The Adlington Post

Last December I was invited to help present a workshop on the power of art to effect social change at "Artshift" a sub-activity of the international Youth Climate Change Summit (known as Power Shift : New Zealand- Pacific where well-over 600 young people signed up ) at Auckland University.  “The Power Shift NZ-Pacific 2012 Youth Climate Summit will create a powerful movement that will push New Zealand to raise its ambition in tackling climate change, and challenge our leaders to make meaningful change to climate policy.”  (From PowerShift.org.nz )   watch the video of the workshop HERE

I have joined the crew at the Mens' Shed North Shore, and have had a lot of fun helping the team with the final finishing-off of the new shed they have built at Glenfield. The grand opening is scheduled for early April, and after that things will swing into action and the place will come alive with people working on all manner of projects.. .

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to the PHAB studio in Takapuna to help the folks make fridge magnets. We all had a great time, and the guys made some fun things to take home....   PHAB provides opportunity for people both disabled and non-disabled to come together for social activities, with 16 groups that meet weekly throughout the greater Auckland area. They have a main focus of young people 16 - 25.  PHAB strives to break down the barriers that result in social isolation.

"The number of pokie machines in Auckland will continue to drop even if Sky City casino is allowed to have more of them, Prime Minister John Key says." http://news.msn.co.nz/nationalnews/8446024/auckland-pokie-numbers-falling-key-says

The new iphone 5 proudly brought to you by Apple - now available in white!

What most of us internet users don't realize or fully appreciate is the extent to which our on-line activities are being monitored, recorded, stored, bundled and sold to advertisers (& other interested, and even more sinister, parties). We may be vaguely aware that "cookies" (activity trackers) are stored on our computers (which can & should be deleted in your browser's daily. I have recently enabled which, in real time, notifies you of other "trackers" of your activity & data -& will block such moles on request. For example, I searched for this evening.  Ghostery informed me that it had blocked nine (yes 9) trackers on the page I found. Among them was this entity: How's that for jargon?? They are saying that they are tracking visitors to sites and selling the ISP addresses as well as other relevant information ( ie our other web searches, physical address, contacts age, sex, sexual preferences. income, race, location, sites,

My buddy Laurie & I enjoyed a meal of crispy-skin duck on a bed of rice at Tai Ping Supermarket last week - this Saturday 22 Sept Tai Ping is holding an Asian Food Festival - stalls, classes, good food!!