fair sentencing?

Last Saturday, Jan 19th, my Aunt Jude and her partner Randall were riding their motorcycles over to the west coast for the weekend. About 3/4 of the way there they were hit by a spanish tourist who was driving on the wrong side of the road.

They (especially Jude) shouldn't be alive apparently, but they are. Randy escaped with a broken arm, collarbone and a lot of gravel burn. Jude broke both legs, one arm and the other arm is badly bruised and sprained. Neither of them have any internal or head injuries. Phew.

Jude has had several surgeries so far, basically reattaching one foot, closing the torn-open leg and installing one of those external frame thingies to hold her leg together while it heals. She has more surgeries remaining yet, so they're keeping her in an induced coma until its all over.

There have been a couple of small articles in the newspaper and one on the tv3 website about it, though no-one has mentioned the extent of Jude's injuries, and the latest one I saw had details of the sentencing of the tourist.

http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/Touristfinedfordrivingonwrongsideandhittingmotorcyclists/tabid/209/articleID/44044/cat/41/Default.aspx

Okay, so here's where I get mad. If you look at the bottom of the page, there are comments from a couple of readers, the bottom one asking a question I had in my mind already, so I decided to find out.

I emailed the Spanish Embassy in Wellington and asked whether the driving disqualification would be upheld by Spanish authorities when the tourist returned home and recieved this reply:

"The disqualification will not apply in Spain as there is not an agreement between the Spanish Goverment and the New Zealand Goverment in Traffic Law matters."

So why the hell did the judge even bother with disqualifying him? Keeping up appearances?? What other reason could there be?

I'm so furious about it thaat I'm on the edge of calling the TV station myself and making sure that detail is made public. Tonight I'm going to talk to the family and find out why details of Jude's condition have not been mentioned so I know whether or not to bring it up myself.

So angry i want to explode.

:(

A whole new year. Full of hope? full of promise? Nah... full of exactly the same as last year but I've had a good break and can enjoy it more.

Of course, that's nothing to complain about really - being full of the same as last year - last year was pretty great. Meeting Dale was the best part of course. Yes we're still very much together and happy, and I finally have pics!

For Christmas, Dale got me the best stuff. I was expecting no more than a good book or a dvd - something that showed he listened to me and thought about what to get. But no. He proved those points far better than I ever thought he would....

I love to cook, but gave away most of my kitchen stuff when I moved here.
He got me a great spice rack.
And a breadmaker.

I like pc games that don't rely on running around killing everything - and they're hard to find
He got me Oblivion GOTY edition

I had goldfishies before I moved but gave them away to avoid killing them in the move.
He got me a full tropical tank set-up

Yep, he listens! So do I appparently though, because I got him some equally good gifts in their own way. The best part really was having time after our respective christmas work rushes to soend some quiet relaxing time together.

So we've both been thoroughly enjoying the fish tank. Researching what fishies eat which others, how big they grow, how many we can fit in the tank, filling and cycling the aquarium... and finally we put the first fishies in there: 10 neon tetras, a bristlenose pleco to keep the bottom clean, and a flying fox to clean the leaves and sides.

The tetras are named the Skool of Rock, Flying Fox is Foxy Love (Hey Hey Hey) and the Pleco is Spot - because we are always playing "spot the fishy" with him (plus he's spotty)

Then 3 days ago I got 2 lyretail mollies. A plain yellow one called Lemon, and a yellow one with black splotches and a black tail, named Pepper (mmmmm lemon pepper)

2 days ago Dale got a rainbow shark, named Feargal. If you don't understand the name, ask someone who remembers the 80s ;)

So the pleco and the shark were to be our indicators of when to get a bigger tank. the best laid plans however often go astray, and last night that was proven when Lemon (the molly) gave birth to 20+ babies! They were so cute when they were newborn - a pair of eyes with a little bit of membrane sticking out the back. Next morning they looked like proper fishies, and by the end of the day they were each almost 1cm long!

Right now we're looking for another tank. A big one. We'll run both, probably using the current one as a nursery.

So more research, and more room for other fishies in the new tank

It's all so exciting! (and no, i'm not kidding - its really cool lol)

Happy new year!