Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Far North

Summer in NZ! It's hard to really celebrate Christmas when the weather is sunny and warm and you have those lazy long days that seem to never end. Everybody just heads down to the beach which generally is only a few minutes away, sets up camp and start firing up the BBQs. Even when the surf isn't just right, you can always take a dip and dry yourself in the sun. Here are just a few pictures from my trip up to the Far North. I tell ya, NZ summer is hard to beat.



Beautiful pink skies at sunset turn into violets and purple. A pod of dolphins were swimming just a few meters off the coast but wasn't able to photograph them. The first time I saw a postcard of New Zealand with pink skies, I thought it had been digitally altered. I thought it was a joke, a very bad one at that... the joke was on me when finally I saw how the colors transformed themselves at dusk, I was in awe.



Lush subtropical forests with pristine rivers and lakes are easy to be found. If only summer holidays could last longer...






 Tatooine? Not quite. No giant sand worms either.  Just the Sand Dunes up by Cape Reinga which is at the very top of the North Island. Dune surfing is quite popular up here even when you might get a mouthful of sand. Gritty!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Wellington Spring



So you would think that because it's spring and the weather has improved with sunny warm days, the all familiar sight of broken umbrellas around town would have disappeared... well guess again! I must confess I was quite shocked to come across the latest image while walking up to work the other day. Even though we had two rainy days over the weekend, I didn't think the wind would be misbehaving. Will this be the last image of the season?

Friday, September 17, 2010

Prime Minister's Emerging Scientist of the Year Award

UPDATE: I had previously posted this entry but I was asked to remove it during the voting process. Unfortunately, Mark wasn't selected to go on to the final round but we're both really happy with the poster anyway.



For the past couple of weeks, I've been helping out my friend Mark Hunter on the design of this scientific poster. He's competing for the Prime Minister's Emerging Scientist of the Year Award... wow! what a mouthful. We didn't have much time in reality since we both were busy with our jobs and what-not and we found ourselves meeting up at lunch time a couple of times to talk about the progress of the poster. We're both quite pleased with the result and hopefully Mark can go on to win the prize.

Working for the MacDiarmid Institute has given me the opportunity to be part of some really cool projects. Even though I'm not really contributing with scientific knowledge, it's quite satisfactory to know that I am contributing in a way through my designs. This poster is aimed at high school students and if at least one of them understands the principle that is being explained, I can say that we did a good job!

By the way, not only is Mark waiting on the result of this competition but he's also waiting to be a dad for a second time any day now. Whilst working on the poster, we were expecting at any moment to get a call from Jillian (his wife), fortunately we were able to finish without any major events getting in the way.

Kudos Mark!