marc.vic.max.elliot

Hi there

This post is a wee bit late I know but we’ve been busy and I just haven’t got around to it. So let’s see……

Christmas day was good with no traveling involved and it was nice that the boys could have time to enjoy their presents as they turned up. We specifically told people to not go too overboard with presents this year but we still seemed to fill up the lounge in no time! Thanks to everyone that visited and to all those that weren’t here for Christmas, we thought of you all.

Just before Christmas Vic also got a new (used) car. It’s an 2nd generation Estima which is a Japanese import version of the Previa. Very practical, nice and smooth to drive and Vic and the boys love it! The best we’ve done is 4 adults, three kids and a stroller which was pretty good going

New Years was spent in the lovely Wairarapa at our friend’s holiday home with them and their 3 month old baby. The weather was great and it was a very relaxing couple of days. Being old farts we looked at each other at 11:30 on New Years Eve, said “5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Happy New Year!” and went to bed before midnight! Very funny but we were all fading fast and all had kids sleeping with us……

Now it’s back to work and the nose back to the grindstone. Luckily it’s not too busy this week so it’s hardly a chore

written by Marc

Merry Christmas everyone!

It’s mid-afternoon, rainy, miserable and the kids are in bed – ahhhh This year we are not going any where and people are all coming to us so things have been a bit hectic so far. It doesn’t help when you don’t get to bed until 00:30 and are up at 05:45…………

We hope that you all have a great time over the festive period and we look forward to seeing you over the coming year.

PS: Max’s t-shirt says “Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is EVERYTHING, please”

written by Marc

So here I am sitting in a cafe next to Giovanni Ribisi as we speak.  You may recognise him from shows such as friends and the x-files……

written by Marc

A very nice man from our telecom provider visited Vic at home yesterday.  He said that he had changed where we connect to the broadband service and that we should see an improvement in our connection speeds.

Our modem, which was connecting at 700kbs, is now connecting at 7600kps and downloading, which averaged 50KB/s, is now averaging 300KB/s

Happy days!!

written by Marc

In the “on this day” section at the side of the blog I noticed a link to this article from the same day in 2004 complaining about the amount of travel that I had coming up.

It’s bloody nothing compared to what I’m doing at the moment!

The funny thing is I’m not even complaining about the travel I’m doing – well not much…..

PS:  We’ve signed up a sales person in Auckland!  I’m not the only one in New Zealand any more and in a few months he might even be useful!

written by Marc

You know you fly far too much when this happens:

The Koru Club lounge at Wellington airport has a barista on-site from 6-9 in the morning.  I walk in to catch my flight yesterday morning and walk up to her and before I can say anything she says “a long black today sir?” to which I reply “yes please” and then she says “and one sugar?”

When I get back from the breakfast bar there is my my long black (one sugar) waiting at the table where I had left my bag.

Good service but bad sign that I spend too much time at the airport!

written by Marc

With this new role and the changes in the country staff (maternity leave and redundancies) the amount of travelling that I’ve been doing has been more than I imagined when I took the job.  To give you an idea of how much travelling is involved there are a couple of things.

The first is the fact that it’s only taken 7 months for me to reach Elite status with our national airline.

The second is my travel plans for the next three weeks.  Here they are with dates and the city that I will be in:

Mon 15 Oct Home
Tue 16 Oct Auckland
Wed 17 Oct Auckland
Thu 18 Oct Auckland
Fri 19 Oct Auckland
Sat 20 Oct Travel to Tokyo
Sun 21 Oct Tokyo
Mon 22 Oct Tokyo
Tue 23 Oct Tokyo
Wed 24 Oct Tokyo
Thu 25 Oct Tokyo
Fri 26 Oct Travel from Tokyo  
Sat 27 Oct Home!
Sun 28 Oct Travel to Sydney
Mon 29 Oct Sydney
Tue 30 Oct Sydney
Wed 31 Oct Sydney
Thu 01 Nov Sydney
Fri 02 Nov Auckland

So as you can see the next few weeks is going be a tad busy with only two days at home!

written by Marc

It’s a bit tardy but as I’ve just started to update again……

On the 18th of September our very good friends Ian and Ngahuia welcomed Charity Elizabeth Polly Barrs into the world. These photos were taken on the 21st

written by Marc