Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Whangaparaoa (pronounced Fongaporowa)
This is the area we will be moving to shortly. We have a move date of the 22nd of May and are excited to get there. We will let you know more details as we get them. The actual town we will be in is called Tindalls Bay, but it's on the Whangaparaoa peninsula. About 30 minutes NE of Auckland. Pictures of the house when we get there are coming. Look forward to that post!
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Is this English?
Sometimes it just cracks me up. Mike and I have been trying really really hard to fit in (wink), but we just can't get our heads wrapped around a few words. I think I have already told you about how it is common for words to be shortened here.
Cell Phone= Celly
Puzzles=Puzzies
Breakfast= Breaky (I have always wanted to use this in my DD site, but I can't get over if I am spelling it correctly. Is it Breaky? Or brekky, breki...I don't know, but when I get it figured out I am sure I will work it into a post sometime.)
Then there are terms like dub dub dub. That's for spelling out a website. http://www.picklejuice.com/ would be dub dub dub picklejuice. Or how about "hard stop". I first heard this at work when I was taking someone's email address. renata@medaware (hard stop) com. It seems that a hard stop is the word for "dot".
Or how about words that end in "wn" like known or grown. The correct way to pronounce that would be to make it end with the "when" sound. So it would be growhen or knowhen. "If I had knowhen you were coming, I would have made tea."
And then two words that just make me flat out giggle inappropriately. (usually because one is used in an interview) Invision is not a word here. It's invisage. "How did you invisage your role with us?" And then Mike gave me this one. "Have a squiz over this and get back to me." Ok, so...seriously...I don't want nothin to do with someone elses "squiz" at work. A "squiz" is a quick look. Uh huh, sure it is....
The words Mike and I are struggling with (you notice I said Mike and I, the kids have picked it right up) are Yes and No. We unfortunately are dead give away Americans with these two words. Let me see if I can't break this down for you.
Yes: It's more of a Yeeez, like an American YEEEE HAW minus the HAW and a Z(zed) at the end. And then there are the different ways to use the word Yeez (yes). If you are in a convo and agreeing, the word would have hard stop (not to be confused with a dot) but still with a z. However, if they are skeptical of what you are saying they will drag it out...yeeeeeeeeezzz and the zzzz's kind of trail off.
No: I have never in my life heard of a two letter word that has as many syllables as the word No in the Kiwi language. Now I will say they do have the short "naw" (no) for casual convo. For example, "Did you catch the game last night, bro?" "Naw (no) mate, had to meet the missus." Which that's probably a bad example because I don't think the Kiwi ever miss a game.
The "no" that I am more speaking about is one that sounds like they mashed No and Ew (like ew gross) together...for a kind of Noeeww. Now what makes the word more interesting is the octives go up and down throughout the word. So it's more like NoOoOoOeeeewwww. (Seriously, stay with me.) And depending on how emphatic you are in your use of the word "no" depends on how many up and down octives you hit and how long the word it drawn out.
"Did you see what Mary had on yesterday?" "OH, I KnoOoOoOoOeeeww" (know)
Now this does seem to carry over into any other word with an "O" sound where you can show how emphatic you are. Like HelloOoOoeewwww (Hello). So, if I were to correctly say my sentence above it would be..
"OoOheeww, I KnoOoOoOoOeeeww" (Oh, I know)
I don't know (KnoOew) if you get the full gist of this since you are reading it. Maybe I should have inserted a vlog post, that would have been easier. I would have had to have had (say that 4 times) my friend Heather do it for me because I would have failed miserably. But we are learning and trying. I don't think I will ever use the word invisage or squiz or learnt or spelt...but I am trying on the Yes and No really hard.
Cell Phone= Celly
Puzzles=Puzzies
Breakfast= Breaky (I have always wanted to use this in my DD site, but I can't get over if I am spelling it correctly. Is it Breaky? Or brekky, breki...I don't know, but when I get it figured out I am sure I will work it into a post sometime.)
Then there are terms like dub dub dub. That's for spelling out a website. http://www.picklejuice.com/ would be dub dub dub picklejuice. Or how about "hard stop". I first heard this at work when I was taking someone's email address. renata@medaware (hard stop) com. It seems that a hard stop is the word for "dot".
Or how about words that end in "wn" like known or grown. The correct way to pronounce that would be to make it end with the "when" sound. So it would be growhen or knowhen. "If I had knowhen you were coming, I would have made tea."
And then two words that just make me flat out giggle inappropriately. (usually because one is used in an interview) Invision is not a word here. It's invisage. "How did you invisage your role with us?" And then Mike gave me this one. "Have a squiz over this and get back to me." Ok, so...seriously...I don't want nothin to do with someone elses "squiz" at work. A "squiz" is a quick look. Uh huh, sure it is....
The words Mike and I are struggling with (you notice I said Mike and I, the kids have picked it right up) are Yes and No. We unfortunately are dead give away Americans with these two words. Let me see if I can't break this down for you.
Yes: It's more of a Yeeez, like an American YEEEE HAW minus the HAW and a Z(zed) at the end. And then there are the different ways to use the word Yeez (yes). If you are in a convo and agreeing, the word would have hard stop (not to be confused with a dot) but still with a z. However, if they are skeptical of what you are saying they will drag it out...yeeeeeeeeezzz and the zzzz's kind of trail off.
No: I have never in my life heard of a two letter word that has as many syllables as the word No in the Kiwi language. Now I will say they do have the short "naw" (no) for casual convo. For example, "Did you catch the game last night, bro?" "Naw (no) mate, had to meet the missus." Which that's probably a bad example because I don't think the Kiwi ever miss a game.
The "no" that I am more speaking about is one that sounds like they mashed No and Ew (like ew gross) together...for a kind of Noeeww. Now what makes the word more interesting is the octives go up and down throughout the word. So it's more like NoOoOoOeeeewwww. (Seriously, stay with me.) And depending on how emphatic you are in your use of the word "no" depends on how many up and down octives you hit and how long the word it drawn out.
"Did you see what Mary had on yesterday?" "OH, I KnoOoOoOoOeeeww" (know)
Now this does seem to carry over into any other word with an "O" sound where you can show how emphatic you are. Like HelloOoOoeewwww (Hello). So, if I were to correctly say my sentence above it would be..
"OoOheeww, I KnoOoOoOoOeeeww" (Oh, I know)
I don't know (KnoOew) if you get the full gist of this since you are reading it. Maybe I should have inserted a vlog post, that would have been easier. I would have had to have had (say that 4 times) my friend Heather do it for me because I would have failed miserably. But we are learning and trying. I don't think I will ever use the word invisage or squiz or learnt or spelt...but I am trying on the Yes and No really hard.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Trying to Move....
Hello All....The Porter's are looking to move. Our owners are letting us out of our lease early in order to find a place that is more affordable. As you know money has been tight and we have things we would love to get done this year. The first being getting our residency here in NZ. That will open doors for both Mike and I and also for the kids. Namely, Kelsey will be able to get a school loan here and we won't have to pay the out of country fees for schooling. Then you know...I would like the niceties of life like a dryer and a microwave. I don't think that is asking for much.
Finding a new home has been just horrible. We have tried to stay near Auckland but any place that we would even think of moving into really isn't going to save us money. So, I we have put in an application for a home farther north. Even with the extra public transportation fares we will be saving almost $1K a month. You can't argue with that. Here is the link to the area we wish to move to. It's beautiful, still on beaches and really has much more of a beach town feel than St. Heliers. Reminds me a lot of where I grew up. A lot. On top of the pricing issues the agents here don't make it easy on you to find a home. Most of them don't return phone calls, if they do they want you to drive by the house first (like I have time to go out to a place not once, but twice and like I am likely to make a decision based on the outside...PUlease), then if you do drive by you can't get them back on the phone to make an appointment to go IN the house. Then if you are one of the lucky ones to actually get an appointment...they are either always late or don't show up at all. It's mind boggling and very frustrating. I realise that there isn't much money to be made in the rental business...but then....get out of it if you don't want to offer proper customer service. Eh...just my point of view. I will let you all know if our application is approved or if we have to start the rat race all over again. (Lord help me)
MedAware is starting off pretty good. We have had a few orders with very little...and I mean very little....marketing. Mike is almost finished with my flyers and we will get those printed. My goal is when we do move that I am going to start hitting the doctors offices to put these out and then possibly start using Facebook as my other marketing tool. I am both nervous and excited. I know this is going to do very well here. We are getting ready to add some running/biking vests and I am working on some additional rubber bracelets. I am also in talks to have someone make pump gear for me as well.
Mike has been coming up with some cool shirts for his Cryptolicous site. He has already made some sales and is excited to be creating images on his fascination with Big Foot, the Moth Man and any of that other stuff.
And just in case you thought I was reigning in the crazy....I will offer you some info on something new I have been doing. (don't worry...I am still out there) I was chatting with a cousin of mine a few weeks back about how we are working to save money. Like baking our own bread...and I was telling her that the biggest portion of my grocery budget still goes to laundry and soaps. We all have skin issues so I have to buy the non-perfume dye free stuff. Well, just like in the US you have to pay more to have less ingredients. She told me about how she had made her own laundry detergent and starting to use vinegar for softener. Ok...stay with me here....so I haven't been able to do the laundry detergent yet because I need to buy in bulk since the ingredients are not readily available here in NZ. BUT I have been using white vinegar for over a month now. I am amazed. Simply amazed at how well it works. Let me answer two questions that I know popped right into your head. One, YES IT WORKS...AND HOW. Two, no your clothes do not smell like vinegar. There is no smell at all, just nice and clean. I was also surprised to realize two other things by switching to vinegar. I have less lint on my clothes and it lifts stains. Ever since I figured out that it lifts stains, when I do Marty's clothes I add a little extra in the washing cycle and it works miracles. I was paying upwads of $8 for a 1litre bottle of Huggy sensitive softener. I would use about a bottle and half each week. I bought a 5 litre bottle of white vinegar for $12. So, I am saving about $5.80/litre. About $20 per month. Not a lot...but it does ad up. And now I don't have to buy stain remover either. You can find the recipes for liquid and dry detergent and a couple of laundry softeners here. The recipes come from the Duggar Family who have a show in the US. (side note...I don't use the food recipes to save money. They are mainly processed foods.)
Finding a new home has been just horrible. We have tried to stay near Auckland but any place that we would even think of moving into really isn't going to save us money. So, I we have put in an application for a home farther north. Even with the extra public transportation fares we will be saving almost $1K a month. You can't argue with that. Here is the link to the area we wish to move to. It's beautiful, still on beaches and really has much more of a beach town feel than St. Heliers. Reminds me a lot of where I grew up. A lot. On top of the pricing issues the agents here don't make it easy on you to find a home. Most of them don't return phone calls, if they do they want you to drive by the house first (like I have time to go out to a place not once, but twice and like I am likely to make a decision based on the outside...PUlease), then if you do drive by you can't get them back on the phone to make an appointment to go IN the house. Then if you are one of the lucky ones to actually get an appointment...they are either always late or don't show up at all. It's mind boggling and very frustrating. I realise that there isn't much money to be made in the rental business...but then....get out of it if you don't want to offer proper customer service. Eh...just my point of view. I will let you all know if our application is approved or if we have to start the rat race all over again. (Lord help me)
MedAware is starting off pretty good. We have had a few orders with very little...and I mean very little....marketing. Mike is almost finished with my flyers and we will get those printed. My goal is when we do move that I am going to start hitting the doctors offices to put these out and then possibly start using Facebook as my other marketing tool. I am both nervous and excited. I know this is going to do very well here. We are getting ready to add some running/biking vests and I am working on some additional rubber bracelets. I am also in talks to have someone make pump gear for me as well.
Mike has been coming up with some cool shirts for his Cryptolicous site. He has already made some sales and is excited to be creating images on his fascination with Big Foot, the Moth Man and any of that other stuff.
And just in case you thought I was reigning in the crazy....I will offer you some info on something new I have been doing. (don't worry...I am still out there) I was chatting with a cousin of mine a few weeks back about how we are working to save money. Like baking our own bread...and I was telling her that the biggest portion of my grocery budget still goes to laundry and soaps. We all have skin issues so I have to buy the non-perfume dye free stuff. Well, just like in the US you have to pay more to have less ingredients. She told me about how she had made her own laundry detergent and starting to use vinegar for softener. Ok...stay with me here....so I haven't been able to do the laundry detergent yet because I need to buy in bulk since the ingredients are not readily available here in NZ. BUT I have been using white vinegar for over a month now. I am amazed. Simply amazed at how well it works. Let me answer two questions that I know popped right into your head. One, YES IT WORKS...AND HOW. Two, no your clothes do not smell like vinegar. There is no smell at all, just nice and clean. I was also surprised to realize two other things by switching to vinegar. I have less lint on my clothes and it lifts stains. Ever since I figured out that it lifts stains, when I do Marty's clothes I add a little extra in the washing cycle and it works miracles. I was paying upwads of $8 for a 1litre bottle of Huggy sensitive softener. I would use about a bottle and half each week. I bought a 5 litre bottle of white vinegar for $12. So, I am saving about $5.80/litre. About $20 per month. Not a lot...but it does ad up. And now I don't have to buy stain remover either. You can find the recipes for liquid and dry detergent and a couple of laundry softeners here. The recipes come from the Duggar Family who have a show in the US. (side note...I don't use the food recipes to save money. They are mainly processed foods.)
Friday, March 26, 2010
It's been crazy
This is Porter,
I know we haven't been posting and we will make more of an effort to do so. So, without further ado... My post.
We have had some crazy things going on. Getting our medical jewelry (jewellery in Kiwilandia) business up and running. This has taken a huge amount of time and effort. I am an idiot when it comes to all things coding, but I think I figured most of it out, with some of the more crazy and obsecure problems being corrected by my brother-in-law Brian, or Brain, either is representative of this guy. If you want to see the site, it's here!
I am still teaching. One class is in their final productions and will be done sometime in June. I have a new class that just started. Currently I have both programmers and artists in the same class. Basically, "This is the business and lifestyle you are signing up for" section of the course. No one has run screaming, so that's a good sign. You can see the current students work here.
The team that my son was on for the soap box derby made it to the semi-finals, but were unable to make it to the final test. They did a great job, and now I am a nice lobster red.We will post some pictures of this soon.
As I said, we will make more of an effort on this site, The Diabetic Duo site and I will also be updating my Portergraphic site more often. This is the plan, but as I am well aware, sometimes life has other plans. We will enveador to achieve this goal, how's that?
Saturday, February 20, 2010
School finally started for the kids. It's been two weeks and they are settling in well. Kelsey has been playing volleyball for her school and her club. Club ball has been really intense. They are training for an international tournament right now. Kelsey won't be participating in that because of her school team commitments, but she is happy to be playing non the less. I think I have said it before, but most of the club players are older (some older than me) and they are just fricken amazing and fun to watch. Below are some practice pictures I took. They aren't great because the lighting was horrible. But...here they are. (Kelsey is in the pink shorts and Kelsey's college , high school, coach is in the maroon shirt)
Marty made the Soap Box Derby team at his school. The past few weeks they have built their derby are now in the midst of testing it. The boys were able to take two test runs yesterday and I have several pictures. They will be doing time trials starting next week. Then when they have it all done and the driver is decided, they will paint the car. I think the race is at the end of March.
Last weekend we went to Maraetai Beach to visit friends from Mike's work. Heather and Tony invited us out to have a lovely dinner. Tony made a beautiful meal of lamb, kumara, nz potato, pumpkin and he finished it off with a chocolate mousse. YUMMY! That was the first time I was able to eat lamb and it was delicious. The area is beautiful. It's nice a quiet town surrounded by beach. Heather takes a ferry into the city for work every day.
Tony has all kinds of radio equipment in the kitchen. They also have this old radio and phone. Beneath the phone, you can see a good picture of Tony and Heather.
These were taken from their back patio. The third picture you can see Waiheke Island. That island is on our "to see list".
We have been fortunate to visit friends from work that live all over the Auckland area. Last night we had dinner with another work mate of Mikes. Marty and his wife Bronwyn came over for Enchiladas, rice and smashed salad. Mike did a great job on the Enchiladas. I messed up the rice, I am struggling with rice here. I am just going to have to stick with my Uncle Bens, no matter the cost. It was a fun evening and we learned about a new stout that I actually liked. An Australian beer called Cascade Stout. It has a good chocolate flavour and was most likely the reason why had to go up a notch on my belt this morning. This afternoon we are going to a cookout. I will have pictures for the next PA post.
Lastly, I would like to introduce you to my niece Rianna Pellino and her band Vedette. They are a band in Virginia Beach, VA. They do covers from Journey, Chaka Khan, Sam Cooke and Pink...just to name a few. I will have to pass you over to my Diabetic Duo page, because I can't load music on here. So, click this link and you can hear them do "Lights" by Journey.
Marty made the Soap Box Derby team at his school. The past few weeks they have built their derby are now in the midst of testing it. The boys were able to take two test runs yesterday and I have several pictures. They will be doing time trials starting next week. Then when they have it all done and the driver is decided, they will paint the car. I think the race is at the end of March.
Last weekend we went to Maraetai Beach to visit friends from Mike's work. Heather and Tony invited us out to have a lovely dinner. Tony made a beautiful meal of lamb, kumara, nz potato, pumpkin and he finished it off with a chocolate mousse. YUMMY! That was the first time I was able to eat lamb and it was delicious. The area is beautiful. It's nice a quiet town surrounded by beach. Heather takes a ferry into the city for work every day.
Tony has all kinds of radio equipment in the kitchen. They also have this old radio and phone. Beneath the phone, you can see a good picture of Tony and Heather.
These were taken from their back patio. The third picture you can see Waiheke Island. That island is on our "to see list".
We have been fortunate to visit friends from work that live all over the Auckland area. Last night we had dinner with another work mate of Mikes. Marty and his wife Bronwyn came over for Enchiladas, rice and smashed salad. Mike did a great job on the Enchiladas. I messed up the rice, I am struggling with rice here. I am just going to have to stick with my Uncle Bens, no matter the cost. It was a fun evening and we learned about a new stout that I actually liked. An Australian beer called Cascade Stout. It has a good chocolate flavour and was most likely the reason why had to go up a notch on my belt this morning. This afternoon we are going to a cookout. I will have pictures for the next PA post.
Lastly, I would like to introduce you to my niece Rianna Pellino and her band Vedette. They are a band in Virginia Beach, VA. They do covers from Journey, Chaka Khan, Sam Cooke and Pink...just to name a few. I will have to pass you over to my Diabetic Duo page, because I can't load music on here. So, click this link and you can hear them do "Lights" by Journey.
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