Easter in NZ is a 4 day holiday. Yes, you get Good Friday off and I guess just because Sunday was the Resurrection why not take Monday off too. I guess raising the dead must have been hard. Whatever the reason, I like 4 day weekends.
There is one wild hare in the Easter ointment. By law, all retail outlets are to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Yes, the Saturday between is "normal" as is the following Monday. There are a few exceptions--gas stations and dairies (convenience stores) can stay open. No big deal. But let me tell you, that Saturday in the middle rivals the day after Thanksgiving in the USA. Holy cow... it was 30 minute grid lock in the parking garage. There were folks standing in stalls so that their spouse could eventually work their way over to park. It was nutz.
All was good until Saturday lunch when we discovered that due to a banking error our account was frozen. Great holiday. Bank is closed and no money for 2 days. I had to raid poor Gabe's piggy bank for cash to get in to the public pool. Luckily, my beautiful and fabulous wife had cooked a giant hammy feast for us so we had plenty to eat.
The pool was pretty cool. They have all indoor pools here as it does not ever quite get "hot" here. Plus I have a theory that the Kiwi's are complete wussies about winter. But then I wouldn't want to go swimming when it was 50 outside either. Anyway, pools are big and indoors. We went to the one in Naenae (kiwi's say this like Nainai). It had a very large double sized pool with swinging ropes and a zip line, a kiddy play area (complete with outdoor playground) and a single large water slide. It felt very much like my old highschool gym only someone had replaced the gym floor with a pool. I think entry was a total of $13 for two adults and Gabe. We met our friend, Lisa, and her three children there--Sam, Emma and Sophie. All three are dears. Gabe loves Sam (he's in the same class) and Emma and Sophie (both much younger) are a hoot. It was a good time.
I'm going to try to commit to writing more. I mean "writing" like writing stories/books. I have a hard time focusing on single topics, but what I think I'll do is give myself permission to skip around and write short snippets in the hopes that it will increase my general writing stamina. Possibly, I'll be able to string several common threads to together in to a better product. It can't hurt. I may post here or not.
Kiwi-bit... I've discovered that kiwi's have an insane facination with multi-level charts. Apparently 2 dimensions is not good enough. A really good chart must include at least 3 dimensions or more. For example an org chart grouped both by columns *and* rows with the each band color coded for yet some other designation and sometimes bubbles around groups of rows/columns in yet more colors. They will spend hours (seriously, hours) explaining to you the meaning of this 4 dimensional chart. They will end up with "so there is our organisation, any questions?" I thought perhaps it was just my boss. It isn't. Kiwi's love multi-layer organisation... don't ask me... I have no idea why.
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