Withdrawal Symptoms

Question:  How would we feel if we no longer belonged to Neighbourly? Withdrawal Symptoms (Apologies to the Beatles) Neighbourly, I’m double the man I used to be There’s Neighbourly hanging over me. Oh, I do grieve for Neighbourly

Farewell Robyn (Neighbourly, Titirangi)

Robyn has been sacked as a Titirangi Lead and is no longer on Neighbourly 😦 Robyn, it is sad to see you go. We will miss you. Or rather almost all of us will. Your departure from Neighbourly saddens most of us.   Update: Robyn is a member again but is not a Lead … more…

My Competitions (Index)

This page lists my current competitions and also what type of puzzles each competition mainly focuses on. No competitions are “dumbed down” as someone has claimed. They are simply of different types. Enjoy 🙂 Competitions: #1. Arithmetical #2. Logical #3. Lateral thinking (thinking outside the square) #4. Lateral thinking #5. Magic squares #6. Counters and coins #7. Feedback…

Competition #8: Sudoku (Internet searches)

Today’s competition is all about searching the Internet. You do not need to know how to solve Sudoku for this competition. Sudoku uses a 9×9 grid with 81 cells. Starting with a grid with some cells already filled in with numbers, you have to complete the grid according to the rules using only the numbers…

Competition #7

Q1. Who can find the best picture for the top of my blog? Note: Pictures must be at least 2500 wide by 413 pixels wide. I prefer something related to Titirangi or Auckland or puzzles or even Neighbourly but will consider anything you like.   Q2. Consider the presentation and functionality of my blog. i.e. How…

Competition #6: Moving counters

Please read the rules in Competition #1 or in the New Competition  (#2) before you answer the questions below. Q1. In the board below place two coins (or counters) on the black circles and two different coins of counters on the white squares. The object is to change around the coins on the black and white circles by moving…

Competition #5: Magic Squares

In Competition #1 the last question has a magic square. Please read the rules in Competition #1 or in the New Competition  (#2) before you answer the questions below. Q1. Below is a 3 x 3 magic square. Please put the numbers 1, 2, …, 9 (once only) in the cells below so that each row, column, and diagonal adds up…

Competition #4

The usual rules apply for this competition. See the previous competition for the rules. Don’t post any answers here. Email your answers to Alan one question at a time. Q1. Without taking your pen off the paper, draw four straight  lines going through all the nine dots below:     Q2. A farmer has 10 trees…

Comparison of the first two Competitions

Please make sure you try the (original) Competition and the (second) New Competition before you read this post. A person has stated on Neighbourly (referring to me) that “Now you have dumbed your quiz down to treat everyone as they are in fact lacking the required skills to participate.” How dumb it that? I’ll let you…

Competition #3

The usual rules apply for this competition. See the previous competition for the rules. Question 2 (below) was originally posted as a “Gotcha” question for the winner of the previous competitions- it turned out to be only a minor challenge ;). How well can you do?   Starting question (easy). A man goes 10 km due south and…

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Jimmy McCrillis from Titirangi has won the original competition and the new competition. Well done Jimmy.  

Newsflash

Newsflash. A new competitor has only one question to go in the original competition and might have got almost every question correct on the first try!

Clues for Q2 (New Competition)

Please try the new competition first! Finding Q2 hard? Look below …. Remember to scroll down. Please try the new competition first!

Clues for Q1 (Original Competition)

Please try the Competition before you look below! Finding Q1 (Lizard) hard? Need a hint? Look below …. Remember to scroll down. Please try the Competition before you look below!

A New Competition (#2)

Sadly after 25 hours no one has got the first question right in my previous competition. You can still enter the original competition it if you like. The four questions in my new completion are below the rules (at the bottom of this post). The questions for my new competition are easy to answer … but…

Slow start to the competition

What sort of race is this? Over twenty hours from the start and no one has so far got the first question right. New competitors are still welcome. See the competition here. The clock has had twenty occasions to strike the hour. No one has worked out how long it took to strike nine. Sadly…

Thought for Today: No time to try my puzzles?

Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. See: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/44212 Try to solve the puzzles … see my competition (previous post).

Competition (#1)- starts midday Friday 23 June

How well can you answer these question? Remember to include the question with each answer when you email your answer to Alan. Don’t post any answers here. Link to the puzzle questions Rules Email your answers one at a time (anytime after the questions have a link above) to me using my Contact page. You must start with question…

Ode to Frosty

The Ode to Frosty is at the bottom of this post. Frosty is a girl toddler fridge, less than three years old. Look here for the Final Chapter. A Neighbourly member posted in Neighbourly (see a previous post of mine about Neighbourly in this blog) about the issues she as having with the repair of her fridge. A…

Hopefully I'll now have the day right for my posts!

My posts appeared to have a day (timezone) outside NZ. Consequently the day was not always right for my posts. Under Settings (bottom left), in the Site Timezone (bottom of the image below), you can choose the city you live in. Remember Auckland comes under Pacific! You may need to scroll up. Remember to save…

I got my first comment!

The tutor teaching the Building a computer workshop left my first comment on my previous post. Thank you for leaving me my first comment in my blog Alex. I told Alex that I had never even taken the cover off a computer before the workshop today. Oops, update Sunday: early this morning I remembered that last…

I built a PC!

I have just got home from building a PC! First in the class we stripped down a PC until only the case was left. We then separated the fan from the CPU, cleaned off the old and applied new thermal paste, then rebuilt the PC again. Fortunately it still worked 🙂 Only 3 people turned up…

Thought for Today

Some years ago while teaching at AUT (hard to believe I taught there for over 21 years back to when it was known as ATI), I created a random ‘Thought for Today’ page. You can access your random ‘Thought for Today’ here. Enjoy 🙂

Neighbourly and social media

I do not have a great deal of interest in social media. My Facebook page is seldom updated and neither is my LinkedIn page. I have no interest in tweeting (Twitter) or most other social media websites. The exceptions are Neighbourly (see below under ‘Continue Reading’), and recently WordPress (here!). Why I do not recommend Neighbourly Update about…

Workshop: Building a PC

Today (Friday) I am going to a workshop at Ames in Auckland to build a PC. I am not a hardware person, so today should be interesting. I note that Dates in these posts appear to be related to a US time zone so the date may sometimes be a day early in some of my posts (NZ…

Getting Started in WordPress

My second and third posts were just put in to see how a few themes worked for me in WordPress. I had a few things on my wishlist. I wanted to be able to: Have a menu that only had the first letter of each word in Capitals. I hate seeing menu items with all…

Exploring WordPress

On Thursday I spent a little time exploring WordPress. In particular since this blog is my journey, I wanted to have an option (preferred) to see the posts in chronological order (from oldest to newest) rather than seeing the usual revere chronological order (most recent first). I also wanted my first post to be always…

Web page and WordPress workshop

Today (Wednesday) I went to a free 4-hour workshop (1-5pm) at Ames in Auckland. Thank you Ames for offering this workshop. I booked for this workshop on the Eventbrite website. Look on this site for all sorts of events. I like to look at the free events 🙂 The workshop covered html (language that web pages…

My ‘First’ post (formerly Alan Grace: Header Post)

This is the post excerpt.