My brother Rhys

My brother Rhys lost his battle with cancer last Sunday. Some of you who read my blog may have met him, and some of you have not, but I have found the importance of stories and that the best way to gain immortality is to share those stories.

Rhys was only 35 years old, he was my younger brother, and it was a one in a million chance that this has happened to him. So here goes, I'll share some childhood stories and help him live on. I hope one makes you smile and will stick in your memory.

I have been privileged over the last week to get to know my brother through other people eyes, to see him as the people he worked with knew him and loved him. Rhys worked at Park Road Post as a film editor in the DI department. I had no idea until last week of the very high regard he was held in by the Wellington Film industry, as was shown by the nature of his funeral and those who attended. If nothing else, go see 'Rain of the Children', a brilliant film that would not be the same without Rhys' influence.

Rhys loved adventures, and we got into plenty of those. I can remember at an early age that we wanted to build a hut together, and lacking a tree to build it in, we decided to create an underground one behind the garden shed at the bottom of the garden. I think we were about 6 feet down before dad found out what was happening.

We lived in Appold Street in Dunedin for most of our younger childhood, and the street itself provided plenty of adventures. It was very steep with a wicked hairpin bend at the bottom. An awesome and death defying circuit for go karts, scooters and bikes.

We both saved for our first bikes, Rhys got a BMX bike and I got a ten speed. I was always slightly jealous that he could ride and jump his bike around the abandoned section near the bottom of the street and I always begged him for rides...he always shared.

When it snowed, new opportunities for mayhem arose, and as you can imagine, having a steep hill with a hairpin bend made for perfect sledding. I’m sure the speeds we got up to made the neighbors hair curl, and of course we never thought about traffic. I can vividly remember one snow day when Rhys missed the bend and sailed on down the bank into the bush below. There was a path that led down through the bush and he had managed to land on it and slid for almost a kilometre before stopping. It took him about half an hour to drag the sled back up the steps to meet me.

We loved our holidays on the farm with our cousins, Alistair, Dougald and Hamish. We though it was a wonderland of fun, and even when we were working it was good times. Huts built in hay stacks, cutting barley, duck shooting and driving cars, tractors and bikes before we were at high school made us the stuff of legends.

Rhys got his love of music from Dad. Dad had a fantastic sound system, and was forever trying to improve the quality of sound from it, and whenever he bought a new linkage or component, he would call us in to compare pre and post sound. Rhys could always hear it, I just nodded along, but we would all have superb conversations about a huge variety of music and artists.

I remember when he was in about the fifth form, he had to do a project on Dunedin. He chose to go out and interview local bands, the ‘Dunedin Sound’ as it is now known. He talked with the Chills, the Bats, The Clean and many more. He not only interviewed them but got to know them and would often hang out with them long after the project had finished. I was always immensely proud that he had done that. Even then he would go the extra mile for his passions.

We are gadget boys, we both have always loved things that plugged in and had buttons on them. Dad brought home a Dick Smith computer when we were in our early teens, it must have been one of the first home computers ever available...it had a tape cassette drive and took about half an hour to boot up. We would spend rainy weekends punching machine code into it, so that by Sunday night we could chase a little green dot around the screen with a bigger green dot, but we loved it.

He always followed his passions, the biggest example of this I know of, is his leaving New Zealand to follow Heather to Japan. She is a passion he never got tired of following.

Before he left, he studied Russian and History at University, but on the side got into film studies and I think in the end film studies won out. Later, we always had the super 8 Rhys and Heather film festival when they returned each year from Japan, artfully chronicling the vivid snippets of life that so captured Rhys’ imagination. So it was no surprise to hear that he was going to the South Pacific film school when they both returned from Japan.

He was the fun uncle, our kids always loved when the Bonneys from Wellington would visit, because Rhys would always take time to play and spend time with them. Train sets, dress ups and soccer games. They loved his hugs and then would clamber all over him, much to their delight and our dismay. He was one of those people that children just warmed to immediately.

It’s hard to understand that he is no longer going to be part of our adventures in the future, but I am immensely glad of the times that we have already shared. Rhys lived a life full of love, experiences and achieved dreams. A life at 24 FPS. I miss you Rhys, but you are forever in my heart.

Robocup Nationals

Today was the big day, the Robocup Nationals held at Point View School in Auckland. The school is massive, and has a large multi purpose building in which the event was held. Their were over 70 teams from all over the country gathered for the day.

The Auckland regionals were being held at the same time, which meant a busy day with lots of events to watch, but it also meant stiff competition for us, with 25 teams to compete against in our division alone.

We had our interview at 9.30am and it went well. Next time though we would keep a build log which would have detailed our learning journey with the robots.

Our turn was after lunch so we got a chance to see most of the other teams in action before we had to take the stage. There were some very creative entries, including star wars robots, modified Robosapiens, and a robot with a diamond ring! For many schools this was their second or third time entering the competition.

Our performance went off without a hitch, and was really well received by the crowd who gave us a huge round of applause, which gave us a really good buzz.

It was a bit nerve racking when they called the schools for the finals, and they didn't call us! We found out later it was just by a hair that we missed out and that we had come 5th in the competition.

It's been a really awesome adventure and learning experience for our team, and we''ll take back ideas and determination to try again next year for an even better result!

Kelly Tarlton's

We had an awesome day at Kelly Tarlton's! We arrived just in time to see the stingray feeding which was really exciting. They are so big and graceful and it was amazing watching them swim up to the keeper and take food from her.

We then went on through the tunnel to see all the fish swimming around and above us. It was so interesting we had to go around about three times! 

We watched all the fish in Fish Alley being fed. Piranha, Lionfish, an Octopus, coral fish and some massive crayfish that Michael got to feed by hand...yes, he does still have all his fingers!

We then went on the snow cat ride which took us through the penguin exhibit and taught us a little about the habits and habitat. 

A big thank you to Josh's Dad for organising such an amazing experience for us to have in Auckland!

By this time it was lunchtime so we headed around the road to St Heliers for a bit of lunch.

Michael's Dad told us about an exhibition of street art in town, so we headed there, with a quick detour over the harbour bridge. Catherine and Luke managed to hold their breath for the entire time over the bridge, that's just over a minute.

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were all tuckered out and ready for a rest, a swim or a read before tea.

It's a big day tomorrow, so we'll have a last team meeting tonight and we'll be ready to put our best foot forward for Wakari School and Dunedin tomorrow!

Our school day in Auckland

Well, today we started the day by jumping in the pool!

Before we even had had breakfast, we were in our togs and had hit the water! The day today is very warm and sunny and it was awesome to think that we were not going to school today to do spelling... stay tuned for more adventure later..

The Adventure begins!

Today the Wakari Wizards set off for our Auckland adventure. It was very exciting getting on the plane and heading off into the big blue yonder. For Catherine, it was her first experience of getting on a plane, so she was extra specially excited.

Flying high above the fluffy clouds the kids chatted, read books and played on game machines as the miles flew by beneath us.

We arrived weary but still excited, late in the afternoon and made our way to our hotel. After getting bags unpacked the kids went to check out the hotel's pool which got the big thumbs up!