Rob profile picture

Rob

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me

Hi there.Well about me... I'm from New Zealand, born in the North Island but have converted to a mainlander... Less traffic... Seriously though I have an awesome home in the Marlborough Sounds which would have to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet.My life has been all about water... One of my earliest memories is sitting on the bottom of the sea looking back up through the water at my father diving in after me. I was about 3 years old and had apparently decided to give myself a swimming lesson by falling off the wharf at our holiday house and promptly sinking.So I have been in, on or around water all my life and have swum, dived, jumped, canoed, fished, skied, sailed and rowed myself through the stuff as long as I can remember.This brings me to my passion for sport and in particular, Rowing. I've recently finished a campaign in which my crew and I were given the task of qualifying a crew for the Beijing Olympics. Unfortunately we were unable to complete this successfully so now for me it's back to the drawing board for a while.I've rowed competitively for almost 12 years now and have already been part of an Olympic crew in 2000 at Sydney. So most of my adult life has hinged around this one way or another.Of course I'm all about a great many other things than just rowing and sport. I have a brilliant family who I love very much, especially my wonderful parents who are ridiculously supportive of what I choose to do. I have a beautiful niece and four nephews who, as my sister points out, I don't get to see nearly enough of. I have a fantastic group of friends who are very patient with me. I spend an excruciating amount of time and energy expanding my love and knowledge of music and my other interests are broader than I can put into a little box on a web-page.I also love animals and have a cat named Max and a dog named Bonnie, they're really my Parent's animals and live with them in the Marlborough Sounds but I consider them to be mine too!I'm currently living in Blenheim, New Zealand. This is right in the middle of Marlborough which is widely regarded as the wine-making capitol of New Zealand. Marlborough has a very good reputation for producing world-class Savion Blancs. I have been most recently working in the 2008 harvest which has been loads of fun.So enjoy my page and I'll try to keep this thing updated from time to time.Cheers,RobP.SI also have a profile on Facebook for anyone interested in that. Just search the New Zealand network for Robert Hellström and you'll find me easily enough!

My Interests

Obviously... I'm into sport in a major way... Not so much by choice as by chance... Rowing, Rugby, Sailing, Kayaking, Football (soccer), Cricket, all the usual Kiwi bloke stuff. I love watching sport as much as participating in it. I'm also a huge fan of the outdoors, Mountaineering, Climbing, Camping, Tramping, etc. Will pretty much give anything a go. Always keen to go out for a few drinks (sometimes a couple of quiet ones, sometimes a few more...) Spending time with friends and family, Exploring new places, Learning, traveling.

I'd like to meet:

Anyone really. Particularly people with similar interest and curiosities; Thinkers, comedians, intellectuals, dreamers, philosophers, altruists... I would also really like to meet people who enjoy a bit of a giggle and a beer or two... or three. People with ambition and who know how to have a good time. I'm always keen for a good old chat/debate/random conversation etc, so don't hold back.

Music:

Muse, Radiohead, U2, Oasis, Red Hot Chilly Peppers, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan, Weezer, Maximo Park, The Streets, LCD Soundsystem, Minuit, The White Stripes, The Strokes, Pluto, Fat Fredy's Drop, Interpol, James Brown, David Bowie, Cure, Kasabian, The Shins, Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, Fugees, The Velvet Underground, Queens of The Stone Age, Black Eyed Peas, Audioslave, The Von Bondies, Sonic Youth, The Hives, The Gordons, The Beatles, Rage Against The Machine, Kaiser Cheifs, The Black Seeds, The Datsuns, Phoenix Foundation, Ash, Fly My Pretties, !!!, Bob Marley, Flight of the Conchords, Cake, Bush, The Killers, Green Day, Crowded House, Pink Floyd, Concord Dawn, The Bluetones, Kora, The Verlaines, Bic Runga, Guns 'n' Roses, The Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Shapeshifter, The Clash, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Tapes 'n' Tapes, Split Enz, British Sea Power, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Blink 182, Elvis, The Verve, Ah-Ha, Blur, R.E.M., The Clean, Kings Of Leon, Richard Ashcroft, Cold War Kids, The Cranberries, Hollie Smith, Smashing Pumpkins, ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, The Stone Roses, Die! Die! Die!, Coldplay, Dire Staits, The Mint Chicks, Faithless, Manic Street Preachers, Snoop Dogg, The Cars, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Loop, Flying Nun, Wellington music, New Zealand music, Rock, Indie, Hiphop/rap, Drum & Bass, Alternative... Anything that gets me into the mood for racing... The list is endless!.........

Movies:

The Goonies, Super Troopers, The Castle, Star Wars (original trillogy), Good by Pork Pie, The Prestiege, Empire of the Sun, American Psycho, Batman Begins, Fight Club, Ice Age, All the Pixar movies (especially Cars!) Lucky Number Sleven, Lord of the Rings I, II, & III (II being my favourite), The Godfather, Heat, The Graduate, Miracle, Braveheart, Any Given Sunday, Full metal Jacket, Platoon, Last of the Mohicans, Pirates of the Caribean, Casino Royal, Laurence Of Arabia, 300, Sin City, Sean Connery as 007, Legends of the Fall, 7, ... there is just no way that I can remember all of the movies I like so again the list goes on forever...

Television:

So I guess I like all the usual boyish stuff like The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Futurama, Sort of got into Lost but got lost myself in doing so, The Daily Show, The David Letterman Show, History and Discovery channels. As Ricky Gervais puts it "Ask me anything about sharks or Nazis" So of course, The Office and Extras are favorites. Blackadder, The Young Ones, loads of stuff really... Who am i kidding, I'll watch anything... Plus a shout-out to Smackface tv... Too much fellas, keep it up! haha!

Books:

No real favorites here... Too many to name. I tend to read trashy detective type novels when traveling and prefer to read biographies and non fiction books when at home. I also read quite a bit of war history for some reason, not sure why. I read my way through Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion recently but I don't generally stick to one Genre. I'll also find myself reading four of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels in a week just as easily or my latest read which has been 'Turn Around And Run Like Hell (amazing stories of unconventional military strategies, that worked!)'My sister gave me a cool book for my birthday called 'Three Men In A Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome, which turns out to be my grandfather's favorite book too!

Heroes:

"It is ourselves we conquer - not the mountains." - Ed HillarySir Peter Blake, Sir Edmund Hillary, Rob Waddell, James Tomkins, Sir Steve Redgrave, All the boys from '72... it's your shoes I have to fill... and Grandad, for being my Grandad every day of my life.My Dad recently sent me the following quote after Grant Dalton had said of Team New Zealand when defeated in the Americas Cup, "We will never, never, never give up."When asked to surrender by the British at the end of the Waikato war in 1864 at Orakau, Rewi Maniapoto is said to have replied ‘E hoa, ka whawhai tonu matou, Ake! Ake! Ake!’ – ‘Friend, we will fight on forever, forever and forever!’"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." Nelson Mandela

My Blog

Back but not quite in black... yet!

Kia Ora!Ok so I know that a lot of you have been wondering where I've been for a while. Well the truth is I just couldn't be bothered with Myspace after I got back from overseas last year. I know, it'...
Posted by Rob on Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:32:00 PST

The end of the begining...

Well It's done and dusted.The 2007 season is all but over for Robert as of today. With the World Championships entering their final phase over the next tow days we are officially finished for the rega...
Posted by Rob on Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:11:00 PST

R is for... "Ratshit!"

Well i know I said I was going to be updating this a bit more often than I have been... well to be honest I just haven't been in the mood. Call it laziness if you like.... OK so the update...In our he...
Posted by Rob on Thu, 30 Aug 2007 02:42:00 PST

When the flag drops, the bullshit stops!

Well here we go. The moment has arrived!Tonight I write my final blog before the beginning of the 2007 World Rowing Championships.Well on a slight technical note it's actually already started. Today w...
Posted by Rob on Sat, 25 Aug 2007 02:39:00 PST

Where has Robert been?

Well I know it's been a while... Sorry about that! You know you must be letting the team down when your own mother wants to know why you haven't been posting any new Blogs! Haha! Well in short there h...
Posted by Rob on Sat, 11 Aug 2007 01:55:00 PST

Land of beer and honey?...

Ok so I apologize, it's been a while since my last post. I guess this is because I've been a little bit distracted by the place I have found myself in over the past week. Sometimes when there is just...
Posted by Rob on Wed, 25 Jul 2007 02:44:00 PST

Chocolate, clocks and sharp edges

Hey there everyone!Okay so last time I left you all on th edge of your seat wondering what would happen to my crew throughout the remainder of the World Cup regatta here in Lucerne. Well I'm glad to t...
Posted by Rob on Tue, 17 Jul 2007 02:44:00 PST

Lucerne day 1

Ok so we're slowly learning to develop a thick skin over here. Today was heats day at the races. First three through to the semi final, the rest to the repecharge. We had a pretty tough draw in that...
Posted by Rob on Fri, 13 Jul 2007 01:46:00 PST

Greener pastures

Well, here it is.My final post from Belgium. Tonight I sit here watching my suitcase in the faint hope that it will pack itself. I must say that I have for perhaps the first time in all my travels t...
Posted by Rob on Mon, 09 Jul 2007 12:02:00 PST

The pains and pleasures of life in sport

The weather here is atrocious. One would imagine that having left the ever changeable climate of the Waikato behind for an extended European tanning session, you could expect with reasonable certainty...
Posted by Rob on Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:57:00 PST