"Working in an IT-networky-type company, mid-90s, tech shares were like licences to print money. I had 15,000 share options at $1.50 a share. The current price was $48.50, meaning I had a total of around $700,000 (US dollars) just sitting there waiting to be exercised. The pricehad been going up like a rocket all week. In the end I phoned the company broker in the US and told him to sell everything when it hit $50 a share. Went home, drank champagne, went to bed. Next morning, the price is $39 a share. The peak was $49.75. I still had all my options. Then several board members were investigated for fraud. Never saw a penny." (Source: b3ta.com)
A missed connection
The base of "The Needle", in Rarotonga.
"This might be a terrible idea, but here goes," writes a reader: "You live in Wellington. You recently travelled to Auckland to visit your sister who lives in Browns Bay. You were visiting Rarotonga for the third time and are part Rarotongan yourself. You walked to the base of "The Needle" (pictured right) on Wednesday, November 9 with your friend from London, but climbed to its highest point with a young man. He'd like you to know the most breathtaking view that day was of you." Contact Sideswipe if this is you and we'll put you in touch.
Reading the responses to "I love you" reminded Helen fondly of the first time she told her boyfriend she loved him. "His response was, 'Thank you, you are a very pleasant girl.' It took another six months before he told me he loved me. Then, to add insult to injury, a few years later I asked him to marry me. His response was, 'I will let you know'. Six long weeks later we got engaged. Twenty-three years later and we are surprisingly still married and we still laugh when we hear the word 'pleasant'."
Off road school bus
"What kind of role model is this?" asks Ben Edwards.
"When did it become okay to drive on the footpath?" asks Ben Edwards. "On the way to work this morning, I witnessed three vehicles using the footpath to skip traffic queues. The attached photo was the worst of them - a school bus that had already collected children on Hobsonville Rd in Auckland driving with wheels on both the footpath and cycle lane. What kind of role model is this?"
