Simpsons in NZ?

Hmmm I forgot to add - after our little junket today - you remember - into the snowy mountains - we decided to have a stop in Bart Simpson country - who rumor has it could very well live in New Zealand. There is even the big doughnut on someones front lawn - and I didn't take a picture to prove it

- doh *slaps forehead with hand*


Anyhow - here u can see one ardent fan trying to contact the family via Txt - without success. Wonder what they were doing this lunchtime??? Although I would have to say that the pie for lunch was rather tasty!!










Yes folks the town of Sheffield is world famous in NZ for its Pies - and believe me - they are indeed very yummy.
My Thai-chicken pie had just the right mix of coconut and curry - and the pastry - oh the pastry - so divine!!
No wonder they won another title of "Pie maker of the year" for 2009


It was so good, I had to have another one - this one contained camanbert and urm - well shhh you will have to buy your own and try for yourself!!








This little creation is for Oma - just so you know we are still in Kiiwi land!!

Anyhow - back to reality - dishes after dinner and perhaps some TV - then there is a rugby match to follow . . . . . .

Snow trip in NZ

It was now - or never! Woke to a absolute stunning blue sky day - frosty to be sure! I wanted to do this snow trip in nz this last Monday when the snow levels in NZ were lower then today (had 3 days of warm winds blowing over the alps since last Monday) - alas at the time I ended up cleaning the house for ages. So it had to be today - before everything melted away. It was worth it!! After a quick breakfast and clean up - we were on the road! I guess the pictures speak for themselves . . .
Enjoy

Left - the drive to and over Porters Pass


Right - the Pass itself




Left - Lake Lyndon (can be iced up for ice skating at times)

Right - Looking towards Arthur's Pass and West Coast



Left - Lake Pearson

Right - More of Lake Pearson





Left - Hoar Frost near Lake Pearson

Right - hmmmm the mood changed





Left - If you look carefully you can see the serpentine road up to the ski lift - this is how far we have to drive to go skiing! Chains are advised

NUTELLA o_o

hmmmmm - seems that there are gazillions of nutella fans on facebook - so naturally one had to look and see what there is - and amongst the gazillions of pics - I picked these two!! yummm

Naturally my scouts do know that when we go on camp I always bring my own stash for breakfast!! which is not to be shared! hmmm I shall have to get creative in the kitchen soon - i'm getting hungry just looking at these pictures!

They love us - really

hihihi the Aussies love us - really - they do - so much so they want us a tad closer and give us a friendly hug!! :D Yeah right

This article from todays news paper (the Press.co.nz) - see below

The South Island has been twisted out of shape and shoved closer to Australia by last week's massive Fiordland earthquake.Last Wednesday evening's 7.8 magnitude earthquake which was centred 12 kilometres under Resolution Island and was the country's largest shake for nearly 80 years wrought permanent changes in just seconds.The Land Information New Zealand-GeoNet global positioning system (GPS) network shows Puysegur Point, at the southwest tip of the South Island, is now 300mm closer to Australia. Te Anau has moved 100mm westwards. Bluff moved west by 30 millimetres, Alexandra, by 20mm, and Dunedin, by 10mm. Christchurch may have shifted marginally closer to Australia, but only by a tiny amount. GNS Science GeoNet project director Ken Gledhill said such changes were part of the continuing deformation of New Zealand, and showed the immensity of the forces involved. "New Zealand has been very fortunate. "This earthquake anywhere else would have caused huge damage. "Basically, it's taken us closer to Australia. The country is deforming all the time because of being on the plate boundary, but this has done it in a few seconds, rather than waiting hundreds of years." Earthquake scientists met yesterday afternoon to discuss how the earthquake had affected the Alpine Fault. It lies about 50km offshore southern Fiordland.

"What we do know is it has caused an increase in stress in the southernmost offshore part of the Alpine Fault. "Unfortunately, very little is known about that part," Gledhill said. "The strain has to go somewhere. What the GPS has shown is most of the motion is in the horizontal direction, and that bit of Fiordland has gone towards Australia. "What we think at the moment is that even if something happened on that segment, it is unlikely to rupture on to the onshore part further north. "The problem with all of this work is you don't actually know where that bit of the Earth is in the earthquake cycle.

"What we would like to do is do a lot more modelling, and that will take months." GNS Science geologist Simon Cox said New Zealanders should not be lulled into a false sense of security that the country had now had "the big one". "There is no such thing as `the' big one," Cox said. "New Zealand sits across the plate boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates, and there are a number of fault systems from the ones at Napier-Hastings that are different from the Wellington ones, which are different from those in Marlborough, which are different from the Alpine Fault, which are different from Fiordland.

"All are capable of producing big earthquakes. "We've just had a big one in Fiordland but that doesn't mean the big one has ripped through the whole lot. "People shouldn't take too much comfort from this one having missed."

stunning sunrise mark 2

Ok - so today I saw another rare stunning sunrise and since I had a spare 10 min and I grabbed my Canon 400D and wildly snapped away on different settings. I am so used to my trusty old Minolta 500 - all manual - and the various settings and how the various F-stops etc etc effect the final picture (making the sky lighter or darker - depending on the combo set). - and I really need to learn the new camera and its abilities . . .

I only had 10 min and then the light changed to a light yellow / sandy colour and from there to the "normal" daylight !! Here is the best of the best.
Of course what you see is only about 30% - you would have to add another full picture to its left and right of this one to get the full human sky view. Hmmmmm - maybe I do need a 12 mm lens after all . . . . . .

Ah well - back to work - yep despite the stunning sunrise it is only -1 degree Celsius - so defrost the car . . . .

Earthquake in New Zealand

hmmmmm
after some research I am beginning to wonder why I am living here - seems there is a reason why we are called the "shaky Isles" as we have many earthquakes in New Zealand - some are not so big - in fact the bulk of them you cannot feel. It's the ones you can feel that we are worried about.
Anyhow - below is a list of the most significant earthquakes from the last 150 years or so!
Scary thing is - the main Alpine fault line is due to rupture and when it does it will be in excess of 7.9 - meaning there will be widespread damage in Christchurch !! Me makes mental note - the best place to be at the next earthquake is in a helicopter - at 500 feet above ground!!!!!!

The Alpine Fault

The western ramparts of New Zealand’s Southern Alps define a remarkable straight line visible from space – the trace of the Alpine Fault. It is the longest active fault in New Zealand. Onshore it extends 650 kilometres from Blenheim to Milford Sound.

The Alpine Fault is a major plate boundary, where the moving Pacific and Australian plates collide and scrape past each other. In 1948 geologist Harold Wellman realised that rocks that were once adjacent to each other had been separated by 480 kilometres as a result of movement along the Alpine Fault.

No major earthquakes have occurred on the Alpine Fault since Europeans settled in New Zealand. Its most recent movements have been determined by tree-ring dating and radiocarbon dating of plant material in trenches dug across the fault. Dates from earthquake-triggered landslides and forest disturbance indicate an earthquake around 1460 AD. Another quake occurred about 1630, when there was movement along the fault between the Paringa and Ahaura rivers (about 250 kilometres). The most recent earthquake was about 1717, when over 300 kilometres of the fault ruptured, from Milford to the Haupiri River.

On these occasions there was up to 8 metres of horizontal movement and 1 to 2 metres of uplift along the fault, producing earthquakes with magnitudes of about 8.

Major ruptures

Over the last thousand years, there have been four major ruptures along the Alpine Fault causing earthquakes of about magnitude 8. These occurred in approximately 1100, 1450, 1620 and 1717 AD, at intervals between 100 and 350 years. The 1717 quake appears to have involved a rupture along nearly 400km of the southern two thirds of the fault. Scientists say that a similar earthquake could happen at any time as the interval since 1717 is longer than between any of the earlier events.

Here is a landsat pic from space - and the clearly visible main alpine fault line running from north to south - with Fjordland to the bottom left hand side.






Recent shakes - note the two 6.something shakes did some major damage to the towns as did the Hawkes Bay shake - it flattened the town!

7.8		October 10, 1848		Marlborough
7.5		October 19, 1868		Cape Farewell
8.2		January 23, 1855		Wairarapa
7.1		September 1, 1888		North Canterbury
7.1		March 9, 1929		Arthurs Pass
7.8		June 17, 1929		Murchison
7.8		February 3, 1931		Hawkes Bay <------
7.6		March 5, 1934		Pahiatua
7.2		June 24, 1942		Wairarapa
7		August 2, 1942		Wairarapa
7.1		May 24, 1968		Inangahua
6.5		March 2, 1987		Edgecumbe <-------
7.2		August 22, 2003		Fjordland
6.8		December 20, 2007		Gisborne <--------
7.8		July 15, 2009		Fjordland

Major earthquake

man this was un-nerving - a soft gentle roll that came and went 4 times - and lasted better part of a minute. We are sitting near major fault lines - yet it has been ages since we felt a decent quake in Christchurch - but this was something else. So far the only thing damaged here are our nerves - not sure though further south!!

New Zealand Earthquake Report - Jul 15 2009 at 9:22 pm (NZST)

Magnitude 6.6, Wednesday, July 15 2009 at 9:22 pm (NZST), 90 km north-west of Tuatapere.

Quake Details

Information about this earthquake:

Reference Number	3124785/G
Universal Time	July 15 2009 at 9:22
NZ Standard Time	Wednesday, July 15 2009 at 9:22 pm
Latitude, Longitude	45.78°S, 166.68°E
Focal Depth	5 km
Richter magnitude	6.6
Region	Fiordland
Location	90 km north-west of Tuatapere 90 km south-west of Te Anau 150 km north-west of Invercargill 300 km west of Dunedin

Felt in most parts of the South Island.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3124785g-shaking.html

THE MORNING AFTER

Well I can report in that the above figure as incorrect!! the first shake registered at 7.8 with a afterschock (10 min later) 6.1

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/2598134/Strong-earthquake-rattles-South-Island

What a bear joke - I had to laugh

uhu - so I got to know some people and they know I like things all bears and so they send me a bear joke - which I often find funny and I had to laugh at the latest one -so here it is for you

Bryan - aka Hungry_nz - ur a gem!


A man wakes up one morning to find a bear on his roof. So he looks in the yellow pages and sure enough, there's an ad for 'Bear Removers.' He calls the number, and the bear remover says he'll be over in 30 minutes. The bear remover arrives, and gets out of his van. He's got a ladder, a baseball bat, a shotgun and a mean old pit bull.

'What are you going to do,' the homeowner asks?

'I'm going to put this ladder up against the roof, then I'm going to go up there and knock the bear off the roof with this baseball bat. When the bear falls off, the pit bull is trained to grab his Testicles with his jaw and not let go. The bear will then be subdued enough for me to put him in the cage in the back of the van.'

He hands the shotgun to the homeowner.

'What's the shotgun for?' asks the homeowner.
'If the bear knocks me off the roof, shoot the dog.'

hot chocolate

right

I am supposed to be on a diet and apart from eating hazelnuss torte and other assorted things - it gets kinda hard when one visits the mall and gets tempted by this kind of shop

www.chocolatelounge

Check out their hot chocolate beverage!!!!

AI ai ai - simply divine - although not as refined as Europe - still; never knew calories can taste so good!

Sigh

Mamabear revealed

wroof wroof -
urm - ok ok -

so I was on a photographic assignment mission and I managed to secretly snap my mamabear - testing her leather outfit - which I hasten to add - is purely for the road trip - urm - and not MY pleasure -- even though I have to say that t h i s mamabear revealed . . . . ain't she one mean looking beauty ? ?

:) - settle boy, settle, DOWN

hooooowwwwwwwwllllllllllllll



CANT WAIT -- urm leathers ^^
Check out the tattoo!!
:)

Wonder how long before she will ride with me . . . . .


AND wearing a bandana - such a dream woman . . .

Rocking teddy bear via Elvis Presley

ain't he hot - good old Elvis - always loved this song - "be my teddy bear"

Then there is this cute one



wonder how many songs there are out there that have the words teddy bear in it???

Nude sunbathing teddy bear

Ach ai - I had another sleepless night and in between some funny dreams - like - I was in Italy on holiday minus the kids and wife and it was hot and sunny so robed of and did the European nude sunbathing thing, but I stayed to long out in the sun and got real brown - yes Cadbury dark chocolate brown, and melted away into the sand and ...... I woke up. So real was the dream that I found myself sweating, or was that from the two layers of duvets and blankets on top of us??? hmmm it coulda also have been the hot mamabear next to me too - who knows?!
Brr it sure has been cold!
Today we had the first decent sunshine in weeks - hurrah - all 4 hours of it!! The roads ACTUALLY dried out for once! I know - I used to live in Austria and regularly walked round town in minus 15 degrees Celsius in nothing less then Jeans and clogs - but that was when I was in my urm - indestructible teenager years. Since then the blood has thinned!!! - either that or I am definitely getting older. I am guessing the older part :(
ANYHOW the days are getting longer - (yes down under here - we are heading towards summer) whohoo - and soon there will be cherry blossoms and ducklings and little lambs - and I can work seriously on my chocolate brown tan - just not via nude sunbathing!! Hey at least I had some cool shades on - even if they were not lulu castagnettes shades!

Dean Martin - Baby it is cold outside

Brrr it is cold outside - which reminds me of that Dean Martin song (you know - "Baby it's cold outside"!!). In fact we had the coldest month for May since the early 1950's and for June since the 1970's. So much for global warming - more like global cooling! For June we had a total of 14 hours of sunshine only- the rest of the time it was grey overcast drizzly and snowy! It is certainly not your "usual" winter weather - as we can always expect to see some sun here. No wonder we are freezing in our Bear cave and need to increase our fire - by adding another log to the fire. Here the two teenagers can be seen working hard - and they figured that this gives them the right to sit right in front of it and hog the warmth!!

How to bake a Hazelnuss Torte

hmmm - yummm - so filling!! ok here is the goss.
In New Zealand for a long time you could not get any Hazelnuss - and so I never did bake stuff that had them as an ingredient especially a Hazelnuss Torte.
However recently some people started to grow them commercially and selling them from the street gate - or indeed via work colleagues - like the one from Mamabear's place of work - soooo naturally I had to buy 2 kilos and shell them - very therapeutic - cracking the nuts!!! (no rude comments here - please)
Anyhow I am enjoying the Torte and now someone asked for the receipe -so here it comes - enjoy . . . .

The sponge:
10 Egg yolks / 10 Egg whites
300 g sugar
300 g flour
200 g finely grated Hazelnuss
100 g finely grated Walnuts
dash of Vannila essence

Filling:
Strawberry jam
400 g Butter
200 g Icing Sugar
dash of Vanilla Essence
3 tbsp of coffee liquor
upwards from 250 g of grated Hazelnuss
300 g of Vanillla Custard (I cheat and buy the ready made soft pours from supermarket)

How to Bake the cake
Cream the yokes with half of the sugar and vanilla ess. until very light and fluffy (yes you can spend good 10 min here creaming away)
In a separate bowl beat egg whites - with other half of sugar -- till light and fluffy
mix whites into yokes with flour and nuts - carefully in order to maintain the natural "lift" of the cake mixture - pour into 25 cm round cake ring (lined with baking paper) and bake at 180 degree Celsius for about 20 - 25 min. Cool on rack and later store in fridge overnight

Filling
Cream the soft butter and sugar until light and fluffy - add the Vanilla / Coffee essence and add the nuts. Lastly gently add the soft custard

Take the sponge cake and cut 2 x or 3 x horizontally, take the first (bottom layer ) and add some Strawberry jam - spread liberally over sponge. Take a decent dollop of the filling mixture and spread evenly layer next sponge on top - repeat until all layers have been added put the rest of the mixture on top and spread evenly over the entire outside hmm - if you have spare filling mixture use that to decorate the cake with a piping bag. Decorate with any whole nut you feel like - but a Walnut / hazelnuss layer looks good.

Enjoy this calorie rich heart stopper of a cake over a cup of coffee the next day or two or three with some friends.


PS. I used to be a pastry chef by trade so here are some assumptions i made - like you know how to cut vertical or use a piping bag. The recipe is ancient and from memory - feel free to change modify add or delete at you own will / desire / flavor and of course RISK

hmmm where is the cake - I think the boys had a secret trip to the fridge around midnight . . . .

Must have Code for Blogger Tag Cloud

Yeah this is soo cool - and even better I managed to install it no hassle at all - looks great!!
This is a must have essential code for any serious blogger and you can get it by following the instructions from the link below - enjoy

Code for New Blogger Tag Cloud / Label Cloud - phydeaux3

Clothes that make a teddy bear

Oh yeah -

a friend of mine sent this through and - I was left drooling over these clothes that dress a teddy bear - or is it the other way round. (and NO I did not "drool" over the girl - c'mon get the priorities right!!)
It must be so warm - and heavy to wear - but what a fashion statement.
I can see myself wearing this instead of my campfire blanket. hmmmmm

Let me go and count how many teddy bears I have at home and lets see if the old Singer still works . . . . . . .

I will keep you posted