@JK said in Dad advice sharing thread.:

@Paekakboyz said in Dad advice sharing thread.:

@JK has jnr given any indication of what he'd prefer?

Yeah he initially was keen to repeat U10 as bowling wont be as fast but he would also then need to deal with the shite bowling he encountered last year that sometime doesnt even land on the pitch!

Anyway, since I've posted it looks like the 3 other lads in his team from last year are all keen to play under 11 (well thats what the parents say) so looks like we are going for that. Club said would apply for a dispensation from Auckland Cricket for them to play U11s BUT the kids would need to be available for Under 10 reps if selected

Update....got that dispensation so the lad is playing up a grade in under 11s. 3rd game of the season and he picked up a hattick today and all of them were bowled. Slowest bowler in the team but pretty much always a Yorker or just short of and if you miss then he hits. Proud dad!!!

Edit - vid of hattrick ball

You can see how little he is vs some of the others

@MajorRage said in Going Vegetarian / Vegan ..:

Look, it's all the rage, we have a thread about a meatless BK burger, we have a thread about eating meat in Austin, and a dedicated thread to BBQ'ing ... so lets get one going.

Firstly, asking for a friend.

Secondly - so has anybody done it?

Yeah had a friend that went full vegan a couple of years back. He died pretty soon after though.....

.....to me anyway

Farken cracked it on the weekend with the pre match pep talk. Always try give the lad a bit of a rev up on the way to the game and try and inspire him to put in a good performance.

Usually its very much "do this", 'don't do that' sorta stuff and basically telling him to make sure he gets involved and not swan about in the backs. This week I was crapping on (pretty much all I do) to him about leaving everything out on the field in terms of his effort. I said "if you were to sit back and watch a replay of the game, how would you want to feel about how you played? What would you want to see?" Immediately he said that he would want to feel proud of his efforts and not be seen to be slacking off. I said "That's a good idea Phin, make yourself proud of your performance"

Well what a game, 4 tries and could have been 5 (just touched the sideline apparently). 14 tackles, multiple good runs, clean passing and catching, lots of support. It really was something to behold. He knew it to. When he came off at the end of the game he gave me one of those smiling nods (kinda led by the chin and eye brows at the same time), you know the one. He was chuffed and quite frankly so was I. Only cost me $4.80 too in performance payments.

Teaching my 8 year old son how to kick goals yesterday and I smacked a couple over from out near half way (albeit pretty much straight in front) and he asked why I didn't kick for the all blacks. Could only offer up that I can't tackle for Shit. Also slow, unfit and couldn't throw a skip pass to save myself

How GOOOOOOD was that???

Best Father's Day for ages!!

JKjnrs first hardball cricket season is done and dusted. Fair to say...he is hooked.

Batting and bowling really improved over the season. Fielding too actually, really sharp when it comes to throwing down the wickets, just needs to work on those first time clean pickups.

Ended up as leading bowler for his team is terms of number of wickets, strike rate, average and economy. Batting not as good as just doesnt hit the boundaries the other kids do but gets bat on ball a lot and keeps runs ticking over. Only got out 5 times in the 15 games he played so thats pleasing.

Made his reps team too for takapuna and won the north harbour competion as well as a quadrangular tournament where they smashed each of University, Cornwall and Howick-Pak who are much bigger and strong clubs. First time takapuna has done this at that age level so pretty big acheivement for the boys.

Now on to the rugby season!

A couple of mates and I Decided while drunk at New Years to surprise the boys with a trip to Wellington to watch blues v canes, and we hoped the blues would have had a better season but ah well the lads still loved the surprise when we broke it to them at 11am Saturday after they’d finished their game. That was about the highlight.....

2pm flight got delayed 230 then 3pm then cancelled as the part they had used to repair the plane was the wrong part. AirNZ told us we were rebooked to the 7pm flight but hell that wasnt gonna work. The combo of dad rage and sad 7 and 8 year old boys seemed to get the desired impact and we were rebooked to the 5pm flight so looked like we still had a chance. 11 of us in to koru and a good session was had. Extended session too as 5pm got rescheduled to 545 then 620 then 630 we boarded and finally took off at 7farken25!!! Landed before half time and shuttled to the ground and into the lounge for the last 30mins so at least the kids got to visit the caketin and witness the canes tear us a new one.

They also got to experience classic wet and windy Wellington weather on Sunday, a (lost?) whale in Wellington harbour and te papa. Oh and and another extended koru session thanks for more delays coming home Sunday night.

Couldn’t really tell you much about the rugby. Best I read the posts above to find out what happened in the 50mins we missed.

@Hooroo said in No kids, any regrets?:

@chimoaus said in No kids, any regrets?:

@Hooroo Thanks for sharing, yes can be tough that is for sure. The wife had some big regrets in her 30's when friends etc were having kids, but now we are past that age it's not really an issue. We couldn't bring ourselves to tell the MIL at the time, she took it pretty hard. My mum was ok as she already had plenty of grandkids.

The only "gloat" time is when I catch up with a bunch of mates and their families and we have a massive bbq late into the night and having to see/hear them deal with their kids first thing the next morning.

I generally smile and roll over for some more sleep

Mine can make coffee now and cook bacon and eggs in such situations. They first 8 or so years though......useless

Surprised no thread on this, actually no i'm not.

But anyway, been working out there as a scorer for the last 4 days and walking around with the groups. Apart from yesterdays hoohaa (out of their hands as LPGA said wanted it to be 72 holes and extended to today rather than called short to 54) it has been a very well run tournament. We got some pretty good names here and most delivered in terms of quality of play. Must say that these girls can really hit the ball and are dam accurate.

I worked with different groups each day but highlights were definitely Gaby Lopez and Ryan O'toole on Friday, Brooke Henderson on saturday and then a great group yesterday of Ryan again, Alena Sharp from Canada and Cheyenne Woods (tigers niece) yesterday. All very chatty throughout the round and its clear these girls have a great time out of tour, much like the guys appear to.

Saw a bit of Lydia out and about and the crowds just love her. Must be massive pressure on here as everywhere she goes people are shouting out "Go lydia" etc and asking to pics and autographs. She's played ok but actually was coughing and sniffing a lot. Could be sick, could be hayfever, dunno.

The course is pretty good for only being a year or so old. Fairly flat and wide fairways but the rough is ROUGH and often unplayable. Not overly long at all but was set up for the ladies. Not too many tees could have gone back much further. Greens look good. Slick (for NZ) and not many flat ones. I will be playing out there in a few weeks and fairly confident I can burn it up

Play called off yesterday after numerous weather suspensions. We started at 8am and got 15 holes done. It was farken rough out there with sideways rain at times, hail and some ferocious winds which actually blew to bits the sponsorship signs on a couple of the holes. We were on the 15th green when the signs on the 16th tee pretty much exploded and blew in to a lake about 50m away. Pretty scary stuff.

Brooke should win it from here. 4 shot lead with 12 to play. She has super focus and do what is required today.

Also road riding scares me...... occasionally I have to ride a bit of state highway to get to trails or back to car etc and fark its horrible, especially the midges etc on the road side that ya have to ride through (must remember to keep mouth shut)

@voodoo said in Road Cycling:

@WillieTheWaiter said in Road Cycling:

@Chris-B said in Road Cycling:

Saw a guy in TJV gear riding towards me the other day and thought, that looks a lot like George.

Sure enough...

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/433701/george-bennett-to-return-to-racing-in-new-zealand

he was doing 6 hour rides on Zwift in the bathroom of his quarantine hotel. faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark that!

That's just disgusting. Nobody should have that level of mental capacity.

1hr on zwift and I'm mentally cooked.

Never tried zwift but have a mate whos on at me all the time about it, so much that I refuse to provide any kudos to his strava zwift efforts. I always smoke him out on the trails too but think its more about his inability to go full noise downhill and over drops and jumps (quickly becoming the way for me too).

So how does zwift actually work? (I dont wanna ask mate as he will think I've caved). There is a fat guy at work who always has rides of 30 odd km in about an hour. Can you set it so resistance is low or something?

Really looking forward to it as well and stoked that they have been able to get that course B or C as able to be used as those two are just awesome from a spectator perspective. I expect North Head and Mt Vic to be humming when the racing is on. They will be great viewing points.

Course A is also just straight off taka beach so can pretty much watch that one from home. Will definitely check out the pre xmas regatta and then the second half of the prada cup as we will be away all of Jan.

Interesting thread.

In short it's been a tough, well odd, old year but all things considered I'm pretty happy with where I and my family are at.

The thread actually reminded me of my 'brag list' and writing one is something I encourage people to do. It's not often until you get a few things down on paper that you realise actually how much you have t o be proud of and how good things actually are. I looked back on mine yesterday and probably hadn't for about a year. I only edited a couple of the items but still said to myself 'Fark yeah!' so life is pretty good.

Only watched the first 3 episodes so far but yeah farken odd bunch arent they

@Rapido said in Rough tips and other bets...:

Got '13 - Surprise Baby' in office sweep. Happy enough with that.

Cant complain about that. Any horse paying under $20 or so is good value in those office sweepstakes. If you get drawn a roughie (so above $20) make sure ya have a gold coin or two on it at the TAB too at its real odds just in case it wins and then you will get paid what ya deserve.

@Hooroo said in Rough tips and other bets...:

@taniwharugby said in Rough tips and other bets...:

@Smudge so who do I throw my $5 away on?

Always bet on 7 I reckon!

Easybet

100% You will need luck to win it and easy bet is a great way of doing it.

I'm deep on about 6 runners and prob 8 by 5pm. Prob havent found the winner yet but will have bet around it nicely.

@JK said in What are you listening to, right now................:

Over the weekend Miss 8 declared that Hole was her favourite band....from what I can tell she's only heard Malibu and its been on high rotate #gateway

Oh and the link to the above post....well Malibu was co-written by Billy Corgan

Over the weekend Miss 8 declared that Hole was her favourite band....from what I can tell she's only heard Malibu and its been on high rotate #gateway

@Hooroo said in No kids, any regrets?:

@chimoaus said in No kids, any regrets?:

@Hooroo Thanks for sharing, yes can be tough that is for sure. The wife had some big regrets in her 30's when friends etc were having kids, but now we are past that age it's not really an issue. We couldn't bring ourselves to tell the MIL at the time, she took it pretty hard. My mum was ok as she already had plenty of grandkids.

The only "gloat" time is when I catch up with a bunch of mates and their families and we have a massive bbq late into the night and having to see/hear them deal with their kids first thing the next morning.

I generally smile and roll over for some more sleep

Mine can make coffee now and cook bacon and eggs in such situations. They first 8 or so years though......useless