Restarting life, Lessons for the kids on motorcycles

It’s been about a month since the mandates ended, and we are headed towards winter, which is why I’m trying to get as many things done with the kids while the weather is still good.

It’s normally raining in April, so it’s a bit of a miracle that the local off road tracks are still dry and mud free.

It was my youngest daughter’s second day on a motorcycle, and she spent the day going round the learners track. She did 35 laps in total, before she called it a day. She was riding very consistently all day and is starting to get confident with changing gears.

My oldest didn’t do so well.. We had brought the Honda XR125 along for her to use, which she did, until coming to grief at the start of the B track (a cross country track 6km long (3.75 miles)).

Some other riders helped her out, and got her going again and she rode the rest of the track without a working front brake.

She got a few bruises from the accident (mostly to her pride), which put her out of action for the rest of the day.

The bike itself was OK once I straightened the front forks and unbent everything that was bent… It was still missing a working front brake though, but this isn’t a big problem when riding off road.

Our Honda XR, the other bike is one we hired for our youngest to ride for the day

It turns out I’m 3 minutes slower around the B track on the Honda compared to our Suzuki. This makes sense because the Honda XR125L is a farm bike, and the Suzuki DR350 is a 22 yr old 350cc Enduro weapon. Interestingly, both bikes weigh almost exactly the same. (129kg vs 130kg)

In the end it was a good day and we accomplished quite a lot, tomorrow is Easter Sunday, and the easter bunny (my wife will be leaving easter eggs all over the house tonight..

Life is returning back to normal

With the mandates mostly gone, the hysteria’s mostly been replaced with confusion, regret, and a realisation that everything’s been crazy for the last two years.

The only holdouts tend to be office workers who work from home, and retired people, who are socially isolated and rely solely on the MSM (main stream media), which gives a rather distorted view of things.

This is illustrated beautifully by the event which happened to friends of ours..

“A group of mostly home-schooled children & parents visited Auckland Museum on the first day the vax mandates were dropped.
They’d been shut out for 8 months (with lockdown).
The kids were so excited.
The first people entered showing their mask exemptions & were told: you need to wait here while we “verify these exemptions”.
They never came back.
What happened next was unbelievable. They locked every single entry and exit from the building. No one could get in or out.
Not one person came out to talk with the group.
Internal communication quickly labelled the gathering as “protestors” but there was no protest, simply a bunch of kids really wanting to see their favourite exhibits.
People tried 📞 to figure out what was going on. No one seemed to know. Simply put, the staff were paralysed over not having a policy for dealing with multiple mask-exempt visitors on their premises.
Disappointed, the group left after a 1.5 hour wait & the doors reopened an hour later.”

This link is from a non MSM source and is very accurate.

Kids denied access to Auckland museum

This link is from the MSM (the title says it all)

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-museum-closes-its-doors-after-anti-mask-protesters-try-to-enter/IEMF6KZHLIAZTVEYLREMMDIYCE/

Local clubs and organisations are now trying to rebuild their depleted membership numbers. It’s likely that those that regretfully turned away the unvaccinated will be forgiven, while those who did it with glee, not so much.

We have since visited an organisation that has shown some contrition over the whole mandate thing, but in general we are keeping to ourselves and supporting the businesses and people, who have supported us throughout the whole mandate thing.