The fallout from losing my phone spent a little time going from bad to worse. Specifically, I received my phone bill from Vodafone. It seems that whomever found my phone decided to play a few games and buy a bunch of music on it. That was about the time that I learned that when I put a block on my phone, data was not blocked at the same time. I was being billed for about $120 of someone else’s usage.

I quickly called up the customer service department and explained my situation. The details were verified by the voice on the other end and a small rebate was offered, about $36. Not satisfied, I sent a request through the email form to explain what happened. Why was the data service not blocked? Why was I responsible for any of the charges, having reported the lost phone already? What is a customer supposed to do to protect against this? The response was returned quite quickly: a full refund was applied to my account and an apology offered. I was even given advice on how to protect myself and my phone in the future.

While I’m still disappointed about losing the phone, having to replace it and using my old, broken phone in the meantime, I can’t complain about the end result on the part of Vodafone. A bit of a fumble, but they came through in the end. As for the sample-of-one test of humanity’s goodness, unfortunately a fail.

I’ve been overly political lately. I promise I’ll be fun again after the elections all end.

I’m actually not really referring about the amount of content I put here. Yes, it comes and goes with available time and mood, but nothing is really changing. What I am referring to is a few local sites that seem to have died off, to the detriment of the community.

• Sustainable Wellington Transport had only a few posts in a short burst of activity. Transport happens to be one of my pet interests, so I have been watching for more content for a while. The group of authors includes several city and regional councillors alongside a couple private citizens. I can imagine them being busy, but I’d love to see some activity, even if it’s just media releases that can induce feedback.

• Mount Cook Mobilised is a blog about my suburb. I was raised to care about my environment and I do my best to follow through on that. There seems to be 3 facets to this organisation. The blog refers to a paper newsletter, which I’ve seen a single issue of, and also points to a wiki. The wiki/blog combination can be very powerful, but both seem in relative infancy so far.

• Option 3 was put together during a submission process to discover the best alternative for bringing commuters and travellers into Wellington from the north. Options 1 & 2 were/are large roading project. Option 3 is for sustainable transport. The discussion about Transmission Gully continues, but the Option 3 site seems to have died off.

What do I hope to achieve by talking about this? I’m not sure. I have started to get in touch with the councillor-authors of Sustainable Wellington Transport about adding releases to the blog and I could realistically start editing the wiki myself to encourage development, but I’m not sure that anything is going to kick-start these websites. One can hope, and make noise.

Are people basically good or basically bad? I am attempting to answer this age-old question with a single sample of whether or not my phone is returned to me. It was accidentally left on a bus after work, as I hurriedly and inattentively alighted.

I’ve contacted the bus company and left a report with lost property. There is also a bar on outbound calls, hopefully to limit the fall-out of someone deciding to run amok on my account. There’s not much else that I can do but wait.

The phone was far from cheap, and I picked it up second hand. Replacing it wouldn’t be very nice to my bank account. On top of that, I’m cringing at a bit of the information that’s on the phone – I’d use my phone to carry my source code home from time to time. I have had to change my email password and my work calendar was synced on there. Very little else should be able to get me into trouble. I hope.

Will I see my phone again or did I just donate it to someone less scrupulous than I?

Normally, for situations where I have no control, I’d sit back and not worry because worrying doesn’t solve the problem. But this time, I’m a bit angry – at myself for not paying attention and at the world because the early indicators show that the phone wasn’t turned in at the end of the driver’s shift last night. This doesn’t bode well for Team Good.

I was speaking to a friend about being a pack-rat. She’s unpacking and has been finding a few things that have limited sentiment but would induce guilt if sher were to let them go. The conversation continued a while longer and this came up:

I keep old cards…. but I use them again to make gift tags and stuff…. then I get to go through the cards again from time to time….. some of them remain keepers and still haven’t gotten cut up…

It’s upcycling of memories. I like this idea a lot. It’s not possible to keep everything forever, but some things are quite nice – a shame to just toss out. Making something new, maybe better, is a great way to pass it on. Besides, gifts don’t have to be expensive; something creative and personal is much better in my opinion.

As of last week, all of my bills are delivered electronically. Joe Bennett takes aim at MyMeridian for this, but I think it’s great. I’ve had too many bills show up late, or not at all, especially around the edges of moving houses. My email address doesn’t change – the bill will get to me. The bonus is being able to keep records over the course of a year without having a huge pile of papers to sort through. Shared expenses? Easy – bounce the bill along.

Yes, I’m aware that email is not guaranteed and there are ways to snoop, redirect or cause email delivery to fail, but even with those risks, I am happy with the service change. All good.

Immediately after planting a range of herbs out on the balcony, spring burst forth in windy glory. It didn’t matter which corner, there was wind everywhere, going everywhere. The first casualty, sort of, was the mint. The main stem snapped in half before the end of the weekend. Thanks to the magic of the internet, I instantly learnt that mint can grow from cutting. Into the wine glass it went.

Within a week, the first roots started appearing. After the second, it’s ready to plant into real soil. Interestingly, the plant is also significantly taller than at the start. At a guess, the new growth is coming from auto-cannibalisation of the lower leaves, which are well submerged and obviously yellowing.

Naturally, my curiosity got the best of me this past weekend – should I reserve a bit of basil from the bunch we’d bought for soup? Sure. Will it grow? We’ll see.

A previous tennant of the apartment that I live in seems to have left a lot of postal references unchanged. I receive a lot of mail for him. On this particular occassion, I wrote ‘No longer at this address’ on the appointment notice and dropped it back into a nearby delivery box. It arrived again two days later. It seems as if I wrote the note on the wrong side of the card and the postal system accepted it a second time – on the same stamp. I wonder if NZ Post realises that they’ve stolen 50 cents from themselves.

I was taking a look at a medical receipt to make sure it didn’t have overly personal information on it before sending it to recycling. What caught my eye was a mistake in the name of my employer.

Our name is Industrial Research Ltd, not Industrial Recreation Centre, no matter how much I’d like it to be.

I mentioned a few days ago that I had contacted the city council about the photo exhibition on Courtenay Place. Enough information came back to justify an update.

First, Andy Palmer, the curator of the project, sent a letter to the editor to explain the light-boxes.

I admit there’s been little explanation about the work and why it’s there. I suggested that the “curator’s statement” be placed in the park somewhere, but it hasn’t happened. It is on Wellington City Council’s website, however.

With a name on hand, a quick search turned up a blog post that goes much further and gives a nice visual perspective of the new park.

Subsequently, my email prompted two replies from Wellington City Council. The first pointed me to a list of temporary art projects in the city, of which the Light Box Project is just one. The current display, “Flanerie and Figments” is set to finish in October. A second reply came from a city council manager, Martin Rodgers:

Responsibility for mounting future exhibitions has now transferred to the Council’s Public Art Panel which is a group of five external advisors plus Council officers. As Manager of the Council’s City Arts team, I am also Chair of this panel. We have issued invitations to galleries and curators inviting them to propose future curated exhibitions for the boxes. These may be photographic exhibitions or in other genres that fit the format of the boxes.

The Panel has set aside funding for future exhibitions. As you will appreciate, the costs of mounting an exhibition, including artists fees and the output of the works, can add up. At present the Panel has committed to funding two exhibitions a year. Your suggestion to source Creative New Zealand funding so that we can turn over the exhibitions more frequently is a good one which we will explore.

Personally, I can be satisfied with an interesting exhibition which lasts for 6 months. This may mean that more complaint letters are going hit the papers. That’s life. Not everyone will like any given piece. I’d rather have controversial images than boring images.

Aside from that, the other major complaint about Courtenay Place Park is the overwhelming rust-coloured theme that it presents. Yes, true, but the trees are starting to bud now – and the westernmost 6 are already very green. The park is going to look amazing once those trees splash a little life over the rust. It’ll soon be a photo opportunity for anyone willing to capture it.