Hold your fucking horses people! The lovely Gina from AirNZ just called, and she has managed to get us on a flight on the 27th - 3 days EARLIER than the flight we got bumped from!

Legend!

2020 has still been a bitch, but I'm gonna celebrate one of the small wins tonight

Firstly thanks to everyone who has shared on this thread. Absolute legends all. I certainly have benefitted from reading your stories.

Thought I'd add a little colour to what prompted me to start this thread.

A little over a year ago I was in a strange space. Not depressed, but bored and stale. Same job for 14yrs, stuck in the crazy hectic Sydney life of work, traffic and running around after 3 kids. Doing OK financially, but locked in a high-opex Sydney life meaning both of us were working pretty hard. Mum back in NZ with terminal lung cancer, time remaining unknown.

Decided to take a year off and reset, managed to secure a sabbatical from work, and moved the whole family to Bali. Thought by not working I'd be able to get back to NZ fairly easily to see Mum as needed.

Obviously 2020 got in the way of most of that, and we find ourselves back in Sydney again, back into the hectic lives we left behind - just without the cultural experience we had hoped for and with a big hole in our savings!

Had started back at work early given we were back in Sydney, and although some of the staleness remained, I had a new found appreciation for the stability of a job I still liked. Until a week ago that is, when I found out my company is exiting the country in a few months . It was announced to the market just last night, whic is why I haven't posted until now. Looks like I have a role until April, after which I'll be job hunting (haven't had a job interview since March 2005...eeek!).

I certainly don't write this to complain, I am very conscious that many folk on here have had extraordinary events happen in their lives, and 2020 has totally destroyed some peoples lives around the world - like many others have said, that has made me very thankful for all I have.

But its been quite interesting to find out a bit about myself this year. Before 2020 nothing really bothered me. Never really got anxious about much, was always pretty confident. That definitely got shaken up this year. Even the minor task of getting the family back to Sydney from NZ caused me an inordinate amount of anxiety at the time, and now I find myself pretty stressed again at the thought of seeking and (hopefully) starting a new role.

Turns out I really do value stability in my life. Routine. A sense of control, whether its real or not. I am looking forward to getting that back, the volatility of 2020 has really not been enjoyable.

Thanks again to all those who have shared, and to the wider Fern community. 2020 would have been a whole lot worse without you horrible cnts to "talk" to.

Wtf is going on here

So in all this chaos, here is a great kiwiana story for youse all.

I'm in Day 2 of iso, and have a Countdown delivery order coming today. I tried to change the address online yesterday because we changed our accommodation after I placed the order, but couldn't do it. I spoke to the local store, and they said to call back this morning.

So I grab the phone this morning and hit the most recently called number. But I'd forgotten that we ordered fish'n'chip delivery for dinner last night, so Anna, the owner of the chippy picks up instead.

At 7am.

Oops

Anyway, I apologise, she asks who I was trying to call, we get chatting. Less than 45 minutes later she has dropped off eggs, bread, butter and
crackers to our driveway for brekkie.

What a fucking legend.

It's good to be home.

Mods, feel free to delete if innapropriate or unnecessary, but I wondered if it might be worthwhile having somewhere for our little community to ask for or offer help to each other.

People could post requests (advice, favours, whatever) or offer assistance in some way.

For example, it sounds like many people could be becoming unemployed in the near future. Maybe Ferners can assist with CV reviews, job market advice, financial modelling for home budgets etc.

Obviously physical movements are limited so don't any of youse hit me up to help weed your garden...

I'm aliiiiive!!!!!!!

All went pretty smooth in the end. Up at 4am, easy drive to Akl, 5mins wait with the police at the border.

All the airline staff were awesome, plane totally empty, and the pokice and army at the Sydney end were all great.

Ended up at the Meriton Suites in the CBD - 2 bed, 2 bath, 3 tv apartment on the 29th floor, ocean glimpses west and north, city views south,and a balcony with real fresh air. Really cant complain!

Aside from the fucken NBA being cancelled of course!!!

@Stargazer said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:

I don't see the problem with including this lady's death in the numbers. Even if COVID-19 was the primary cause of her death, it was likely a contributing/secundary factor. If she hadn't had COVID, she might have lived (a bit) longer, even at her age.

Oh come on! She recovered and tested negative twice! You might as well chalk her death up to the chicken pox she had as a 5yr old or the head cold she got when working in the seafood markets as a 30yr old.

I have a 74yr old mother with lung cancer and months to live. If she got Covid now, it would likely be lethal, and of course would be recorded as a Covid death. But even then, I still wouldn't say she died of Covid, she is dying of bloody lung cancer!!!

Its absurd to consider this recovered case as a Covid death if we want to use the figures for any useful analysis of the virus.

Results are in, Negative - hell yeah! !!

@taniwharugby said in 'Forbidden' error:

@nta said in 'Forbidden' error:

@mariner4life yes. Wrong fucking thread, of course

I keep having this issue where, unless I refresh the entire forum, anything I do gets "Forbidden" notifications. This time I reloaded and went to the wrong thread

I only get it on my phone and if I close the reply box, refresh the page and click reply again it works...

Same, a refresh always works, that's why I didn't raise an issue troubling our codemaster

@nta said in Aussie Rugby:

@mariner4life yes. Wrong fucking thread, of course

I keep having this issue where, unless I refresh the entire forum, anything I do gets "Forbidden" notifications. This time I reloaded and went to the wrong thread

I get that also

@mariner4life said in Happiness Scale:

@nta said in Happiness Scale:

@mariner4life said in Happiness Scale:

there is absolutely no part of preseason i miss.

Particularly not in Sweatsville, QLD. Fuck ALL of that humidity.

becasue of the stupid structure of the season we used to start rep preseason in October, and go right through summer

it sucked. like, so much

That's why you're so skinny. Imagine, if @NTA lived up your way, he would probably be 85kgs and playing #9....

@kiwiwomble said in Happiness Scale:

@paekakboyz said in Happiness Scale:

Awesome!! Im a long time retired and I can only imagine how the first few weeks of contact will feel!
Fuck I miss it!! I love the gym and weights but being able to unleash on the paddock is something else.
And when a forward pack really starts humming its a magic thing to be a part of.

The running and conditioning was a bit rough...but that first scrum felt pretty good

Spoken like a true hooker

@mokey amazing, congrats!

Edit: Don't any of you other fuckers get any ideas about overachieving and posting it here. This place used to stand as a bastion of mediocrity, and I felt very welcome and secure here.

@kiwiwomble said in Happiness Scale:

i think there has been a couple of threads that have touched on similar topics and im not really sure the best one so i'll stick this in here and move if needs be

so, i decided during lockdown last year i was going to get back into playing rugby, wife was working long hours and quite honestly i just got a bit lonely at night

found a club not too far away here in melbourne and preseason started training started late Jan.

jeez, a real wake up call, apparently jogging just doesn;t cut it on the fitness scales, having a proper conditioning coach is helping and can at least finish a session without having to take a break to "stretch"

some real trouble with knees/achilles/calf's as have had issues with them in the past. slowly coming right though through proper training

can i also just add the back of the lineout seem a lot further away that i remember from the last time i played!

preseason games started this week, if anyone wants to feel a but queasy i can provide photos of my back from the first game, black/blue and red

in general i feel good though, great to meet loads of new blokes ranging from the 20 years olds trying to go pro to some older hats waiting for the squads to sperate so the 3rds can spend at least one training run at the pub

and interesting development is the wife, started making comments about missing me being out 2-3 nights a weeks and Saturday games still on the horizon

will settle down i think as i have no expectations above the 3rds and so should get a night back a week

just interesting how things change a bit

Brilliant mate

@mariner4life said in The rebuild of M4L and a new challenge:

@paekakboyz visceral fat dropped from a 7 to a 3 (anything under 10 is apparently good)

I joined Virgin Active last week. Time to get a bit stronger.

They have one of those BodiScan machines, I can't imagine its as accurate as a full scan, but the umbers looked accurate enough for me.

My visceral fat was 10 (eek!), body fat 22.5%

Funny looking at the body picture too, my arms and legs are bright green pictures of health, then there is a massive tumour-esq red fucking blob where my abs are supposed to be

@mikethesnow @Donsteppa it was the correlation that got me, pretty wild.