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Remember my post about being run over by a car? It happened again!

Except this time it happened to my flatmate, and by ‘it happened again’, I mean literally. Mary was mowed down by an evil man at exactly the same corner, on exactly the same side of the street and going in exactly the same direction! Conveniently she also wasn’t too badly injured either, just some aches, pains and bruises.

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Continuing my trend of writing blog posts totally out of sync, here are some photos from a recent trip to the Otago Peninsula. I acted as tour guide for visiting student Meghan Dunn during her visit here. My previous attempts to find penguins for tourists has always failed. I usually the find the pesky little birds when I least expect it, but never when I’m trying to! So to avoid that frustration we headed to Penguin Place, a little sanctuary about 30 mins drive from my place.

Penguin Place is on a small piece of land on the coast. If you zoom in, you can see the constructions in the sand hills designed for tourists to watch the birds.

The birds aren’t caged, they’re allowed to come and go as they please, but are provided with warm, man made shelters which they seem to quite like living in. Before heading down to the main Yellow Eyed penguin area, we stopped to see some Baby Blue penguins which also lived there, you can see one sitting in it’s little hut in the photo below.

We watched the birds surfing in on the waves after a hard days work catching fish. This little dude took his time and sat out in the waves enjoying the scenery for a while.

But he eventually waddled his way out of the surf … 

and then met up with his little buddy who waddled back over the sandhill with him … 

but his friend treated it as a race … 

So he decided to lean back and have a stretch instead. All that fishing must have taken it’s toll!

He even posed for me

Dell have released a new high tech pedestrian safety device. They are calling it the “Dell Inspiron 6000″. It features a hard outer casing and a protective LCD screen to take the brunt of any impacts pedestrians may face due to vehicular collisions.

I tested out this new device this morning. I placed it in my backpack and headed off to work, then whilst crossing the road a crazy women crashed into me from behind, sending me tumbling across her bonnet. I landed splat on my back on the road. My trusty Dell took the brunt of the impact and I was able to stand up unscathed The only injury I have is a sprained ankle which wasn’t protected by my computer. And guess what! The computer is still working and I’m posting this message on it right now

Apparently the little green man was indeed flashing when I crossed and the lady who hit me is in a whole lot of trouble. She will probably be charged with careless driving or careless driving causing injury. My computer will live for another day - and thankfully so will I!

EDIT: Thanks to my cousin Alison Petrie for the following photos (she saw it happen).

There were two ambulances, a fire truck and two police cars. Kinda overkill for an itty bitty test of a new safety device, but anyhows …

The woman on the right is the one who drove into me.

EDIT: It also turned out that I was badly bruised behind me knee. The woman who hit me lost her drivers license for six months and was fined for $250 for her failed efforts to remove me from the gene pool.

EDIT 2: It happened again! Lightning strikes twice.

I’m out of action from playing sports at the moment due to my silly shoulder popping it’s self out of the socket again But the chemistry department soccer team said they were usually short of female players so I dragged along Becky Brassett to help them out. The games are played 9 a side on a field hockey turf. Here are some photos I took at the game.

Aggression

Here are some demonstrations of why NOT to play soccer on a sand turf!

First up, Graeme trying to get the ball by running through his opposition.

Next up, a girl from the opposing team wipes out quite spectacularly trying to change directions.

This aint track and field …

Graeme … WTF?

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The field hockey team I usually play for (The Soft Sticks) had no opposition at our last game. So they played a game amongst themselves while I took some piccies from the shade on the sideline - I’m still recovering from a dislocated shoulder. The temperatures were searing (26 deg. C I think) so there were some very hot looking pink hockey players by the end of their game.

Mallory Handcock (left) and Natasha Munro (right) … Read more

Some photos from my parents 35th Wedding Anniversary. Thanks to Scott and Marthah for organising everything and eventually remembering to invite me The lighting was utter crap so the photos are a bit blurry.

My Mum (Joan Hellyer) and Dad (Ken Hellyer) posing for the camera.

The cake. It was a carrot one and tasted damn nice!

Siblings: Robyn Reid, Ken Hellyer, David Hellyer and John Hellyer. Or as I know them, Aunty Robyn, Dad, Uncle David and Uncle John.

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Our uber awesome, wonderful and truly incredible professional ice hockey coach Jenel Bode is leaving Hopefully she’ll be back next year though

Rhyan McMillan and our uber awesome coach Jenel Bode

For her goodbye bash, she organised a goodbye party in a cave at Longbeach. It sounded boring, getting stuck in a cave all evening on a cold, wet, rainy day Luckilly Sarah was heading out to take Jane so I hitched a ride along so I could make an appearance and bail home early with Sarah. Darn glad I went though, coz it was totally awesome. The cave was wicked, the fire kept us all cosy warm, everyone had fun and there was loads of entertainment provided by my teammates who provided firebreathing, guitar and flame throwing demonstrations for us all. There were even baby blue penguins in the back of the cave hanging out with us!

Neil Dudley and Rob Owens demonstrating how much effort it takes to burn human skin … Read more

After playing a round at Stewarts Gully Mini Golf, the Beasts found other ways to stay amused, including swinging and tandem bike riding aroung the golf course.

Jane Soper providing amusement to the team by swinging towards a tree at full pelt

Neil Dudley doing a jig while Rob Owens learns why Jane Soper was so scared on the swing

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The Beasts (my ice hockey team) headed to Stewarts Gully Mini Golf. The facility is owned by Clive Murphie, a top bloke who is also heavily involved with the Aardwolfs Ice Hockey Club who we played against in Christchurch. As it says on the label, this is “Mini Golf”, so basically big golf shrunk to a small size, no castles, water features or other fandangled things to navigate, just good old putting greens.

Clive Murphie, the owner of the course

Estelle Baker expertly sinking the ball in the hole after some advice from Jane Soper (on right). Conveniently I clicked the shutter just as the ball was falling into the hole.

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