Waiheke Island is a picturesque blend of farmland, forest, beaches, vineyards and olive groves. Located in the Hauraki Gulf of New Zealand, it is only 35 minutes by ferry from downtown Auckland. There is a great range of activities on Waiheke including sightseeing, mountain biking, sea kayaking, vineyard & winery tours and much more. SeaLink operates car and passenger ferry services to Waiheke Island from Half Moon Bay and to Great Barrier Island from Auckland city. Waiheke Island ferry is a 35 minute trip from downtown Auckland or 45 minutes from Half Moon Bay to Kennedy Point on the car and passenger ferry.
Yesterday was our Auckland Anniversary day. I went back to Half Moon Bay and a Sea link ferry was just pulling in. People and cars were queuing a long time to board. It did looked as though it had come in from another country.
I remember the ferry in Rejang River in Borneo. We were among the first to cross the river because it was near where my grandma lived.
I'm really liking the newest home on Freunde von Freunden belonging to Gallery owner Johann König ..... particularly the great art collection, the rugs, and the Chesterfield (love the green). Click on images for a better look.
Friday night we saw Grinderman ... so great, even better than I could have imagined, Nick Cave was just amazing, (I think he has gotten better with age) as was the rest of the band .... I took my daughter (who happens to love Nick Cave as much as I do) .... the crowd was so mixed, I saw two old ladies (and I mean well into their 80's), beautiful young girls (and boys), an entire family, mum, dad and the kids .... older Nick Cave lovers who have been fans from day one (I suppose that would include me !!!), but my favorite was an older gentleman with a long white beard and a walking stick (he even bought a T shirt) .... yep we were a mixed bunch !!!
My daughter wore this dress .....
.... and her $20.00 op shop heels, aren't they great !!!
As we live over an hour from the venue we stayed overnight in a great hotel above this pub (I don't like sterile new hotel rooms so it's perfect) ... we have stayed there quite a bit, it's kind of our home away from home, it has such a great feel .....
.... beautiful old pressed metal ceilings (reminds me of a painted version of these)
nice big windows ....
.... and old floral carpet.
There's also a great sitting room ....
and a room where they have live entertainment (I actually saw a cabaret there a while back), plus the main bar down stairs which also has live music, which was still going strong when we got back from our concert.
The next morning we walked to Surry Hills ... had a nice breakfast, bought some flowers and bread ...
.... then it was home for dinner on the deck with some beautiful friends (one of them being this happy man) so much fun, really lovely .... followed by a very quite Sunday, which after a couple of late nights was just fine by me !!!
This is a narrow bridge at the Mangere sewage plant. It leads to a private island, If you click it, you will see a sign of yellow and black strips on one side of the road. these strips are the reflector for night driving.
Not showed on the photo is a sign with two arrows, one bigger arrow, one smaller arrow, the bigger arrow means if you are on this side of the one way bridge, you have right of way.
It is very pleasing to see the kind of mid tone contrast we seem to be able to reliably get out of various emulsions, here TMX, in Reagent III. Here is a greatly cropped (-10X) section of the negative shot at normal ISO by DF. The grain structure is clearly visible and probably familiar to users of TMX, present, but not too intrusive.
Some highlight blocking is definitely apparent in the V750 Epson scan at the "automatic" setting. Like a number of other slow to develop emulsions, TMX does appear to have that tendency to block up the highlights with this mix, Pan-F much less so, and Efke somewhere in between. I think we can fine tune it later, just watch out, maybe by a half or whole stop, if you are experimenting as we are today with the published mix.
Nice twisty things on that plant.
1. 8 ml HC-110 USA concentrate 2. 25 ml household ammonia(soapy is OK) 3. 5 ml Ilford Rapid Fixer 4. Water to make 128 ml
If you can measure the pH with a test strip, confirm it is at least 8.5, and if not, add a little more ammonia. Use the Ilford fixer as that has ammonium thiosulfate. HC-110 is like a thick syrup. Measure it out in a larger container, then dilute it with the ammonia which will dissolve the syrup. Process TMX for 10 minutes at 75F. This works best when warm. Wash the negative in plain water for a few minutes if you can. The water should not be cold or hot. Then hang it up to dry. If you used soapy ammonia, you won't need any Photo-Flo, as the residual wetting of the soap is still present.
This could hardly be easier. Don't worry about the pH or the washing, Just mix it up and you're there. I would recommend you try this with Ilford Pan-F ISO 50 too, as the result is quite nice. See here.
I have joined this meme for a while now, and I am loving it. First I love flowers. Second, the badge for this meme is the North Borneo Orchid.
Join Macro Flowers Saturday, a photo meme for macro photos and close-ups of flowers, garden flowers, wildflowers, blossoms, flowers with insects and butterflies (no insects without flowers), flowers with raindrops and whatever beautiful plants, plant seeds or berries you have, in close-up.
First time visitors, please read the rules. They are simple but I do ask that you, please, use a MFS badge or link back to MFS in some way. Thank you.
I loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove skating. I freakin love it!
So you know I had to pretty much be half crazed when I decided to take a year off of skating to get San Diego Derby Dolls, the business, off the ground.
But, that's what I did.
I did skate in my last bout as an LA Derby Doll (another blog), but besides that...
For most of '06 and the first couple months of '07, any pix of me you'll find I'm either coaching, reffing, or just, you know, gaining 20 lbs, as I ran the business.
During that year, though, I felt like I had just given birth to something special.
And I wanted to make it truly not about me, and nurture this little thing into existence with every ounce of my energy.
Which is exactly what I did. I gave it all my energy. Too much. I was completely unselfish in my motives, but also an unknowing success addict!
Getting high off every time something came together, I would run myself into the ground making sure that everything did.
I was every committee (but PR and Art, we've always had a bangin' Art dept!), and I was every league job, including the only coach.
This was before I decided skirts are not for me.
I was San Diego Derby Dolls. Except for the skating part. You know, the part I loved the most...
OK, but here's why I'm not a martyr about it.
First of all, no one asked me to make that sacrifice. It was a personal choice.
I know I did the right thing for the league, and myself, at the time. And when it was no longer the right thing, started skating again.
But for that year, I needed to see what I was capable of, outside of skating.
And yah, I took it too far and burned myself out completely, gained a bunch of weight, became a crabby person from lack of exercise in my life, and had to reevaluate.
But... sometimes you can't really know what your perfect balance looks like, till you've run to each end of extremes first.
Also, for the purpose of relating with so many other people over the years, I'm glad I got to see how humbling a come-back to skating can be.
But that's another story!
I hope you have the raddest of days today!
I literally never high five anyone, but for some reason think this is rad. : D
