Right! It took a while, but I've just managed to catch up on all the forum posts since I left. Thank goodness for the chatroom or it would have taken me six weeks.

This is an unusually long post for me, so if you reply to it, have pity on Sam's disk space and cut the original out of your reply, OK? ;-)

I'm still going to job interviews and still hanging out for a phone call from the one I really want. They're doing in-person interviews next week (I already had a very long phone interview) so hopefully I should hear from them soon, one way or another. In between answering ads, I've had several full days of work doing feature writing for an electronics magazine. Infra-red sheep weighing technology was just the beginning. Since then I've also written articles on the QMC 800 multi-loop controller and what you can do with it when it is attached to a plasma nitrator, and many other things which you would probably beg me to stop talking about. You know all those years of bluffing your way through 5000-word university essays on topics you know nothing about? Rest easy. They *do* have an application in your future career. :-)

I also have been out sailing for the first time in what feels like forever. My darling boat didn't take any revenge for my neglect over the last few months, and the batteries were still charged up and everything was working just as well as ever. Good old solar panel. I also spent a day doing some painting and varnishing, and replacing a lot of ropes that were getting a bit past it.

It was an awesome day out, hard to believe it's technically autumn now. It was a marvellous hot sunny day with just enough breeze to sail, and the water was a *delicious* temperature for swimming. There were fish jumping everywhere you looked and I put out a line on the way home, but didn't catch anything. And PENGUINS! I've never seen so many in one day. There was literally one, or a pair, every couple of hundred metres. These are Little Blue Penguins I'm talking about. Really cute tiny little guys. And one of them WAVED to me. Well, OK, it was probably just scratching its flipper or something, but it sure LOOKED like it was waving at me. :-)

My other big news is that I'm now in the Air Patrol section of Coastguard. (I'm still doing the normal boat stuff too, of course.) Next weekend I'm going to my first training day. I'll tell you about that later, after it happens, as I'm still not sure what it will involve. Looks like fun though. Next month I've also got some more medical training coming up, so I'll be busy. It might be nice if I can find a job that will pay me lots of money for not actually doing anything, so I can just do all that full time and go sailing on the weekends. :-)

OK, next topic: movies! Being unemployed around the same time as I found the best video shop in Auckland is a bad combination. Here's one you should all see -- The Valley of Gwangi. All I need to say is: 1960s. Harryhausen. Cowboys versus stop-motion dinosaurs. Woo HOO!

Actually, the reason I'm not posting this to IABBBBM is that, frankly, this movie is *great*. Leen would really like it -- it's full of *beautiful* horses, and a gorgeous little animated Eohippus which is the most charming stop-motion special effect I've ever seen. I rented this movie thinking it would be hilariously abysmal, and it turned out to be great. The dinosaurs were terrific, and exciting, and the scene where they rope the T Rex beats *anything* out of Jurassic Park, cheesy animation and all. And this was in the SIXTIES, for goodness sake. It didn't make me think how far special effects have come -- it made me think how much movies now rely on them to the detriment of all else. Have a look at it, especially if you like horses and/or dinosaurs.

Also on the movie front, I finally found Wizards of the Lost Kingdom. Yes. Well. There's not really anything I can say about WotLK that hasn't been said before on this site. Thanks, guys. I'll leave some time for the first viewing to sink in, then rent it again in another week or so. :-) :-) :-)

In the last couple of weeks I've also seen Yojimbo, The African Queen, The Thief of Baghdad, and too many others to bother naming. As you can probably tell, at the moment I feel more like I'm on holiday than unemployed. I haven't really had much time off for years now, and the work I've done has always been pretty intense and for long hours, so I'm actually really enjoying the chance to do whatever I feel like. I'm sure I'll change my mind once my bank balance starts heading for single figures once again, of course. :-)

If I get the job I hope for, I'll be online from home starting on April 7. If not, well, we'll see. Come to think of it, if I get that job, they'll be giving me my own ISDN connection. So we'll *really* see who's good at Quiz Blitz and who's just leaning on their darn work connection ... not looking at anyone in particular here, Dave ... not suggesting for a minute you and Mousie wouldn't still be Quiz Blitz champions of the world. ;-)

Whew. My fingers are tired. I think that's about a month's worth of normal posts from me. Anyway, I miss talking to you all, and I'm looking forward to showing up a bit more regularly, soon.

Brunnen-"after all that, nothing to say here"G