Miraz Jordan

For the Pacific Wave Appreciation Society two videos. The first from Waipu Cove about 40 Km south of Whangārei. The second, an hour later, from north Ruakākā Beach just a few Km north of Waipu. 🌊

At Ruakākā North Beach. Look at that white sand!

An excellent reason for banning dogs from Whangārei Quarry Gardens: there are kiwi in the hills.

Deb and I visited Quail Cafe in Whangārei Quarry Gardens. The food, beverages, ambience and service were excellent. I look forward to visiting again and enjoying a long walk round the gardens themselves.

I rather like this blend of hearsay and heresy. Nicely combines the idea of incorrectness and dissidence.

We're in charge of Boo and Rush for a few days as their family members have a holiday. The dogs enjoyed their walk at the park this morning. 🐶

Off to a good start on our travels today with Air NZ letting us know before we'd left home for the hour's drive to the airport that our flights were moved around. 🛩️

All packed up and ready to go, we now have an extra 2 hours at home. And our 1 hour at Auckland Airport converts to a 4.5 hour wait.

Perhaps the most controversial project on the [Government's Fast Track consenting] list - given opposition to similar operations further down the coast - is a proposal to mine sand off Waipū Cove in Bream Bay.

Natalie Jessup, general manager of Tāngaro Tuia te Ora-Endangered Species Foundation, said the potential fast-tracking of sand mining was deeply disappointing.

"This is a heart-breaking blow for Aotearoa's coastline. Bream Bay, like Mangawhai and Pākiri, is home to some of our most vulnerable species, including the critically endangered tara iti [New Zealand fairy tern]. Approving sand mining here is not only environmentally destructive but a betrayal of the communities who have fought to protect these areas for decades."

Via: Northland's fast-track approvals show heavy focus on infrastructure

An excellent quote from Moira on Schitt's Creek S05E06, Rock On! 🤣 :

Oh, Jocelyn, you'll soon learn that we aging mortals are blessed with weakening eyes and memories so we don't have to really see ourselves.

We learned of a new cafe in Levin, opened just a month ago, so we visited today for lunch: Old Courthouse Eatery.

Deb's coffee was apparently good; my hot chocolate was good. We both had bagels — in my case with halloumi, pesto and mushrooms. All very enjoyable.

We'll definitely be back.

Having just finished Book 7 in the series by Melissa Good, I moved on to Storm Surge: Part 1: Book 8 in the Dar & Kerry Series (Dar and Kerry Series 10) where I kept thinking I must have missed something …

It's right there in the link: even though it's named Book 8 it's actually Book 10.

A large part of the book deals with Dar and Kerry's part in assisting after the events of September 11, 2001. Frenetic! But also interesting.

Yesterday there were visitors at the place across the lane — it's a bit higher than our house. Around 10.15 pm their headlights as they left lit up my bedroom wall, with shadows from the cabbage trees outside dancing in the breeze.

First, we're all good, no damage etc. Second: shaken awake by a fierce 5.8 quake this morning. That was quite something! 〰️

A few highlights from today: Deb made delicious pikelets; I wore my shorts for the first time this season and did my weight training on the deck.

My outdoor temperature sensor has died, but a neighbour's unit, about 1 Km away, says it's currently 19.3C and earlier reached 20C. Summery.

See the video: Northlanders up close with humpback whale, as Whangārei Harbour listening starts:

A humpback whale has put on a stunning display in Northland, breaching in front of a boat off Whangārei’s coast.

The encounter occurred at the same time as a trial started of an AI-powered acoustic detection system in Whangārei Harbour, which will soon give real-time information about marine mammals in the harbour. …

The next day, Taylor was playing golf at Waipu Golf Club when he also saw a humpback whale - possibly the same one - breaching off Bream Bay.

A new device, which can detect when marine mammals are present in Whangārei Harbour was installed last week at the harbour entrance. … The new acoustic recording system has software that can identify the species of animal and, if several hydrophones are used, it can calculate the latitude, longitude and depth of a noise source. It will transmit this information in real time back to an internet enabled device.

Via: Bream Bay News, 03 October 2024.

Update, 05 October 2024 via Northlanders up close with humpback whale, as Whangārei Harbour listening starts - NZ Herald:

The system is a passive listening device which hears underwater and uses several AI deep-learning algorithms to classify the sounds, differentiating whale and dolphin noises from other harbour noises.

An AppleScript to save a post selected in MarsEdit to a file in the Downloads folder. Use at your own risk. Let me know if you improve on it. 😁

-- very rough starter; use at your own risk
-- 04 October 2024
-- takes details from a post selected in MarsEdit and saves the post to a file in the Downloads folder
tell application “MarsEdit”
set newLink to ""
set newTitle to ""
set myPost to ""
set myDate to ""
set newLink to (permalink of selected post) as text
set myDate to (published date of selected post)

set newTitle to (title of selected post) as text
set myPost to (body of selected post) as text

set the clipboard to newLink & return & newTitle & return & myPost & return & "Published on: " & myDate

end tell
– thanks to Claude.io for the file saving portion below
set fileName to newTitle & “.txt” – Change this to your desired file name
tell application “Finder”
set downloadsFolder to (path to downloads folder) as text
set filePath to downloadsFolder & fileName
end tell
try
set clipboardContent to the clipboard
set fileRef to open for access file filePath with write permission
write clipboardContent to fileRef
close access fileRef

display dialog "Clipboard content saved to " & fileName & " in Downloads folder." buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"

on error errMsg
display dialog “Error: " & errMsg buttons {“OK”} default button “OK” with icon stop
end try

Ages ago I watched the first episode of Schitt's Creek and immediately saw it wasn't for me. After about 10 different people, over the years, said how brilliant it was I relented. The first season was definitely iffy, but now, I'm loving it. So funny! All the characters and actors are so good.