Mr. and Mrs. Heeringa

Congratulations (Belated, of course) to Ilse and Matt on their wedding, Hooray for the happy couple! This is a result of trudging through our photo files, and the realization that we have not paid them any respects. It was a great day/weekend had by all, and a particularly beautiful Bride and Bridal Party.

Matt and Ilse

World famous in the Aro Street Video Store

So we had a bit of excitement today in Aro Valley. Well, let me clarify; there was excitement today in Aro Valley, but I wasn't there to experience it. A couple minutes walk from our house is a little video shop called Aro Video Store. And today, the Flight of the Conchords held a secret performance there to launch the NZ version of their DVD. Choosing that video shop was a rather unusual place for a launch party - it is a smallish two story house converted into a store.. and they could only fit 50 people inside. But it looked rather comical. Too bad I missed it...

It does seem that I have a lot in common with Germaine and Bret. Born in the same city, we went to the same school, university, and had some stints in the US. I gave Germaine a friendly punch on the arm when I walked past him in Courtenay place, and dressed up in his eagle costume at the sevens. So we are practically long lost brothers.

Lent

Celebrating Lent I don't think is a particularly Reformed thing to do. However, I think it would be worthwhile to engage in prayer and fasting of some sort, as a way to focus on Easter. Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days while he was tempted. I can't help thinking that for me to take a vow of 'no meat' or 'no booze' for 40 days is in some ways missing the point. Jesus fasted that he might overcome temptation, and to reject the ways of the Devil. Yet he didn't do this for himself, he did this for us - that he might defeat the Kingdom of Satan and in turn allow us to enter his Kingdom. I need to think of a way to make Lent reflect that. Over and out.

Waitangi Day

For those of you not in the know, or have forgotten since I told you last, tomorrow is Waitangi Day (pronounced something like why tongue eee). A day where we commiserate/celebrate - depending on your views - the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi - named after the place it was signed at. The Treaty of Waitangi was in a sense NZ's founding document, signed in 1840, and formed a treaty between the British Crown and a bunch of Maori tribes.

Over the years though it has been a source of grief for three reasons. Firstly, the British didn't really respect the Maori property rights expressed in the document, and took a lot of Maori tribal land. Secondly, there was a great deal of difference between what was expressed in the Maori and English versions of the treaty, and most of the misunderstanding is over how the concept of 'sovereignty' is applied. And thirdly, Helen Clark tiresomely uses it to remind us year after year how once she was shouted at and made to cry by some crazed Maori woman activist when trying to speak at the Marae during Waitangi celebrations. Just another one of the many reasons why you shouldn't be voting Labour in the 2008 election.

And in other news, we had a pretty good time at the Wellington 2008 Sevens. We dressed up as the two main characters from Eagle vs Shark. Had pretty good feedback on our costumes, lots of people asked us to take our pictures. There was a Stuff.co.nz blog entry about us, and some random guy also made a blog post (not a bad photographer actually). So we are pretty famous.