Monthly Archives: January 2007

28/01/2007

you got mail!

By hairygoose
 
it is kinda cool when people leave messages on the crap that i blurt out on a regular basis! mind you, after more than 13,000 hits, one might think that i would have more than that?
 
anyway
 
the greenpeace book is still likely to make history, albeit for the wrong reasons. regular readers of my nonsense will remember how much i have been raving about this book for a few weeks now. well, sadly it has now come to a grinding halt. the book itself has always been a very heavy read – heavy in an intense and long sense, it has had me rivetted for hours and hours but now, it has turned into a grande farce.
 
wierd thing is, it turned into a pile of poo at just about the time that the author entered the fray as a character in his book. I guess prior to this point, it was a very well researched piece of work but now it seems to have turned into a name dropping self appraisal excercise for the author, which is a damn shame, the book was stunning up until about half way through. So, it looks as if the greenpeace book will go down in history as the first book i ditched without finishing it all. hardly seems to do it justice. I will give it one more try but dont hold out too much hope.
 
so
 
what more is there to say?
 
well, its cold here too at the moment. so cold in fact that i had to go and buy some warm clothes for work yesterday. I am wearing them now actually. they were dirt cheap and a bit too cool for work. Most work clothes get religated from daily wear to workwear as they age and get tatty or unfashionable so to buy new clothes and hit them straight as workies seems a bit extravagant for me so i am wearing them now just to help myself with the stigma!
 
i still dont have any pants on though
 
my camera is still broken, i am waiting for my bank in the uk to mail me a statement so that i can go to the shop. time is almost out as the camera will have its first birthday in february. as soon as i get a new one or get this one fixed, i will hit the streets of palma and get those poo shots i have been promising for so long.
 
lineke will arrive here in palma in a couple of weeks. i actually am taking time off work. yep, for those of you that know me well, i bet you just fell off your chairs in amazment! four days of R & R (thats dutch for sex and more sex!) might even show her some of the more appealing sights of the island, but enough about me and my leopard skin thongs!!!
 
just worked a 7 day week this week and it is only going to get heavier while nariida is getting ready to sail, gonna be some serious stuff so i might not get here too often.
 
i added some new photos of me and Mr & Mrs Oliver (cold in norway) from quite a few years ago. take a look at the back end of the photo album of your new year photos and you will see a slightly younger version of me, a version that has now matured into the incredibly buff and studly man stud that you see before you now.
 
anyway, enough crap for one day – keep warm and send me some photos for my page – i dont have a camera for myself!
 
 
 
 
authors footnote – please let it be known that my girlfriend has the cutest ass i have ever got my hands on. i wonder how many people actually read the authors note? not many i guess but i am about to find out if lineke does !
 

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26/01/2007

the greenpeace book

By hairygoose
 
ok, guilty as charged, havent written anything for a long time. trouble is i work so much i rarely get inspired in the same way that i do when i am in portugal just bumming around. dont believe me? then take a look at one of my classic pieces of writing from my archives of december 2005, a classic passage called álentejo surf and drive
 
 
 so , you will remember just how classic i can be, i just need inspiration.
 
lineke thinks we should holiday together. This poses a little dilema for me.
 
firstly – i am tighter than a ducks butt, paying for a holiday would really grieve me especially when –
 
secondly – i live in portugal for half the year and spend the other half of the year in spain.
 
lastly – where would we go ? ok, i fancy italy but have the feeling that if i went there, i might not come back! I dont really dig long haul so that really rules out anything outside of europe, and my list of already visited countries in europe with sea frontage consists of
 
england (surfed here)
scotland
ireland
wales (surfed here)
France (surfed here – biarritz to be precise)
Spain ( surfed here – for what its worth)
Portugal (surfed here once or twice)
 
then of course there is also
 
belgium
germany
norway
holland
 
so where? and why?  give me some ideas please.
 
which reminds me of some graffiti i used to see every morning on my drive along the M1 to northampton. the bridge graffiti simply said
 
´give me inspiration´
 
it used to make me smile. was at a time when work was a real drag and to read that message every morning would make my day smile. Thinking even further back, when i was just a kid, there used to be some more graffiti on a bridge , again on the M1 somewhere near luton i think, that used to say
 
´hissing sid is innocent´
 
for those of  you that are old enough, i bet you are smiling too, a bit like the graffiti i saw on the back of a dirty truck one day, ´arthur fowler is innocent!´ yep, if you are reading this from outside of the UK , you wont have any idea what i am talking about. so, to even things up a bit, some universal graffiti i once saw written on the back of a dirty truck –
 
´no hand signals – driver wanking ´
 
anyway. today i agreed my future employment with nariida until they sail off to St Tropez around 25th march. after that, they are heaading to norway for the summer and wont be doing any med races, so sadly, no chase boat driver position for me. Also today , confirmed with another boat that they want an engineer with a Y4 ticket which effectively rules me out of the game although, he has left it late i think to find someone at such short notice…….maybe he will come back to me.
 
so that will leave me looking for work for one extra month. around march time that shouldnt be too hard, there will be a ton of boats all behind schedule and gagging to set sail for their summer season, then all i have to decide is what to do for the summer time
 
the weekend will be busy as hell for me, and i am currently booked solid now until saturday 10th of february. By then, things will be seriously hotting up on nariida and i reckon that all other work will fall by the wayside.
 
the temperature here has plummeted, since last saturday and up to wednesday this week, the temperature dropped a massive 18 degrees – in just 4 days. i need to buy some warm clothes!
 
so, what ever your plans for the weekend, keep warm and enjoy yourself!!!!

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14/01/2007

the history has begun – the greenpeace book has a new reader

By hairygoose
 
the greenpeace book has started its circle. Some very kind person has left a message on the page and they will be the second person to read the book. Unfortunately, they didnt leave their name or contact details so i could forward the book to them so that narrows it down a little. there is only one person i know that could do something like that…………..MELV !!!!!
 
so as soon as i have finished the book, it will be air mailled to you Ms Melvin, first class of course, with a few instructions as to what to do with it once you have finished with it.
 
OK, so today, i finally decided to head out and take some photos for my Palma dog poo chronicles. sadly, today was the day that my camera finally decided to give up. less than one year old and nearly 400 bucks and blam, nothing. I am hoping that my bank can email me a statement to prove the purchase as i have lost the receipt!
 
there is a pattern developing here though. through all of the years in england, all of the stuff i have bought, nothing ever went wrong with goods. Since i have lived in portugal, i have managed to buy 2 faulty cd radios, one faulty TV, one faulty dehumidifier and now one faulty camera. learn the lesson here people, keep your receipts when you purchase outside of blighty.
 
As for bank statements, i havent had those in years and in all of those years (more than 20 infact) i have only ever needed to prove something with a bank statement twice (lesson two – dont keep your bank statements – they will depress you!). The first burden of proof was for a poll tax payment that the local council claimed there was no cheque in the letter i send them (bank statement proved otherwise) and now, for my camera, i hope luck is with me on this too.
 
work has been very full on this week and i have no doubt that it will continue until early march if not for longer.
 
this afternoon i cooked lunch for myself, mason, chris and paul. We all thougth it would be a good idea to begin a sunday dinner club of sorts, a day for relaxing and at least having one hearty meal a week. this week was my turn to shop and cook so we all scoffed down a good helping of chicken, veal, roast potatoes – parsnips – mushrooms, and of course broccoli not forgettting the bisto gravy too, a can of beer and a bottle of red wine, all in front of a roaring log fire.
 
but let me tell you, even though the fire was on, we still managed 22 degrees here today in mallorca. certainly unusual for this time of year but i got a feeling that winter will bite hard shortly. If it doesnt, there sure will be a hell of a lot of mozzies this summer!
 
So lets get back to this amazing greenpeace book i am on at the moment. Last night i was reading a section that talked about some research on a captive orca whale, or killer whale as they are commonly known. the scientist had been testing and rewarding the orca for telling the difference between two cards immersed into his pool. one card had one straight line on it, the other card had two straight and parallel lines on it. to test the orcas vision, he kept closing the gap between the two lines and repeating the experiment until the orca´s accuracy fell below 90%. The orca could distinguish between one or two lines all the way down to the tiny gap of 1/32 of an inch – thats less than one millimetre! the research was aimed at proving the intelligence of whales so that a ban on whaling could be enforced.
 
this book is awesome, if you want to join the bun fight to be the third person to read it, leave a message against this blog entry or email me waynemaunder@hotmail.com
 
you know you want to
 

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12/01/2007

the greenpeace book

By hairygoose
 
ok, the trail started here, on this day in history. so good is this book that i thought about doing something wild about it.
 
maybe, we should start a list around the world, of people who would like to read it. be certain, this book is good, it sure does have me hooked and remember, i read a lot. so i decided that we should create probably the worlds first chain book, with each reader signing it and passing it on to the next reader on the list.
 
so, the chain starts,  the book was bought in the uk, then first read by me in mallorca, i already have the next reader lined up here in mallorca but then who knows where? maybe it will wing its way across the ocean to debbie cannon in canada (where greenpeace all started) and then back to europe and beyond. so if you want to be one of the first names in the book, mail me or leave a message here, i will tell you more of the details as soon as i have finished the book myself
 
believe me, you will want to read it, it will tell you more about human kind than you ever anticipated, and before you all yawn – it áint no hippie story either
 
so mail me if you want to get on the list
 
waynemaunder@hotmail.com or leave a message on this blog entry

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11/01/2007

perfect sounds

By hairygoose
 
sometimes life brings you little pleasures when you least expect it. Tonight on the way home, i had one, small pleasure.
 
For anyone who has once been into motorbikes, there is nothing quite as good as the sound of a ducati being ragged hard by the pilot.
 
Now imagine the scene, its a little after six on a warm january evening, it is dark but the city lights give a warm glow to everything. the evening is cool but not cold, i am walking home in a T shirt with my fleece tied to my back pack. As i walk along the main avenida, the set of traffic lights turn green and two good old boys on their ducati´s decide to have a little drag race in the evening rush hour, up to the next set of traffic lights.
 
The sound is just awesome, carrying well in the evening air, much louder than the other traffic. My hairs stand on end and my nipples go hard (is that wierd or what), the most amazing sound you can hear anywhere. I liken the sensation to that of a horse used for fox hunting, when the bugle sounds, the horses ears pick up.  I guess that is just one of lifes little mysteries.
 
The book i am reading at the moment is absolutely awesome. It was written by Rex Weyler. Most of you wont know the name but he was the founder of greenpeace way back in the 70´s. The book is an account of the times and events leading up to the founding of greenpeace and has me totally gripped. It started off with a history of the nuclear race way back in the 40´s and i am currently reading about the first time greenpeace sailed into a nuclear test site to thwart an american nuke test.
 
were you also aware that chernobyl was not the only nuclear accident russia experienced? there was one, decades before, one far more serious and damaging. if you have time, click on the link below and induldge yourself
 
 
so today was a good day at work, life is good on nariida, lots to do before she hits the water again in march but i reckon i can get all of my stuff done in time.
 
finally got a new sump pan for the car too, just have to find a few hours to fit it, and of course ask paddy if i can use his garage to do it. i have had a bit of practise at it now but i still reckon it will take at least three hours to do. bummer!
 
Do you remember way back in the day, steve wright in the afternoon was the coolest thing on radio, the whole world listened. OK so it was way back in the 80´s but many of you will remember it. well, we stream live internet radio on the boat and still listen to steve wright in the afternoon but now on radio 2. strange thing is, i reckon his playlist is probably the same today as it was 20 years ago. man i must be getting old!
 
anyway, enough for now, go and do something more rewarding than reading this page (which by the way , has already had over 350 hits this week) I must be popular!

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11/01/2007

thanks junior

By hairygoose
Cooking

A man gets up one morning to find his wife already in the kitchen cooking.

He looks to see what she’s cooking, and sees one of his socks in the frying
pan.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"I’m doing what you asked me to do last night when you came to bed very
drunk," she replied

Completely puzzled, the man walks away thinking to himself, "I don’t
remember asking her to cook my sock "

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10/01/2007

was it Socrates that said

By hairygoose
 
I´m contemplating thinking about thinking?
 
No, it was robbie williams, but hell of a line anyway.
 
I have seen something unusual recently. From my world famous veiwing terrace here in palma, i watch people go by and do their things. I generally watch the cars parking and stuff, purely because it is funny as hell. Tonight, something struck me. Normally on the roads here, the locals dont use indicators, most of them dont even use common sense but tonight for the second time this week, i noticed something strange.
 
the locals will use their indicator to turn out of their parking space when there is bugger all in the road anyway but then, at the cross roads at the top of the road, they wont indicate and no-one has a clue what is going on, amazing.
 
I promise to do some dog poo photos soon, am kinda busy at the moment working some extra time on nariida and this weekend looks hectic too but keep watching – the Palma Piles of Poo will be here soon

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09/01/2007

james brown

By hairygoose
 
bad taste, as only anna could!!

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07/01/2007

techinical issues resolved

By hairygoose
 
ok , so finally, microsoft sorted their problems out. you can now see my photos of new year and your photos in separate presentaions. Although i would still like to say that i am a little short on photos of your new year, get mailing them in to me without further delay to waynemaunder@hotmail.com
 
so i have been easing myself gently back into the work ethic after such a long time away. I went to work for a few hours on friday to try and finish some work on a small boat called concerto, on saturday i went back to do some more, with the full intention of finishing off some more today but when i finally dragged myself out of bed at 11am, i decided to sit and read my book instead. before i knew what time it was, i had been reading for near on four hours.
 
I need to finish concerto soon as my work on nariida is about to go ballistic. i will try to stay on concerto to do smaller stuff but for the next few months, nariida has my fullest attention, so knuckle down and work hard as hell.
 
It feels good to be back here, but it also felt good to be at home in portugal for over a week too. Appreciating all the better things in life, like sunshine, surf and beaches.
 
I did put a for sale sign up before i left. i dont really want to sell but if some fool wants to pay a whole heap of dollars for it, i wont get all sentimental about it. I still fancy a boat job for a year or two and the house would just fall into complete ruin if i didnt keep working on it so it might be a better option, i like to keep all my options open.
 
Got to spend a little time with the doctor too, on our new electric blanket, absolutely sweet! she will be here in mallorca for a long weekend in the middle of february so i booked a few days off work to make the most of it. Left her in portugal when i came back here but she is probably waiting for her plane home as we speak.
 
i am keen to see and publish your pictures of new year so get them on an email to me as quick as you can. re-size them if you know how, or just send them if you don´t, i can do it here, it just takes an age to download them all. either way, i want them.
 
so for now, i leave you to your work and jobs and cold weather, we are still getting 20 degreees here during the day which is unusual. i got a feeling february is going to be very cold.
 
anyway,
 
be good

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05/01/2007

technical problems

By hairygoose
 
microsoft would like to appologise for the errors that continue to plauge this excellent page. normal service will soon be resumed

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