First Week at DRTM

Or Destination Rotorua Tourism Marketing as the full name…

Well, it’s been an exciting week.
Monday was the first day of induction, where I reported to HR for my initial registration etc. Then myself and another new council staff employee were given an overview of the entire Rotorua District Council. It was then off to the Rotorua Tourism office, where I was given an overview of the office, met the team and ran through some of the basic systems in place. I then sat down with Sarah (who I was replacing) for an overview of the processes currently in place.
That pretty much lasted the rest of the week, just getting to grips with the new system, file structure and processes.
They have a network drive with a Terabyte of storage on it, with only 5GB of room left. Now that may not be much by today’s standards for some of you, but when you have to find one file within all that, it can get a little daunting.

I’m really looking forward to the challenge of revamping www.rotoruaNZ.com.
That will be one of my main initial tasks, along with updating all the listings on the website currently.

I’ve posted an image of my new business card and a couple of photos from my new office.

Update 25th May ’07

Well, on behalf of my family, i just want to thank Alan, Alex and the team here at TUMONZ,
both present and past, for all the great times we’ve shared over the past five years and to
wish them all the best for their endevours in the future.
Check out me filling the staff swimming pool before a Christmas function one year.

Big shout out to both Luke Linnell and Tim Rattray who are both celebrating their birthdays,
turning thirty something (38&37) on Monday the 28th.
Congratulations boys, hope you have a fantastic weekend and your families spoil you rotten.

Joshua is now 7 months old and is weighing in at a healthy 7.8 kgs, he has 6 teeth currently
with another 4 almost coming through. He is a happy go lucky baby who we’ve been blessed with.
Never having to use a pacifier, which we are really happy about. Its been harder for us without any
close family support but I’m extremely proud of the way Kim has handled everything, especially
without the support of a mother (whom past away). Kim is a fantastic mother and I know her mom
would be proud of her.

Kim is also becoming quite the photographer, she has been responsible for most of the new
photos of Joshua you see on AdrianHodge.com. Speaking of which, there are 3 new photos of Joshua this week, one of which you can open full-size and print if you wish.

I’d like to thank everyone who replied to me last week with good wishes and thoughts,
I appreciate everything you wrote. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get the funnies to you
next week, but they will come through, rest assured.

May you all have a terrific weekend, eat, drink (and don’t drive) and be merry.
Enjoy this weeks funnies
Ciao

Friday Funnies – Final Day at TUMONZ

Stress Buster No. 12.

Step outside yourself

Think of someone you know who needs a cheer up, (family, friends or colleagues). and forward the Friday Funnies by email. Or print out and send the old fashioned way if they are not connected to the net.

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“This is a weird story. President Bush has apologized today for scolding a member of the White House press corps for wearing sunglasses because he found out the reporter is legally blind. …Bush also apologized for telling physicist Stephen Hawking to ‘get off your lazy ass.’” —Conan O’Brien

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Little Davie’s kindergarten class was on a field trip to their local police station, where they saw pictures tacked to a bulletin board of the 10 most wanted criminals.

One of the youngsters pointed to a picture and asked if it really was the photo of a wanted person.

“Yes,” said the policeman. “The detectives want very badly to capture him.”

Little Davie then asked, “Well why didn’t you keep him when you took his picture?”

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“I am a deeply superficial person.” —Andy Warhol

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I was the nurse caring for a couple’s newborn first child, a son, after his cesarean birth. Since the mother was asleep under general anesthesia we took our tiny charge directly to the newborn nursery to introduce him to his daddy. While cuddling his son for the first time, he noticed the baby’s ears conspicuously standing out from his head. He expressed his concern that some kids might call his son names like “Dumbo.” The pediatrician reassured the new dad that his son was healthy, the ears could be easily corrected during childhood.

The father still worried about his wife’s reaction to those large protruding ears. “She doesn’t take things as easily as I do,” he worried.

By this time, the new mother was ready to meet her precious son. I placed the tiny bundle in his mother’s arms and eased the blanket back so that she could gaze upon her child for the first time.

She took one look at her baby’s face and looked to her husband and gasped, “Oh, Honey! Look! He has your ears!”

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A couple had been married for 45 years and had raised a brood of 11 children and were blessed with 22 grandchildren. When asked the secret for staying together all that time, the wife replies, “Many years ago we made a promise to each other: the first one to pack up and leave has to take all the kids….”

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Q. Use the word “judicious” in a sentence to show you understand its meaning.
A. Hands that judicious can be soft as your face

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Long, unproductive meetings are often the bane of corporate life. My very funny boss at the software company where I work has come up with what just might be the perfect way to cut business conferences short before they start rambling out of control. There comes a time when he announces, “All those opposed to my plan say, ‘I resign.’” End of meeting.

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When I was married 25 years, I took a look at my wife one day and said, “Honey, 25 years ago, we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to sleep every night with a hot 25 year old blonde.

Now, we have a nice house, nice car, big bed and plasma screen TV, but I’m sleeping with a 50 year old woman. It seems to me that you are not holding up your side of things.”

My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot 25 year old blonde, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch black and white TV.

Aren’t older women great? They really know how to solve a mid-life crisis.

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“My son has a new nickname for me, ‘Baldy.’ I’ve got a new word for him… ‘heredity.’” –Dan Savage

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Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

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Ten Things a Mom Doesn’t Want to Hear

1. I swallowed a goldfish.
2. Your lipstick works better than crayons.
3. Does grape juice leave a stain?
4. The principal called…
5. But DAD says that word all the time.
6. What’s it cost to fix a window?
7. Has anyone seen my earthworms?
8. I painted your shoes pretty, huh Mommy?
9. The dog doesn’t like dressing up in your clothes.
10. I’m moving out.

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A blind man wanders into an all girls biker bar by mistake. He finds his way to a bar stool and orders some coffee. After sitting there for awhile, he yells to the waiter, “Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?”

The bar immediately falls absolutely silent. In a very deep husky voice, the woman next to him says, “Before you tell that joke, sir, I think it is only fair — given that you are blind — that you should know five things:

1. The bartender is a blonde girl with a baseball bat.
2. The bouncer is a blonde girl.
3. I’m a 6 foot tall, 175 lb. Blonde woman with a black belt in karate.
4. The woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weightlifter.
5. The lady to your right is blonde and professional wrestler.

Now, think about it seriously, Mister. Do you still wanna tell that joke?”

The blind man thinks for a second, shakes his head and mutters, “No. Not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times.”

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“She thinks that tactics are a new kind of breath mint.” –Billy Connolly

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“Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.” –Bill Cosby

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One day in heaven, Jesus’ secretary walked into his office and said, “Sir, now look, I think you have been working too hard. I don’t mean to be bossy, but I think that you ought to slow down, do a little PR, get out and meet your people – let them see you and get to know you. I think that it would do you a world of good.”

Jesus agreed, closed up his books, shut his computer files, and started walking down the streets of gold. He was having a great time, shaking hands, swapping stories, signing autographs. Then from a side street he heard a stead rip-saw, rip-saw noise and upon closer examination saw sawdust floating out of a window. He walked to the window. Inside he saw a bearded carpenter working at his carpenter’s bench in a fever, his face dripping perspiration, his hands and arms covered with sawdust.

Jesus walked inside. “Sir,” he said in that calm, resonant, voice, “why do you labour so? This is heaven – your reward. You can rest here and take it easy. Your days of hard labour and toil are behind you.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll keep sawing,” the man said, “and I’ll tell you why. You see, I had a son on earth whose birth was a miracle. I haven’t seen him since he died. Now, he knew I was a carpenter, and, my eyesight not being what it used to be, and heaven being such a large place, I figured it might take me an eternity to find him. But I thought if I made enough noise doing my carpentry work, he might hear it and find me.”

A look of recognition came upon Jesus’ face, and the carpenter saw it and stopped sawing. He stared at Jesus quizzically, his eyes beginning to mist with wonder and awe. Their eyes locked. Jesus said, “Father?”The carpenter said, “Pinocchio?”

New Words for 2007

• SALAD DODGER
  An excellent phrase for an overweight person.

• SWAMP-DONKEY
  A deeply unattractive person.

• TESTICULATING
  Waving your arms around and talking bollocks.

• BLAMESTORMING
  Sitting round in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

• SEAGULL MANAGER
  A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

• ASSMOSIS
  The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

• SALMON DAY
  The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.

• CUBE FARM
  An office filled with cubicles.

• PRAIRIE DOGGING
  When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on. (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

• SITCOMs
  Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a "home business".

• SINBAD
  Single working girls. Single income, no boyfriend and desperate.

• AEROPLANE BLONDE
  One who has bleached/dyed her hair but still has a ‘black box’.

• PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE
  The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

• ADMINISPHERE
  The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the "adminisphere" are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded "administrivia" – needless paperwork and processes.

• GOING FOR A McSHIT
  Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you’re just going to the bog.(Loo) If challenged by a pimply staff member, your declaration to them that you’ll buy their food afterwards is known as a McShit with Lies.

• 404
  Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found" meaning that the requested document could not be located.

• AUSSIE KISS
  Similar to a French Kiss, but given down under.

• OH – NO SECOND
  That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you’ve hit ‘reply all’).

• GREYHOUND
  A very short skirt, only an inch from the hare.

• JOHNNY-NO-STARS
  A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The ‘no-stars’ comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.

• MILLENNIUM DOMES
  The contents of a Wonderbra, i.e. extremely impressive when viewed from the outside, but there’s actually naught in there worth seeing.

• MONKEY BATH
  A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: "Oo! Oo! Oo! Aa! Aa! Aa! ".

• MYSTERY BUS
  The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you’re in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in.

• MYSTERY TAXI
  The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning before you wake up, whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves a 10-Pinter in your bed instead.

• BEER COAT
  The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruise At 3:00am .

• BEER COMPASS
  The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after booze cruise, even though you’re too drunk to remember where you live, how you got here, and where you’ve come from.

• BREAKING THE SEAL
  Your first pee in the pub, usually after 2 hours of drinking. After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the toilet will be
  required every 10 or 15 minutes for the rest of the night.

• TART FUEL
  Bottled premixed spirits, regularly consumed by young women.
• PICASSO BUM
  A woman whose knickers are too small for her, so she looks like she’s Got 4 buttocks

Last Day working for TUMONZ tomorrow

Well, my time at Management Technology Systems Limited has finally drawn to a close and it’s been a wonderful time.
Creators of the fine New Zealand mapping product, TUMONZ.
I started here back in June of 2002 when we were still shipping out TUMONZ version 1.

Since then, we have developed the product much more and we are now up to version 3.
I was given the title of Webmaster and Data Manager. I was in charge of all the Data Sets that came through the door from LINZ or Aerial Photos from city councils. Since starting I’ve created the TUMONZ brand identity and redesigned their website twice.

It’s been a really awesome time here at TUMONZ, there is such an awesome relaxed fibe in the office.
I’ve learnt heaps about the IT industry while I’ve been here, especially since I finished my Certificate in Business Computing at Waiariki Polytechnic in November 2001. Since I’ve been developing my web design skills after hours with Hodgeman Web & Design, I’ve become more interested it that sector or the IT industry and really feel this is a great step forward in my career.

I’ll miss the friendly team environment I’ve got so used to over the years, but I’m sure moving on to a larger team will bring it’s rewards.

I want to wish Alan & Alex (Directors) and all the team at TUMONZ the best of luck for the future developments.
It’s been a real pleasure working for you and I wanted to thank you for this unique opportunity for working for such a great company.