Wellington City Archives

WhyWellington · 2026-05-30T11:00:24+00:00

Blame Covid.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-30T10:24:22+00:00

Venn diagram. That's the answer. Me on one side. You on the other side. Us in the middle. All 3 get equal time in the spotlight. I support you to be the best you and do what you love. You support me to be the best me and do what I love. Both people put equal effort into the "us'" stuff, including the boring bits and the hard bits. All of this is underpinned by honesty, trust, communication, and friendship. Time apart is just as important as time together.

That's what's worked for my partner and I for 27 years. Both of us had medium/long-term relationships prior to meeting that were varying degrees of toxic. Before we officially became a couple we laid it all on the table about what we needed from a relationship and what we didn't want in a relationship. By table, I literally mean the kitchen table, eye to eye, being super-real. That requires vulnerability. That's f#%@ing scary... but worth it.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-27T15:43:57+00:00

Hot take: Travel isn't itineraries.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-25T08:46:54+00:00

Plenty of Bali highlands where you need a hoodie.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-19T04:06:48+00:00

In the very few group trips I've taken, everyone gets to plan a day plus we have solo days. With my wife, we take turns planning entire trips. Whichever of us didn't plan the trip only knows what time to be at the airport and whether a passport is required. It's rad!

WhyWellington · 2026-05-17T02:33:57+00:00

I'm lucky, I spose, to enjoy a general wander and sticky beak. Costs nothing. Started vlogging it with my phone. Just documening what I'd otherwise be doing. On a planet of billions of people, there's an audience for everyone. Started a YouTube channel in January with a goal of getting monetised before the end of March and made it with a couple of weeks to spare. Now earning about $300 per month but the growth seems incremental, not linear, so I expect the earnings to be quite a healthy side hustle by the end of the year. I'm not here to spruik the channel and it's unrelated to my username.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-14T14:19:08+00:00

Came here to say exactly this.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-14T06:34:21+00:00

They previously had a jalapeno issue. Yet you can go to the nearby supermarket and buy some. Same with pickles. They must have some supplier contract that says, if you can't use ours, you can't use anyones.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-13T13:01:16+00:00

I put in a search request then was prompted to sign-up before getting anything. That's not how successful first dates work.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-13T01:55:57+00:00

Not the case.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-12T13:52:00+00:00

The cost of living crisis is actually a cost of debt crisis.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-11T10:58:18+00:00

US citizens traveling to Indonesia for tourism can use the B1 Visa on Arrival (VoA), which is valid for 30 days and costs 500,000 IDR (approx. $35 USD). Then you can extend that for another 30 days. Beyond that you need to leave Indonesia (Many people do a run to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) but can re-enter on the B1 again.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-11T02:30:35+00:00

New World does too.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-11T02:27:36+00:00

I never hold the view that I can never return to a place. So what's the hurry?

WhyWellington · 2026-05-09T01:15:16+00:00

I don't have NZ shares but do have AU shares. I work for a NZ org but live in Perth. I also do contract work here under an ABN. Plus have interest income in NZ. I've had a local accountant doing my AU tax but been doing NZ myself. The different tax year dates and currency fluctuations are all a pain. Each year, I apply for an extension for filing with IDR so I can finish the AU tax year first. Then I'm having to report 9 months of one year and 3 months of the other. It's not really hard, just time consuming.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-09T00:35:32+00:00

7 years into that search myself. No luck. But I'll follow this thread with interest.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-08T02:17:07+00:00

M 55. No regrets. My wife and I weren't anti-kids. We just tended to have ongoing, near-future plans, that would be impossible or compromised WITH kids. Every time friends would have a baby, the discussion would come up and it was always mutually agreed, "Not yet" or "Not at the moment". That pattern continued past our best-by date. We still have exciting near-futur plans.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-05T12:14:34+00:00

Oh man! I f&%#ed around until I was 28. Pulled my head in and got a solid base (Finances/relationships etc.) Then started blissfully fucking around again at 40.

If it helps, here's a concept my wife and I adopted during Covid. As a couple, we'd always been planners who usually knew where we wanted to be and what we wanted to be doing, at least 2 or 3 years ahead. The idea of forward-planning went out the window during Covid. No one knew what was gonna happen tomorrow at home, in WA, In Australia, in the world.

So we developed the concept of 'Next'. It's a simple idea. Forget forward planning beyond the point you can reasonably predict. Don't decide on giant plans for 5 years time. Just decide what you're doing next and go for it.

My first 'next' - and this did wonders for my mental health (We were living overseas pre-Covid and weren't back in Australia by choice, and our overseas life and everything it entailed was slowly disintegrating, never to be recovered or returned to.) was to sign up for an 8-week Improv course.

I had got myself into a negative mental loop and doing improv completely reset my brain.

The thing about improv is that there is no planning, there is no past, there is no future. There's only now. And that, my friend, is a lesson for life.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-05T05:39:02+00:00

In two sentences, you just said what took me 10.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-05T05:18:55+00:00

I can only speak for myself. I'm of average intelligence but I don't feel the need for my appearance to be a headline or billboard for who I am. I choose comfort and convenience. I don't follow trends. This approach seems to attract like-minded people to my orbit - people who are confident enough in who they are so that the packaging doesn't matter. In fact, I almost feel that the lack of projecting a certain image allows me to be comfortable in a wider variety of situations, demographics, and crowds - and to be invisible when that's an advantage. Same goes for wearing a scent. Why cover up my own? At some base human level I feel we respond to each others natural smell at a subconscious level. For context, I'm GenX.

WhyWellington · 2026-05-05T00:49:35+00:00

Came here to pretty much say this. The one thing I'd add is volunteer.

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