Rolly

This my friend Rowan "Rolly" Carlyle.

He is, without a doubt the funniest person I have ever met. We used to go to a pub quiz in Brooklyn (Wellington) and there wasn't one instance where Rolly didn't have the whole team in tears. Here's an example: once we had a long team name and the girl running the quiz told me that we had to shorten it so she could fit it in the space on the board, I went back to the team and Rolly said "we should call ourselves 'Fit this in, Bitch'". You don't have to think that's funny by the way.

All of my friends who met him all say the same thing, Rolly fitted in anywhere and with pretty much anyone. I don't think I've ever mentioned him explicitly here before but he's been in a lot of stories, mainly about Singstar.

Today is Rolly's funeral.

Late last year, while on his first overseas trip, he developed germ cell cancer in his chest. Later on he got Leukaemia as well. That made him the only person in New Zealand to ever get that particular combo of cancer, which made it harder to treat. And on Friday last week his body finally gave up.

In his final weeks he seemed to be doing better. His sense of humour had returned. Chemotherapy doesn't make you feel like being funny.

During one of his better periods, Amy was staying with him and his partner Kelly. Rolly was sitting on their deck watching the waves of Lyall Bay while eating his breakfast. She said how nice they sounded, he agreed and said how they helped him. Rolly used to be a surf-lifesaver too. Even through the chemo and the cancer he was still able to help me and Amy with our problems too. We felt like heels.

This post has rambled a little and I'm not entirely sure how I want to end it.

Rolly is survived by his partner Kelly who knows our love is with her. See ya Rolly, though I'm fairly sure you're not reading the internet right now. Amy never actually minded you hugging her, even though she acted all awkward.

You are definitely being missed.

Bloggeratti

This article is about the panel seminar I was a part of at the GOVIS conference.

(clicking the pic will eventually get you to a big readable version, or just click here)

I'm the one they refer to as "Haydon Green". Haydon!?! Where the hell did they get that spelling? (the correct spelling H.A.D.Y.N.)

A video of the talk is here (scroll down).

Disclaimer: I was not there to represent my Ministry and I did not actually talk to the reporter.

And then the cat came back…

After a week of fretting and worry we had almost resigned ourselves to a missing cat. Then lo and behold he showed up scratching at the door and meowing to be let in.

It's just that the door he showed up at wasn’t ours anymore.

Somehow Hermes managed to get from Tasman St, Mt Cook to our old house in Houghton Bay! That’s some trek. And how the hell did he know where he was going?

And, he’s not even skinny or any worse for wear. In fact we think he might have put on a few pounds. Little bastard.

Anyway, he’s back now and we’re happy. It got quite sad in our house recently. I suppose its good practice for having kids (who turn into teenagers).