KoroJ's Blog

Another quicky done and dusted!

In terms of Forest Gump’s Mum’s Life’s-Like-a-Box-of-Chocolates Theory, I think this year’s box had more of those fudgy, truffly, cherry-ripey yukky ones rather than the Turkish-delighty, strawberry-creamy, chewy-chewy-caramelly Mmmmmm ones.

For starters, it can’t have been a very good year because I’ve only managed to do 15-16,000Km ….pfft, how bad is that?!

Both of Ann’s parents died this year so that’s been pretty tough, with Wattie going in late Feb, then Margaret checking out in late September.…and wet….it seems to have been a really wet year? I think there have been more Wgtn Uly Rides cancelled off this year than in the last 5 or 6 years combined? There was no Grand Challenge (again) thanks to some sort of meltdown within the Rustys, but life and riding goes on.

I was lucky to be able to do the TT2000 because that was the weekend of Watties tangi, but thanks to MikeH allowing Trevor and myself to run a week later, we did slip it in and that was a nice wee pootle and what I thought was a rather tame route for the C1KC, when combined with magnificent weather, turned out to be a pearler.

After much thought and to-ing and fro-ing I tried to sign up to the IAM thing, but they’re choking in Wellington so I’m on a waiting list until they get some Observers through. I did do a social ride with them though and as well as confirming to myself that my attitude pretty much sucks towards riding to the letter of the law and road-code, I was left with a few doubts about some of their practices, or perhaps more correctly, their rigid application of some of the IAM philosophies. Maybe it was just the bods on the ride though so I’m reserving judgement and I’ll see how I feel when my name eventually comes up.

I did manage to get back into a bit Slow Riding / Police Rodeo / Gymkhana stuff this year and eventually, with prompting, nudging and dragging from James (XP@), we started having a fortnightly Wednesday practice session. I really enjoy this stuff but in trying to fix the bad habits, I feel like I’ve been going backwards. All good though.

Warwick and I managed to clean-up at the Wgtn Uly Go Karting this year and that’s bloody good fun, then I managed to string a few strikes and spares together to win the 10 Pin event as well.

I managed to get back into a bit of photo scanning, finishing off the old negatives…and then there’s been my foray into the realms of filming and editing video after buying a Go Pro. What a lark that is! As with most computer type stuff, it’s a huge time-sinkhole! James (XP@) gave me a heap of GC footage from the 2011 event so I had fun getting the hang of editing with that, but I’ve since purchased Power Director 12….but not had the time or inclination to really get into it more than just cut my videoed rides down enough to dump them on YouTube (without music). (I also had a couple of 2Tb Expansion Drives crash on me so I lost a lot of what I had done)!

Hmmm…OK, I guess there may have been a few Hokey-Pokeys and maybe even a Barrel of Gooey Lime (which used to be my favourite chocolate back in the day) in the selection. We (12 of us) had a fantastic family holiday to Fiji in November, I’ve read a few Jack Reacher books lately, the low Km’s mean I’ve saved a shitload on petrol and tyres and servicings and I’m quite happy with the Z8’s I’ve been running. We’ve signed up for the next TT2000 and I just need to refine the route planning for that, get into some vid editing, do a bit more lead-lighting, plan the next C1KC (and perhaps a GC replacement)….maybe find time to do a little work and I might feel a bit more fulfilled this time next year??!!