Of course, the police officer driving towards me could, and he did a U turn to pull me over literally right outside my apartment building.  He explained to me that the police have a carrot and stick approach to infringements like this.  The stick is a $150 fine.  The carrot is that I have 14 days compliance.   If I fix the problem within 14 days and send the police written proof that I’ve gotten the issue fixed, then I won’t have to pay the fine.

That’s task number 1 this weekend.  Task number 2 is to fix the broken mount on the drivers seat.  I’m not having much luck with my car lately.  Between it and my teeth, this has been an expensive couple of months.

Last week, I got the AA in to have a look at it.  The poor guy was lying down on the filthy OGGB floor getting covered in grease under my car for half an hour before he finally gave up and concluded that the starter motor is buggered.  This morning, more AA guys came in and towed the car to a mechanic to get it fixed.  I’m still waiting to hear how much that’s going to cost.

But in a nice touch, when my car was towed out this morning, the carpark attendant called me to make sure that I knew about it.  That was a nice touch, but I do wonder what his alternative scenario might have been – that the AA, with their very distinctively branded cars, have started a second line of business stealing old junkers from carparks?

Because I’d had the root canal, there wasn’t any pain, so I didn’t go see the dentist after six months like I was supposed to.  If I had, they’d probably have detected the failure, and they might have been able to just extract the molar and leave the premolar in place.  But I’ll never know for sure, because I was just too busy to go to the dentist and put it off until I started noticing a little tenderness around that tooth this year.  By then, both roots had collapsed and had to be cut out (not pleasant).

Getting the teeth replaced requires titanium pins to be inserted into my jaw and then crowned, at a cost of $12000 in total.  Next to that, the crown I need (to replace a 15 year old root canal filling) seems downright cheap.  In fact, I’m going to get another molar crowned as well, because it is at risk of cracking and having the same problem as the molar I had extracted.  $1200 for a crown looks pretty good compared to $500 for an extraction and $6000 for an insert.

Why are my teeth so crappy?  Well, it’s not because I don’t brush them regularly or well.  In fact, it’s a little galling to have two teeth removed and then have the dentist and the hygienist gush about how wonderfully clean my teeth are and how I have such excellent oral hygiene.  Make is seem even more unfair.  Nope, it’s probably mostly genetic.  Pretty much everyone in my family has fairly crappy and weak teeth.  Growing up on Waiheke where the water doesn’t contain fluoride probably didn’t help either.

So, if you haven’t been to the dentist in a while, make an appointment now.  Better to spend a little up front than have to spend a huge amount later on.

This picture shows a live snapshot from the Tsunami Gauge Network on the Geonet website.  This snapshot was taken 24 hours after the first surges of the tsunami generated by the magnitute 8.8 quake in Chile yesterday.  The Chathams and Gisborne both had surges greater than 1.5m at times, and many other bays and harbours on the east coast had 1m surges. 

Auckland’s water level was barely ruffled by the tsunami.   Coromandel, Great Barrier and the myriad other islands do a pretty good job of protecting it, not to mention the inner harbour is pretty well protected by the North Shore itself.   Still, Ports of Auckland and the Navy took precautions.  Even a small surge can do a lot of damage to a ship tied up to a port.  PoA had all their ships out of the port by about 10am, with the surge expected at 10:50am.  The car carrier and container ship headed out past Rangitoto, while the Dawn Princess cruise ship hung around in the inner harbour off North Head with dozens of other superyachts, the tugboats, Fullers ferries and smaller craft.

The Navy didn’t really get their ships out until about 11:30 or so.  I didn’t see exactly when Te Kaha left, although I presume it left first, being the most expensive and being tied up at the most exposed berth.  By 11:30am, Manawanui, Resolution and two of the four IPVs (Inshore Patrol Boats) were floating out in the harbour just in front of my place.  Two of their IPVs stayed tied up for the entire afternoon.  With Canterbury and Te Mana away, the Navy doesn’t seem to have the manpower to actually put it’s entire fleet to sea at once.

Pretty much everything was back in port by about 3pm, after it was clear that Auckland is so fantastically sheltered that the surge was only a matter of centimetres inside the harbour.

Pleasure procrastinators apparently put off doing things and just can just relax.  I can’t do that.  No matter what I’m doing, I feel constantly guilty about all the things I should be doing instead.  And I don’t usually relax when I’m procrastinating.  Instead, I put off important work to do things that are much less important, or often, don’t even need to be done at all (especially by me).  And I’m not a disorganised procrastinator, I don’t put things off because I wrongly estimate how long it will take.   And I always do manage to get everything done in time – I don’t miss deadlines.   In fact, I’m pretty good at knowing exactly when I have to stop procrastinating in order to get something done by the deadline. 

The self-doubt procrastination come in whenever I’m not sure exactly what to do or how to do it.   It’s easiest to just put things like that off and work on things that I do know how to do.  This is particularly true with big projects – it’s hard to know where to start.  That’s how come I end up working on trivial things instead of important things.  They’re concrete and well defined and don’t require any difficult thinking.

I tend to be a binge worker.  I’ll work with full effort for months on end, 7 days a week, 12+ hours a day until I just burn out and can’t do anything.   Usually I get sick at the end of every semester and spend an entire week at home not doing anything except lying in bed or on the couch.  I don’t have the energy to get out of my dressing gown, let alone check my email or do anything productive.   And then as soon as I am better, I have to catch up on what I missed when I was sick.  I don’t actually get to properly rest and recharge ever.  The last time I went on holiday was when I went to Texas a few years ago, and even then, I couldn’t stop feeling guilty that I wasn’t working on my thesis.

I have this feeling that I don’t deserve to take a break until I’m finished everything that I need to do.  So I can never relax properly because I’m constantly guilty about not working.  I worked 10 hours every day this week, and 14 hours one day.  I worked 8 hours yesterday (Saturday).  I went into work for half an hour this afternoon (Sunday).  And now I’m sitting here watching the boats on the harbour and typing this with a guilty feeling that I should be working right now instead.  Like I’m slacking off.   I know it’s not rational – the University does not expect me to work 7 days a week.  And there will never be a time when I’m finished all my work – there’s always more to do.   But I just can’t get rid of this constant guilt.

No, it had nothing to do with burning my breakfast, the alarm definitely wasn’t triggered by me.  When they test the alarms, it just goes off for a second or so, so I waited hopefully.   Maybe they were doing a longer test? 10 seconds maybe?  No such luck.  Regretfully, I put down my fork and picked up my keys, swipe card and phone and trudged down 12 flights of stairs.  I joined the rest of my neighbours seeking shade under the walkway and stared up the the building for some clue about who to blame for the disruption.   No evidence was forthcoming.

There’s a surprising number of people at home at 10am on a Monday morning.  A barefoot bunch of teenagers looked like they were still asleep.   An elderly chinese woman looked a bit scared, as opposed to annoyed as the rest of us were.  Most people were out within a few minutes, but a few seemed to take forever to get the message.  One couple sauntered out about 5 minutes later.   About 10 minutes after the alarm was raised, two asian girls stumbled out of the fire escape stairwell wearing their pyjamas and high heels.  At the same time, those of us still periodically scanning the building noticed a guy standing on his tenth floor balcony looking down at us while talking on his cellphone.  How he could hear anything was beyond me.  He finally emerged nearly 5 minutes later.

It was over 15 minutes before the fire brigade arrived.  They went up the fire escape with the building manager’s master key to check it out, but apparently didn’t find anything.  After about 15 minutes of investigation, they turned off the alarms and let us all back inside.   The building manager apologised to us as we entered the building, and as I queued through the lobby, I heard the firefighters asking the builders what they’d just been working on and if it was near the sprinklers.

It took another 5 minutes to get through the queue for the lifts.  You can’t walk up the stairs in this building.  Apart from the carpark levels, there are fire exits only – no access to the upper floors except with a master key.  Today, I saw more people from this building than I have all year.  Most, I may never see again, unless there is another fire alarm.

It is just as cool as I remembered it.  Lots of cool science, marvellous improvisation, awesome explosions, super evil baddies and an un-killable nemesis.  Of course, for the most part, everyone has the typical 80s clothing and hairstyles.  Yes, Mac does have a mullet in the later seasons, but in the first season he looks pretty good.  And his clothing is classic enough that it would still look good today (well maybe if he had better shoes).

So far, I’m up to season 4 and I’m loving every minute of it.

In the US, you have six years from when you are hired to prove that you are a quality academic.  The main criteria is getting enough good quality publications to prove your research is up to scratch.  If it is, at the end of your 7th year, you have a job guaranteed for life.  If not, you either find another institution and start again, or (more likely) find another career. 

The historical justification for the ‘job for life’ aspect was to guarantee freedom from political influence.  The logic is that academics wouldn’t be free to criticise the government if it was possible for the government to have them sacked.

The process in New Zealand works basically the same, except:

1. You only have three years to prove your worth, to ‘get continuation’.  This is difficult when conference lead times are six-nine months and journal lead times are 18 months – 3 years.
2. You don’t get a guaranteed job for life.  You just get a standard open ended employment contract like everyone else in New Zealand already has.  Prior to getting a proper contract, you are basically on a 3 year probationary period.
3. If you aren’t good enough when you first apply, you are ‘deferred’.  You then have to improve and reapply within a year (within 4 years of your original start date), and if you still aren’t good enough, you go find another job.

I started my permanent position at the University two years ago, so I only have one more year to get a few high ranked publications otherwise I’m in trouble.   Two members of my department have been deferred already, and both of them have a better publications record than I do, so I really need to lift my game.

So much for relaxing when my thesis was over!  And the thesis doesn’t even count towards my continuation work

OK, technically it’s not the same series.  A different company has partnered with LucasArts to make a new game.  They say it isn’t the long-awaited MI5, but instead takes place after the (nonexistent) MI5.  Also, rather than being a monolithic game, it’s a series of 5 episodes.  They are released monthly, starting from August this year.  Two have been released to date, with 3 more to go.

The graphics are somewhat better than the last two, but the controls are a bit strange.  None of the 3D MI games ever quite sussed out how to control a 3D character effectively, and this one is no exception.  The strange drag-to-move interface is only a minor annoyance though – the same quirkiness and humour is still there, and that’s what makes MI so much fun.  It also seems rather easier than the previous MI games in that there is usually some logic to what you have to do in order to achieve a certain goal, although figuring out some of the details is still a bit tricky.  It’s definitely a good way to while away a few hours.

So far, my regular charity ‘portfolio’ looks like this:

• Unicef Global Parents
• Kiva.org
• NZ Breast Cancer Foundation
• Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust

This year I also supported the Atheist bus campaign, although I’m unlikely to make that a regular thing.  Since my kiva lending will keep rolling over, I’ll have more money to spend next year,  so I’m still on the lookout for other charities to support:

• Charities that hand out condoms
• Something with an environmental/conservation slant
• Groups that support education, particularly science education for kids or, even better, educating parents about the importance of educating their kids