skywatch Friday: Aucklandsky

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Skywatch Friday: pink skies

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My young female students tell me that pink is their favorite color. Who will dispute that?

Skywatch Friday: Remembering Samoa Tsunami

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Today, our winter is back, a drizzling grey sky. I woke up to read this strange news. How uncanny is that. My grandfather used to tell us, there are spirits, the unhappy ones, to be more direct, they are Ghosts.

The photo shows the most of the trees are still barren. Last year, these Samoan boys were raising funds for the Tsunami. They are wearing their lava-lava.

APIA - An earthquake was felt today in Samoa almost at the same hour the
tsunami struck a year ago.

With a magnitude of 5.5 it was significantly less than the the 8.8
earthquake which caused the tsunami that Samoa is commemorating today.

The event today which lasted mere seconds occurred at 08.49am local time
(7.49am NZT) while survivors of the tsunami from last year were
preparing for commemorative services to remember those who perished.

According to the Europe Centre of Seismology the epicentre of the 40km
deep quake was 201km from South Siumu, which is one of the areas that
was severely hit by the tsunami last year.

Fortunately it did not last long although some locals were unsettled by
the event.

Thousands of Samoans are today remembering the 149 residents and
tourists killed in last year's tsunami, with services beginning early
this morning. Another 34 people were killed in American Samoa and nine
in Tonga.
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/8042647/quake-rocks-samoa-on-tsunami-anniversary/

skywatch Friday: Winter sun

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In the mountains of Tongariro, the sky was clear at the early winter. The air is crisp and unpolluted.

skywatch Friday: Goodbye to winter

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The weatherman didn't bring a good winter. It had been cold and wet and floods.

My student road patrol and the teacher in charge will be glad that it is the last Friday of winter. Hopefully it is bye bye to rain.

Skywatch Friday: Traffic cones

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We have a wet winter, but that special day of July 25th, we had a beautiful day. Our sky was blue with a few clouds floating in the air. Everyone enjoyed at the opening of our Mangere bridge.

Jama and other Singapore blogger can refresh my memory. When the American Graffiti tagger Michael Fay appeared in court, he was also found with traffic signs, road signs and traffic cones.

His lawyer argued to the effect," It is Michael's culture to indulge in such harmless activities. Every boy in USA would have one of these items in their bedroom as a kind of initiation. All very harmless."

But the Singapore Government didn't buy this even though President Clinton tried to intervene. Michael Fay was caned and sent to prison.

Today, some idiot in New Zealand has called over the Facebook to encourage people to steal cones. Luckily the police found it. Such irresponsibility deserves what Michael Fay got. Unfortunately, New Zealand law is lax.

Idiots don't think that traffic cones are for the safety of everyone. It costs $70 each, and who pays for it? The tax payer of course.

Superintendent Kelvin Powell, Acting National Manager Operations Support, said
"This is an act of theft and could also result in a serious accident causing death or injury," said Mr Powell.

"These cones are there for a reason to warn members of the public of road works or obstructions and are part of safety measures, required under law, by local authorities and roading contractors to keep people safe."

"This is a stupid prank and we would ask anyone who is thinking of stealing a cone to think again," he said.

Acts endangering safety
• Every person is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months or a fine not exceeding $2,000 who, in any public place, without reasonable excuse and in circumstances likely to cause injury,—
• (a) Places or makes any obstruction; or
• (b) Digs and leaves any hole; or
• (c) Removes any protective structure or any warning sign or device.

Police will charge anyone found in possession of road cones unlawfully.


http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/warning-over-steal-road-cone-day-3687335

Warning over 'steal a road cone day'

Friday August 06, 2010
A Facebook campaign encouraging people to steal orange road cones has caught the attention of police.

A message is doing the rounds on the social networking site about a "steal a road cone day" tomorrow.

So far, 7000 people have confirmed they will "attend" the event. Organisers also want people to post images of themselves with the cones on the site.

Skywatch Friday: Rainbow

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I usually do not wake up early, but I did yesterday because I had visitors. I made a strange discovery. Rainbows come from the water spout of my house and the pot of gold is hidden under my tree. I am like Chicken Licken, and I must go and tell the king. LOL

I was rewarded for my wakey wakey, rise and shine. There were two rainbows.

Skywatch Friday:

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This morning was freezing, but the sun came up. The sky exhausted her supply of rain after deluging us for a week, causing severe flood in many parts of the country.

skywatch Friday: LPG

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I was curious with this big tanker that pulled up at the gas station. It was delivering LPG. Liquefied petroleum gas (also called LPG, GPL, LP Gas, or autogas) is a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases used as a fuel in heating appliances and vehicles, and increasingly replacing chlorofluorocarbons as an aerosol propellant and a refrigerant to reduce damage to the ozone layer.

In my late teens, my mum in Borneo used LPG for her cooking. The gas came in canisters. Here in Auckland, I see customers take their empty canisters to fill them with LPG in the gas station.

This is a real story which my friend told me. In Miri town, there is a lot of natural gas. The Shell company has pipes to households. This gas is much cheaper than the gas pumped in the canisters.

A man living just at the fringe of gas pipes complained that he had to pay so much for the gas canister, while his next door neighbour gets his piped-in gas for a fraction of his gas. The gas delivery man told of how the gas company had to pay for extra pipes to be laid, people to fill up the canister, to load on to the truck and then pay the delivery man. The man said, save your cock and bull story, what if I just puncture a hole, and weld my pipe to the mains.

The sky was overcast that day I took the photo.