Odds and ends

Just some random thoughts and occurrences in my rather mundane life which in a very short time is going to get a great deal more exciting.

Night occurrence
Friday night I was watching TV in the room off my bedroom. (I’ve enclosed the back porch that was off my bedroom which happens to be in the back of the house. It is a great room and I really need to use it more.) As I was watching TV I heard this very odd noise. It sound like someone chopping on something. I looked out the window but didn’t see anything.

Now I’ve noticed at night that sound can play tricks on you. Several occasions I’ve been in the back room or my bedroom proper and have heard this very loud rumbling sound. Most times I stop what I’m doing and try and figure out what it is. It is of course a train going by. During the day there is enough other noise outside that you don’t hear the train as clearly. Similarly I’ve come downstairs on a Saturday or Sunday morning and turned on the TV and think the sound is way too loud. The reason is that there is no other noise around and so it just seems louder than it really is.

Ayway back to the strange sound. Well it didn’t go away. I was thinking maybe someone is trying to break in somewhere. So I looked out again. This time I found the source of the sound. It was someone using a hedge clippers to trim some weeds. Now it’s 12:30-12:45 am. A rather strange time to be doing gardening. I watched for a little while and saw there were three guys out there. I recognized one as someone who lived there. They would clip the weeds and then drag their feet through the area. It seemed to me that maybe they’d dropped something and were trying to find. But still an odd time to be doing gardening.


On going occurrence
I’m attempting to figure what all I need to bring for the trip. Underwear and socks are all taken care of and packed away. I have just about everything for toiletry kit. Now I have to figure out the rest of the stuff. I’m going to bring one pair of dress pants. Pack a pair of jeans and wear one and that should be enough in the pants department. I’m going to check the weather reports and I might add a pair of shorts. I looked at the ten day forecast and it will be mostly in the 60s so shorts might be out. I’m taking five polo type shirts and then a couple of long sleeve ones and one dress shirt. That should be enough. Anything else I might need I’ll get there.


Money occurrence
Another thing I’m trying to figure out is how much money to take. I’d like some actual New Zealand dollars. There’s an exchange place down the street from me so I’ll get some from there. I found out from my bank that I can use my ATM card while I’m there. There’s the standard $2 fee for using someone else’s machine and then a 3% charge for exchanging the money. That’s not too bad. I figure I won’t need a great deal of actual money because I’ll charge most everything.


Political occurrence
A very interesting article in the Washington Post on Sunday about the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. It seems people were choosen to be a part of it based on how much they supported the President as opposed to their qualifications. I haven’t read the whole article and so will comment more about in another post.

Then there’s the story of the man from Canada wrongly accused of being a terrorist and taken to Syria to be tortured. It is so reasuring to hear from Bush that the US doesn’t torture. After all we don’t need to we can just send someone to a counrty where they do torture people.

A quick comment on the Pope’s comments. What was he thinking. I’ve never been a big defender of the the Catholic Church, but I think this is a great column about the reaction to his comments in the Muslim world.