..with spear guns and stingrays.

My son Luke has become quite the outdoors man much to my delight.

It seems that everything we participated in together while he was growing up, he has taken to, like a duck to water.

Surfing, fishing, hunting, fast cars, excessive alcohol consumption and now diving.

He has become insanely keen on free dive spear fishing, something I have always been enthusiastic about due to the teeming fish life to be found around almost any rock outcrops on any part of our coastline.

When Christmas arrived it seemed obvious that what he really needed was a good quality spear gun and.. despite some very vague misgivings I had about spears in feet, it seemed the choice was a good one.

He has just purchased a new car (new to him). And as is often the way when young men get themselves a new vehicle, the first port of call is dads to get the broken bits fixed!

So while we were pottering around trying to get the headlamp high beam to stop turning on when making a right hand indication, we got to talking about his latest escapades below the waves.

I had noticed he seemed to be limping slightly and appeared uncomfortable when crouching in some positions, when I inquired to the reason he told me it was nothing really and a bit of a long story...

"Excellent.." I replied, "regale me...".

He and a good friend and fellow fisherman had driven some way north of Auckland to a favoured spot and decided to swim quite a way offshore to a small island probably 500 - 600 metres out.

The water was quite murky and after some time in the water Luke was tapped on the arm by his mate who indicated that they should stop to talk.

It seems he had become a little disturbed by rather large shadows he had seen circling them on several occasions. Luke having seen nothing similar and never one to be easily frightened or put off by the threat of danger put his head down and continued swimming towards the targeted island.

They eventually made their way ashore this tiny rock and took the time to catch their breath before Luke flopped back into the water.

The pickings were scarce for some reason... (for those of you who have as much experience under the water as I, you will know there can be several reasons for this but usually one really obvious one...)

So while Lukes friend sat on the rocks of the island Luke continued to slowly circle the water smashing up shellfish and sea urchins in an effort to attract more fish to the area.

Nothing doing...???

In what I can only imagine was an act of frustration borne of late adolescence he decided to launch a spear at a very large sting ray that was cruising the bed. (Once again; experience in this area was quite obviously absent!) He caught it somewhere directly behind the head in the thick fleshy area devoid of any critical organs where it lodged beautifully as per design.

and off they went...

..Luke refusing to relinquish his spear, the ray, probably only barely aware of a slight irritation and a bit of extra drag through the water began to head out into deeper territory.

This action placed Luke in somewhat of a quandary: being that the ray was probably close to his own weight and was well designed for the environment there was every good chance it would be able to drag him below the surface, but to cut the line connecting the spear to the gun would be to lose the spear...hmmmm (once again that much needed experience was sadly lacking).

So kicking frantically he did his best in an attempt to maneuver the beast toward a small mound of partially submerged rocks.

Always so understated; Luke spoke of struggling a little for a small while but did finally manage to get within grabbing distance of the rocks whereupon he wrapped one arm around them and hung on. His snorkel was above the surface and for the moment he took the opportunity to gather his thoughts, re-group his thus far, shattered ego and make some decisions about how best to move forward from his rather sticky predicament.

Well as it turned out it didn't take long for the situation to resolve itself.

With a gigantic heave the ray decided it was done with idling on the spot and it happily snapped the 300 pound break strain line connecting spear to gun and glided off with all the nonchalance of a bear sporting a tooth pick in its fur.

Bugger! No spear.

To be truthful, I was pissing myself the whole time he relayed this to me and finding the fault with the indicator in his car had ground to a virtual stop. I had managed to wipe my eyes and was about to get on with it but no - there was more..!

Having recovered from the disappointment of losing his spear he decided to make his way back to the place where his mate was sitting on the island and was surprised to find that the friend in question was jumping up and down waving fit to burst pointing and shouting at him.

It took him some moments to interpret the impromptu sign language but eventually realized that his mate was not pointing at him - but just slightly past and behind him.

Turning in the water he was confronted by the sight of a rather large tail and dorsal fin slicing through the water coming directly at him. Sore calves or not he reckoned he managed a good 5 knots through the water and his hands barely touched rock as he flew out of the water and stood gratefully on solid ground beside his near hysterical friend.

Together they watched the shark slowly circle their little island.

It's a great leveler the sea.

That kid of mine will fight anyone of any size and he's pretty damn handy, I'd have to give him that, but there was no way he was getting back in the water to swim those 600 metres to the shore.

And so, there they sat...

..luckily its summer and they both had wetsuits on.

After several hours a coastguard boat turned up to tell them that they should be careful swimming around the island because sharks had been sighted in the area...

I nearly wet myself!

...and electrical substations.

My daughter Alex has been wanting to get a part time job, I'm all for it as most parents are.

I think a lot of us take the entirely professional approach, "It teaches them about responsibility and money management and time management" blah, blah, blah - bollicks!

It reduces the loading on my own wallet if I am to be completely honest.

..that aside, my first job did teach me something about all of those things.

- I learned that I was hopeless at time and money management and, the time spent out from under the watchful gaze of my parents lent me the opportunity to behave in a most irresponsible manner...

My first job was like that of most young lads of the time - a paper route.

In New Zealand at the time there were two newspapers (yes a whole two..). One was a morning edition, and still is, The New Zealand Herald. The other was an evening edition, The Star.

I chose the Herald.

The upside was that the circulation was higher and therefore you got paid more because you had more papers to deliver. The downside was that it had to be in the householders mailbox when they awoke.

This saw me out of bed at about 4:30AM every morning except Sundays and home again at about 6:00AM for breakfast.

I would meet with a friend David who ran a route close to mine and we would smoke cigarettes and make prank phone calls from a public phone outside the local dairy while we waited for our boss to drop our newspapers off.

Every few days we would come armed with several wire coat hooks or hangers stuffed in our carry bags.

The last part of both our runs ended at the top of a long hill and at the top of the hill was a very large substation. This substation supplied power to many surrounding suburbs, suburbs that were all just beginning to awaken and switch on their lights and stoves.

David and I would ready ourselves for a fast getaway down the hill and once prepared would take turns to hurl our coat hangers over the compound fence and into the maze of tall insulators, cables and associated and vulnerable extremely high voltage electrical wizardry!

For David and I it was the sparks and occasional fire that we liked. But every now and again we were also rewarded by seeing the lights in the area shutting down. In fact once we watched as every light in every house we could see went out.

We pedaled like demons down the hill that morning and when I arrived home out of breath and looking as guilty as sin - it was to find, much to my chagrin, that our house was without any power!

What a pair of little shits we were.

Currently listening to:

Ministry of Sound 2010 US edition

A small collection of things one should not do...

Yes I know most of these will seem like common sense to most people but I had to learn this stuff the hard way and now it is common to me too.

1) Do not adjust your car seat position whilst driving downhill and applying the brake.

2) Never speak badly of anybody without knowing who is standing directly behind you.

3) Never use a cigarette lighter to see how much fuel you have in your motorcycle tank.

4) Never actually eat those edible knickers.

5) An electric hot air paint stripper should never be used as a substitute for a hair dryer.

6) If it looks like poo, treat it like poo - do not be tempted to smell it, under no circumstance taste it.

7) Never attempt to impress your friends with a CO2 fire extinguisher without first being certain that it is not a dry powder type.

8) Although tempting one should not fall asleep naked in the sun.

9) Never shine a red laser pointer at the police helicopter.

10) Never fall asleep when working on an old CRT television set.

11) Don't use a pogo stick on a wooden deck.

12) Think twice before attempting to whiten your teeth with toilet bleach.

..of failed attempts

I quite often find I am inspired to write, either by a rekindled memory, an experience, a rather heavy dose of red wine or simply because of an epiphany.

However inspiration it would seem, is certainly a fickle friend indeed (so too is red wine..) and of late I have not been able to maintain the necessary inspiration (or sobriety) required to finish some of the pieces I have started.

No big deal I thought. Create a drafts sub folder within my blog documents directory and get back to them when next I’m ‘feeling’ it.

The only problem is that when I re-open these documents I find that I don’t like the mood I’m generating, I’m going nowhere, the syntax is poor or I’ve meandered off and completely sidetracked myself to the point of combining one story with another!

Two of them I can’t even seem to work out why I got started on because nobody, including myself, would be interested in them anyway.

I suppose I should just junk the lot and start afresh but a certain side of me can’t seem to bear the apparent waste of time that this action would equate to.

To date I now have three or maybe even four blog doc’s that I cant seem to finish and I cant seem to dispose of – what a plonker!

Ah well... I guess I’ll procrastinate about it a bit later.

What I need now is a beer or maybe a very large red wine... oh gawd Daryl when will you grow up!!!???

Currently listening to:

The Bloodhound Gang – Hooray for Boobies.

Fall Out Boy – Infinity on High.

Eyes...

I wrote this some time ago and it should have copied across from my FaceBook Archives but the font was too small so it ended up auto drafting and I've only just realized that it didn't publish.

Anyway, perhaps I have noticed it right at this moment because it is relevant...

Eyes are the gateway to the soul. Of this I have no doubt.

Sometimes sustained eye contact can be almost physical...

have you noticed..?

.. as if the person with whom you made that contact actually reached out and gently brushed the hair back from your face or placed a finger gently to your lips.

Eyes will quite often meet across considerable distance, flitting briefly across each other with only the slightest brush.

But, if contact is made and held, whole conversations can be transferred at light speed across that distance without the speaking of a single word.

Some people have eyes that can hold me captive for hours, as if staring into them wraps me in a form of warm, luxurious blanket that I never want to lose. I like the way you seem to fall forward into those eyes until all else fades to oblivion and only the obsidian black pool of the pupils exists.

Those are the eyes of the gentle and honest.

Those are the eyes I love.

The ghost of Walt Tip

O.k so those of you that know me well will already be aware that the presence of ghosts in my life are about as likely as pixies and fairies but the other day Walter our very much loved cat of ten years made an ethereal return from the dead...

So yes the passing of Walt was a very sad moment in both Alex's and my life but to be honest it wasn't without its share of humor and being that three weeks has past it seems a reasonable amount of time to wait before bringing forth the truth surrounding the sad event.

Walt was not what you would call a lightweight of the species. Weighing in at a reasonably hefty 11 kilos dry it would be fair to suggest that his little heart was probably under more stress than that of the average hippo.

On two previous occasions we had discovered him lying on the ground, semi catatonic with drool coming from the corner of his mouth and a look on his head vaguely resembling the look you see on the heads of clubbers stumbling out the door of their favorite night spot at 5AM in the morning.

We assumed he might have fallen badly from the handrail of one of our many decks and taken a reasonable knock to the head because given a day to recover he generally came straight back to normal health and showed no sign of carrying any further injury.

In hindsight (and after consulting with a friend trained in Veterinary services) it was probably most likely he had suffered a small heart attack on each of these prior occasions and very likely it was a massive coronary failure that had finished him in the end.

Just so nobody gets me wrong; Walt was not force fed, no, no, no! He had simply developed a love for food and all things food. It was his primary motivation, his life skill, his kung fu, if you will and he had trained long and hard - as such, his kung fu was strong!

Anyway, we discovered his lifeless body lying on his favorite deck beside his beloved barbeque early one morning before leaving for work.

Alex and I both cuddled and patted him before I wrapped him lovingly in an old towel and left him to lie in state in the middle of our dining room table.

At work that day I found a suitable sized cardboard box in which we could bury him along with his well worn food bowls.

Alex and I returned home later that afternoon armed with our impromptu burial casket and began the mournful task of disposing of our much loved 'fatty'.

The first thing we did was to unwrap him for last hugs and it was while we both had our faces buried in his thick fur that we became aware of just exactly how many fleas he was truly lugging around on him; many, would be the understatement of the year!

It seems that although we had never seen a single flea on him while he was alive this was not due to there being none on him, it was mostly due to them never exposing themselves to us and losing the opportunity to live long and comfortable lives housed on a mobile fast food franchise and I don't mean fast food outlet, no way, he was the whole damn franchise! But when the fryers and hotplates went cold those fleas were out of there faster than a streak of weasels piss and because we had a towel wrapped around him it appeared they were somewhat trapped.

They were of course, more than happy to make a hurried escape when offered the altogether tempting new premises that Alex's and my, face and hair offered. It was, to say the least, an altogether most unsatisfying farewell snuggle!

Having had to guess the necessary dimensions of the box while at work I had drastically underestimated the girth of Walt and it soon became obvious that the lid of the casket would in no way remain closed by its own means. This necessitated the application of much sticky tape which on a whole, greatly diminished the decorum and aplomb normally associated with these solemn occasions. It also meant, on a much more selfish but practical note, that the hole I would now have to dig would need to be at least another six inches deeper.

I had decided that Walters final resting place would be in a small and much overgrown garden at the back of the house directly under our bathroom windows, where if we wanted too, we could look down at when having a pee or brushing our teeth.

The topsoil here was as thick as could be found anywhere else on the property and with darkness and rain threatening to close in I set about digging Walters grave.

Now anybody reading this who lives in Auckland will understand that digging any hole deeper than 12 to 14 inches deep is going to mean digging clay. Auckland on a whole is built on clay. In winter it becomes impermeable and so sticky that should you be fortunate enough to get a spade into it you can never get it off the end, in summer it becomes impermeable and something akin to rock. So all in all the Auckland clay is simply impermeable 365 days of the year.

After digging the top 14 inches of top soil away from my roughly 3 foot by 3 foot hole I promptly broke my spade on striking the aforementioned clay. Darkness was by now threatening to beat me to the close so I raced to the neighbors and borrowed the stoutest spade I could.

Two hours later after much sweating, swearing and cursing I had managed to get down another 14 inches if I was lucky and ignoring the rather unceremonious bulge in the box this gave me at least 6 inches of soil to cover the box with. Plus I figured, rather lazily I might add, a small mound on top would mean all was in order, the job would be complete and the box would be covered by a good solid foot of soil.

What I hadn't figured on was how hard it would be to put all that clay back into the hole and I quickly decided that covering the box in the easily shifted topsoil would be far more optimal. The only problem with this line of thinking was that the topsoil was quickly swallowed by the pit and I was left to try and fill the remaining space with large chunks of unforgiving clay. By the end however Alex and I were both reasonably satisfied with my efforts and we stood quietly and tearfully over the remains of Walt and said our goodbyes.

Fast forward two weeks to approximately one week ago. We have had rain everyday of the two weeks following Walt's funeral except for the weekends which have been extremely warm.

The mound on top of the grave has sunk - I guess the cardboard box has finally collapsed and the remains have no doubt got rather wet, extremely decomposed and then nicely warmed on the weekends...

Monday morning last week I went into the bathroom and threw open the windows before taking a shower.

The ghost of Walt leaped through the window and smote me directly in the olfactory gland!

Oh my god now that is some very special shit right there and talk about staying power.. The extractor fan in the bathroom had the undesirable effect of spreading the odor throughout the entire roofspace whereby it proceeded to fall in large clumps from every available unused penetration in the ceiling, to slap us rudely about the face!

So it would seem that though he may be gone Walter Tipuna Wawatai has not yet finished extracting his final pound of flesh.

And I have been sagely reminded of two important facts:

1) Dead things stink to high heaven whether once beloved or not.

2) Don't be lazy when burying said dead things.

Currently listening to:

The Prodigy - Baby's got a temper.

Taylor Swift - Fearless. (don't be hating)

...of crappy cars

I was sitting having a few wines with a friend the other day, she was telling me that her car was a 'piece of shit'.

For my part I tried my best to convince her that a car that started reliably, ran reliably, didn't cost a fortune in fuel bills and didn't cause you to have to walk to work was in my humblest of opinions, a whole load better than having to hoof it!

She was not persuaded to believe me but did eventually concede to it being reliable.

It not only reminded me of another story but made me remember many of the 'pieces of shit' cars I had owned.

There was the '69 Gremlin, the '74 Corolla, the mark 3 Ford Zephyr (three speed column shifter, only second gear was missing so it became a two speed consisting of low gear and high gear - imagine it.. I was either tearing the ass out of it in first or laboring it like a pinky old tractor in third!!! Oh yeah, that's right, and it wouldn't key start so you always had to park on a hill so you could roll start it and you always had to carry a minimum of three passengers, that way if you stalled on the flat you had plenty of push power to get started again), a communal 50cc scooter, a borrowed Honda City and last but not least a Nissan Bluebird 2 litre turbo automatic. Stylish motoring indeed!

There was one thing all of those vehicles had in common. Not only were they ugly in shape and color and entirely embarrassing to be seen driving, but it appeared the designers had also decided that something that disgusting must now last forever so that your shame might continue for many, many years.

To that end it seems they made the motors, gearboxes and running gear indestructible!

I lived with a bunch of guys once, there was about 5 of us living in a big old house in St Lukes and our house transport was the aforementioned 50cc scooter.

We utilized this pathetic excuse for mobility for one reason, namely, pot pickup and delivery. You see, cops hardly ever pull these puss ridden shitters over because generally they are only ever carrying Grannies, Asian university students or homo's so there was every good chance that if you were heading home with the house stash, that you would not get pulled over and possibly sprung.

Eventually over time we came to realize how incredibly tuff this little turd of a motorbike was.

We had a giant front yard approximately the size of the standard rugby field. One half of it was flat and well mowed but the other half had been let go and seemed to be littered with piles of "stuff" that the grass had simply grown over, it appeared that half our lawn was made of lumpy grass hillocks.

It was in this section that we built, 'the track'.

The 'track' was filled with muddy challenges, bone shaking corrugations and gnarly jumps. It soon became the scene for many a drunken 'time challenge' and even the occasional exceptionally drunken night time rally. The biggest of our bunch was a monster of a guy, 6'4 - 200+ pounds called Gary. I'm not shit'n you that poor little bike survived the track with Gary perched tenuously astride it. From memory the worst that befell it was the loss of the rear mudguard due to an overenthusiastic wheel stand attempt by one of the lads.

The crappiest car I have ever had the misfortune to drive was lent to me by a friend.

A red Honda City - oh revel in the glory of its awesomeness!!!

I think the fact that I could lift the back of it off the ground by myself could have been the reason I so despised the little horror. Driving this vehicle on the motorway was frightening, something akin to flying a spacecraft made from balsa wood and cling wrap through a meteor field!

Nonetheless this vehicle was, like all the other shitters of the world - indestructible!

One night, midway between travelling from my mate Johns place to mine I decided to prove the indestructibility of this little vehicle to him.

I bet him that I could drive the remaining five or six kilometers home without lifting my foot from the full throttle position...

...and so we went, stopping at red lights to sit beside our fellow road users with the engine screaming and us, with tears pouring down our faces laughing fit to burst .

Shifts between gears had the same effect on us.

It was during a particularly rough upshift into third, heading up the second to last major hill before home that something went wrong..

By wrong I mean the engine simply stopped - dead!

Oh fuck! Still quite a way to go to get home.

Damnit - I hadn't quite considered this possibility.

Oh well - out we get, up with the bonnet, hmmmmm give her a bit of a crank.

Whooooa sparks everywhere - cooool.

O.k looks like the main lead from the ignition coil has come out the top of the distributor cap. See if you can jam it back in there John and I'll just go and... CRANK THE IGNITION!

Poor John - that shit really hurts.

So we threw away the stupid 'spark booster' which is some sort of magical device that plugs into your distributor cap and mystically makes a more powerful spark (what a load of rubbish) and stuck the lead straight into the dizzy.

What do ya know. One crank and she fired up again.

Foot straight to the floor! Engine screaming - off we go again! Yeehaa look out!

Well we got home and yeah, o.k. so she was running a little warm but honestly, I reckon that little car would have done that all day. Legendary.

So next time your hurling obscenities at your 'piece of shit' car just think about how many times it has let you down and left you to 'foot it' and maybe you might feel a little better about it's color or it's shape.

Currently listening to:

Supergroove - Postage

Cafe De Mar - Dreams