German people rock!

Far too often I've heard people say German folk have no sense of humor.

Well I beg to differ.

I work with a brilliant German engineer and yesterday he proffered me such an awesome piece of comedic genius that I felt it was my duty to share it with you.

He rides one of those massive Japanese motorcycles designed for long distance cruising - to work most days.

During the course of the day yesterday the back tyre went flat and he came to ask me if I could give him a hand to get it into the motorcycle shops repair van.

Dang! That is a heavy beast. Nearly 400 pounds!

Anyway later that day they came and dropped it off with the repaired tyre fitted and I didn't notice it was there until he fired it up to leave at the end of the day.

I shuffled over and said to him something lame like, "ah, I see they've managed to get the air back down the bottom again". He smirked and I continued, "what did they find in the tyre?".

I wondered if it was a nail, broken glass a screw perhaps?

He looked at me and with perfect timing and in his thick German accent said,

"holes".

..and gawd I hope I cant get in trouble for this one even now...

My cousin Richard always lived on his parents farm in Waiuku.

He lived with his older brother Peter, his mom Judy and his father Jim

We weren't even real cousins to tell the truth. But you know how it is when your little and your parents have close friends and hang out with them a lot, you called their friends, aunt and uncle and by default their kids became your cousins.

My cousin Richard and his brother Peter had a big farm.

My sister and I used to stay there during school holidays - if we were lucky.

I loved it.

It was a frigg'n huge farm!

We used to roam it.

They had.. waffles, mushrooms, frogs and opossum's, cats and chickens, pigs and gigantic corn fields and cows, calves and goats, puppies, tractors and motorbikes - guns and swearing, tree houses and real bows and arrows, lots of roast dinners and grandfather clocks, a ballroom and an organ...

You never got bored there - you got tired!

.. and when you got tired there - you got fed.

It was uber awesome!

My mom was pretty cruisey when it came to letting kids be kids - but aunt Judy made her look like a strict disciplinarian.

Aunt Judy was way cool.

She had eyes that twinkled at you when she smiled and she was always smiling.

She giggled too.

I didn't know any other grownups that giggled.

And when she laughed she could go from a chortle to a guffaw.

Aunt Judy knew how to laugh out loud.

Uncle Jim, on the other hand, was taciturn and serious.

He was always working on the farm, up before the sun for morning milking and home again about lunch time, then back out on the farm for more maintenance work before afternoon milking.

We never messed with him, he could swear real loud.

There was always little jobs to do like getting eggs from the chicken coop, putting feed out for the cows and feeding the calves, but when that stuff was done we were free to do anything we wanted.

So Richard and I roamed the farm - shooting things and riding things. Talking rubbish and seeing how long we could hold on to the electric fences. Chasing the chickens and seeing if we could tackle them. Cuddling the piglets and trying not to get bitten by the sows. Shooting at the cows from long distance with the .22 cal and subsonic rounds! Boy stuff Hell yeeeeah!

One day during our meanderings in the very furthermost paddocks from the homestead we happened upon a very large, very old tractor wheel, It was laying on it's side covered for the most part with overgrown grass and weeds. The tire was flat and the steel rim was quite rusty but after pulling back the overgrowth it was obvious it was intact.

It had been abandoned I assume by my uncle Jim probably 30 - 40 feet from the top of a ridge on the southwestern side facing towards the farm house but several miles from it.

After several attempts to move it we figured that uncle Jim had most likely fitted a spare one to his tractor when this one went flat and as is the way with farmers, drove off in his repaired tractor and never bothered expending the energy required to go back and get the flat one.

At the top of the ridge and looking down the opposing north eastern side it was clear paddock for four or five hundred yards before a fence line bordered the grazing paddock running parallel to the ridge. On the other side of the fence was what is colloquially known as a "bush block". This consisted of five or six acres of native bush which lined the remaining several hundred yards of the north eastern side of the ridge we stood on top of and ran all the way to the gully and creek at the bottom. The other side of the creek was where the nearest neighbors section met uncle Jim's farm.

Five hundred or maybe more yards yet further down, we could just make out the roofs of several of the neighbors utility sheds and the top of their house but from our position it was much too far away to make out any people.

Richard and I decided that being as we were so far away from any prying eyes it would make great sport to roll the old wheel down the hill and watch it crash into the bush block. We didn't really give much thought to the damage it would obviously do to the fence surrounding the bush block as many of uncle Jim's fence's were in a continuous state of disrepair and one more wouldn't really be noticed.

It took us the better part of the day and all of our combined ingeniousness to release the wheel from the firm grip mother nature had taken hold on it over the many years the wheel had been abandoned. But by prising with old fence posts and propping it with large chunks of concrete we obtained from an unused and crumbling cattle trough we eventually managed to get the wheel to the top of the ridge.

Between the two of us we struggled to stand the beastly heavy bastard upright and attempted to align it so it would obtain maximum speed before crashing as deeply as possible into the bush below us.

It was a no brainer really. The slope on the north eastern side was very much steeper than that on the side where the tyre had lain, so basically all we had to do was point the wheel anywhere at that bush section and it would connect!

So sweating and swearing we gave the behemoth a final shove and watched fascinated as it quickly began to gather speed...

It took us about five seconds to realize that we were much too young to understand the laws of physics, we were nine years old, what do nine year olds know of potential and kinetic energy or about mass, inertia and gravity. What we did understand and what soon became abundantly clear was that we had entirely underestimated the monster we had released!

Our fascination quickly turned to disbelief as we watched the wheel gather ever more speed despite its flat tyre until the speed of the wheels descent completely overcame the handicap of the flat tyre and the whole abominable heap began to bounce, striking the little ridges that cows make when walking across the side of steep hills. Due to the ever increasing pace that the wheel was gathering the bouncing soon turned into leaps and while still at least only half way to the fence the leaps had changed into gigantic bounds!

One particularly evil bounce saw the barbarous brute land awkwardly and to our despair the angle of decent began to change and the hideous monster, now bouncing nearly twice its own height, was given another clear two hundred yards of paddock to roll down and was now beginning to run parallel to the fence instead of directly at it!

It was at about this stage that we realized how far out of our depth we had quickly become and I know that I personally wished we hadn't had the stroke of genius that saw the wheel begin rolling..!!

By now the wheel had reached a truly horrendous speed and wasn't so much bouncing anymore as much as it was flying!

When it finally reached the fence bordering the bush block it was nearly at the very bottom corner of it, where the neighbors fence met uncle Jims.

With a gigantic and spectacular vault it completely hurdled the remaining bush section without even the least of contact and at a guess I would estimate it was probably approaching fifty odd miles per hour and bouncing a good fifteen feet into the air whilst covering more than twice that much ground!

To our discomfort it continued steadily at an ever increasing rate of velocity down the gully towards the neighbors homestead half a mile further down the hill.

It was a strange time from memory, the wheel had become so distant now that it appeared to be going quite slow however as Richard and I were both painfully aware - this was an illusion!

The Gargantua was gaining speed every second and we could easily see that some bounces would have it at least four or five times it's own height above the ground and we, or at least I, wanted to run away, as if not seeing what would happen next, would mean that it didn't...!?

People I shit you not - given the mass of that bastard and taking into account the square of it's acceleration, the amount of energy that it could unleash on ANY stationary object would be dynamic to say the very least!!!

Seriously this thing would smash a house into kindling!

..and so with the clarity that can only occur in the face of inevitable disaster we watched horror struck as the bouncing colossus smashed through a fence surrounding the neighbors buildings of which we could only see the roofs and disappeared. I can only assume that it had jumped/rolled into the main driveway area for the homestead but an instant later we saw it leap clear over one of the half round corrugated iron utility sheds before it vanished from our view altogether. It was much too far away to hear any noise or screaming but we weren't hanging around to listen for any - I can tell you that much!

We scuttled off home like a pair of beaten dogs, ears back and tails tucked firmly between legs! We were pooing ourselves - the power of that wheel had been truly awesome!

We spent the afternoon being very helpful to aunt Judy volunteering to do all the crap chores hoping that when the crunch came aunt Judy might come to our rescue - the whole time crapping our pants waiting for the neighbors car to arrive...

..nothing!

Uncle Jim came in at dinner time and we trembled our way through the meal waiting for the explosion that would signal our discovery and a thorough whipping of our asses - but it just never came...

This is complete conjecture on my part but I can only assume that by some freak chance the Godzilla wheel missed all of the neighbors structures, careened off into their paddocks and came to rest without destroying anything that attracted their attention to it. Lord knows.

I live in hope that two small boys don't come upon it one day and decide it would be fun to watch it roll down a hill...

..and tandem bicycles...

I would just like to say thank you to everyone who sent me their nightmare recipes.

Thank You.

The concept is still a work in progress (but don't hold your breath) I will get there.

Yes David. B I'm sure LSD, Ecstasy, Morphine, BZP and Pot do create weird dreams, but mate.. I really just wanted to keep on the right side of the law and it was about food my man.. food - you know that stuff you put in your mouth for nourishment... thank you anyway your views were insightful and.. errr, sort of appreciated. (*note to self* - delete Dave's emails and remove his address from address book, clear browsing history and empty cache!)

I don't usually like to put photos with my blogs but not everybody knows the area I'm about to describe so I thought Google maps could come to the party and help for those not familiar with Auckland or the Auckland museum.

View Larger Map

This story came back to me because we needed to borrow a fork hoist from a company down the road the other day and nobody from my workplace except myself was keen to drive it for fear of doing something stupid and damaging it. It's always a bit of a bummer when you borrow somebodys, anything, and take it back damaged. Yes?

This line of thinking reminded me that, this is not always the case.

Some years back myself and my friend Mike were at a loose end early one Saturday morning. We decided it would be fun to take a ride around the Auckland museum on a tandem bicycle which you could rent cheaply from a stand set up outside the main museum entrance.

We headed off into the city keen to have a bit of a peddle, soon enough we found ourselves at the bike rental stall itching to get cracking.

We flipped a coin to see who would be in charge of steerage, (I secretly thought that losing this toss would really enable me to win by virtue of the fact that Mike wouldn't be able to see what was happening in relation to peddling...)

Mike won the toss and happily climbed aboard believing himself the more fortunate to be controlling our direction...

Our instructions from the bikes owners were quite clear, we were free to ride anywhere within the grounds of the museum, but only within the grounds.

This in itself constituted a not unsubstantial amount of area, consisting of many pathways and roads including the botanic gardens and the Wintergarden.

Being sound of body and simple of mind this didn't present much of a challenge to two rapscallion delinquents such that we were.

Lacking any better direction other than that of our own infinite wisdom we decided that nobody would be any the wiser if we trundled off down to Stanley Street.

Either road that leads down to Stanley St would be a pleasant coast, although to this day I'm lost to explain why we would want to go that far downhill, being that it would be a rather hard slog on the return journey.

I am also at a loss to explain why we then decided that rather than take either of the long winding roads to the bottom of the hill, it would be far more clever to ride directly down hill over the grass and through the trees...???

For those of you unfamiliar; the Museum is situated atop a reasonably high point overlooking Auckland harbor and in relation to Stanley St which is almost at sea level, not a long distance separates the two.

This means that the incline towards Stanley St from the museum is reasonably steep, especially in a straight line, unlike the two roads which follow the natural line of the ridges and wend there way gently down to Stanley St.

It didn't take us very long to realize that the hand brakes the bicycle was equipped with were next to useless once the wheel rims became wet from the last of the mornings dew.

It was also not very long before we had picked up a substantial amount of speed.

Application of the foot brake was beginning to become perilous as this more often than not started us on a slide that several times threatened to dismount us both at speed.

I suppose.. in retrospect, that this would have been the paramount moment in which alternative options should have been embraced.

To be honest that moment came and went in a flash of scratchy bushes and dangerously solid looking tree trunks!

Before either of us realized what was happening we were thoroughly out of control and were now haring down the hill at breakneck speed, only able to slow our breathtaking descent by the most minimal of degrees. Several times we crashed painfully through small shrubs, unable to avoid them. Bursting out the other side shredded and lacerated, leaves and twigs in our mouths and hair. It was without doubt, luck, that kept us astride our mount. (.. actually - given a moment to ponder, I think now, that staying astride the cycle was more a case of not wanting to hit the ground at that speed, more than anything else!)

It seems from memory that at no time did the opportunity arise to make a safe dismount before without warning we streaked from the undergrowth and plunged several feet from the grass level, off the cut out embankment and down on to Lovers Lane, one of the roads we had been so clever to avoid at the beginning of our safari.

Lady luck played her part well and although we landed heavily on the tar seal road perpendicular to the traffic flow in either direction no cars were present at that precise moment!

We may have bounced.

Personally I don't recall that particular detail. I do however remember the excruciating pain in my tail bone.

As we had both been standing on the pedals during this whole stunt we were spared the majority of the impact via our knees, nonetheless the impact had of course been significant. We had both, despite our crouched positions landed heavily and slammed hard into our seats greatly bruising our posteriors and in my case snapping one peddle off at the crank.

Next I knew we had shot over the edge of the opposing side of the road and down the grass bank on the other side.

As fortune would have it, the bank on this side of the road was yet again steeper still than that which we had already descended.

We were soon to discover that our heavy landing had in fact done a great deal more damage to the cycle than it had to our bums.

It seemed that apart from my only having one pedal, both wheels had become a little out of shape and were wobbling in a most unsettling manner. Of most concern however was the realization that in the smash to the road the back wheel had now become locked via the chain to the remaining pedals. The front pedals and my singular rear pedal were now being rotated at a fierce rate by the back wheel and neither Mike nor myself were in anyway inclined towards attempting to put our feet near them.

Once again, in retrospect, throwing ourselves to the ground or tipping ourselves deliberately over would have brought forth a far more optimal outcome as that which occurred - but such is retrospect...

We were now both forced to sit on our seats and we no longer had the comparative luxury of standing on our peddles and using our knees as shock absorbers. The jarring our butts were taking was horrendous and did little to help our general stability as once again our downward pace began to increase. Denied what little braking we had managed via the foot brake until now, our headlong dash became evermore menacing.

I know what your thinking - "why didn't you just put your feet down". The truth is that at that speed all of our focus had gone from stopping - to surviving!

While Mike was doing his best to navigate our dumbasses around the obviously more deadly obstacles and through only the softest looking shrubs my focus was entirely put to gauging when I should brace for impact!

Within an instant we came upon the next bank cut out for Lower Domain drive and as we burst through the bushes and flew through the air three feet above the tar seal I was certain that we were about to die a most painful death, if not by colliding with a motor vehicle then certainly death would come from having a bicycle seat rammed brutally up ones anus!

Once again lady luck played her part on the vehicle front, although a car coming downhill but still someway up the road must have received quite the nasty surprise as we appeared without notice and airborne, to land with a jaw breaking crash on the opposing side of the road. Such was our velocity I believe we made the center line before touchdown! The pain in my buttocks was a whole new level of discomfort and I was certain I had heard a tearing noise!

Mike had ended up sitting sideways looking up Lower Domain Drive as my handle bars were welded to his seat and in the last moments before sailing off the embankment I had instinctively, and with the adrenalin strength of ten men, forced my handle bars around in a futile effort to turn us away from the road.

Our luck unfortunately or fortunately, however you would like to look at it didn't hold and as we careened off the edge of the road again our sorrowful ruin of a cycle snapped cleanly in the middle and Mike and I flew inelegantly, limbs akimbo several feet further downhill from the road edge. We both landed heavily and terribly awkwardly in the scrub and shrubs on the very steep side of Lower Domain Drive.

Both Mike and I were most likely concussed, as best I recall at that point, there was a period of darkness.

When I moved next I remember feeling that I was a player in a rather surreal pantomime.

Mike was still on the ground laying on his back with a vacant and rather squirrelly look on his head. I was still holding on to my handlebars, complete with Mike's seat but the rest of the execrable cycle was not to be seen. We were both covered from tip to toe in grazes, scratches and cuts and one of my shoes was rapidly filling with blood that was pouring down my leg from somewhere...???

I only vaguely recall us checking each other over, Mike had a reasonably deep cut on his forehead which was bleeding profusely but I'd had enough cuts on the head playing league to know that it was mostly superficial and probably wouldn't need to be stitched.

Embarrassingly it was while I had the back of my shorts pulled down so he could check my butt to see where all that blood was coming from that I noticed an old fellow standing on the edge of the road gazing down at us shaking his head and tut tutting...

Turns out I had quite a deep cut half way up my back and it was dribbling quite steadily down my back and leg.

We staggered around searching through the undergrowth until we found the tattered remnants of the much abused and miserable cycle and began the long and painful walk back up the hill.

What I can clearly remember, was wondering how we were going to get away with this fiasco and despondently calculating what the replacement cost of a tandem bicycle was...

Unbeknown to me, Mikes expression of disconsolate concern was not due to his having vaguely similar thoughts as I, but was in fact just a case of mild concussion.

I can only imagine the image we must have presented on arriving back at the bike rental stand. Both of us cut, bruised and bleeding and each carrying a half a bicycle and an assortment of ruined parts.

Before I could begin to explain and to my utter disbelief, Mike threw his wreckage on the ground with complete disgust and glared dangerously at the bikes owner, to this day I will never forget his exact words.

"So", he spat accusingly. "Are the bloody pedals meant to fall off these fucking things!". "Are they meant to snap completely in half!". "Did we ask to rent two unicycles, NO WE DID NOT". "We were damn near killed today!".

With a final look of absoloute distain at the hapless stall owner he hobbled away in the direction of our car. I quickly followed his lead, throwing my pieces of cycle onto Mikes pile, casting what I hoped to be my most withering look of revulsion at the now completely flummoxed attendant.

- "Are they meant to snap completely in half?"-

- Oh my god! - Now that my friends, is gold.

Currently Listening to:

Good Charlotte - Good Morning Revival.