Well, I survived it. The longest night of the year turned out to be mildly tame after all the threats of the bad weather. It rained a fair amount, but it didn’t get too cold. I think the lowest I saw was about 9C at 4am.

At 6:06am this morning the sun was as its most northern peak. Thats about 12:06pm for those of you on MDT. ;-) That makes today (Friday) the shortest day of the year for us in the southern hemisphere.

Unfortunately, the storms that have been expected all week did manage to hit the south island during the night last night and are expected to start making themselves felt here in Auckland this afternoon. Wind warnings through today with gales gusting up to 110km/h and then heavy rain tonight… :-/ Not sure I’m going to enjoy the run tonight.

The boss has given his blessing for me to find alternate work now :-) He’s offered references and all. And I’ll still be able to continue working the security gig part time as an added bonus. Sounds silly I know, but I really enjoy doing this security stuff. The pay is crap, the hours are absolutely horrible, but the work itself is fun and I enjoy it a lot. I will miss not having a patrol run, but oh well.

Hmmm… Other big updates? Actually, not a lot to be honest. Work was work. Same old. Drive around, walk around. Got a flat tyre and nearly crashed the car as I came off the motorway though. That was ummm… Scary.

Getting off the motorway at Pataki Rd heading towards Rosebank… Coming around that big swooping corner as you go back over the motorway and the car is suddenly driving like its on ice. Got to the gas station and theres a fricken huge nail embedded in my tyre. I’ll tell you, changing a wheel at 4:45am in the rain on the forecourt of a closed gas station is not fun. Especially when you discover they turn their compressor off at night and theres no way to pump the spare up properly. So I had to drive to the nearest open gas station on a semi-deflated spare tyre.

Didn’t help that I was starving and the gas station attendant wouldn’t let me wash my hands so I could eat my food without the taste of road dust, grease and whatever else was on my wheels added to the flavour of the food. ;-)

I was already running half an hour late. All this put me back another half hour and so I didn’t finish work till well late. :-/ And I bet that even though I mentioned the spare tyre being sub-par (nearly smooth) it’ll still be on the car tonight when I go back to work.

No fights through the night. Thats always nice. The cuts from the last scuffle have finally gone too. I really haven’t blogged much about the events of my job. I should point out that people causing trouble is rare. Very rare. Whats not so rare are kids drinking in the parks after we’ve closed them. Most of them are happy to move on when you tell them they’re not allowed there, but some of them…. Lets just say they change their tone when theres 3 patrol cars keeping them there till the police can come and give them trespass notices. ;-)

So much to do… Actually, just sleep. So I’m going to bugger off and try to sleep before work starts up again for another night ;-)

Talk to ya later.