I played for the Dunedin Beasts in the Easton Cup. I also dragged our superstar ring-in Jenel Bode to play with us 🙂 Unfortunately she got injured and only played one and a bit games 🙁 We got totally thumped in every game. Was lots of fun though and I can’t wait for the rest […]
We’ve had quite a few visitors to the Brooker Bunch research group recently including Jane Nelson and Grace Morgan. This photo was taken facing away from the University of Otago Chemistry Department. From left: Jane Nelson, Grace Morgan, Humphrey Feltam, Ryan Hellyer, Jonathan Kitchen, Andy Noble, Owen Clements, Sally Brooker, Nick White and Scott Cameron.
Jon Kitchen and I took Kelly Kilpin on a whirl wind site seeing tour of the Catlins while she was here for Len Stock 2007. Getting Kelly to let me take her photo was a tad hazardous! Good time had by all and lots of pretty scenery was viewed on route.
My dear friend Debbie Jordan won an award recently for “outstanding communicator” at the NZIC conference in Rotorua. Here’s the poster she presented at the conference. and here’s a demonstration of Debbie using her subtle but effective outstanding communication skills 😛
The poster presentation at Lehn Stock 2007 was a good chance to network with chemists from other parts of the country. A rather stunned looking Matt Polson walking in front of my attempt to take a photo of the Steel group from Canterbury. Matt used to be my lab demonstrator many moons ago. My fellow […]
I attended the Dunedin Supramolecular symposium and presented my poster on mixed cobalt(III)/silver(I) coordination complexes. The star of the show was Nobel prize laureate Jean Marie Lehn who spoke about his pioneering work in the area of supramolecular chemistry. From the Supramolecular chemistry Wikipedia page : “Supramolecular chemistry refers to the area of chemistry which […]
Some photos I took (well apart from the one of myself) of Dunedin recently.
Woot! Got a lift back to Dunedin from Christchurch with my old hockey coach Jenel Bode who I’m hoping will take a job with the Dunedin Ice Hockey Association as a professional hockey coach/skating instructor. We stopped off at the Moeraki boulders on the way. Yvette and I took her up onto the chemistry department […]
I separated from the rest of the crew after leaving Tasmania and explored Melbourne on my own. I took my roller hockey skates with me so could cover heaps of ground in minimal time 🙂 I jumped the barrier stopping the traffic from getting on to the Albert Park formula 1 track (which was being […]
Whilst surfing my backups I found these photos from my trip to Hobart in 2007. The first two are from a trip with Kelly Kilpin, Lisa McClintock and Vicki Argyle on a boat in Hobart. The second two are from dinner that night at Sals restaurant.
Lisa, Vicky, Jon and I visited Cockles Creek which is the most southern most point of Australia (well, almost). The weather was stonking hot and we had lots of fun fooling around on a giant whale.
Erm, this was rather unexciting. It’s just a big bridge built up in these huge trees south of Hobart.
Vicky Argyle, Tasha Munro, Lisa McClintock and I all ventured south from Hobart to visit the Hastings Caves. The caves are truly spectacular and you can get some wonderful pictures inside. There’s a sign outside saying you aren’t allowed to use a tripod, but the guide told me it was okay as long as I […]
Aside from the occasional near miss with wallabies and possums scampering across the road in front of our car we (me, Lisa and Vicky) also visited a wildlife sanctuary between Port Arthur and Hobart.
My series of photos of strange looking but probably quite common birds continues. Is this a duck or what? I shot this photo in a little town just north of Hobart in Tasmania.
Vicky, Lisa and I visited the Port Arthur penal colony. This is the site of one of Australia’s most infamous prisons. The old ruins are spectacular and well worth the visit. We also went on a ghost tour around the colony the night before.
There were some stunning examples of early colonial architecture around Tasmania.
Jon, Lisa, Kelly, Vicky and myself all piled onto a little boat and took a cruise around the harbour in Hobart. Vicky’s obsession with taking gagillions of photos went into overdrive during the trip.
Lisa, Jon, Vicky and I visited one of the oldest prisons in Hobart. There were lots of creepy things to see including this scary ghost of a beautiful woman, for some reason she looks oddly familiar. Jon Kitchen looked oddly at home inside a locked prison cell. The stones in the floor which the prisoners […]
I went to Hobart for IC07 which is the biggest inorganic chemistry conference in Australasia. The conference was a success. I met lots of new people, made some new friends and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Hobart is an excellent place to visit. It’s very picturesque, the weather is great and it’s not too busy.
My camera ran out of batteries when I went to join Tan out at Tomohawk beach to take pictures of the comet 🙁 So here’s a slightly modified version of the picture that Tan took.
With my leg out of cast, I decided it was time for some serious fitness. So I agreed to do the Central Otago Rail Trail with Anna! It turned out that my leg wasn’t quite as strong as I thought! I had some serious issues getting from point A to point B. But we did […]
For those of you who know her, this wont be a surprise at all. But here is the first ever photo of Cass attempting to bite me. I tried fending her off with my hand, but she just started munching!
Yeah, yeah I know. Who breaks their leg playing badminton? You can see a spiral fracture of my fibula down near my ankle.
I won the United Club D-grade Mens singles championship in my first attempt! It took all of my strength and stamina to beat my opposition … which was … er … non-existent! I was the only D-grader who turned up to compete, so I won the cup by default 🙂 My friend Shelley holding my […]
This is blatant piracy. So if you are the copyright holder and don’t want me hosting this video then just wing me an email and I’ll remove it. But since this is my own personal site, I’m not trying to make any money out of it and the news item is about me; I figured […]
Some dear friends of mine died recently. They were on the back seat of my car when it was callously torched 🙁 This is Muncher, he was born at the Cookie Time factory and lived a short but exciting life, taken around the West Coast of New Zealand with Anna and myself. He also made […]
I’ve been looking for these photos for the past three years! I eventually found them whilst looking through my old backup disks for some other photos. So here for your amusement are the photos of my car after some lunatics took it for a drunken joy ride. Visit the original post for more information. Thanks […]
Some $&*%# decided it would be nice idea to break into my car, take it for a joy ride, get drunk whilst at it, then drive it to the top of Signal Hill in Dunedin, put the handbrake on and floor it till the rims hit the tarmac then once it wouldn’t move any further […]
Mark Hareb, my flatmate Dars and myself went tramping on the Silverpeaks route, just out of Dunedin. Things started badly when my giant three liter bottle of water split only half an hour into the tramp. I carried it in for another hour and ditched at the turnoff where we would be arriving back to […]
I headed through to go partying with Anna and her friends in Queenstown. I took these photos on the way back home.
I went to see some of the special stages of the Rally of Otago with Scott and Marthah (my brother and his fiance). Lots of sideways action, dust, noise and excitement. The photos didn’t turn out too well, my camera lens got quite dirty and I didn’t realise till after I uploaded them 🙁
Valerie and I went to see the Dunedin Street race and took a bunch of really cool photos. Erm, then I lost all those really cool photos 🙁 But we also went to tunnel Beach and I took the following photo on my EXTREMELY shonky phone camera. EDIT: Found ’em! Here’s Valerie eyeing up a […]
Some photos from my trip to the the West Coast with Anna.
Karl Wieghardt was visiting the Brooker Bunch and whilst here he found out he’d made the worlds first iron(VI) compound! While celebrating at Eureka, Sally arranged this cake with six silver candles to represent his new discovery. For any of you non-chemists, discovering iron(VI) is pretty huge! Iron is almost always found in the +2 […]
After our trip around the West Coast, Anna and I headed over to Lake Hawea and Wanaka via the Haast pass.
Anna went on an adventure to the West Coast of New Zealand. Some seriously wet weather awaited us!
I went down to Invercargill to celebrate Debbie’s birthday. Debbie is a fellow chemistry geek and one of the awesomest people I know. Happy 21st Debbie 🙂 Blowing, blowing, blowing … BLOWN! The speeches: So what did Carla say that made Debbie squirm so much?
Jon and I took our new Research Fellow down to the Catlins for some site seeing.
I visited the Royal Albatross colony with a new flatmate. The colony is at the end of Otago Peninsula only 30 mins drive from Dunedin.
Here’s a photo of the Brooker Bunch, the research group (which I’m a member of) of Prof. Sally Brooker. From left: Jason Price, Nick White, Andy Noble, Sally Brooker, Jon Kitchen and Ryan Hellyer (me).
While visiting Cass in Christchurch I took these panoramas of Lyttleton harbour with Banks Peninsula in the background.
Here’s some photos I took at my parents crib at Toko Mouth. A crib by the way (for you non South Islander’s) is a term we use for a holiday house. Toko Mouth is situated at the mouth of the Tokomaririro river 45 mins drive south of Dunedin.
We had yummy Chinese at the Golden Sun for Yvette’s birthday. We had a strange dish which had strange black thingies which made your mouth go numb when you ate them. If you know what those black thingies are called, please let me know in the comments as I’d love to try them again some […]
I had a key party at my flat in Calgary.
First came the number eight wire, now comes the stock pot 😛 We needed to scale up a reaction in the lab (potassium permanganate oxidation), so instead of repeating it a gazillion times, Sally suggested I got a big pot and scaled it up 🙂 Since giant beakers from Aldrich cost a fortune (and break […]
I drove Debbie and Brendon down to Invercargill. We stopped at the worlds most exciting bus stop – Froggat Rd. … I am Milton …
I headed up to Christchurch with Debbie. We road tripped with her friends Davin and Emma (Goose). We went to an engagement party of some people I’d never met, promptly disturbed them and headed back to Dunedin the next day 🙂 Emma … Debbie … Davin … you’ll need to use your imagination as the […]
The weather was good so I headed out to Lake Waihola (about 25 mins from Dunedin) and took some snaps.
I walked from my new flat up to the top of Mount Cargill today. Here’s a photo of Waitati from the top.