Family - Another Nadi Trip

Jordan and Andrews mother(My Sister inlaw) was supposed to come during the christmas break but was not able to.

My wife had to attend her namesakes 60th birthday in Nadi so she took the two kids on the trip to visit their mother. Jordan had a number two haircut as too many people were complaining about his blonde hair. So the two kids and some of bale's nephews spent the night with my sister inlaw in Nadi while I stayed at home with Bale's sister and her one year old son Jerry.

As we didnt have enough money for the Nadi trip I told the kids only Andrew could go which made jordan upset. Andrew being the good brother said he would sacrifice his trip for Jordan. In the end they both went as I gave them my food money for the day. Good karma that same day was when a workmate cooked us Duck Curry.

I have this belief that if you stay true to your principles and be good to others, good things will happen. So far the majority of the time it has worked for me

On wednesday I was able to retrieve my ATM card and repay bale's sister for the loan over the christmas holidays. She asked for interest I hope she was joking. New setup at ANZ house in Suva is much more efficient as I was able to retrieve my ATM card, withdraw some money and check my pin number all within 45 minutes.

Bale's Sister, Aunty and nepthew ended up leaving yesterday and then bale's brother came and stayed. Flat seems to alway have some relative staying. Wonder whats going to happen if I blog fulltime and have no money.

Bought Surviver serious DVD for Jordan and two dvds called Revolver and Devils rejects. Jordan had to write the 3,9,11 and 12 times table before he could watch the wrestling.

Devils rejects has to one of the grossest films out there and this is from someone who likes violent films. I did enjoy some parts but I wouldnt recommend it. Gross envelope keeps on being pushed excellent example is Duece Bigaloo european vacation. Revolver was pretty good until it tried to do its Gollum scenes.

Fiji - Duck Curry

On tuesday I attended a training session and after that one our workmates cooked a duck curry. I have only eaten duck once before in woks restaurent and it was bad experience. To many bones and not enough meat.

This guy cooked the curry at our christmas party which is always good but this duck curry tasted a bit like his lamb curries but different. It was one of the best curries in my life with large chunks of duck meat.

Live duck cost $30 in nausori and you paid an extra $5 for them to kill and then dress it. I cant really tell the difference between meat from just slaughtered animals and meat from the supermarket.

Strangely I have trouble differenting lamb chops from beef steaks. But I can easily differentiate between lamb and beef sausages. I will only eat beef sausages but that may change going forward.

One of my university break jobs was to work in an abitour and my job was to pick up all the left over pieces that get grinded into sausage. So I know what goes into a sausage

Fiji Rugby Sevens

Serevi is doing a great job as the Fiji sevens coach and it was a good sign that the majority of the sevens players turned up for training during the last week. I would have bet that Ryder would have been late to the training but I am not sure how serevi will handle him.

Classic comment from tietjens saying that it was a fluke that fiji beat argentina in the George tournament. One of the most hardwired coaches out there and I think it is the first time he doesnt have the players. That is a bad sign for New Zealand rugby going forward.

South African Rugby team will be the team of the future as a good indicator has been the performance of the under 19 and under 21's which South Africa has been dominating in the last few years.

I agree that Pivac should be retained as he is one of the best coaches in the world and has done a good performance with the fiji team. Only problem is I think he is what you call a players coach so has no problems drinking with the local players. I have had this experience of drinking with my staff and it doesnt go down well with the non drinkers. The majority of the fifteens team are non drinkers so that behaviour could be causing some problems.

Serevi backing Pivac show guts, leadership and loyalty. I remember when FRU wouldnt choose him for the sevens and it was Pivac who brought him back and ultimatly bringing back the winning sevens culture.

Kids came back from Nadi Yesterday

I finished work around 6pm last night so that I could make it back home early so my wife could go to a wedding.

Shocked to see my son with blonde hair. He looks like a solomon islander with red hair. It was rally good to see the two boys again. They didnt seem interested in seeing me just playing games or showing of to their cousins

House was full again as it included my wifes to cousins and there kids.

I ended up giving my rav4 to another one of bales cousins so they could drive to the wedding at Trade winds. This guys a good driver as he drives for western union. I think he is the only one that drives slower then me.

One of my good friends invited me to his work party. He is really doing well now where his factory is moving more the 30 million dollars of product a year. It was an intersting party and even more at the after events. Seems like all the nightclubs are now following the proper closing times

Woke up to constant nagging about food etc at the wedding.Ended up coming to work at 10am as was recovering from night before. I was bit worried driving as LTA seems to be everywhere now

Daily Update

My wife and her niece is going to Nadi today to pick up Jordan and Andrew. They will come back tommorow as there is a wedding in the afternoon. I heard that Jordan has dyed his hair blonde.

I think they will be catching the sunbeam buses. Andrew was complaining that he had to finish his food before catching the bus. I think its a pretty bad rule how you can't eat in the bus. One time I caught the sunbeam bus from Lautoka to Suva and besides not being able to eat on the bus, The bus driver didnt play any movies

I will be staying home with Bale's son eparama tonight. So we will see what we can cook tonight. I am pretty good at cooking mcdonalds.

The Next Petroleum

A really good article at newsweek which talks about ethanol as the next petroleum.

A summary of the points I found interesting are
1. Brazil is producting ethanol at $25 a barrel compared to $40 a barrerl for europe

2. Southern countries growing sugar cane can get up to five times as much biofuel from each acre of land then other crops

3. Brazil and India could replace 10 percent of global gasoline fuel

4. China is developing the largest ethanol plant and is looking at cassava and sweet potato as a source for its ethanol

5. There is a new way of creating ethanol which is to use genetically engineered enzymes that can convert the cellulose to glucose to ethanol. Shell is investing heavily in creating a plant to produce ethanol using this method

6. United States alone could use these new technologies to replace 30 percent of its current gasoline consumption by 2030—without cutting into food production or greatly changing land use.

Sports Ramblings

Joy Ali was beaten in the first round. Hopefully it wasn’t my kiss of death. Just shows the difference in class with real world ranked opponents.

Fiji Sevens team performance in the Dubai sevens was a good step and things are looking promising again. I think people underestimate the influence of fiji’s assistant coach.

Fiji’s win against New Zealand, England and Argentina in the George Sevens tournament has proved that we are now back in Sevens

Fiji vs Italy's match was the first time to watch rugby being played in the snow and to make it worse Fiji was wearing white and the ball was white. Only benefit for fiji is that it showed that we can keep possession from a backwards sliding scrum.

I don’t know how much value the Fiji Hockey team could have got by being beaten by more then 30 by Australia

NLTB Christmas Party

NLTB Christmas Party

I was the IT manager of the Native Land Trust Board for over five years and worked their for over 10 years. I was invited to their Christmas party last night. It wanted to go but didn’t for reasons I might expand on later.

Growing up my father always told us to get our education in Australia and then come back and work in Fiji. This is something that was always in my mind and when given the opportunity I took a 50% pay cut to come and work at NLTB. To realise why I saw this as a great undertaking was that NLTB administers 80% of land in Fiji for the indigenous people of Fiji and has a great impact on my extended family.

It is now questionable if my influence in that organisation has been positive or significantly negative which is a downer. But I don’t regret coming back to Fiji or the majority of my actions while being here

Using Ethanol with Fiji Sugar Cane

Some people might realise that in fiji the major agricultural product is Sugar which is in major decline in Fiji. The plight of sugar is also a issue to me due to my family having around 5 cane farms in labasa
(Family in Fijian terms means my cousins, uncles and aunties)

So I am really interested in what are the prospects Sugar and after some browsing today realised that Brazil is doing a great job in converting there sugar cane crops to ethanol. This is having a positive effect on prices and might mean that our cane farms may be able to survive the new expected prices because the EU will be no longer subsidizing Fiji's cane prices

Why I am calling this blog Set

First the url set.blogsport.com was used up so ended up using the url nisayadra.blogspot.com which is a polite way saying good morning.

The reason I like 'Set' because if you live in the pacific you will learn this word which mean everything is okay, even though it may not be.

So when discussing issues of pacific it may sound all rosy but in fact there are many different layers that is being hidden. Hopefully with the help of you we can uncover as many layers as possible in the "Way the world should be"

First Post

I have split up my previous blog Really so that I can have a blog that focuses on pacific issues.

I think a lot of viewers may not be interested in overseas politics and sports