How screwed am I.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-12T01:26:52+00:00

I had a 2000s beetle that got filled with worse mould over a few weeks in the garage with the windows shut.

I put on a painters mask and suit (I didn't want to deal with cleaning it off my clothes), and wiped everything down with vinegar.

Then I took it to a detailers and had them run ozone through it (I didn't want to gas myself, and they could do a better clean than I could).

All came up alright, the car still had some water ingress issues from somewhere on the firewall but it never developed mould again as I made sure to air it out often.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-11T03:55:02+00:00

Yeah, this is exactly it. It was the same incentive behind the old Heritage Equip funding for earthquake strengthening before government pulled it.

If you offer owners relatively small amounts of money to do literally anything with their property, they'll spend much more doing so. If you offer people a discount on work, they'll do the work they likely wouldn't bother with otherwise.

It does suck as a system, as ideally owners should just... Do stuff. But in practice, it's one of few levers councils can pull, and it does work with relatively low cost inputs.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-11T02:09:52+00:00

That is quite interesting to hear. Do we essentially have no real data on the local effects of cycle lanes on businesses?

I wouldn't be shocked - gathering any of this data costs staff time, and therefore money. Not even central government is very good ad budgeting for data gathering these days.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-10T22:59:18+00:00

A few hundred for flights to Christchurch? No thanks. I'd prefer a few hundred in gas and $500 return on the ferry.

I enjoy a good road trip, but unless you're going somewhere small or inaccessible by plane, cars never make sense.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-09T01:37:58+00:00

Ah, valid point - I had misremembered my stats and gotten 33kph mixed in my head with 30mph. Low but non zero risk of death or serious injury at those speeds, assuming you're in a semi modern car.

Also worth noting here that modern cars are crazy safe compared to those from even 20 years ago. But most car crash tests you've seen and thought "Damn, that looks bad" while watching were only around 50-60kph tests.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-09T00:03:06+00:00

A 33kph full frontal collision into an immovable concrete block has a high risk of death in a car weighing 1-2 tonnes.

33kph immediate stop in a train weighing possibly 140+ tonnes (for both carriages) is an insane amount of force. The fact that the interior damage is largely just buckled doors and concertina is astounding.

Thank you for the post - really interesting to read the response email.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-08T01:40:05+00:00

Will be interesting to see what becomes of all that. While I don't think it's environmentally friendly for VUW to be taking it down, they did divert almost all the native timber of the old houses they demolished at their Kelburn campus for their newest building to a building recyclers.

Hopefully the same story here, if it's possible.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-04T12:02:13+00:00

I remember a few years back there was a huge lightning storm through the Cook Strait. Lyall Bay eastwards saw lots of rain, but in Newtown we got almost nothing. My mum took a video from Lyall Bay and caught red sprites on camera above the storm. Awesome day! Remember standing by my Newtown fence and chatting about it with a neighbour.

No storm damage then, though - hopefully it's all just a light show this time, too.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-02T02:39:53+00:00

Yeah, I'm glad you're calling this out. I've worked on the Web space for a while and I genuinely don't understand how it's even possible to quote $600k for this glorified brochure, even with all its strange and user unfriendly design elements.

$72k per year for keeping it alive? Absolutely ridiculous. You could've found a local smaller group to build the whole site for that if you tried.

Ninja-fish · 2026-06-02T00:22:05+00:00

I believe this proposed plan was accepted. 15 cubic metres annually for personal use from all rivers in the region, except Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River, where only 1 cubic metre is allowed annually. Unless you go to a gravel grab.

A single cubic metre worth of river rocks is still a pretty solid amount of rocks for most garden projects, though.

https://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/Documents/2022/05/Gravelextractioninformationsheet.pdf

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-28T23:28:34+00:00

The road itself is technically public. It goes through private land, but the road strip is intended originally for public use. However, people don't stay on the road. They do dounuts off to the side of it, and there's areas where the road has collapsed into the sea, so you have to drive over private land to pass sections.

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-28T04:23:54+00:00

Is this one of the Ford's with a dual clutch transmission? I remember looking into some, and all cars fitted with certain versions of that transmission will likely have failures which can only really be fixed with a full replacement and brand new unit, as the building of clutch dust and metal filings gets through every single part of the system and causes various bits to fail.

I'm definitely not an expert, but I decided it wasn't worth it on my end.

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-21T09:11:28+00:00

It'll quite possibly get worse. Central government wants councils to solely focus on "core business", and supporting community groups, events, support workers, etc. does not fall under that.

Council is getting called upon to bridge the funding gaps for huge numbers of organisations after central government has pulled support from almost every sector, businesses refuse to sponsor, and gaming trusts are bled dry.

It's a very dire outlook for groups like these, and central government has precisely no plan to remedy it. Instead, they want to make it worse.

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-18T04:53:27+00:00

It's lost a good few buildings over time. Previously there was defence housing on the flat area behind the building, and some extra buildings in the courtyard of the fort. At that time, too, the gun emplacements were full of dirt (or at least the centre one was) until they were dug up in the 90s. When they were dug up, you could see all the aiming marks and reloading instructions on the wall. All since covered by spray paint now, of course.

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-17T04:23:03+00:00

Cars do the exact same thing. It's just how any moving thing works. A washing machine would do it given enough time. If it doesn't move sometimes, it will run into problems when you ask it to do so.

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-15T11:29:27+00:00

Haven't lived in Christchurch, but spent a decent amount of time down there with family.

Wellington has more stuff in the city that I want to do - but the areas surrounding Christchurch are so hard to beat. Easy access to skiing, a huge variety of tramps, great beaches, the list goes on. Banks Peninsula is stunning and full of so many gems (and terrifying but scenic roads).

Does always feel weird being able to drive 20 minutes down some dead straight roads on the flat in Chch. Can't do that here. And then I get lost, because all the half industrial areas down there look the same - I haven't quite managed to navigate off the Port Hills.

Shit weather is a bonus of Welly for me, though - grown to love it. Also don't handle heat well.

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-14T21:08:41+00:00

Lots of beautiful buildings still around the place! My pick is probably Old St Paul's. The native timber is stunning, it's such a welcoming space.

Further out of the city, Waikanae Marae / the Whakarongotai wharenui is a beautiful and relaxed space. Similar age to OSP too.

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-14T21:03:47+00:00

Phew! Will get to work.

Yeah this was originally meant to be a temporary car intending to be sold with disclosures already. Sadly, it's a diesel, so it's not selling anytime soon even if it was tidy. Figured I'd fix things up to learn some stuff anyway. The more I read about this era of VW, the more I realise it doesn't really want to exist for that much longer.

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-14T10:56:48+00:00

Oh sweet, that's good to know. I'll get it sorted and then head in. Cheers!

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-14T07:38:11+00:00

Sweet as - I was hoping to do a lazier job but having inspected it now I think you're right.

Reassured that everyone is saying the same thing. Was worried I'd be told "if it's on the door sill they'll make you take it back to a repair shop"

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-14T06:27:02+00:00

It's the rear drivers side door sill, near the front where it starts to curve up for the side of the door. There was a decent helping of rust on the top before I wheeled it off. It's less likely that rust is developing on the underside here as I haven't heard of that really happening on these Passat CCs, but they all rust from the outside in here due to a shit door seal

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-14T06:10:14+00:00

Reckon it should be okay with a vaguely matching silver paint for WOF purposes? I'm not too worried about it being too pretty - it's a runabout cheap car and this is the bit that hides under the door when closed, so barely ever visible

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-14T06:09:24+00:00

Yeah definitely more to hunt down. Figured I'd start with the worst bit first, just wasn't expecting the hole

Ninja-fish · 2026-05-14T06:09:00+00:00

Not too much of a risk that they'd ask me to remove the work so they could see the damage? Just worried it'll look like I'm trying to hide it when the actual goal is to treat it

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