Ah the freedom of roadtrips.

Well, the roadtrip is over but a new New Years Resolution has been added to the list: More Roadtrips!!! I went to a cute little spot called Kokiri on the West Coast between Moana and Stillwater. The original school was hired by friends who invited friends and extended family to come and go as they pleased over the week. I had so much fun and clicked so well with the people I met there that I stayed a couple of days longer than planned. I local area was investigated, bonfires were had, much alcohol consumed with much laughter, and the inevitable board games dragged out on the rainy days. I even had a wee holiday romance!

But I had made plans to move on to Westport where another friend was camping so off I drove with my wee fluffy dog in tow. I must say he had a ball and was very well behaved. He'll now sleep anywhere his bed is put. Much to my son's delight (he puts it in his room).

Westport I'm sorry to say wasn't that exciting but I realise I was just missing the company I had enjoyed at Kokiri. The beaches are amazing. So wild. Denniston was slightly spooky in the clouds. My friend who was also camping in the Westport region, was so spooked so turned around and drove back down without getting out of her car!

So many wee towns were visited. My fav's being Blackball and Reefton. The chilly bin (esky) was filled with West Coast Draught which I cannot sing enough praises about, and off home I drove.

That's it. More roadtrips must be had for my own sanity. I can truely say I found myself on the West Coast.

Roadtrip!!!!!!

Yay, last day of work. I'll get the xmas family obligations out of the way then hit the road. Yes, this year I'm off on a road trip. The first real road trip in at least 14 years. When I say real road trip I mean the no plan, no accommodation bookings style trip. Just me, the dog, the tent and a few beers and my trusty Japanese car. Not like the old days of rust-bucket Holdens overheating through deserted roads. No! Piece-of-cake wee Japanese cars that actually get from A to B.

I'm so excited. The dog doesn't look so keen. It's a 'poofy' (named by every West Coaster I met last weekend break I had) small fluffy number that can't be fed before trips in the car because he'll bring up his lunch on my upholstery.

A friend has booked a wee school in the depths of the West Coast hills for a New Years gathering so I'll start there, spending a couple of days, but after that it's no plans.

Bliss.

What a drip!

I have a had a major week. First my son develops asthma with the bad weather last week and probably a wee virus. So off we trip to the doctors, many medications later, to the hospital for the next couple of days. Fortunately with him being 12 years old, my company was not required a lot. In fact, "When are you going?" was uttered many times.
So, he happily sat in his private ensuited room summoning nurses for lemonade popsicles and to change the movies on his personal tv, and ordering his next meal. While I ferried back and forth from home to ensure the pets were ok, do business orders, and collect essential entertainment items for my son.
I happily slept at home each night until I found my bed wet from a leaky roof. That's all I needed! Fortunately it didn't leak a lot but I did have to move to another room for a couple of nights until I could coax a roofer around. They were of course all busy with the days and days of rain.
I'm hoping all will be back to normal tomorrow when hopefully my son goes back to school!

Driving Miss J-Mo

CCL Learn finito

Oh no, what are we going to do now the CCL Learn is finished? No more whiling away the hours in the workroom cruising the internet for gems for our modules. How are we going to continue this in our small offdesk hours?

Suggestions people?

To my fellow CCL Learn classmates: Web 2.0

Woah, this is a dry subject. I had to have a coffee break and choose items for my storyline borrower in the middle to stop me snoozing. I will say though that i think it is great that government departments are looking at and creating ways to interact with the public and provide accessible platforms for feedback and imput. Our local government website has only a feedback form but it does have an RSS feed for news.
Businesses are much more comfortable with using social networking etc to boost their customer interaction. Eg Air NZ has a facebook profile and sends info and fun stuff to customers who have 'become fans'. Some of the posts are informative, asking for opinions or just for fun.
Matapihi most definately needs an RSS feed to enable those who are interested, to keep updated on new additions to the website. NZ museums has twitter and facebook profiles to enable interested parties to follow activity on the site.
It's the way forward.

To my fellow CCL Learn classmates:

Well, I enjoyed the Discovery module much more than some of the others. I must admit I'm a huge fan of aimlessly wandering the net and am now really pleased it's been validated as a learning experience!
The DIY search engines are a good idea. Not something that I want to add to my ever-growing list of stuff clogging up my computer though. I'm terrible at having too many webpages and programmes open at the same time which slows down my computer terribly.
I LOVE Stumbleupon . I was introduced to it about a year ago now, and am totally hooked. I often work near my computer at home and find stumble is perfect to keep me amused while doing mundane things.
I didn't find WebQuest that great. I'm not even sure what it is. It didn't seem very user friendly and it kept coming up with 'no search results' for my topics. The link to the Antarctica webquest that south library's learning centre uses didn't lead anywhere either. Oh well, maybe i'll have another look later. How did you guys go?