More snow but not everything goes to plan.

We got to the bottom of the mountain road at an unprecedented 9:15. Then we waited. There were multiple accidents up the mountain so the road was blocked. We waited, and waited, and waited... There was not much information on the radio and we thought that it was going to open any minute. The weather, was brilliant so we thought it was going to be worth the wait. Finally, we got up the top at 2:00 and had a couple of great hours of beautiful weather before the end of the day.





The queue on the mountain road on Wednesday.

Not so today... We arrived at the bottom of the mountain road at an even more amazing 8:45 this morning. Again there were issues with the road so it took us over an hour to get to the top. But the weather today was the complete opposite to yesterday. It started off with just cloud but the the wind came up and later the snow making it very uncomfortable. We hung in there because we'd booked Zak and Emma in lessons but it wasn't a great day.

BB.

- Posted using BlogPress from Cath's iPad

Snow

We woke up to about 10cm of snow this morning. The kids gobbled breakfast and headed outside to throw snow and make snow men. I joined Emma to work on a medium sized snow man then later, we all joined in to build one that was taller than me.


Clearly we are not at home... We are in Raetihi, near Mt Ruapehu, staying with 2 other families, friends of Zaks. We arrived here a couple of days back and yesterday we headed up to Turoa for a days skiing. The weather wasn't brilliant, it snowed all day but there wasn't much wind so apart from not being able to see what we were skiing over we still had a good day. The trip down the mountain at the end of the day was... interesting. We saw two cars slide into the side of the road in front of us but we managed to get down without incident.
We aren't sure what is going to happen for the next couple of days. Hopefully the weather will give us another break and we can get in another days skiing.

I forgot the doofer to connect the camera memory card to the iPad so pictures will come later.

BB.

- Posted using BlogPress from Cath's iPad

Devcamp

I spent this weekend at Datacom's developer 'unconference' as an invited, non-developer. This meant I had to do a session about DBA stuff but also got to attend quite a few other interesting sessions.

It was held in a very nice fishing lodge in Turangi. The food was particularly good with a selection of 4 different meat dishes each night including salmon.



We are heading back to town now, hopefully to make it in time for Mothers day diner at Kristine and Hamish's place.

It was good to have a weekend away but I missed Zak and Emma's soccer games and Emma was awarded Player of the Day for her role as Goalie.

BB.

(Unconference - hecklers are expected, nay, required and are expected to contribute equally with the presenter. This helps a lot, you only need to prepare about 15 minutes of stuff for an hour long session).

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

LED Doofer

Dad an I made a doofer that has ten red LEDS. They flash one by one, they start from right to left. They speed along as fast as lighting.

It took heaps of soldering, I did most of it but Dad made some mistakes so he did the rest. He also burnt his own fingers. I am going to bring it to my cousin's house when I go this holiday.

by Emma.

[The design for this came from here. The mistakes in the implementation were entirely mine. That Emma was soldering with her left hand was also my fault. Things got better after she switched back to her right. The burn was inconsequential - I only said Ow! Dad.]

Calla

Calla is our cat,

She is like a mat.

She sit's in a sunny spot,

Right next to the flower pot.

She gives me a glare,

If I sit on her chair.

By Emma

Blinky Bug and Traffic lights

I made a Blinky Bug with Dad. It is a silver spider with red LED eyes. When you tap the antennae the Blinky Bug blinks.

We made it with a battery, two LEDs, some guitar strings, pipe cleaners and fuzzy balls for the body. We taped the battery, the LEDs and the guitar strings together and glued on the body and legs.

We also made traffic lights. It took a lot of planning and rebuilding. In the end we brought a rotary switch because it turns on one light at a time. We used specific colors for the wires that match the LEDs. A lot of soldering was involved and I burnt Dads finger with soldering iron. Dad drilled holds in a box for my traffic lights and rotary switch.

Try, try and try the Tryathlon

Hello there everybody!

Today I did the Weet-Bix Tryathlon and I am extremely tired.

At the Tryathlon I put my bike and gear in the transition area and waited for my age group to be called out. When it was I lined up in the boys line and then ran into the swim it was quite shallow you could walk the whole way. When we all got out we jogged to the transition area and got our shoes, shirt and helmet on and hopped on our bikes and rode off. I overtook lots of people because of my fast road bike. We stopped at the transition, dropped our bikes and helmets and went for two laps around the running area it was tough. At the end I was right behind my friend Josh.

Zak