Bamboozled

It amazing what you come across online when you are mindlessly bored and randomly clicking shit doing productive research. Today I was looking for a pic of a bamboo forest for the new incarnation of frashcards.com (yes it's a real domain - I bought it last night for $8.95, what a bargain).
Anyway, I should get to what I discovered....

This site: http://www.bmeres.com/bambooframe.htm which is about a bike a guy made out of bamboo. Looks pretty neat. He's got a review of how it performed over a whole year. Very nice job.

The All Blacks Haka

On Saturday, the mighty All Blacks crushed Australia. But what everyone was talking about was the 'new' haka, Kapa O Pango. For the benefit of those who didn't make it to the game, or those that missed the first half, here are a couple of Haka videos.
First the original, which Adidas did a nice job of overlaying Maori warriors...and second, the new haka. There is something really special about this unique part of NZ culture, which is taken to the world just a few times a year. (It'd be a shame to miss it eh?)
I've gotta tell ya, seeing Tana Umaga screaming like that at the opposition made me proud to be a New Zealander - and an All Blacks supporter....well I mean, who'd want to be the standing there on the field facing that?

Original Haka


Kapa O Pango


Allblacks.com

Sailing in the Z

I grew up sailing. My Dad built a Nolex 22 trailer sailer around 1977, and we took family holdays in it for years. It was a 4 berth glass over ply yacht, painted bright yellow and called "Kowhai Manu" which, in Maori, means yellow bird.
We sailed it around some of the beautiful lakes and coast of NZ.
When I was 9, he built me a racing dingy called a P-Class, which is a 7 foot wooden boat with a large sail. P-Class's are a NZ design since the 20's and really are a NZ institution - every significant kiwi sailer usually started in a P. Some of the more well known kiwi sailers are:
Peter Blake
Russell Coutts
Dean Barker
Chris Dickson
Peter Lester
Grant Dalton
Leslie Egnot
Digby Taylor

NZ is famous these days as the only nation to ever successfully defend a challenge for the America's Cup outside US waters. NZ's fixation with the America's cup started when Australia won it in 1983, and NZ decided to challenge Australia for it in 1987 in a boat called "KZ7". It was a classic story, including a "BandAid" type celebrity song called "Sailing Away" that all kiwis bought a copy of to help find the challenge. We didn't win, but we learnt a shit load about 12m yacht racing, including the biggest wanker of them all, Dennis Conner. After that were a couple of challenges for the cup in San Diego, much of in in court rather than on the water as rules were bent, broken and ignored.
1995, NZ got really serious, and built a black boat, NZL32, or "Black Magic" which totally kicked ass and finally lifted the cup off the Americans. The same competition saw the Australian boat sink in the opening round, which absolutely delighted kiwis the world over.
1999 saw the first NZ based Challenge, and that injected billions into NZ as global fat cats came down to eat fresh NZ lobster with NZ wine while watching the races just outside of Auckland, and left with titles to coastal property all over NZ. Some would say this was the beginning of the property boom in NZ (subsequently fuelled by Lord of the Rings, and 9/11)
NZ defended the cup and soon prepared for another onslaught in 2003. Russell Coutts, the man who helmed both the win in San Diego and the defense in NZ, was bought by a Swiss team called "Alinghi" much to the horror of the nation. I have never seen such passionate anger over a sport as happened when Russell went to the Swiss. The 2003 campaign Team NZ logo was called "Loyal".
Russell took with him some key players of the previous NZ team, so the writing was on the wall for NZ in the 2003 series, which saw the cup lifted from NZ by Alingli, crewed mostly by Kiwis who were paid millions.

I was lucky enough to meet and talk sailing with Peter Blake around 1982 when I was 12, and it was a tradgedy when he was murdered in 2001 while on a Environmental Awareness expedition in the Amazon.

100% Pure NZ Sailing website
The America's Cup wiki
Sir Peter Blake
Red Socks

Taking on the world

I read a good book about once a year. I mean a paperback type book. Maybe twice a year if I am lucky, but generally I don't have enough regular spare time to have a good book on the go.
So, usually when I have the chance to have a vacation(a relaxing type, not a visit-the-family type), it is time to buy a good book.
On our recent trip to Phuket, I didn't have anyidea what I was looking for, but I spotted "Taking on the world" by Ellen MacArthur.
I've watched a documentary on this remarkable woman a while ago, and the book is an autobiography of her journey up to and including her first solo yacht race around the world.
Ellen's book is a great read, and I couldn't put in down til it was done. Very inspiring, and really got me thinking about buying or building a yacht at some stage in the future. (I'll just add it to the list shall I?)

Ellen MacArthur's Site

Video killed the Jpeg star

Everyone's got broadband now it seems, and gone are the days of waiting for pictures to load on webpages.
Videos are all the rage now, with several video hosting communities now very popular.
One I see coming up more and more is youtube.com
You can search for whatever you like, and there are home-made movies, funny clips, favourite moments, you name it.

Here's a great clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn6MvtomrsA

Check it out, it's a awesome clip of MotoGP highlights. Even if you're not into bike racing, this is really worth a watch. Check out these guy's wheeling and 2 wheel drifting like they do it aaaaall day. You'll see Valentino Rossi feature quite a bit (number 46)Rossi is to MotoGP what Ayrton Senna was to F1. He is the man.

Youtube.com