Je Voudrais Parler le Français
I think my second Arts subject is going to be either French or Politics. I really want to relearn French. And I want to learn Spanish. And every time I hear Chris and Janks study for Politics I decide I want to take that. Hmmm... conundrums. Which one to take? And then of course there's always English.
In other news, last night a whole new dimension of life opened up that I've only ever peeked into before. We're gonna go back to The Classic more often. Maybe make it a semi-regular after uni thing. For those of you who don't know, The Classic is an old picture theatre that has been refurbished as AKL's only comedy house. Or at least the only one that anyone knows of. It was SO funny! It was worth every cent of the $2.50 I paid at the door. That reminds me - Simon I owe you 50c, Janko I owe you $2, Paul you owe me $5.50. No such thing as giving away money here! Is there anyone else I owe money? I hope not.
I got a couple of big fat paychecks. I like big fat paychecks. I went and bought myself a pair of jeans for $55! Now I need a belt...
And a jacket.
And crampons the way this winter is going...
It was 8 degrees on the Pakuranga highway just before midnight last night. It only has to be 5 degrees to snow!
I witnessed something strange last night. Colour photos from the 50's and 60's! It was so weird! My dad rummaged out all his old slides from when he was a kid (in those days you coiuld choose between taking crummy old black-and-white photos and taking high quality (and I mean HIGH) colour slides) and called my uncle and my cousins over to watch a slide show. !!!It was so weird!!! Honestly - colour photos on a screen of my dad and his brother as a kid - they looked as though they'd been taken yesterday and yet they were fifty years old! There were colour photos of Howick taken 30 years ago that look like they were taken this year! It's amazing just how real the past suddenly becomes when you look at colour photos of it. Particularly photos of places you know well as they were 45 years ago.
O_o
It was almost like seeing a ghost.
Speaking of ghosts, there was one photo of something my dad's told me about several times. They built a bach at Piha back in the late 50's (yes there were colour photos of it being built) and until the mid-to-late 60's there were large sandbanks outside it (like, two stories high) (colour photo of my uncle when he was 12 jumping off them) and one night in the early 60's, my dad's mum (who slept in the front part of the bach) (with my grandad) woke up one night absolutely terrified. The enitire bach was shaking (and it was a big bach) and there were funny lights waving around outside the curtains and a really deep rumbling noise. The next morning they went outside to find 3 holes in the sandbank outside the front gate. And these weren't ordinary holes. These holes were 4.5 feet deep, perfect cylinders, widening to a funnel shape at the top. Here's the problem:
-Black sand is very hard. You simply don't punch a hole 4.5 feet deep in black sand. It can't be done.
-Back in the 60's they didn't possess the technology to dig a hole like that at Piha. There was no machinery at Piha either the day before or the day after and there was no way of getting any there. The road was a narrow dirt track. (Again, a colour photo.)
-Even if you spent the night digging a hole in the sand, the top layer of sand would constantly be pouring into the hole and you wouldn't be able to go very deep. These holes (3 of them remember) were 4.5 feet deep and were perfectly round. No sand falling in. So they weren't dug.
My dad has a photo of his sister crouching at the top of one of these holes. It honestly looks like it was bored into the sand, or something REALLY heavy sat there.
But that's not all. My dad and his brother knew a guy who owned a farm (or something like that) and one day the cows didn't come to be milked (if you've ever driven past a dairy farm in the evening the cows always line up and make their way to the milking shed on their own - they don't need to be made to like sheep). He went to investigate and found a hole just like the ones outside my dad's bach right in the middle of the path the cows took to the milking shed. The cows were terrified and wouldn't go anywhere near it.
So yeah. Weird. Want something even weirder? My great-grandad took a (colour) photo outside his back door back in the the early 50's. What of? Of a shining loop-thing hovering in the air outside the door. We have the photo of that too. It's not a fault in the film because it has several distinct rays of light shining out of it.
Weird things happen.
Tonight's theme is unusual phenomena.
I could go on with the whole unusual phenomena (my dad and his brother have seen a few funny things happen in the 40 years they've been at Piha - and I've heard stories), but that's enough for tonight.
In other news, last night a whole new dimension of life opened up that I've only ever peeked into before. We're gonna go back to The Classic more often. Maybe make it a semi-regular after uni thing. For those of you who don't know, The Classic is an old picture theatre that has been refurbished as AKL's only comedy house. Or at least the only one that anyone knows of. It was SO funny! It was worth every cent of the $2.50 I paid at the door. That reminds me - Simon I owe you 50c, Janko I owe you $2, Paul you owe me $5.50. No such thing as giving away money here! Is there anyone else I owe money? I hope not.
I got a couple of big fat paychecks. I like big fat paychecks. I went and bought myself a pair of jeans for $55! Now I need a belt...
And a jacket.
And crampons the way this winter is going...
It was 8 degrees on the Pakuranga highway just before midnight last night. It only has to be 5 degrees to snow!
I witnessed something strange last night. Colour photos from the 50's and 60's! It was so weird! My dad rummaged out all his old slides from when he was a kid (in those days you coiuld choose between taking crummy old black-and-white photos and taking high quality (and I mean HIGH) colour slides) and called my uncle and my cousins over to watch a slide show. !!!It was so weird!!! Honestly - colour photos on a screen of my dad and his brother as a kid - they looked as though they'd been taken yesterday and yet they were fifty years old! There were colour photos of Howick taken 30 years ago that look like they were taken this year! It's amazing just how real the past suddenly becomes when you look at colour photos of it. Particularly photos of places you know well as they were 45 years ago.
O_o
It was almost like seeing a ghost.
Speaking of ghosts, there was one photo of something my dad's told me about several times. They built a bach at Piha back in the late 50's (yes there were colour photos of it being built) and until the mid-to-late 60's there were large sandbanks outside it (like, two stories high) (colour photo of my uncle when he was 12 jumping off them) and one night in the early 60's, my dad's mum (who slept in the front part of the bach) (with my grandad) woke up one night absolutely terrified. The enitire bach was shaking (and it was a big bach) and there were funny lights waving around outside the curtains and a really deep rumbling noise. The next morning they went outside to find 3 holes in the sandbank outside the front gate. And these weren't ordinary holes. These holes were 4.5 feet deep, perfect cylinders, widening to a funnel shape at the top. Here's the problem:
-Black sand is very hard. You simply don't punch a hole 4.5 feet deep in black sand. It can't be done.
-Back in the 60's they didn't possess the technology to dig a hole like that at Piha. There was no machinery at Piha either the day before or the day after and there was no way of getting any there. The road was a narrow dirt track. (Again, a colour photo.)
-Even if you spent the night digging a hole in the sand, the top layer of sand would constantly be pouring into the hole and you wouldn't be able to go very deep. These holes (3 of them remember) were 4.5 feet deep and were perfectly round. No sand falling in. So they weren't dug.
My dad has a photo of his sister crouching at the top of one of these holes. It honestly looks like it was bored into the sand, or something REALLY heavy sat there.
But that's not all. My dad and his brother knew a guy who owned a farm (or something like that) and one day the cows didn't come to be milked (if you've ever driven past a dairy farm in the evening the cows always line up and make their way to the milking shed on their own - they don't need to be made to like sheep). He went to investigate and found a hole just like the ones outside my dad's bach right in the middle of the path the cows took to the milking shed. The cows were terrified and wouldn't go anywhere near it.
So yeah. Weird. Want something even weirder? My great-grandad took a (colour) photo outside his back door back in the the early 50's. What of? Of a shining loop-thing hovering in the air outside the door. We have the photo of that too. It's not a fault in the film because it has several distinct rays of light shining out of it.
Weird things happen.
Tonight's theme is unusual phenomena.
I could go on with the whole unusual phenomena (my dad and his brother have seen a few funny things happen in the 40 years they've been at Piha - and I've heard stories), but that's enough for tonight.
posted by David | 10:55 pm
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