Euan Ritchie

My personal website

Bora Bora 2007

This is a site for experimenting and keeping references and samples.

My choices configuring Astons…

• My DBS V12 for tooling around.
• My DBX for going to golf.

Nostalgia

I have noticed in advertising for upcoming movies and TV shows a lot of nostalgia and other revisits of the past driving productions.

Ten-ish years ago I found in new SF books a tendency to a more opposed attitude - a cynicism that ideals would never be met; constant failure or exploration and disaster for space colonisation.

Is there something meaningful in that? The art that used to optimistically look forward now increasing in cynicism as the more popular arts withdraw into the past?

There's a story I used to like that left an impression on me, always recalling it's line "The stars in their course favour China"; putting aside that China was one of two sides in the story I often had a feeling that should have been "the stars in their course favour baby boomers" - am I noticing the depressive cynicism some believe is being left in their wake?

Electricity, ouch

So for about the third time in my life I've shocked myself with 240 volts.

This time by not realizing I was touching the metal part of my multimeters probe while checking which wire was which as I was replacing a motion sensor.

And for the first time I've noticed after effects. When I sat down to watch some TV (after succesfully replacing the sensor) the menu of media on my F-off big OLED TV looked like it was fuzzing.

I couldn't quite tell if my TV was glitching but I was sure it wasn't just blurry vision - so I got up close and it was clear the TV was fine.

My eyesight was just buzzing which I presume is an effect of shocking myself.

Aphorisms

I like a good aphorism and enjoy the elegant concise expression of ideas (the quotes randomly appearing above come from a collection of such expression).

I sometimes wonder about the similarity of my mulling this sort of thing compared to reading help and advice columns...

• We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
• It's not what happens to you, it's how you respond or react to what happens to you.
• This too shall pass.
• You have to put your oxygen mask on first.
• 'No' is a complete sentence.
• Nobody is getting out alive.
• A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
• Good drivers sometimes miss their turn. Bad drivers never do.
• You don't have a problem or obstacle; you have a Solution Start point.
• Start with a yes.

Beware of the cat!

She may look relaxed, and you might think you're bigger than her, but she's armed for bear.

Ferrari 360

Instead of a Aston Martin

Trudy bought me a go around a race track in an Aston Martin, but someone had broken it before I arrived. So I went around in a Ferrari 360 instead.

These cars are definitely different to drive and I wouldn't want one for any kind of daily use, but blatting around a track was fun.

My New Toy

I've bought a Samsung Tab 7 to use as a digital drawing pad. An iPad Pro has better commercial software, but I don't require that.

My plan is to resurrect some stagnant drawing skills, in a modern fashion.

Grog

The traditional british navy grog is;

• One part sour (lime juice)
• Two parts sweet (sugar/molasses)
• Three parts strong (pussers rum)
• Four parts weak (water)

This is the best liquor I've ever drunk, yummy as hell. I took a litre to a New Years party and was quite sozzled before I finished it - didn't get a hangover but my legs felt funny the next day.

Africa 2015

The story (and images) of our 2015 African Adventure.

Tonga

Swimming with humpbacks in 2012

While my house was being repaired of it's earthquake damage we went to the Sandy Beach Resort in Haʻapai, Tonga and swam with humpbacks.

Although the whales in this video are juveniles, they're still bigger than they look (without objects to compare to). We didn't know they were under our boat until we jumped in the water intending to swim towards others.

Bora bora

Swimming with sharks and rays in 2006

I was chasing stingrays across the Bora Bora lagoon the same day one killed Steve Irwin.

Moray eel

While snorkelling in Bora Bora I found this moray. He was gorgeously coloured (underwater photography without lights washes colours out a lot).

He was something like six to eight feet long and I remember his eyes as being richly coloured and beautiful flecked with gold.

Thunderbird 2

Parked on roadside

While driving to work today I saw a ~four meter long fibreglass model of Thunderbird 2 parked on the roadside. Très cool!

Auld Lang Syne

Digital Graphic Design

A graphic designer who's work speaks to my youth

Guess why I love Rafe Dominguez? If you recognize that design of his you'll know why straight away.

Africa

Bumping into a gorilla in Rwanda

While visiting the Agasha family of gorillas I was bumped by a Black Back on his way to some sweet bamboo.

I ate some of that bamboo - down at it's roots it's heavy with moisture, a bit like a fibrous carrot.

Thermopylae

I stood with Leonidas (in 2004)

No, really, I really did. And here's the picture to prove it. That's me up on the monument at Thermopylae a few years ago on a trip from England to Istanbul (and most of the way back).

I saw 300 last week and, eh, it was okay. The best bits were stylish stagings of the comics panels - but comics transcribed as movies don't have good scripts or dialogue (Sin City also demonstrates this).

The most interesting thing I noticed, given the debates and anger the movie aroused, is the addition of some dialogue: when Leonidas meets Xerxes emissary early in the story he warns the emissary he'll be held responsible for his words as if they were his own - a clear warning that this messenger may be blamed for the message he is about to deliver. This is not in the comic.

So the producers demonstrate they know there's something unseemly about Leonidas in this story and attempted to defuse it by inserting language to moderate his character. If they now reply to accusations of producing propaganda with claims to only have been reproducing another work of art in a different medium, without responsibility for the story, they will be lying.

New Zealand's Flag

An actual flag, not a logo

This should be our new flag. It's design is solid, makes good sense and combines a lot of New Zealand in a clear distinctive flag.

Bokissa Private Resort

Holiday of 2014

2014 holidays were in a small island south of Espiritu Santos in Vanuatu which the locals lease to a resort. Good food (for once I didn't lose weight on holiday) and decent snorkelling.

I was stung by a jellyfish and stalked by a shark. Good times. Picked this resort because you can get there in a day from Auckland and avoid the usual two nights wasted time travelling.

I used my Go Pro underwater. They really work well with a red filter.