So we are officially in Winter, it’s mostly being wet and warm with only a handful of the classic Canterbury bitterly cold frosts followed by a windless sunny day which make Canterbury an amazing place to live. But at least I am in the envious position to be able to pick and choose when I get to play outside and I’m not a disprin.

 

I planned a fun walking tour of bars for Negroni Week and it was a blast – four new places for me, unfortunately two were closed but we still had bags of fun with plenty of unproductive time the next day.

 

The Coaching programme is filling up and it’s fun to help people hit milestones and work towards goals, the tours are starting to fill up already which is heartening as well.

 

I’ve started up my Picnic Rides again and it’s been a blast introducing Candy and friends to old haunts as well as exploring new to me places as well, all finishing with a yummy lunch somewhere. Good times.

 

What with the interesting weather, Maccy monster has been introduced to ice which she isn’t sure about and hail which she really doesn’t like, as she spent some time barking at it. Ccino has become a puppy again which is great, she is always wanted to play ball and run around now. Ccino and Candy went to the vet without Maccy, which she does not like at all, howling and generally looking put out and, when I went for a bike ride, Maccy broke out of the compound but at least when I got back she was on the deck sunning herself.

 

The Flahute Season is ticking along, more new faces mixed in with the mad regulars which is always cool, the High Country Brevet was a blast, and I pushed myself and rode to Sheffield which I was really pleased about, although my knee didn’t thank me being a bit undercooked for a 200k ride and I am still paying for it now. The Longest Night Ride was also great fun with us having a magical lull in the weather to get to Kumara and back. Good times. Plus I have gotten an amazing response to a couple of Auckland based (yes OK one Waikato) brevets after a disappointing response to a Wellington one, after I was begged to make one.

 

I found a really good article by Wil Wheaton and how he lives with Depression and it really resonated with me. Although it would be fair to say that the illness still controls me more than I would like and I am ashamed of it.

https://medium.com/@wilw/my-name-is-wil-wheaton-i-live-with-chronic-depression-and-generalized-anxiety-i-am-not-ashamed-8f693f9c0af1​ 

 

Unfortunately Candy and I spent a long evening at the Emergency Department and it wasn’t me! She was having a great deal of abdominal pain and whilst the drugs certainly helped, nothing showed up in terms of an easy diagnosis, she is fine now, but we are following up with her doctor as it’s not the first time.

 

Candy surprised me with a week long celebration of my birthday, I’m not one for attention or celebrating, but she mastered it beautifully. Good times.

 

So after 5 or 6 years of super painful feet in Summer and lots of head scratching and my usual nothing shown up on any tests, scans and x-rays, I had an MRI after another disappointing specialist appointment where it seemed the best option was to stop cycling in Summer. I had to push for the MRI where the specialist said it was 50/50 whether anything would show. As a result I was a bit despondent, but bugger me if the MRI didn’t actually show something. So now I have a conclusive diagnosis, so I am hopeful for a quick resolution of the problem next summer!

 

I picked up an annoying niggling knee injury and it’s been a long time since I have had to carry an injury – but it’s coming right after some treatment and significantly reducing the workload. Frustrating! Candy has been doing a great job of applying different taping methodologies to see which one helps me the best. I have had to give away the 180k version of the first Waikato brevet, but I suppose I can live with that…

 

The old noggin is playing ball at the moment and I got a lot of planning completed and starting to piece together the next couple of years – kind of scary, kind of exciting.

 

Also a new job for Candy, which is going well, she is going to be supertastic at it, and she have new fitness challenges > increasing her biking and doing an overnighter plus two new half marathons in new locales leading to her full marathon in London in April next year.

 

And now for the crazy pictures you all have been waiting for…. plus there is a video at the end of the page – yes really, just like a Marvel movie…

https://photos.app.goo.gl/KP8eVVM1DFsPChDF9


Swordfish (Intro)
You know what the problem with Hollywood is?
They make shit.
Unbelievable, unremarkable shit.
Now I’m not some grungy wannabe filmmaker
that’s searching for existentialism
through a haze of bong smoke or something.
No, it’s easy to pick apart bad acting, short-sighted directing,
and a purely moronic stringing together of words that
many of the studios term as “prose”.
No, I’m talking about the lack of realism.
Realism; not a pervasive element in today’s modern
American cinematic vision.
Take Dog Day Afternoon, for example.
Arguably Pacino’s best work,
short of Scarface and Godfather Part 1, of course.
Masterpiece of directing, easily Lumet’s best.
The cinematography, the acting, the screenplay, all top-notch.
But… they didn’t push the envelope.
Now what if in Dog Day, Sonny really wanted to get away with it?
What if – now here’s the tricky part – what if he started
killing hostages right away? No mercy, no quarter.
“Meet our demands or the pretty blonde in the bellbottoms
gets it the back of the head.” Bam, splat!
What, still no bus? Come on!
How many innocent victims splattered across a window
would it take to have the city reverse its policy on
hostage situations? And this is 1976; there’s no CNN,
there’s no CNBC, there’s no internet!
Now fast forward to today, present time, same situation.
How quickly would the modern media make a frenzy over this?
In a matter of hours, it’d be biggest story from Boston to Budapest!
Ten hostages die, twenty, thirty; bum bum, one after another.
All caught in high-def, computer-enhanced, color corrected.
You can practically taste the brain matter.
All for what? A bus, a plane?
A couple of million dollars that’s federally insured?
I don’t think so. Just a thought.
I mean, it’s not within the realm of conventional cinema but what if?

​

Swordfish (Intro)