Mar 24, 2011

Ohinemuri River

The normally clear and quiet Ohinemuri river runs through the Karangahake gorge between Waihi and Paeroa. This is near the site of the 1875 gold rush. This shot taken after a long night of rain.


Mar 20, 2011

Grace at the Tga Rail Bridge

I have got to show you these. Grace and I had to fill in 20 minutes while Robyn went shopping in town. We went down to the rail bridge for  a bit of exploring and a few pics. Check out the contrast between the first pic and the last three! This is 100% Grace all I did was point the camera at her! I like the graffiti element.
 



Mar 17, 2011

Jeffrey Archer. His latest

This guy writes a great story. I am not sure if I would have been that interested reading Archer in my 20's but now (4 decades later!) I find his stories really down to earth and they are page turners.
Kane & Abel for example is a fantastic story. In my view a classic. So far Only Time Will Tell is equally as good. 
My biggest plus for Archer is no LA cops or detectives and very few if any shoot outs. God am I over all of that. Every book you pick up now have those elements as their central theme.  Try this author you may be surprised.

Mar 16, 2011

Meditierranean Diet

For folks who want a more conventional approach to healthy eating (versus a strictly whole foods plant based approach) may be interested in a new study published on March the 15th. Link.
What I extracted here is their definition of the Med Diet. Note its essentially daily intake of whole foods and low fat dairy and weekly fish or poultry. The fatty acids are obtained from olives and olive oil.
What's been happening in the USA and here in NZ is that the Med diet has been interpreted as being able to swamp our more traditional already fatty and highly processed foods with additional olive oil or any vegetable oil for that matter. Take a look at almost all recipes now days and they mostly have oil in them. Our daily food intake is oozing with oil even many of our breads. Check it out you might be surprised.
We went to a nice cafe on the weekend and I ordered a roasted vegetable panini with a green side salad. It was lovely tasteing but strictly not that great nutritionally. The salad was covered in oil, the panini was white flour based (probably made with oil as well) and covered in butter and the roasted veg was also well oiled. Interesting and I should not have been eating it!

The study is published in the March 15 issue of the Journal of the American
College of Cardiology.

extract
The Mediterranean diet is a pattern marked by daily consumption of fruits,
vegetables, whole grain cereals, and low-fat dairy products; weekly consumption
of fish, poultry, tree nuts, and legumes; high consumption of monounsaturated
fatty acids, primarily from olives and olive oils; and a moderate daily
consumption of wine or other alcoholic beverages, normally with meals. Red meat
intake and processed foods are kept to a minimum.

Mar 13, 2011

Day 80 Plant Based Diet

It's now more of a life style than a diet as such. Health wise all seems good. Blood pressure is down, now hitting figures like 116/65 in the mornings (way down on this time last year). Weight around 71.5kgs (down from 80kg's).
Strength and energy seem fine for an old guy!
Robs also doing really well with her health and the cooking side of things. I am off to Asia for a few days in a couple of weeks that will be interesting, Going with Singapore airlines and have ordered special food. Never done that before. God knows what I will get. Off to the GP next week. I have not seen him since last year when he told me the targets the cardiologist had set were unnatural. But we hit these weeks ago,
Rode my bike today up 4 steep hills, Really pleasing. Yesterday on the bike I held 75 to 80% (max 90%) heart rate for 1hr 10min all good no problems. So fingers crossed we are on the right track.

Mar 9, 2011

Wilmot "Doc" Oliver

Sarah's Grandfather.
I met this gentlemen at Rob and Sarah's wedding and took this picture.
I never knew him but from what Sarah and Rob have told me he was a character and a man who loved the horses and his mates at the RSA where he is reported to have been a prolific raffle winner. He also liked the occasional Drambuie.
 He was a well known Tauranga businessman in years gone bye. He passed away on March the 7th.
He left his wife of 57 years.

Jon Mayson

Tauranga Businessman. This sketch by Warren Banks.

Mar 5, 2011

Grace's 5th Birthday

Here she is. Sparkling as usual.
YouTube Link to show you the shots from the party.

Mar 4, 2011

A City Shaking Violently

To me this is one of the most stunning pictures (I obtained it from the Internet) to come out of the latest major quake in Christchurch. The awesome forces at work are on display and its obvious the destruction when the dust clears will be big and it was!

Mar 2, 2011

Day 70 Plant Based Diet

With all that's happening in Christchurch its difficult to justify writing up this blog. In fact apart from work and family things right now my motivation is fairly average for hobbies and the likes.
But for the sake of the record our new life style of plant based and whole food eating is going really well. Robyn is getting hooked into the cooking aspect (not to be taken lightly) and shopping is almost a joke. We are bringing bags of the stuff in almost daily and it seems to go nowhere.
So all good. Halved my statin drugs already, exercising well no problems and weight seems to have settled at about 7kgs below the start point 70 days ago. The Cardiologist was a little surprised at the progress with hitting his low total and LDL cholestrol targets so qiuickly. (They are set so low our Dr said "that's unnatural")

Grace

A Reed connection

James and Kahumahinga refered to below are my GG Grandparents on mum's side. (nee Pauline Reed)
Not sure which person is their granddaughter. Click on the title to link back to the source of the picture.

From the Alexander Turnbull Library
The Wallace family on the verandah of their house. A Maori pattern has been carved into a panel which runs along the front of the verandah.Also includes one of the granddaughter's of the whaler James Reed and Kahumahinga of Ngati Toa, the daughter of Sarah Reed and Spencer Von Strumer. Kahumahinga was the daughter of Paretona, a sister Werawera, who was the grandfather of Te Rauparaha. To the Maori mind they were very closely related.