we have great leadership, but, yeah, well. Not bad compared to some I suppose.

Same with the guy who built the boat "well, I don't really know how I'm going to do this, but if I don't make a start I won't get it done" and then off he goes. Important part of a 'can do' attitude.

Dang, nothing you can't make as long as you have a gas barbeque and ZX1 oil... The knowledge and skills this guy has wrapped up in his noggin. I'll just mill this, weld this, cut this block in half with a band saw... Humbling. A more normal guy I watched build a boat over the last few months - overcame annoyances and obstacles with grace and good humour... https://youtu.be/uVvvqjfOQRc

Yeah, I'm just waiting for the "Well, we have to pay back the debt accrued during Covid, so..." And it's the "so..." that's got me worried.

I think MYOB have fired 300 staff? I remember this because I tried to interview for them - wrote a test for them, sent it to them and then got a snotty email from their HR saying that if I couldn't be arsed to do their test I'm not the kind of person they want to have working for them. To which I replied, "check your email" but had another option, so didn't chase it up. I can't find evidence because all web searches lead to how to do redundancies on MYOB (ironic? maybe.)

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Dang. We should have gone into co-ownership and I'd save you the bother of storing it by keeping it at my place...

$100 Ozito vacuum cleaner with fancy power take-off (you plug the sander into the vacuum and it turns on when you turn the sander on and vice versa) plus some duct tape - works like a frkn charm. Dustless sanding? It's a thing. Esp. good when you are sanding in your garage and especially so when it's epoxy. Sander can switch between RA and Eccentric. Eccentric eats up the crap like you can't believe. Flatten epoxy on 4 x 8 sheets of marine ply? It's worth every considerable cent. Use that with Mirka net sanding disks and the whole thing becomes completely next level. I can't see (apart from the saw systems) that the other tools are quite as next level, but then, I've not tried them. The saws...

Speaking of which, I bought my first Festool couple of weeks ago. Random Orbital Sander. Everyone I spoke to said although it costs the same as a whole collection of tools by everyone else, I'd not regret it. And to my surprise, I haven't. It's already saved me much pain. The problem now is to wonder what I'm missing by not having other Festools...

When it comes to foreigners, INZ ain't compassionate.

Damn, that's smart.

May as well paste the rest... "What does that mean for you? It means you have 90 days (at the most). You need to cobble together a plan that gets you on the front foot. It’s time to reinvent yourself. It’s time to radically cut your costs. It’s time to have a hard conversation with your bank. It’s time to sell something, or many things. Do whatever it takes. The time to act is right now, while the milk of human kindness is still flowing."

From Scott Pape - based in Aus, but NZ not to dissimilar. Most of what he has to say is pretty sensible, so if he says this, I'm inclined not to dismiss it. We started using his money management plan (look for Barefoot Investor) and it's been a game-changer for us. "In early March, as we prepared for lockdown on the farm, the first of our fluffy little lambs was born. There are always one or two who are rejected by their mother and need to be bottle-fed multiple times a day. Liz puts the lambs in cute little knitted coats, and the kids feed them colostrum formula with baby bottles. Instagram: #sooocute #farmlife #furbabies! It takes a few goes for the lambs to get used to the bottle, but when they get a taste for it they’re hooked. Soon they’re so excited to get the bottle that they literally knock the kids over. Terrified, the kids hold out the bottle and brace for impact. The lambs charge at them, suck it down as fast as they can, and then wander around ‘milk drunk’. There’s a time limit to how long we’ll trudge up to the yards twice a day in the dead of winter, of course. Yet the lambs don’t know that. Can you see where I’m going with this? I’m really talking about JobKeeper, the boosted JobSeeker, your caring bank who’s let you pause your mortgage payments (but not your interest and charges), and the landlord who’s discounted your rent. You’re sucking on that milk. Tasty, ain’t it? Well, don’t get too comfortable. Soon September will roll around on our farm. The season will change, the flowers will begin to bloom, the air will start to get warm. And our cute, fat, hand-raised lambs will be … hanging out with the butcher. One day they’re frollicking in the warm glow of sunlight, the next they’re simmering in a roadside BP bain-marie. At this point my editor stopped reading and wisely advised me to spike this column: “You will get hate mail.” Well, I’m trying to make a point. See, I’ve lived through natural disasters and seen the outpouring of emotion and generous offers of support. And I’ve also seen just how quickly people move on — banks, politicians, the media, the general public. They always do, and quicker than you think. Case in point: the banks have painted themselves as the ‘financial doctors’ of this pandemic, pausing repayments (but, again, not the interest) on $220 billion worth of loans. And having won praise for giving customers ‘up to’ six-month payment holds, the NAB has already begun ringing its COVID-affected customers just to check in (“How you doin’, lil buddy? You got some money for us?”). Similarly, politicians have bestowed on renters a six-month ‘eviction ban’ and, in many cases, the option of negotiating reduced rent, i.e. landlords cop it in the neck. Yet, with 1.3 million landlords negatively gearing (aka losing money), this can’t last forever. And, while the Government has unveiled the biggest welfare response in history (though slightly revised down!), they’re now under pressure to restart the economy and begin cutting back the gravy. The bottom line? Right now we’re in the early stages of reopening the economy, and we’re riding a wave of optimism after being locked down for so long. But just remember that for many people things will change in September. That’s when the economic season changes and we’ll find ourselves smack bang in the deepest recession in living memory."

Live on the shore, can't currently claim to be cycling. Long Bay park is my go-to for around here. It's got enough hills to make it interesting. Follow a couple of the paths up towards that new development from the car park - makes for some heavy breathing.

Yeah, um, no - didn't know about it! Booked a bach via book-a-bach. Skotel seems pretty damn good. We'd have had to book two rooms (at least - us, 10yo twins, uni student plus friend = 6) but that would come out as about what we paid for the bach. Bach you get the kitchen so food would probably end up cheaper. Looks awesome tho. Tempted for future...

Ruapehu won out. Fewer transaction costs...! Oh well.

We're thinking of going skiing in Queenstown in July. Are there good things to know before I start booking..? Never been there before, so clueless. Edit: geez, ski passes at Cardona are basically $100 / day! Edit2: Holy moley. Flights $2940, Accom approx $350/night (low end), ski passes for family $500/day. 5 days skiing for approx $7500 excl car hire. Edit 3: $2k to hire a 6 berth camper for two weeks. Cheaper to drive.

We get a lady in 2hrs every week - vacuums, cleans kitchen and bathrooms. Is probably done in about 20 mins because when you have routines for this kind of thing, it's quick. Not that you can't do it yourself, but it is really nice to come home to a clean house once a week. Like Wayne and Patches said, clothes straight out of tumble dryer, if you stretch them when you fold them you can get an amazing amount of creases out. Plus folk here are not going to lose sleep if someone has some creases in their shirt.

Yeah. We just wait till evening - traffic dies right back.

021 131 0099 Andy from Cut Together

About 125km then? [emoji23] Problem with going north on long weekends is Warkworth and the 7 way stop...

I was looking for quotes to cut plywood panels for a boat I'm making. The price to cut per sheet cost more then the plywood itself, which wasn't cheap, so I cut by hand. In retrospect, it was probably cheap at the price. There is a guy who has set up a site to buy slack time on cnc machines and claims to be the cheapest - I'll try and remember to Google him up at a more sensible time of day.

The goss amongst some financial advisors I come into contact with is that they have never been so busy in terms of mortage applications - they say that there is is huge interest from first time buyers and property investors. Their view is that part of the market is going to remain a sellers market. Suppose it depends on whether supply will ever outstrip demand.