Happy St. Patrick's Day
I just came back from walking E and J to a birthday party. The birthday girl is Julia's age but she has a brother who is Ethan's age and they were nice enough to invite over both kids. It was a half an hour walk and its a two hour party so I will have to leave in an hour to go pick them up. I've put Noah down for a quick kip (nap).
Thursday morning, since Talie was busy, I took the kids to school which was nice. On Thursday Julia has school (she's in year 2), Ethan has kindy and Noah has creche. I was a bit late for work but the hours are reasonably flexible. Certainly worth it.
At lunch time on Thursday I walked over to Te Papa museum for a free lecture on Maori carving, part of the Wellington International Arts Festival. It was great and neat because we (Talie, the kids and I) had spoken to one of the carvers at the carving school in Rotorua. The lecturer described the techniques used and difference between the traditional stone tools and the steel tools many carvers use today. When the Europeans arrived in NZ the Maori quickly discovered the benefits of steel and, according to the lecturer, many of the traditional carvings are actually done with non-traditional steel tools. They passed around one large and one small stone adze...man are they sharp and they keep their edge longer than steel tools. There is now a revival going on for the use of stone tools. We also heard the story behind the design (a footprint of a bird) in one of the Maori carving styles. Very cool!
I can't think of a segway so...geekiness ahead!
At work we were discussing how none of my children have red hair. I tried but to no avail. When the time comes, I figure that I have a good chance of having red-headed grandchildren. Lets assume simple Mendelian genetics, which is probably a pretty big assumption, and assume that red hair the recessive phenotype (rr), a more reasonable assumption. I would have passed an r onto the kids and Nathalie would have passed on an R....so all the kids are heterozygous (Rr) for that trait. Given that there is a lot of redheads in NZ, I figure a large proportion of people carry Rr. Rr x Rr gives genotypes of 25 % RR, 50% Rr and 25% rr, meaning phenotypically 25% of my grandchildren could be Ginga' (the NZ term for redheads).
This all reminds me how much I enjoyed grade 13 and 1st year university Biology (mostly genetics) and Chemistry. I wish there was some use for knowing that the charge of Phosphate (PO4) is negative 3 and the genotypic ratio of a cross between individuals heterozygous at two loci is 9:3:3:1. I think teaching at that level would be fun...
Last night we went out for St. Patrick's Day, without the kids. We have exchanged babysitting nights with our friends from the States (or America as they would call it here). We had an excellent time...it was really nice being out alone. We hung out with work mates and our new mates from Ottawa. For dinner we had a table full of different preparations of mussles....and they were absolutely amazing! At one point in the night I noticed that one of my friends and his girl friend were never seen at the same point...totally Polkaroo. A cultural reference totally lost on my Kiwi, Aussie, and Pom friends. This made me start thinking that most my childhood cultural references will not be understood here...strange.
I also tried New Zealand meat pies...very similar to tortieres, though the one I tried had slices of steak and cheese in it.
Alright...back to go get the kids. BTW Noah didn't sleep at all...he escaped his room and sat beside me while I wrote this.
Thursday morning, since Talie was busy, I took the kids to school which was nice. On Thursday Julia has school (she's in year 2), Ethan has kindy and Noah has creche. I was a bit late for work but the hours are reasonably flexible. Certainly worth it.
At lunch time on Thursday I walked over to Te Papa museum for a free lecture on Maori carving, part of the Wellington International Arts Festival. It was great and neat because we (Talie, the kids and I) had spoken to one of the carvers at the carving school in Rotorua. The lecturer described the techniques used and difference between the traditional stone tools and the steel tools many carvers use today. When the Europeans arrived in NZ the Maori quickly discovered the benefits of steel and, according to the lecturer, many of the traditional carvings are actually done with non-traditional steel tools. They passed around one large and one small stone adze...man are they sharp and they keep their edge longer than steel tools. There is now a revival going on for the use of stone tools. We also heard the story behind the design (a footprint of a bird) in one of the Maori carving styles. Very cool!
I can't think of a segway so...geekiness ahead!
At work we were discussing how none of my children have red hair. I tried but to no avail. When the time comes, I figure that I have a good chance of having red-headed grandchildren. Lets assume simple Mendelian genetics, which is probably a pretty big assumption, and assume that red hair the recessive phenotype (rr), a more reasonable assumption. I would have passed an r onto the kids and Nathalie would have passed on an R....so all the kids are heterozygous (Rr) for that trait. Given that there is a lot of redheads in NZ, I figure a large proportion of people carry Rr. Rr x Rr gives genotypes of 25 % RR, 50% Rr and 25% rr, meaning phenotypically 25% of my grandchildren could be Ginga' (the NZ term for redheads).
This all reminds me how much I enjoyed grade 13 and 1st year university Biology (mostly genetics) and Chemistry. I wish there was some use for knowing that the charge of Phosphate (PO4) is negative 3 and the genotypic ratio of a cross between individuals heterozygous at two loci is 9:3:3:1. I think teaching at that level would be fun...
Last night we went out for St. Patrick's Day, without the kids. We have exchanged babysitting nights with our friends from the States (or America as they would call it here). We had an excellent time...it was really nice being out alone. We hung out with work mates and our new mates from Ottawa. For dinner we had a table full of different preparations of mussles....and they were absolutely amazing! At one point in the night I noticed that one of my friends and his girl friend were never seen at the same point...totally Polkaroo. A cultural reference totally lost on my Kiwi, Aussie, and Pom friends. This made me start thinking that most my childhood cultural references will not be understood here...strange.
I also tried New Zealand meat pies...very similar to tortieres, though the one I tried had slices of steak and cheese in it.
Alright...back to go get the kids. BTW Noah didn't sleep at all...he escaped his room and sat beside me while I wrote this.
Comments
dad
Mom
Its nice to have that special bond with my fellow Canadians but its also neat learning about Kiwi culture.