Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Spring has sprung...

These last few days (Labour Weekend locally) have certainly felt like spring waeather has kicked in.

We've been pretty busy with a number of issues following the two Shows. We've shifted the home office out to the new facility at the rear of the garage. What a nice space to be in (even though I'm still in my little office/music studio room in the house.

The garage has been totally overrun with 'stuff' for a 2 or 3 months. I've got it to the stage where I can almost fit one car back in it. We've put a few excess things on TradeMe over the last few days including Blue's "Flat" (his kennel). It is so easy to unnecessarily hold on to stuff for no good reason. Compressing stuff down for the now-smaller garage is a pretty good reason for bulky stuff like a fridge/freezer and a laundry supertub to be finally moved on and free up some useful floor space.

Health seems fine for both of us, despite the thrashing we gave our physiques over the last 6 - 8 weeks.

Here's some quotes which may be of interest...

"A banker is someone who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain." - Mark Twain

"A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead."

"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle." - Erin Majors

"A centipede is an ant built to government specifications."

A certain school teacher sends this note to all parents on the first day of school: "If you promise not to believe everything your child says happens at school, I'll promise not to believe everything they say happens at home."

Cheers,

Bruce & Jeanette

Sunday, October 17, 2010

About time...

We've had a very busy last few weeks with the two 50 Plus Lifestyle Shows, so things like updating the Blog seemed to slip down the priority list somewhat.

We were happy with how the Shows came together and the generally excellent caliber of the Exhibitors who took part. The numbers of visitors who turned out was below expectations which was a bit disappointing. Despite lower numbers, many exhibitors reported excellent levels of business, while others seemed to need higher foot traffic to get the ratios they were looking for.

We managed to break two Guinness World Records (yet to be officially ratified - but that shouldn't be a problem as we adhered to all their rules very carefully). At Tauranga, it was the record for matching and pairing/balling the most socks in a minute. The old record of 16 was broken twice - by a 17 and a 19. In Auckland, it was a much more ambitious one - namely an attempt to make the world's largest toast mosaic. With a lot of help, this we did, at over 116 square meters! TVNZ's Breakfast programme got involved too, which was wonderful additional promotion.

We are currently entering and analysing response forms from visitors and also from our exhibitors looking at the feedback and considering a number of options and changes.

My body coped well with the extended period of long days and lots of physical lugging and heaving etc. I didn't feel any ill effects or post stem cell issues at all. I will have another CT scan in about 3 months to monitor ongoing progress.

The new office at the rear of our garage is now (as of today) ready to move desks and furniture etc into. It was too close to the Shows to do push through and get it all set up and active earlier, but now this is going to be easier to make the switch. It is a nice light and airy space (7m x 3m) and has french doors opening out onto the back garden area.

That's all for now,

Cheers

Bruce & Jeanette Bremner

Monday, October 4, 2010

Haemotologist's catch up...

Had my "100 Day" follow-up appointment with Leanne this morning. Seems happy with almost everything. Said that on the CT scan (done a week ago) there was one lymph node showing slightly larger than the arbitrary 10mm 'normal' size. She is a bit puzzled by this and said it was pretty unlikely to be lymphoma-related given all the hammering with chemo a few months ago. She will discuss with her peers at their conference meeting on Friday to see what the collected wisdom thought. She didn't seem worried about it, so neither am I.

Our Auckland show (50 Plus Lifestyle Show) is on this coming Friday, Saturday & Sunday 8th - 10th October. Hopefully you will have been hearing radio ads, seeing newspaper ads and are about to see some of the short TV ads this week. Jeanette features on the The Beat Goes On (TV show for the Baby Boomers on at 9:00 Monday night SKY Stratos channel 89 and Freeview 21; then at 9:30 on Triangle TV - free to air).

We're hoping for a good turn-out to the show, with lots of interesting exhibits there to inform, entertain and experience. If you need any complimentary tickets, flick me an email and I'll see what I can do!

Cheers

Bruce & Jeanette
bruce@50pluslifestyle.co.nz