Town Centre 150m

18 06 2010

Have you ever done it? Travelling north from Hamilton, wishing they would complete the expressway, driving through Ngaruawahia, then the sign: Town Centre 150m Turn Right. Why not I thought? I realised I’d never been into the town centre. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure that I even knew that there was a town centre. Wasn’t it just that BP, the pub with the huge Waikato Draft sign and a couple of shops on the main road? Well no, actually, there’s more to it and it’s not bad. Tidy, some nice buildings and quite a lot of activity. Not exactly Matamata (who would have thought you would look up to Matamata!) but it’s okay. So what is Ngaruawahia about?  The Maori King, close to Mt Taupiri and probably it’ll be the last town to be avoided before Hamilton as the expressway starts it’s next trip south and away from all those small towns. The street you drive in to get to the town centre is Galileo Street. I wonder how they ended up with that one? Maybe like me, they like space. Could be why you’d live there too.

There’s a website for the town if you’re interested.


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Categories : The journey of life

Otahuhu Otahuhu I love you

1 06 2010

On Saturday my son Tim and I decided we would take a train trip from Britomart to Sylvia Park.  Actually we were going to go from Mt Eden but the Western Line was closed for completion of the double tracking.  There’s something vaguely international about travelling on the train especially when the train heads up the wrong line!  ”Excuse me, I asked to go to Sylvia Park – it might have been helpful if you’d mentioned we were on the wrong train”.  ”You’ll need these – get off at Otahuhu and the train to Sylvia Park will arrive 4 minutes later”.  So armed with our transfer tickets we headed to Otahuhu.

New York New York, I love you is a series of short films about, unsurprisingly, New Yorkers, and love. It’s a bit predictable but pretty funny and the briefness of the stories kept my attention. It’s got a Seinfeld feel to parts of it “why does the pharmacist have to be two and a half feet higher than the rest of us?” went though my mind.  The old couple out on a day trip to deserted Coney Island on their 63rd wedding anniversary could have been straight from The Sopranos – what do you do if the person you are walking with across the street is simply too slow to make it by the time the lights change? Well the wife kept on walking and he just put his hand up and stopped the traffic.  Good call.

A lesson too for Casanova. Be careful about who you try and seduce. They might end up being more of a professional than you.  That was funny.

Four minutes on the train station at Otahuhu were almost sureal.  Where is that place? It’s like some deserted platform on the outskirts of Chicago during the height of the great depression. I must go back – the potential for photography is outstanding. The views towards the Manukau Harbour as the sun lowering in the sky are stunning.

I wonder why the train station at Sylvia Park isn’t integrated properly into the Centre. That would make it more appealing and a lot easier for old folk out on day trip. I’m not sure I’d drag my Mum through all this. But if I did I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t leave her to fend the traffic off on her own!

The movie: I liked it.


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Categories : movies

A reason for a new blog

10 05 2010

Hi everyone, my main blog stephendrain.com focuses on leadership.  Well it would, it’s called Stephen Drain’s leadership blog!

This blog stephendrain.org is for other stuff.  I’m not exactly sure what I’ll write about yet but I do have some ideas – I’m enjoying reading about biology, evolution, the big bang, and watching movies – hey I might review the odd movie or three.  Maybe I’ll write some more about running too, and when I get my new Nikon camera, photography. I like music too. That should be enough to start.  Who knows I might even go into religion and politics. That could be fun (for me anyway).

So could this be the missing link? Is there a missing link? Actually what there is, is a continuous evolution of Homo over the last 200,000 years.  If we found every so-called missing link then there wouldn’t be the different Homo species we now know.  After all, where would it start and stop? Which generation would be the first Homo sapien? Be hard to tell. And that’s like us – always growing and changing. Evolving. A great reason to live. And to blog.

Thanks for reading.

stephendrain.org


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Categories : evolution


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