Someone else took this.

Someone else took this photo - I just played around with it in a little image editor I downloaded to my phone. I'm really just checking out how things like this work on my phone.

The original photo is a scene somewhere down south at one of the big lakes. Sorry I don't know who took it or even where I found it.

Storm Chasing

Hello, greetings and welcome.

We have just been treated to a few days of superb Autumnal weather here in Wai-iti.  We've been treated to sunny skies, warm, mild breezes and gorgeous evenings as the Moon grows steadily towards being full.

This evening we had a simply beautiful sunset, red clouds reflecting an amazing light across the landscape which is all burnt and dry at the moment. The grass in the paddocks is pale brown and looks dead and many of the deciduous trees have started changing colour. With very little rain recently  we are having something of a drought. The combination of the dry foliage and the reflected red sunset light created a beautiful and otherworldly effect.

This too shall pass as the saying goes. Tropical Cyclone Lusi is wending its way down the North West coast of the North Island bringing heavy rains and high winds. The rain   will pour down on the parched earth and miraculously the grass will green up and spring back to life. Perfect conditions for staying home in the dry.

So of course we'll be driving 400 Kms to Christchurch! Dear friends there are about to get their earthquake damage finally repaired and they have generously donated their old carpets to us for use in our no-budget renovation project.

Furthermore, my dear Dad has lent us his car (which, unlike ours, has a tow ball) and my always generous and helpful Brother-in-law has lent us his big tandem axle trailer. We are aiming to leave early on Saturday morning and driving down to Chch and collecting the carpet before turning around and heading the 400 Kms back home again, hopefully before the cyclone arrives!

Whew! Should be an exciting and excellent adventure! If the weather forecast is accurate (they have a 63% accuracy rate here) we should be able to just sneak back home before the serious weather gets here. All going well (which of course it will) we'll be back safe and sound and hopefully we'll get some good photos too.

Till the next time....

Afternoon In the City of Domes

The lowering afternoon sun shines on the Domes and towers of Inthandonia's famous City of Domes.


3d Models built using truespace rendered in trueSpace using LightWorks renderer. Extensive post work using the GIMP.
This is a picture I first created several years ago. I've recently revisited it and made a few changes and alterations. I hope you enjoy it.

Dragons and Wizards

Dragons and Wizards go together like shoes and socks or fish and chips or (insert complimentary couple of choice here). So here is a picture I made from an original image I found on the New Zealand Metserve website and some photos and images from my hard drive.

The suspicious looking character on the left is a picture of me taken ... oh 4 or 5 years back when I had long hair. The figure on the right is another photo of me taken a couple of years ago when I had short hair! The dragon is a 3d model I created using trueSpace as are the ship and castle in the distance, the flock of birds were added using a custom paintbrush as was the flash of lightning. It was all colour matched and composed in the GIMP as an exercise in combining 2d images. Hope you like it!

It's been a long time...

...since I wrote anything interesting here! Seems a shame to spoil such a good run...... ;-)

I've been partaking in a protracted and fascinating spiritual conversation with a friend of mine in the States. My friend is a Christian and I am most definitely not!


This makes our ongoing discussion a bit difficult as we are both approaching the topic from very different world views. My friend (who I will refer to as MM) is a good natured and caring person who is (I suspect) somewhat concerned about the long-term future of my soul given that I am not about to accept his world view over my own personal views.

 MM's perspectives are (I believe) based on interpretations of whatever Bible his preferred denomination uses. Thus, when confronted with a spiritual question he is able to consult his preferred version of the Bible as well as seek backup from his fellow followers.

This approach tends to generate a set of fairly specific and superficial answers that are shaped by dogma and the shared interpretation of the flock. The result is a single formulaic answer which will suit many specific situations but not all.

 On the other hand, I seek the answers to my spiritual questions anywhere I can find them. The result here is a selection of possible answers which I can pick and choose from depending on the needs of the moment.

 This means that I do not have a single central source for spiritual guidance. I  can't go to a shared common source of information and say "check out chapter so and so, verse such and such" and derive an answer from that singular source.  So I am contemplating using this blog space as a repository for my own personal thoughts and concepts that I can refer others to.

With a central location for my spiritual thoughts and understandings I will be better equipped to respond to the written dogmas of other belief systems by having a written source of my own.

How exciting...

OK Which idiot invited the Doctor to the Daleks Office party?

... it's been watching the Olympics! Not only because watching fine young athletes compete is pleasant on the eye, or because most of the medals New Zealand has won so far has been won while sitting down (equestrian, cycling, rowing...), or because we are currently scoring higher on the medals table than our arch sporting rivals the Australians but mostly because every time the Olympic TV coverage breaks for some advertising they tell us that the latest series of Doctor Who is going to be showing soon! The Wizitch personnel are all confirmed Whovians and I personally have loved Dr. Who ever since I read the first book (Doctor Who and the Daleks) when I was a kid. I can still remember how cool it was that, in the first chapter, the Doctor had matches that never went out. Now that's what I call style!
It was that simple idea - everlasting matches - that triggered my life long love for everything and anything Science Fiction (with the possible exception of that irritating kid with the equally irritating fluffy robot dog in the original series of Battlestar Galactica and of course Jar Jar Binks).


Speaking of style and excitement an unusual thing occurred the other day when Witchy and I were picking up some groceries from New Brighton village. As we crossed the car-parking lot we stopped to chat briefly with an attractive young lady who was just getting out of her 4x4. This in itself is not unusual in New Brighton which, for me anyway, rates as perhaps the chattiest and friendliest place I've ever been to. What was odd though is this young lady asked me if she could photograph me! In the 55 years I've spent so far in this incarnation this has never happened to me before.
Of course (in the interests of art) I agreed and she proceeded to take a nice picture of me with her iPhone. It was only after we had said goodbye that I began to wonder why she wanted my photograph? I suspect it was something to do with my style - I was wearing black and white basket canvas ball boots, faded black denim jeans supported by navy blue braces with white stars on them, a black roll-neck skivvy, my round Harry Potter/Gandhi glasses and my black Bowler hat - oh and I had my black walking stick with me too.
Witchy says the look I had was 'dapper' - which according to the Urban Dictionary means "A compliment made to someone who looks incredibly smart, sexy and stylish". Yeah Baby! I can live with that!

Perhaps the young lady wanted my photo to illustrate to her husband how one can be 'dapper' - after all New Zealand men are generally renowned for not dressing all that well on average. My chief fear however is that she wanted the photo in order to show her husband how NOT to dress! I guess I'll never know!

Southern Sunset

This 'oil painting' image started it's life as a photograph I took from our back yard several years ago. I've run it through a series of filters and effects firstly in The GIMP - one of my most favourite pieces of software - and secondly in Picasa. I only wish I could paint with real oils this well!!

Once among the trees

This image, also from several years ago, was made entirely with software - in this case with 3d landscaping software Vue Studio. Anyone following my art will soon discover that Vue is one of the software packages I use most often in my art. I'm particularly fond of this picture as it reminds me of a very special Easter I once spent in the fabulous New Forest near Southampton in southern England.
This was in the late '70's when I was on the first of my trips back to Britain and I was taking the holiday weekend to drive about and see some of the south coastal areas. We spent the Saturday night sleeping in the car and were awoken very early by the scuffling of many squirrels in the undergrowth. It was a postcard perfect spring morning and we seemed to have the entire forest pretty much to ourselves for about four hours as the morning mists cleared. Driving slowly around the area we were lucky enough to see not only some herds of wild deer and groups of New Forest ponies but also a fox and a very brief glimpse of a badger. And lots of squirrels.
This was a truly magical moment and even now 34 years later I can still recall the sense of timelessness and serenity and solitude of that sunlit and golden misty morning. For me it was a 'one in a lifetime' event that touched me deeply and holds a special fond spot in my memories.  

Black Swan

Black Swan on the Otakaro

 Black Swan

Today's blog starts with another older photo - taken from the bank of the Avon River (Otakaro), outside our home.  A crisp morning fog heralds the arrival of a majestic black swan.

We spent nearly 10 years living beside the river (in 2 different abodes).  There is a peace and beauty to be had watching the water flowing past. The sounds of the local wildlife were just wonderful.  There was always somone going past, enjoying a stroll (with children or their dog ~ or both!), having a run, out on a cycling adventure or power walking.  The blend of bi-peds and quadrupeds made for interesting viewing and never a dull momnent. 

Our time there came to a rather abrupt end after the series of devasting earthquakes that rocked Otautahi.  The land was too serverly damaged to be rebuilt upon and our wee river community was forced to split and neighbours went their separate ways.  We have stayed in touch with most of our neighbours - when you experience a natural disaster together like we did, you are no longer neighbours - you become very good, close friends. This photo captures some of the peace and serenity that we enjoyed on the riverside. Sadly, the quakes caused significant damage along this stretch. The black swans still swim here but at the moment it doesn't quite have the same sense of serene peace that we all loved.

Black Swan and cygnet

New Zealand Black swans (Cygnus Atratus) are probably Australian immigrants like almost all creatures in New Zealand. There was a native population in Aotearoa New Zealand prior to the arrival of the Maori peoples but they were hunted to extinction by the time the first European people started arriving.
 Fresh stocks of Black Swans were later reintroduced as a game bird and there is good reason to believe that other swans have arrived in Aotearoa by flying here directly.





On a completely different tangent we watched the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympic Games which was a great treat. Due to the time difference we in Aotearoa had to get up early on Saturday morning to catch the opening on Friday evening London time. Witchy is a big sports fan and hopes to watch as much of the games as she can. I, on the other hand, am not really interested in sports and find myself a little bemused that so many folk get so much from it.

I can easily see the joy of watching sport without needing to actually exercise much more than the remote control finger - but for me the entire focus on 'winning/losing' thing seems a little pointless. Of course sports is big on points - if the guys in the blue shirts get more points than the other guys in the red shirts they are deemed to 'won' and the others lost. Along with this comes the inference that the team with the highest number of points is somehow 'better' than the other team and that's the bit I really don't understand.

Winners and losers are opposite ends of the same stick - a winner or loser is only called so when compared with the other competitor at the time of that particular match. Whatever the scores may be they are a function of the dynamics of the interaction and the comparison between the two! Your team cannot win unless mine loses and vice versa.

For me the relative scores of a sports match and who wins or loses is far less interesting than watching the displays of individual excellence and physical and mental prowess exhibited by the competitors. So often a 'losing' team (in the sense of acquiring fewer points or goals) actually puts up a better game than the 'winners'.

Ultimately there is a huge selection of variables including quantum indeterminacy which really really determine the outcome of any sporting event so, for me anyway, the pleasure of watching sport comes from the sheer aesthetics of watching superbly trained people performing at their best.

In the sports that I watch every entrant is a winner unless they deliberately under perform - which in itself must still be a type of performance!

Dawn Anchorage

Today's 3d image is a recent one, part of a series of renderings based loosely on actual photographs.

Till next time.....

Wzrd