Family

My family is spread over the world. Our Children: Sandra, is married to Ben Fankhauser and living in Geelong just out of Melbourne as a mother of Amy, Chad and Holly, My son Shane, is teaching guitar and playing in bands in Manchester England. He has a wee daughter, Sabine, with partner Nichola. He's done a music degree specialising in Jazz guitar. Glen, did an IT degree at Vic and now lives in New York. I have a sister Sue, who lives here in Napier, pictured here with my mother who lived out at Bayview on the old family orchard until she died on the 31st March 2006.

Me
I was born in Napier and raised on an orchard just north of Bayview, which is 10 km north of Napier. I attended Eskdale Primary School up to form two. High school was next at Napier Boys High. I lived at the orchard till I was 30, except for the year and a half I was in Rotorua and Australia. I moved into Napier when I got married to Christine. Then moved to Tamatea where we bought the house we are still in today.

Four of us were together at Loch Rannoch in Scotland on 29th December 2014. The orchard I was raised on was called Rannoch Orchard. Loch Rannoch is where my paternal ancestors came from.

Work
My working career started with the Bank of New Zealand in Napier. After two years I was transferred to Rotorua North branch. A further year up there was enough office work for me, so I went to Australia for four months. I started work at Pan Pacific Forest Industries in Napier in January 1975, and did some part time work for a security firm. I worked in the sawmill division as an operator in the packaging area. I was on a shift rotation of four ten hour days spread over six days. I retired in early 2018 (16 days short of 44 years)

Spare Time Occupations

Computer
I have built up my own computer from parts bought online. I have a large collection of pics of everything, but specialising in scenes, nature, and satellite photos. I bought a drone and now have a good collection of aerial pics. I have most of them in a shareable folder on a google drive. Most of my time online is spent colllecting music videos, or browsing fishing websites like Sporting Life - Turangi, New Zealand and Taupo and Tongariro Fishing Report . I also spend a lot of time on Facebook, mostly making smart arsed comments. I use Stuff as my browser homepage because of all the links and local news.
   My collection of music videos has reached over 2000. I use Youtube mostly. If you want to save any videos from there, there is an app caled Youtube Downloader.
   From my experience online, I've found it pays not to use a microsoft browser or outlook. They attract virus writers, and a lot of viruses are specific to them. I use Firefox mostly, it is available on the Mozilla website. Thunderbird is a great email program too.

Fishing
My main preference is flyfishing for trout. My favourite place to do this is the Tongariro river which flows into the southern end of Lake Taupo. I also like to fish locally at Lake Tutira or in either of the four main rivers hereabouts; Esk, Tutaekuri, Ngaruroro and Tuki tuki. I currently own a ten foot aluminium boat, for use on Lake Tutira and the central North Island lakes, as well as some sea fishing. The ultimate fishing for me is sight fishing, where you can see the fish you are going for. Close behind this is dry fly fishing. Matching the hatch,,, using a fly that closely resembles what the fish are feeding on.

Motorcycles
I've been riding Harleys since September 2009. My current one is a CVO Breakout which is 110 cu inch (1800 cc ) vee twin. It has lots of chrome aftermarket extras on it like the Vance Hines exhaust pipes,(very loud!) and unique wheels, custom paint job etc. I've added a sissy bar and pad. I belong to the Ulysses club and I am a past president of our branch. We go on group rides every second Sunday. The first requirement to be a Ulysses club member is that you must be over 40 years of age, so it often works out to be a gathering of old farts. We often meet up with members of other branches of Ulysses in various places. A recent one such meeting was a barbecue in Taupo, where over 100 members from around the country turned up. The Ulysses club official motto is "To grow old disgracefully"

Gardening

My Favourite Pics
We went on our big OE in August 2011. First stop Dubai, then in order; France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Leichtenstein, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Monaco, France again, England, Scotland, New York, San Francisco, then home. Dubai was very hot. We left NZ when it was 5 degrees and Dubai was 45 degrees.We went up the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. We then flew to Paris on an Airbus 380. A week was spent with Shane in Paris and travelling around eastern and southern France. We left France on the TGV train at up to 300 KPH, and joined a European tour bus in Brussells. That took us through many European cities and towns and eventually, dropped us off in London. The last part of that trip was on the Eurostar train through the channel tunnel. After a few days in London, we took the eastern train to Edinburgh, Scotland. A couple of days with our Scottish cousins, then on to New York. Four days later saw us in San Francisco, meeting up with Glen who was working there temporarily. A long flight home through Los Angeles to Auckland to Napier.
There are wallpaper sized versions of these pics if anyone wants a copy . And hey, I'll even post you a cd with all of them on !