Driving

That was a huge amount of fun. "That" being the drive I just went for. Went on? I don't know ... Anyway, I was just driving for the sake of going for a drive. I started out on the road to Timaru, heading out of Christchurch through Hornby. I saw a sign with a directional arrow to Akaroa, and recalled that my brother-in-law had said that the road to Akaroa was a good drive. So I changed course and went on a little adventure. About 15 minutes out of town, there was a divergence in the road, one direction heading out to Akaroa, the other going through Gables Pass to Diamond Harbour and Lyttleton. I considered the use of petrol and things and decided that the shorter drive would be more sensible. The Gables pass road turned out to be a very good choice. It is a twisty, fun little road that winds up hill for quite a distance, then is just as twisty and turny on the way down. It is really fun to test the limits of a cars steering, tyres and engine. Not that I was driving like a maniac or anything - you really couldn't on a road like this without potentially taking a fairly long drop into someones valley farm.
After that stretch, I turned back into Christchurch over Dyers Pass. It is also a spectacular road, both in the feel of driving a tight winding road with a dangerous drop just to the edge of you, and also the views. The back side of the Port Hills are rough, goarse covered masses, running down to a small Harbour (or mud flats while I was driving there - the tide was out). And as you come around the top of the hills, you get this amazing view over the whole of the city. It would be awesome at night, too. And the road to get to Dyers Pass from the Christchurch side isn't far from my flat, so I can go up that way whenever I like without much travel. Neat...
But yeah, I now have a fairly good idea of the handling and performance of my new car in a good variety of conditions, and I love it. It's about the same power as my old car, but a bit zippier, and kind of more fun. Generally, very cool indeed. I will post photos of the car when I can be bothered taking photos of it.

Vroom! and whatnot...

I bought a new car last week. Hmmm... I can't really think of much of any real interest to say about it. It's a Mitsubishi RVR - kind of a Japanesey, slightly blokey version of my Mum's old Renault Scenic. Which is now my brother's Scenic... BUt yeah, where the Scenic is kind of a family car, the RVR is a little more sporty looking. It's interesting actually, I read a review of the RVR from the Christchruch Press back in 1998, and they rated it very highly, 9 out of 10 in most areas, and said that of the range of similar vehicles on the market at the time, the only real contender was the Renault Scenic. Funny, huh?
I found out how much a good stereo matters to me, too. The head unit in the RVR was stuck on like almost maximum volume (and was a crappy tape deck anyway) so the guy at the dealership offered to have the stereo removed from my old car and installed in the new one. But I had to drive it around over the long weekend with no stereo, as I had to book it into their service centre to get the transfer done. I had planned to do some cruising, maybe head up the Port Hills, or out of town, to enjoy the new car. But without music, it just isn't the same... And when I thought about it in general, I pretty much always have some kind of soudtrack to my life. Generally I select music to either match or change my mood. Loud, happy stuff when I'm feeling good, depressing, angry stuff when I'm feeling bad. And I guess that the depressing, angry music is kind of cathartic - I tend to listen to things like Nine Inch Nails,or songs like Fade to Black, and it'll drag me right down, to the point where I kind of hit bottom, and all you can do from there is either wallow in it, or climb back up. Generally, the climb seems more appealing than wallowing, so it works out as a good way to get myself out of a funk.
On the music side of things, I bought the Top Gear driving anthems album yesterday. It's very cool. A nice mix of kind of groovy, fun songs. It definitely works as a driving album. Which I suppose is the point. But the thing that I really like is that there isn't really anything on it I don't like. Most compilation CDs tend to have some good tracks, some just okay stuff, and some really naff business. This is fairly consistently good, with some really great tracks, too.
And on the being in a funk side, I've been feeling sort of angry or depressed for the last couple of weeks. Most of the time, anyway. Last weekend was good, though - Mum and Dad were in town, so doing family stuff was a nice break from the angriness and depression. Basically, I think I'm just at taht point with my job where I can only just be bothered even turning up. Things that have made the last couple of weeks less than fun...
Well, for a start, there was a work mystery bus trip two weekends ago. I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to go, but a nice young lady persuaded me it would be fun, so I bought a ticket. I walked into town on the day of the trip, managed to get lost in central Christchurch, and missed the bus. This was a real bummer. I've missed work-type social events before, but usually because I've decided not to go. It feels really different, and quite crap, to miss something just because I'm too stupid to find a pub. I did find it in the end, but was just too late. Which is even worse...
It doesn't sound like I missed out on all that much - apparently the bus went round a strange route, through pokey areas out in the sticks, stopping at weird country pubs. But still... Mostly, it would have been an opportunity to spend some time outside of work with the young lady who persuaded me to go in the first place. Never mind...
I'm being called on to step up as Union Rep to push an issue at work involving log service leave and our collective contract. And I don't really care about it. There is a guy on nightshift, our electrician, who has apparently read some notice from the local Union organiser that says the Union will not be pushing to get people who have been at GC for five years a fifth week of annual leave. That is, Log Service leave at GC has been an extra 5 days of leave after 5 years continuous service. Which in practice has meant 4 weeks of leave instead of 3. With the amendment to the Holidays Act, the company has said that the extra 5 days will simply become part of the 4 weeks leave that are now standard. Which, understandably, has upset a lot of people. I don't quite understand where our Union organiser is coming from, saying it won't be contested, as in the contract the wording is quite clear - Long Service leave is an additional 5 days above the provisions of the Holidays Act. So if the Holidays Act now requires at least 4 weeks leave, an additional 5 days makes 5 weeks. I don't really see how the company can argue against that, but apparently they are. But anyway, the electrician has sent fairly angry e-mails to our organiser, called the Union office in Auckland, and various other things, then someone has told him that I'm the Union rep in Comms. He isn't specifically part of the Comms department, but the only other union rep on nightshift is even less with it than me, so I'm the one copping all the flak. He wants me to put forward or at least support a vote of no confidence in the district organiser, and "get my fucking act together" with all the other union delegates across the site and shifts to do something about all this. I pretty much feel like telling him to get fucked and punching him in the face. He may have some valid points, but he just gets on my nerves. Plus I've seen the rest of the correspondence from the district organiser, and it basically says that the matter is still up for debate and is being analysed by the Union legal team. The original notice was fairly crap, but it was from a while back, and things seem to have moved on since then. Which is what annoys me - the electrician is making this a huge issue without actually paying much attention to what anyone else is actually saying. He's got this one idea in his head and won't let it go. Dick...
The last thing that's been getting me down is stranding. Because I'm losing interest in work in general, the only area I particularly want to work is insulating, as it's something I can do pretty much on autopilot, without much real effort. Which in itself is quite funny, as it's probably one of the most complicated jobs in Comms. But I guess it's just what you spend the most time doing, you get very good at. But yeah, this week just past I've been stuck in stranding, because it's almost the end of the month and we need to get all our deliveries out, so thigs are a bit rushed in the back end of the process. I don't really have any legitimate complaint to make - I'm trained to do the job, and it's where I'm most needed - but still, it just sucks, because I fucking hate stranding.
This seems to be a very long post, so I'll leave it there. I think I'm going to go drive somewhere...

Sick

This has been one of the worst weekends I've had in ages. It started well - I went for a walk into town to check out a car I'm interested in buying, then walked home and went out again to do some shopping, and joined a new video store. I haven't rented any DVDs for ages - I had something of a difference of opinion with my regular store, and have decided never to go there again. Basically, I rented a movie and when I got home there was no disc in the cover. I went straight back and told them, and then like a month later I received a letter from them telling me that they had tried to contact me on numerous occasions (I'm not sure how - there were no missed messages on my cellphone and I was home every day without hearing the phone ring) and that they were sure the disc was in the cover, and that I now owed them $45. So I basically decided, "Fuck those guys," and never went back there. Then they sent me another letter telling me that they would sick a debt collection agency on me for the $45 and screw up my credit rating. Wankers... So I paid the bill, and then they sent me another letter, thanking me for paying and offering me a free new release next time I came to the store. Surprisingly, after basically being called a thief and a liar, I wasn't really interested...

But back to this weekend. I sat down to watch Spiderman 3 (not bad - pretty much what I'd expected) on Saturday afternoon, and about half way through my stomach started making some very strange gurgling noises. Now, there have been a couple of people at work who've had a nasty stomach bug, so I was a little worried (One guy said he was "shitting and spewing everywhere."). And about ten minutes later, I was in the bathroom. There was some general unpleasantness in the bottom area (although I didn't shit everywhere - just in the toilet) followed by a fairly substantial amount of vomit. Not the nicest thing to write about, I know, but this was my weekend... So I spent pretty much the rest of Saturday afternoon and evening lying on the floor in the bathroom, waiting to explode at either end. I had a duvet and cushion, so it wasn't too bad. All up I was sick about 5 times, and it was that really intense, muscles cramping, gasping for breath sick, too. And I was reminded of something I saw on 30 Rock - a couple of women who live alone discussing the possibility of dying in some stupid way because there isn't anyone around to help you. I could just imagine me choking on my vomit, left slumped against the toilet for days before anyone really started to worry. What a horrible way to go...