Deadend

"I promise this weekend will be full of staring out a window,

2011-03-05T23:59:00.001+13:00

while holding a glass of scotch." - Jack Donaghy.

I've been catching up on my 30 Rock and South Park and Season 5 of 30 Rock is smashing Season 14 of SP. Trey and Matt need to up their game for Season 15. 10 years ago I couldn't have fathomed the idea that Alec Baldwin would be one of the most entertaining people on television in the future.

It's very rare that making a phone call to an airline is generates any joy in my life. I called Pacific Blue last week to change the return date of my Australian expedition and as expected, was placed on hold. I was at work, so I put the call on the speaker phone and continued with the email I was typing. A few minutes later I took notice of the beat of the hold music that was playing and turned the volume of the speaker phone. I immediately knew that I liked the song, and quickly tried to Shazam it, but in a strange twist of events actually got connected to the customer service agent. The chorus was very repetitive so I looked it up, found the artist, downloaded and have probably played it 50 times since then.

I catch a song like this every now and then (the last one being "Heartbeats" by the Knife). Sometimes a song with a really strong beat and chorus can reel me in and I just can't get enough of it. I don't think it will take long for this one to get onto the ipod's of the masses. It's feels a little bit to me like "Walking on a Dream" or "Little Secrets", and like those tunes, will probably be completely played out by the end of the US summer. It's not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination. It's a great song to run or workout too. Most of the sounds on the track can be looped. Drum beat: loop. Bass line: loop. The singing is done through a voice effects box, so their really no telling whether these guys are talented or just got lucky. I just checked out the video and guys look like d-bags; like they got rejected from the fraternities and the emo hipsters in the same week and formed their own loser clan as a result. The lyrics of the song are pretty dark, if you can make any sense of them at all. I do like the opening line "Robert's got a quick hand."

Foster The People - "Pumped Up Kicks" from Foster The People on Vimeo.

The Byron Bay Blues Festival is about to go from pretty f-ing amazing to a once in a lifetime experience. At least for me it is. It should be announced this week, that my all time favorite guitarist and one of my musical heroes will be added to the festival lineup.

From www.warrenhaynes.net

WARREN HAYNES INFUSES NEW ALBUM 'MAN IN MOTION' WITH SOUL; OUT MAY 10 ON STAX/CONCORD MUSIC GROUP

Kicking off with Warren Haynes' unmistakable and masterful guitar over gospel-soaked piano, the title track to the dynamic new album Man in Motion functions as a mission statement for the legendary musician and his signature brand of rock, blues and soul. Driving horn blasts and powerful organ punctuate some of the most soulful guitar playing and singing that Haynes has ever recorded. Appropriately, Stax/Concord will release 'Man In Motion' May 10. Check out video of "The River's Gonna Rise" live from Haynes' sold-out Christmas Jam in Asheville, NC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6aB1Br7mQ0

Man in Motion is also a snapshot of a creatively restless musician who is constantly in artistic motion himself. "Musicians are students for life. We have to continually take new approaches," affirms Haynes. It's not Haynes' first foray as a soul man, however. "Soul music was my first love," says Haynes. "The first LPs I had growing up in Asheville [NC] were greatest hits compilations from Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, James Brown, Junior Walker, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Wilson Pickett, and The Supremes." Man in Motion contains all original Haynes songs with the addition of original Stax recording artist William Bell's hit 'Everyday Will Be Like A Holiday'.

The album harks back to another theme of his young life: Haynes started out as a singer before he began playing guitar. "The vocal is more of a centerpiece on 'Man in Motion, he says. Haynes' singing shines on the album, with a bold and emotive delivery that shimmers with his smoky vibrato.

Man in Motion clocks in at over an hour, allowing for its ten tracks to breathe and develop, punctuated by a stellar rhythm section and sophisticated, moving solo guitar work from Haynes. The studio band includes Ivan Neville on background vocals and organ, Ian McLagan on piano, Ruthie Foster on background vocals, George Porter, Jr. on bass and Ron Holloway on saxophone. Haynes recorded the album at Willie Nelson's Pedernales Studios to two-inch tape with vintage tube microphones and everyone playing together in the same room. "We recorded it live to capture the emotion, passion, and spontaneity."

Haynes, a Grammy-winner and 9-time nominee, is ranked 23rd on Rolling Stone Magazine's Greatest Guitarists Of All Time list. He is the front-man for Gov't Mule and is also vocalist and guitarist in The Allman Brothers Band and The Dead.

The Warren Haynes Band World Tour kicks off at The Allman Brothers Band's own Wanee Festival followed by an Australian tour with dates including Sydney, Melbourne and The Byron Bay Festival. Look for the Warren Haynes Band to be appearing throughout the U.S. at theatres, amphitheatres and the most prestigious festivals including Bonnaroo, Haynes' own Mountain Jam and The Hangout Music Festival.

This guy is deservedly known as the hardest working man in rock n roll. I'm not sure what the official stat is, but he must play music for live audiences on over 150 nights per year between all the acts he is associated with. And I'm not talking about an hour and 45 minutes a night, 10 song setlist, with a 2 song encore. These are 2-3 hour shows, where he is the guitar centerpiece for most of the evening. When he plays with his main band, Gov't Mule, he holds down guitar and lead vocal duties. Every live show he does with GM, is available for download within 2 weeks of the performance. That's serious confidence in your ability as a band. He's got huge shoes to fill as well. He has to attempt to replace Jerry Garcia when playing with the Dead, and Duane Allman, when playing with the Brothers. And somehow he manages to make this look easy.

I'm really excited about this new soul project hes about to release. I have a GM show from 2005, recorded on New Year's eve in New York. The second set is almost all soul classics including I can't turn you loose, I've been loving you too long, Papa's got a brand new bag. If "Man in Motion" is on par with this 2005 live show, then it'll be a sweet album. Warren's known for inviting lots of guest musicians on stage and with the amount of talent already booked for the festival, the collaboration possibilities are endless. I'll be posting my fantasy setlists over the next few weeks.....

Views from a little day hike I went on last Sunday. This is the easter walkway on the miramar peninsula and I walked to the trail from my house.

It's no hanging matter, it's no capital crime

2011-02-25T23:05:00.001+13:00

It's almost offensive. Not almost. It is. To even post to this blog now is brash. It's like Axl Rose reappearing after 10 ten years of dormancy and expecting people to take him seriously. I strongly considered closing this site down. People that read blogs like pictures. Pictures and stories. I've had neither for months. Important events have occurred. But nothing that warrants sitting down and writing a descriptive story. I'm not making excuses. It is what is it is. In the end, I decided that my story-telling days aren't over yet. I've just to go out and create some new stories. They'll come. With no thrilling stories to tell, or snazzy pictures to accompany them, you're left with only my spry commentary. You lucky so and so.

I didn't make it to the Big Day Out Festival in Auckland. It was on a Friday and we were way too busy at work that week to try to take the days off I would need to get up there. I didn't miss it much either. But I did buy my East Coast Blues and Roots festival ticket. I've also got my plane ticket and lodging teed up too. This is the little 5 day festival in Byron Bay, Australia that I wrote about a while back. I put my "Blues fest wish list" down in a previous post. Well the lineup has been released and it is nothing short of spectacular. Only three variations of acts from my fantasy lineup made it: Robert Randolph, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi Band (I had Derek Trucks Band) and the Funky Meters (I had Porter Batiste Stolz). But the quality of the lineup more than makes up for the lack of my wishes being granted.

http://www.bluesfest.com.au/

There's a really nice blend of ingredients bubbling up in this gumbo. First, you've got a nice handful of bonified guitar slingers in BB King, Billy Gibbons, Robert Randolph, Derek Trucks, Rodrigo Sanchez and Charlie Sexton (Dylan's band). There's more "living legends" parading this festival than any other I've ever attended: Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, George Clinton, Aaron and Art Neville, George Porter Jr., Elvis Costello, Toots Hibbert, Peter Rowan and Tony Joe White. Of course, no outdoor music festival would be complete without a solid representation of New Orleans acts: the Funky Meters, Trombone Shorty, Irma Thomas and Mavis Staples. While most of the big names on this lineup enjoyed their mainstream success in previous decades, this is no senior citizens show. New "hip" acts like Wolfmother, Fistful of Mercy, Australian indie hero Xavier Rudd, John Legend (not a fan), Imogen Heap and Eli "Paperboy" Reed make the festival fresh and important. But where this lineup's true value lies is in the old-but-not-forgotten category. Most festivals back home would have filled out the rest of bill with electronic or dance driven acts, and maybe even a few full blown pop singers. Bluesfest opted out of this to bring in bands like Jethro Tull, Los Lobos, The Indigo Girls, Little Feat and the Blind Boys of Alabama. You won't hear any tunes from these guys on Casey's Top 40, but that doesn't mean their shows won't be incredible. I really hope Jethro Tull sounds as good live as they do on record. And then of course you've got Ben Harper and the blah blah blah and Michael Franti and whatever who play so many damn festivals you're actually bored my seeing their name in print. Of course I'm being cynical as I've seen both of these guys rock crowds of 50,000 plus, but to me they are way overexposed. I read something great about Franti on an ACL message board a few years back. The quote went something like this: A Michael Franti show is an anomaly, there are some songs that will make you want to booty dance with the drunk cougar on your left, and others that will make you want to punch the lip syncing 12 year old on your right in the face in between his twitter posts....." I know how you feel brother.

The real question mark about this festival for me is Mr. Zimmerman himself. Bob Dylan. The Bob Dylan. Besides the Beatles, there is no one else who carries a bigger persona Dylan. Not Sinatra, not Elvis, not the Stones, not Cash, not even Ray "everybodys a fan now that Jamie Foxx made the lousy biopic" Charles.

I'm a Bob Dylan fan. I like his music.....ALOT. But I don't love Bob Dylan. I'm not obsessed with him, the way his fanatics are. I respect the importance of his accomplishments. But I'm not 100% convinced he deserves ALL of the mythical-epic proportions of credit he gets. He probably does. But the bigger question is: Should he be the headlining act of a major six day music festival? No, that's not the question. If he's on the lineup and the Stones or Eric Clapton are not, he should be headlining. The question is: should he be playing at all?

Dylan headlined ACL a few years ago. When The White Stripes cancelled a few weeks before the festival because Meg White had developed "acute anxiety" (whatever the F that is, how anxious can you get banging on a drum kit), Dylan stepped up to the plate and added a sideshow on the Sat. night the stripes were meant to play, at the world famous Stubb's BBQ. I didn't make either show, but the feedback I got from friends was atrocious. Everyone knows Bob's never had a particularly beautiful singing voice. And I don't think even the most hard core dylandylaners. They are his apostles, his true believers. I've never heard a casual Dylan fan tell me that he can still rock and that I definitely shouldn't miss it. One thing that really excites me about the Dylan show is the potential for collaborations. Yet another great gift of the outdoor music festival is the guest appearances. You know everyone will be keeping their fingers crossed for Leon to join in on "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall". Or maybe Aaron Neville could help him with his singing duties on "I Shall Be Released." Or maybe it's Susan Tedeschi on "Don't Think Twice". Or maybe it's BB King on "It Takes Alot to Laugh, It takes a Train to Cry", and then I could just go on and die happy..........

Maybe the possibilities are endless. Maybe Dylan sounds the way he looks and forever scars my perception of, the way Van Morrison did at ACL in 2006. Maybe he rocks the house and cements himself as the legend he purports to be. Maybe it rains grand pianos. Who knows. But it's pretty much all I think about these days. And I can't wait to find out.

Christchurch Earthquake

2011-02-23T08:26:00.000+13:00

http://canterburyearthquake.org.nz/

Thanks for the emails and messages of concern. I have not felt any effects from yesterday's earthquake in Christchurch.

Merchandising

2010-10-17T22:37:00.000+13:00

And may the scwartz be with you, Mr. Jackson. Wellington is nicknamed "Windy Welly" for obvious reasons. I'm sure this moniker was established a long time ago. In recent times the city has picked up a new title: "Wellywood". I don't have all the facts but the story goes something like this. Peter Jackson is from Wellington and shot the Lord of the Rings Trilogy throughout the whole of New Zealand. In the process he also created Weta Labs (or Workshop?), the high tech cinematic operation responsible for the fancy CGI's and costumes used in the films. The Weta Lab is here in Wellington and I have heard that this is where the stars of the movie based themselves throughout shooting. It is rumoured that sitings of Viggo Mortensen and Ian Mckellan drinking coffee in the local cafes were commonplace during that time period. The raging success of the movies put an international spotlight on New Zealand, and Wellington specifically, as an ideal location for shooting. Some other activity has taken place here since then(District 9/King Kong?), and it has now been dubbed "Wellywood".

So obviously, there has to be some way for the general public to enjoy Wellington's new found popularity in the film industry. Enter the Weta Cave. The Weta Cave is listed on http://www.wellington.co.nz/ as one of the top ten things to do in Wellington. From their website:

http://www.wellingtonnz.com/sights_activities/must_dos

Screen clipping taken: 10/16/2010, 11:31 PM

It's listed as number 7. So according to this site there are only 6 other activities to participate in that are more enjoyable than visiting the Weta Cave. And if I had wheels I'd be a wagon.

The Cave has been on my Wellington activities list for several weeks now and as a mildly enthusiastic LOTR fan, I set high expectations for it. I arrived to find that it is nothing more than a gift shop. The entire facility is about 800 square feet. It boasts a "mini-museum" that is actually nothing more than a walk in closet sized cubby with a some replica swords and a bunch of figurines from the movie. There's a room that you can view a 20 minute featurette in, which I didn't even bother to stay for as I assume it doesn't show anything not released in the special edition DVD's (which I've owned since they came out). Everything else in the Weta Cave is for sale. To be fair I probably set my expectations too high. A couple of years ago I experienced the LOTR exibit at the Houston museum. Due to my consistent bashing of Houston, I feel obligated to take a moment here to recognize one of its finer assets. Houston does have a great set of museums not far from Rice University and the Medical Center that I frequented while living there. Anyway, the LOTR museum exhibit was phenomenal. It was absolutley massive and contained a smorgasboard of highly sought after paraphanaelia that was actually used in the movies. I half expected for most of this exhibit to now be housed permanently at the Weta Cave. I was way off, and more than a little disappointed. If this is the best "showcase" of Weta that Peter Jackson can offer to the public, then it is pretty damn weak. It's also preposterous for wellington.com to list this place as a destination. To walk every inch of the Cave takes all of three minutes. Even if I had viewed and appreciated every item in there I still would have been done in under an hour. It's a decent place to stop by if you are in that part of town, but surely not a somewhere that you need to plan a visit to.

Dig.

A couple years back a fellow music lover, whose opinion I value and trust, suggested I try listening to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. He also asked if I had seen the movie Dig. I told him that I had heard of BJM, but not Dig. He gave me a brief rundown of the movie and told me I should watch it and get the music. I proceeded to acquire the BJM album but didn't get around to watching the movie. Sometime after that I read a Rolling Stone article that listed the top rock doc dvd's of all time. The list was mostly standards that I would expect to see: Stop Making Sense, The Last Waltz, Woodstock, Festival Express; but the big surprise for me was seeing Dig listed in the top 5. Once again my interest was sparked but I still didn't run out and get the movie.

I finally rented the double disc DVD this weekend. Dig tells the story of the tumultuous relationship between two rock bands: The Dandy Warhols, and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. But more importantly, it introduces the viewer to Anton Newcombe, frontman and co-creator of the BJM. I imagine that Anton Newcombe is what John Lennon would have been like if he hadn't been born in England and hadn't been in the biggest pop band of all time. He's an explosive egocentric character that keeps the viewer glued to his every move on screen. But's Anton is only half of the recipe that makes this a highly entertaining film. The rest comes from the sheer volume of raw footage that the movie is comprised of. Most rock docs are a series of live performances spliced together with recent interviews of various players associated with the subject. Dig was pieced together from over 1500 hours of amateur footage shot from the mid-nineties all the way through around 2002, I think. It's got all the good rock star scenes in it as well: the arrests, the fist-fights, the shouting matches, the road. And it's all pretty raw and uncut as well. Dig easily lived up to all the hype that surrounds it and the beauty of it is that you don't need to really be a fan of either band to enjoy the movie.

"And if we wake up in the morning,

2010-10-14T00:01:00.000+13:00

.....then we'll know we're not dead." - Stan Marsch

It's a bleeding sin how much I love South Park.

Seriously?
Everyone has a little topic that can set them off. For some people it revolves around sports. For others it might be a politician or a celebrity. But I've noticed that in general if you hang around someone long enough, you can learn of one or two things to say to them that will send them into a frenzy. I'm no different than anyone else and have quite a few of these pressure points; and I got one of mine pounded a few weeks ago.

I was at a cook out, which they call bar-bees here, and having a conversation with what I thought was a very intelligent guy. We had already talked about the standard subjects mostly involving differences in our cultures: sports preferences, culinary contrasts, traffic laws. When he learned that I was from Louisiana he decided to start a conversation about Hurricane Katrina. He started to ask me some leading questions and I answered them neutrally as I usually do in these situations until I determine where the person is going with it. As I was answering one of his questions he abruptly interrupted me with this statement (word for word): "Oh no, that's not true, you see I watched this documentary, it was by Spike Lee, called When the Levees Broke and (interjects his "correct" statement that directly contradicts what I've been telling him). My jaw dropped. If I had been amongst close friends I would have immediately assumed that this was a prank. Kind of like "hey little sister go ask grandpa about the war and watch him get all fired up." I could easily envision a situation where a friend tells an innocent bystander "hey you see that guy Robert, go make some ridiculous claim to him and tell him your only source is a documentary by SPIKE FRIGGING LEE and watch him go through the roof." A small film of my own played in my mind in which I slapped the daylights out of this guy....But I quickly shoved my hand in my pocket, politely ended the conversation and walked away.

I got to thinking. I read every article that was printed about the hurricane before, during and after it occurred. I had friends who fled New Orleans sleeping on my couch in Houston. I bumped into the refugees at the Target by the Astrodome. I saw the pictures of the destroyed houses that belong to my Aunts. I took this in for months and a guy 6,000 miles away watches a 4 hour dvd by a director whose shining achievement is The Original Kings of Comedy and he has the brass to interject the answer to a question that he asked me? And let me be clear here. I have no problems with the documentary. I've never seen it, nor will I ever watch it. I don't think Spike Lee is a credible source to make a documentary about hurricanes or New Orleans. But I've gathered enough information from other credible sources that I don't need to watch this movie to speak on the subject. What really grinds my gears, is that this guy watched one documentary and accepted every single claim it made, as the gospel. Without question. Without reserve. It is downright scary to me to think about what people will believe if you put it in a movie. Gutted.

I was in the grocery store the day of the Tennessee game. I turned down the bread aisle and spotted the familiar burnt orange lone capital T on a grey hooded sweatshirt. I recognized it immediately and got excited. I've never seen an SEC supporter in New Zealand. I quickly walked up to the guy wearing the sweatshirt and asked him if it was for Tennessee. He seemed to get excited too and said yes. I slowly unzipped my jacket to reveal the purple jersey with LSU in big bright gold across the chest. He looked about as puzzled as a 5 year old with a child proof lighter. His words stung me "L (pause) S (hesitantly) U...what's that?". I didn't really know how to explain myself. I wanted to be like "What do you mean what's that? You don't know what LSU is, give me that sweatshirt! you don't deserve to wear it." I said "You know we played you guys today in football?" And of course he replied "Oh I lived in Tennessee for like six months and just bought a sweatshirt." Gutted.

On Saturday night I was in the Mighty Mighty bar and spotted a guy wearing the Hi How are you? t-shirt. It's a well known piece of graffiti art in Austin. Once again, i got really excited as a friend of mine had JUST sent me the excite same t-shirt in the mail a few weeks before. I briskly left the conversation I was in and marched up to the t-shirt guy. "Hey you from Austin?". Once again, completely puzzled. "Your shirt, it's an Austin, Texas t-shirt?" Spark of recognition (maybe). "Ugh, Oh yeah, I think I nicked this off a friend, I just thought it was a cool shirt." Mini-movie of me slapping him. Gutted.

And finally.....REDEMPTION. I went to Bunnings (NZ anemic version of Home Depot) to buy a shop vac. I asked one of the employees where I could find a shop vac, he helped me pick one out, we headed back to the cash register to complete the transaction. He commented about my accent and asked where I was from and to my surprise HIS eyes lit up with excitement when I said Louisiana.

Really?! What part? (he's excited and I'm intrigued as no one other than Americans ask what part of LA i'm from)
Baton Rouge
Really???!!! Did you go to school there? (now he's visibly excited, to the point that the other girl at the counter has started to eves drop)
Yeah, I went to and at this point he speaks the letters LSU in unison with me and pretty much goes through the roof.
"Aw man!! Were you there at the same time as Big Baby?"
Yeah I was, I actually have a picture of Big Baby standing outside of Walk On's with Shaq. I've also got a picture of me and Shaq together.
(the kid is practically turning cart wheels now) "Holy Shit!! Big Baby is my favorite basketball player in the NBA, he's pretty much my favorite player of all time, I freaking love that guy."
At this point I started to laugh. Here's a kiwi guy who's clearly a rabid NBA fan and his favorite player in the league is Glen "Big Baby" Davis. Not only is this his favorite player, but he knows where he went to college and what city it's in. This is truly commendable considering how difficult it is to be a fan of ANY American sport over here. This guy made my day. He didn't want me to leave the damn store. He was rattling off facts of Glen Davis, asking me questions about him. I've never seen anyone more excited to find out that I was from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I was laughing for the rest of the day about that conversation.

Blues for Breakfast, Gators for lunch

2010-10-10T19:42:00.001+13:00

I like to listen to John Lee Hooker on Sunday mornings while cooking a monumental breakfast. This morning it was scrambled eggs with onions, spinach and cheese on toast. I got all of this down in time to watch the LSU-Florida game on my computer through the slingbox at my parents house. I'm more than grateful to view the game in any capacity. Seeing it live is far better than not seeing it at all. But it's difficult to watch LSU football on a computer, alone, on a Sunday afternoon. It just doesn't feel right. I need to find some college football fans in Wellington to share my pain. There are few things in life that give me more pleasure than seeing LSU beat Florida. Florida's players are classless assholes (holier than though Tim Tebow being the glaring exception) and Urban Meyer is a wormy little shell of a man. Florida fans - even worse. I relished every minute of the Tigers 33-29 victory. I guess Tiger fans back home can afford to bitch and moan about Les Miles, Gary Crowton and Jordan Jefferson. From my perspective, they don't know just how damn lucky they are.

Mighty Mighty.
My tantalizing live music drought finally came to an end last night. I accompanied my room mate, Luke, who plays in a local band, to The Mighty Mighty. Located on the ever popular Cuba Street in downtown Wellington, Mighty Mighty is a quirky small sized live music venue that showcases mostly national and local acts. The two bands that played probably won't find their way onto my ipod anytime soon. Both had a garage rock sound with clear punk and grunge influences. But it was so very invigorating to hear original music again. Where I lacked enthusiasm in the actual music itself I found great enjoyment in the atmosphere of the venue.

Picture here we see a Vanilla Ice EP vinyl record sleeve. Opening it reveals the beer, wine and cocktails menu appended to the inside of the album cover. I would have photographed this, as well as the replica of the genie machine from Big, the fake palm trees sprinkled throughout the dancefloor area and the giant four foot disco ball, had my stupid iphone's camera feature stopped working.

As expected, a joint this peculiar is bound to attract some rogue patrons, creating quite possibly the most humorous people watching situation I've ever encountered. I was literally giggling out loud every time I turned my head in this bar at the ridiculous clothes, hairstyles and antics that I saw. But the patrons of Mighty Mighty were not pretentious or snobby. They didn't appear to desire attention, but were generally just having fun doing what they were doing. I left feeling sure that this would be a place I'd return to frequently.

It's better Live.

While I got a small dose of live music to reintroduce it to my system last night, the super sized value meals are now close on the 2011 horizon. Big Day Out will be a nice return to an outdoor music festival in Auckland in January.
http://www.bigdayout.com/home.php
I'm thrilled to see long time favorites John Butler and the Black Keys, who both have new albums to perform for me. And I'll get to see Edward Sharpe, Grinderman, Wolfmother, CSS, and Ratatat for the first time. Hopefully Andrew WK's plane will crash on the way to the event.

But the real prize, the one that makes the hairs on my neck stand up and that I'm absolutely salivating for is the Byron Bay Blues Festival in April.
http://www.bluesfest.com.au/
This is a five day festival where most artists PLAY TWICE. I've never heard of any festivals in the states adopting this policy, although the ticket prices certainly warrant more than two shows from some of these so-called headliners. A quick look at the previous lineups has me buzzing at the possibilities for this festival.

My big bad Byron Bay wish list:

Personal favorites that I'm pining for:
Grace Potter. Gov't Mule. Levon Helm. Delta Spirit. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. The Band of Heathens. Leftover Salmon. Yeasayer. Robert Randolph. Shooter Jennings. Porter Batiste Stolz. Dumpstaphunk. The New Mastersounds. My Morning Jacket. Railroad Earth. The Felice Brothers.

I've never seen them live so it would be really special:
Nick Lowe. The Derek Trucks Band. Phil Lesh in some form (The Dead, Further, etc). Joe Cocker. The Cave Singers. Stringcheese. Kenny Wayne Shepard. Joe Bonamassa. Cat Power. Lou Reed. Hot Tuna. Arcade Fire. Black Mountain. Steve Winwood. Mark Knopfler. Neil Young. Papa Mali.

I'll go ape shit:
John Hiatt. JJ Cale.

Melbs.

A coffee shop on Smith Street in Melbourne

Speaking of Australia, I got to visit the land down under a few weeks ago for the first time. Leaving New Zealand made me realize that the year 2010 is going to completely pass without me ever setting foot on American soil. This is a weird thought to get my arms around. Anyway, I spent about 6 days in Melbourne, Australia but really only had about a day and half to myself in the city. Melbourne is a true big city and I've not visited one since Auckland, which really doesn't count. So for all intensive purposes this was my first venture into a metropolis since the last time I was in the armpit of Texas, otherwise known as Houston in the common tongue. The size was overwhelming at first but I quickly got over this as I became re associated with A DEVELOPED NATION!!! High Speed Internet, reasonably priced food, IMAX theaters, four lane highways, stadium sized shopping malls, skyscrapers. Being in Melbourne was seriously like being back in the states and I tried to overdose on it while I was there.

From the Lonely Planet:
"Sophisticated and slick, edgy and rough, Melbourne’s physical and cultural landscape is shaped by a dynamic population, ever-ravenous for a bite of global culture. The result is Australia’s most accessible multiculturalism. Ornate Victorian-era architecture and leafy, established boulevards reflect the city’s history, and cutting-edge developments such as Federation Sq exemplify its enigmatic contemporary style. But, Melburnians still keep their urban frenzy to a deliciously sedate pace. Trams lumber back and forth on routes radiating out like spokes from central Melbourne, and cycling is a common way to get from.
Character-filled neighbourhoods, such as Fitzroy, St Kilda and Carlton, hum with life and the city produces some of the best art, music, cuisine, fashion, performance, design and ideas in the world. Melburnians are also devoted to their sport and they go ballistic around the Australian Football League (AFL; ‘footy’ to the locals) finals and during Spring Racing Carnival. They love to shop, eat and attend the myriad festivals that the city offers. You’ll even find them defending the city’s temperamental weather, and if you’ve ever experienced Melbourne’s inclination to plummet from searing heat to drizzling rain in the space of an hour, you’ll understand that this must be the true definition of unconditional love."

The AFL championship match was being played the Saturday that I was in town but I could not be bothered with this as I spent the entire day at Melbourne Central attempting to transform my wardrobe from Patagonia-sporting-backpacker to young semi-professional. I heard that the game actually ended in some kind of draw and would have to be replayed the following weekend, adding firmly to my ongoing case that international sports suck. I spent most of my free time in the Fitzroy area which is way to hip for me. I'm actually able to get away with walking through these places because the hipsters see my disheveled hair and an old sweatshirt and think that maybe I'm a little edgy. They don't realize that I'm too lazy to do anything with my hair and I wear the sweatshirt because I really am that cold. I liked the Fitzroy neighborhood because it was peppered with great record shops, book stores, and coffee bars.

Ya Heard.

Having relocated to Wellington, and recently visited Australia; I've observed some new slang that I hadn't noticed before. I strive on a daily basis to not change the way that I speak, but it is infectiously interesting to study different people's speech patterns.

"Aw True." This appears to be a unique kiwi phrase and it is used as a verbal confirmation of having received a particular message during a conversation. For example:

             Denise: "What did you guys get up to last night?"
             Me: "We went to Mighty Mighty and saw some bands."
             Denise: "Aw True"

I can't think of an American equivalent other than just saying "yeah".

"Gutted". I think this might be English in origin. It's hard to tell where the different catch phrases come from because english travellers tend to adopt kiwi slang and vise versa. They essentially use it to express (or over express) devastation.

             Luke: "They revoked my visa. I was gutted."

Once again, no obvious American equivalent other than maybe to say "I was devastated or I was pissed". And with that I should note that when they say "I was pissed" over here, it means "I was drunk" and not "I was very angry."

"Easy Peezy." This is a strange one indeed. It's used to express that some act is easy to accomplish. I would think it would only be used by middle aged kiwi moms or cheesy kiwi dads.......BUT......One of my new work tasks is to get the phone and internet situated at our new facility. When I asked a sales rep how difficult it would be to upgrade the proposed digital phone system to a full blown voice over IP system he replied:

                 Sales Rep: "Oh that would be easy. Easy Peezy."

Here's a funny video of guy doing a bunch of different accents. I've heard all of the british accents and he is spot on with each one.

Here's a link to a god awful New Zealand bank commercial that seriously has me considering a career change to a television writer.

http://comms.nationalbank.co.nz/places/index.html?pid=mkt-hb-hp-sep10-theplacesyou'llgo(banner2)

Rock on Mike.
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2010 23:18:35 -0500

We left dad on night duty last night. And since he has a snoring problem, the poor nurse had two patients. Michael was waving his arms - as much as you can when they are tied to the bed - like he was trying to tell dad to shut the hell up. Needless to say, dads job on night duty has been terminated. Effective IMMEDIATELY.
While chatting with Mike this morning, I asked if he remembered dad's snoring and he shook his head no. You know why? Because he wants to keep his position as the favorite in the family. I am pretty sure he will forever hold that title. But I am coming to terms with it today. I think he has earned it.
The ventilator settings are now reduced to where he is initiating the breathing on his own with the support from the ventilator. The doctors only intended to try this out for a couple of hours but Mike had other plans. He passed their test and we are leaving the settings the way they are! His blood gases are great which has allowed them to go from doing a blood test every 6 hours to once a day. They are slowly decreasing the sedation medicine which is allowing him to open his eyes - and to do a some grooving. I have a little Buddy Guy on for him right now - one of our favorites. Since his liver enzymes were elevated this morning, they did an ultrasound - we will receive the results tomorrow. He has been holding a normal temp for the past 15 hours. We are trucking right along.
Today I had happy tears for the first time since I have been here. Happy tears because I know there are people that love Michael as much as I do, happy because he tried to dance with me, happy because he has the most amazing nurse anyone could ask for and happy because today, I FINALLY feel with all of my being that he is going to make it.
I am eternally indebted to all of you for the prayers. It is because of ya'll that I will be allowed to spend more time on this earth with Michael.
More good news to come tomorrow.
Love to everyone,
Jen

Thanks to everyone for thinking about Michael.

Geaux Tigers!!

Mr. October

2010-10-08T00:00:00.000+13:00

I was hit with a sharp pang of guilt and disgust on the first of October. At some point during the day, I realized that October had in fact officially arrived; and I did not have the slightest clue as to which teams were in the MLB playoffs. Such a shame. A lifetime spent as a baseball fan, only to completely lose touch due to something as simple as a proximity challenge.

I've been told that this time of year brings the strongest winds to Wellington and I don't have any problems buying that. It is generally agreed upon that the south island is colder than the north. Queenstown has a reputation for being exceptionally cold. However, I've been more uncomfortably cold in Wellington than I ever was in Queenstown.....due to the wind. In Queenstown, the temperature determined how many layers of clothing I would put on. If I gauged this figure correctly, then I would be fine. Once I got outside and started walking, I'd warm up, my clothing would retain the heat and if I didn't stop moving for too long, I could stay outside for as long as I liked. In Wellington, I can put on every piece of clothing that I own, step outside and sprint up the hill until I'm sweating bullets, and a big fat gust of wind will cut right through all of that and chill me to the bone. Instantly. This can occur 24 hours a day. It is deceptive as well. Sometimes I look outside and see a beautiful blue sunny sky and think "hell yeah, t-shirts and shorts" only to walk outside and have a hurricane force gale bitch slap me in the face. All of this wind is balanced out on a truly sunny, still, clear day in Wellington, which is absolutely stunning. I enjoy these about twice a week and when those days come I try to stretch them out like an ice cream sundae, savoring every minute.

5 Things I really miss about the Fall back home:

5. Skirts on gameday
4. The perfectly executed tailgating operation
3. Spending hours creating the perfect ACL schedule, only to completely abandon it the next day and make it up as i go along
2. frozen margaritas with salt chunks the size of diamonds on outdoor patio at sunset
1. Cursing the yankees (and joe buck)

5 Things I love about Wellington in the spring

5. Mistakingly thinking that I'll be able to swim in the vast amount of water that surrounds me
4. Taking a stroll along the southern walkway and rock hopping within 10 feet of a fat sunbathing seal
3. Drinking coffee or beer on the harbour watching the runners go by
2. Running through the harbor watching people drink coffee and beer
1. the elusive perfect day

The Face of a Fighter
Some people pray. Some people meditate. Some people light candles in churches. Some people hope. And some people simply strive for positive intentions. Whatever it is that you do, please do it for my friend Michael.

"It is 10:30 on Wednesday night and Michael and I are having a slumber party. He is sleeping like a baby while I am sitting here watching the monitors like a hawk. Blood pressure looks great, heart rate is good and the paralytic medicine is a thing of the past.
Last week Mike was not feeling good so he went to the doctor and was sent home with a shot. His fever never broke so he headed to the hospital Sunday night hoping to get a drip and be on his way. God had another plan. He was admitted to the ICU around 6 Monday morning with pneumonia in all four quadrants of his lungs and was immediately set up with an oxygen mask. I had a really good feeling when I left the hospital that night that things were going to be ok. Unfortunately, his breathing quickly deteriorated around 4:00 Tuesday morning which only meant one thing. A ventilator.
By 7:30 it was in place and he was on a paralytic drug - meaning he had no control of anything. Not even his breathing. Scary? Words can't describe. The best thing for him? Absolutely. The first ventilator that he had was doing the maximum work it could and his breathing spiraled out of control. It is never good when a nurse tells you she is scared. But she had to be honest. The doctor was called in immediately to put in a more effecient ventilator - why wasn't this done in the first place? Because they had no idea he was THIS SICK. He took to the new ventilator very well and his levels began to even out. When it was first in place, it was at 100% capacity with 24 breaths per minute. Right now we are at 50% capacity with only 10 breaths per minute. We are taking PO2 levels every 6 hours to see what needs to be adjusted. The past several tests have come back great but they do not want to be too aggressive and adjust things too fast for fear of shocking his body. Our ultimate goal is to let him help the ventilator breathe - starting with him taking one breath per minute while the ventilator takes 9 for him.
During all of this, he has also developed ARDS or Adult Respiratoy Distress Syndrome which is a very serious condition that complicates the pneumonia. He is on 3 of the strongest antibiotics made and the doctors are still growing cultures to pinpoint exactly what is going on so we can become more focused on what we need to treat. These cultures are taking a bit longer to grow because doctors believe the shot he received on Saturday is masking the real cause of the pneumonia.
His condition improved significantly today. He was weened from the paralytic drug - he fought it at first but seems to be responding very well. He opened his eyes for me earlier and squeezed my hand. We have received good reports from a very reserved doctor. However, he tells us that Michael will have a long road to a full recovery.
Both his nurse and doctor have provided extraordinary care and concern. He has a nurse dedicated to his care alone. Sitting in here day and night.
Words cannot describe the love and support we feel. I sit by the bed and tell him who all has called, emailed, send text messages. Every one of your names has been mentioned. I promise. And he can hear me. I just know it. He is fighting like hell for all of you and i KNOW he will not disappoint.
Please continue to pray for this battle Michael is fighting and for his strength. Please also keep our family in your prayers. We have been on an emotional roller coaster this week searching for answers.
I know i don't have everyone's email address, so please pass along to others.

Love to everyone.

Jennifer and Lacy"

Jennifer is Michael's sister and Lacy his girlfriend.

Oops

2010-09-14T08:44:00.000+12:00

http://www.news.com.au/world/conservative-uk-politician-sobs-after-wife-exposed-as-prostitute/story-e6frfkyi-1225914671565

Questions to add to the standard first date repertoire: How do you feel about prostitution?

Taupo the morning to ya

2010-09-13T22:51:00.001+12:00

If there was a guiness world record for the most times the phrase "oh my god" was heard in a 24 hour period; I would hold that record. I reached this milestone by taking three irish women on a road trip to Lake Taupo to embark on a 15,000 ft tandem skydive. When I have a one to one conversation with any of my three irish friends, I can understand them perfectly. When the three of them are speaking with each other, the rate at which they produce words triples and it is completely incoherent. This is hysterically funny to listen to as it basically consists of a series of outbursts, laughter, oh my god's, and cuss words. There was so much cussing I felt like I was in a Martin Scorsese movie. I find it ironic that the phrase "oh my god" has become so commonplace in english conversation that it has absolutely no relationship to religion anymore. I hear the words uttered all the time by Christians and atheists alike. It's also blindingly obvious that this phrase is used exponentially more by girls than guys. If I was an ambitious linguistics scholar I would be publishing a paper titled OMG.

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I have never spoken to someone who has been skydiving before and was not absolutely through the roof for it. Conjure up about 100 synonyms for the word amazing and that's how people describe skydiving. And all those people are undeniably correct. A friend told me once, that jump guides are trained to make the entire experience as process oriented as possible. The idea is to keep the tandem diver involved in everything other thinking about what they are about to do. So as soon as I met the guy I was to jump with he had me completely preoccupied with small tasks all the way up until the point that we fell out of the plane. Stand here. Put this on. Look at the camera. Walk over here. Sit there. There was no down time. No time to get scared. And surprisingly, I didn't get scared or nervous....until the first two jumpers took off at 12,000 feet. (We had paid an extra $100 for the maximum 15,000 ft.) Skydiving was nothing like I had imagined it in my head. I always pictured a huge plane, with plenty of room. I imagined myself getting up and walking to a giant door and actually jumping out of into the sky. Turns out, I was not even close. We piled onto a tiny plane, which had been cleverly painted pink. We sat on a bench Indian style, each guide behind there prospective jumper. I was to be the third jumper out of our group of four. When it was my turn my guide just shoved me forward to the end of the bench and onto the floor. There was no decision making on my point. I was going where this guy was pushing me whether I wanted to or not. As soon as I got near the small opening in the plane the most powerful wind I've ever experienced smashed me in the face and I became immediately paralyzed with fear. I could not hear, speak, move or think. If I could have processed a thought, I probably would have worried about my heart beating a whole in my chest before bursting wide open. When my guide pushed me to the edge of the plane and my feet fell out into the air the impossible happened - I got even more scared. At this point I was certain that I was just going to die right there. There was no way that a person could experience that kind of tension on every muscle in their body and every fiber in there brain and not instantly expire. Before I could shove this guy back in the plane and demand that we land immediately, we fell out of the plane. We didn't jump. We didn't scoot off the edge. We just toppled off the side. At this point I felt the most incredible speed I have ever felt in my life. I am certain I have never moved that fast in my life. It was spellbinding. I continued to remain absolutely paralyzed in fear. For the first few seconds of the fall I didn't scream or smile or frown or do anything but remain completely astonished at what was happening. I was able to follow the instructor's commands; moving my arms when told to. Eventually, a little smidgen of the fear subsided and I looked out over Lake Taupo and tried to scream. Nothing really came out. The wind was blowing so hard that the skin on my face was being stretched all over the place. As soon as opened my mouth I inhaled this wind and uttered a barely audible screech. After a few seconds I realized that I was being filmed and tried to make some memorable faces for the camera. The free fall seemed to last forever. I've watched skydiving videos before and always thought that skydivers looked like they are just casually floating around in the air. But it doesn't feel like floating at all. It actually feels completely unnatural. The human body was not made to travel that fast.

Eventually, the guide instructed me to pull my arms in and all the sudden I felt a hard thrust upwards as the parachute filled with air and drastically decreased our speed. My harness actually left a bruise on my legs from the back lash. The landing was almost as scary as the free fall. It was eerily quiet and still hanging from the parachute and I was certain that at any moment I would hear a snap and we'd be falling again. It was during the free fall that my guide informed me that the camera strapped to his hand that he had been filming me with had crapped out. I was not evenly remotely upset about this. The adrenalin was still flowing like a river through my body and nothing could have phased me at that point. We spun around in the air a little bit before landing in a field where the Irish ladies were screaming.....Oh my god.

Of all the extreme sports New Zealand has to offer, I can understand why skydiving is so popular. Unlike the bungee jump, the decision to execute is taken out of the participants hand. And unlike canyoning, river surfing, and white water rafting the participant does not need to be even remotely physically fit. Basically, just show up and get on the plane and rest is done by someone else. It's definitely the quickest way to spend hundreds of dollars, but well worth it.

The wino and I know

2010-09-06T22:56:00.000+12:00

I arrived in Wellington on August 10th to thrust myself into a full blown job searching effort. By Saturday August 14th I was taking off for a road trip. Hawkes Bay is one of the most popular north island destinations in New Zealand and luckily within driving distance from Wellington. I'm not sure exactly what constitutes Hawkes Bay, but I knew that Napier is one of the main towns. I also knew that the region is popular for its vineyards and wineries. The lonely planet provides more insightful information:

"You don’t have to be particularly cultured to enjoy Napier but you might find its passion for architecture and fine wine surprisingly contagious. Before long you’ll be blathering on about the Chicago School, Mayan decorative devices and ‘hints of passionfruit on the palate’ with the best of them.

The Napier of today is the silver lining of the dark cloud that was NZ’s worst natural disaster. Rebuilt after the deadly 1931 earthquake in the popular styles of the time, the city retains a unique concentration of Art-Deco buildings. Architecture obsessives flock here from all over the world and the town milks it for all it’s worth. Don’t expect the Chrysler Building – Napier’s Art Deco is resolutely low-rise – but you will find intact 1930s streetscapes which can provoke a Great Gatsby swagger in the least romantic soul.

For the layperson it’s a charismatic, sunny, composed city with the air of an affluent English seaside resort about it."

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A buddy of mine spent the summer in Napier and enjoyed working on a winery but advised that the town was completely dead at night. He was not lying. Napier is definitely more a summer destination and after soaking up sunny skies driving out of Wellington, I endure a steady dark rain for pretty much the rest of the weekend.

A little cold rain would not stop me from having an enjoyable trip. I arrived in Napier to be immediately reminded of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi; a regular get-away destination of my youth. Napier is a small coastal town with lots of beach side motel and restaurants. And like Bay St. Louis it has some unique characteristics that give it a colorful identity. This was showcased at the Criterion Art Deco Backpackers, where I met Collin, an American friend who was doing a quick backpacking tour of New Zealand. The hostel was spacious and like the rest of Napier, empty.

On Sunday morning we asked the lone hostel employee about doing a winery tour and provided the phone number to Grape Escape. I called and we agreed to be picked up outside the hostel at 1:00. This was my first wine tour and it turned out to be a delightful experience. Our tour guide picked us up as promised in a minivan and after gathering two more backpackers from another hostel we were off to our first vineyard. Throughout the day I repeatedly confirmed something that I was already pretty sure about - I don't care for white wines, I like red wines, and I love desert wines. And this was the general serving sequence at each winery. We would taste two to three whites (usually pinot gris and chardonnay), two to three reds (pinot noirs and the regional favorite syrah) and a desert wine. Most of the wineries featured newly constructed modern style buildings that were pleasing to the eye. I felt uncharacteristically stylish sipping wine in these establishments. Upon each arrival we were met with a cheery host who shared lots of interesting facts about their organizations' history and products. I learned more about wine in one day than I had in my entire life. The most interesting bit of information I picked up was that Paul Giamatti's little outburst in Sideways actually had a devastating effect on the sale of Merlot. To my amusement I also learned that the wine that he drinks in the burger joint in the movie is actually......a Merlot. Go figure.

At one of the last wineries we visited, I decided to buy some of the delicious chocolates that we had sampled there. Wanting to have enough to share with my friends back in Wellington, I was contemplating how much to buy when the wine tour guide instructed me not to worry about bringing the Napier chocolate home, but to stop in Greytown at Shoc and get the good stuff there. I took him up on his tip and ended up finding my own little slice of heaven. Shoc produces homemade chocolates in the widest range of flavors I have ever seen; 60 different flavors for their bar chocolates! These include the likes of Lemon and Cracked Pepper, Smoke Paprika, Limechili, and Dark Chocolate with sea salt. I'm not exaggerating when I say these were the most full flavored chocolates I had ever tasted. They blew Godiva out of the water. I ended up spending more money in 10 minutes at the chocolate store than I did in 5 hours visiting 8 wineries. I also realized I had missed my life's calling when I learned that their is such a thing as a Chocologist.

http://www.schoc.co.nz/index.php?main_page=index

While the two days in Napier certainly don't rank high on my most memorable NZ road trips, I really did enjoy all the fine wine and chocolates and I surely will return to Hawkes Bay in the summer.

Earthquake

2010-09-04T09:02:00.000+12:00

An earthquake occurred in Christchurch this morning around 4:30 a.m. I was not affected by it and was unaware of it until I received a text from my parents this morning. The media has not reported any deaths or serious injuries, but they have reported incidents of looting. The anchorman's statement went something like this "there have been reports of looting and the police have issued a statement advising people not to loot." I can imagine how that conversation went down:

Officer 1: "We just got a call, people are looting."
Chief: "What! They shouldn't be doing that, that's just wrong."
Officer 1: "What should we do?"
Chief: "I saw this once when I was rookie, we should tell them to stop looting."
Officer 1: "Brilliant!! I'll call a press conference!!"

This morning's earthquake registered a 7.4 on the richter scale. I was dissappointed to learn that wikipedia does not report the richter scale measurement for the famous earthquake game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Game

This is a rare instance of wikipedia letting me down. I've never been involved in an earthquake and am embarrassed to say I'm not even sure what I would do if one occurred. In February, I was sitting at a U shaped bar in Winnie's having a drink with some friends when the bar starting violently shaking. I looked down to see someone at the other end of the table telling an animate story and I thought he just been shaking supports of the bar. I learned a couple of days later that it had actually been a tremor.

I kind of wish I had paid more attention to that Saved by the Bell episode when Zach and Tory go over exactly how one is supposed to respond in an earthquake. I should probably find that on youtube so I can be prepared. In the meantime, I think I'll head down to Christchurch and pick up a new flatscreen....wait, no they said not to do that. Good thing I watched the news this morning.

Book Crossing

2010-08-25T13:47:00.000+12:00

As my friends have left New Zealand they have often given me things that they could not take with them on their departures. One of my friends happened to give me a worn paperback book; a copy of Secrets in the Cellar by John Glatt. I had never heard of the book and was not immediately interested in it (the tag line reads "A true story of the Austrian incest case that shocked the world). I became intrigued when I noticed that a business card sized piece of paper had been taped to the front cover of the book. The card had an illustration of a book with arms and legs that appears to be running and the following text:

"I'm a very special book. You see, I'm traveling around the world making new friends. I hope I've met another friend in you. Please go to www.bookcrossing.com and enter my BCID number (shown below). You'll discover where I've been and who has read m, and can let them know I'm safe here in your hands. Then....READ and RELEASE me!"

This is one of the coolest concepts I've ever come across. And I've never had a book be so friendly and personal towards me. I logged on to the site hoping to find that my book was an accomplished traveller and had been all over the world. I was disappointed to find that it only had one previous reader, who left the book on a bench in Queesntown Gardens. I think I'm going to leave it at the Wellington airport when I'm through and try to get it out of the country. I won't be able to start this book until I finish The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, but after I read and release it I will be able to track it at this link http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/8011016

I had amassed a small collection of paperbacks in Queenstown but per the standard operating procedure I gave them to friends before I left. I'm definitely going to take the handful I brought with me and start them on world wide journeys.

The Girl

2010-08-24T20:20:00.000+12:00

I bought my first ipod at some point in 2005 and it came with a free subscription to Audible.com. For a few months I received free digital downloads of audiobooks from a nice sized library of selections. After that I paid a reasonable monthly fee to keep the books coming and was able to build a nice collection. I lost interest when it was time to renew the committment after the first year, but reactivated my audible account before I left the states to download some material for the long flights and travels ahead. While perusing the material available from audible I found The Girl with Dragon Tattoo under the most popular downloads page. I'm pretty sure it was number one actually. This was pretty much a no brainer for me as I'm a big fan of girls, tattoos and dragons so I downloaded it without any knowledge of what I was getting into.

I first started listening to GWDT in Auckland and found that it was narrated by an older man with a heavy swedish accent. It was a little bit difficult to listen to and I kept falling asleep in the first chapter. I switched to Phil Lesh's autobiography and didn't think about the girl for a while. In Queenstown, I was given a paperback copy of The Girl who Played with Fire by a travelling American who was passing through. She only relinqueshed the book to me when I promised her that I would actually read it. So I made myself get through the first chapter of the dragon tattoo. Once I finished it I couldn't stop. I'm wore my headphones for three days straight listening to that book and it did not come close to putting me to sleep. It was reminiscent of the first times I read Jurassic Park, The Firm and The Da Vinci Code. I blazed through played with fire and after a short break in the trilogy I'm now halfway through The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

The Girl story is everything that it's hyped up to be. A truly original and thrilling crime drama that puts the reader in a choke hold from the very beginning and doesn't let up. The late Stieg Larrsonn's villains are as dreadful as I could possibly imagine, but his genius shines through in his protagonists. Michael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander are hardly a stereotypical hero and heroine. They come packed with character flaws and failures. Blomkvist is a terrible father who sleeps around. Lisbeth smokes, cusses, and sets her father on fire. This couple is a far cry from Robert Langdon and Sophie Last Sion. Larsson's characters are believable and act more human than typical novel characters. This comes alive in the film version of the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. If this movie had been made in the states it would have starred Brad Pitt, or Leonardo DiCaprio or whoever else is commanding 30 million dollars a picture these days. Lisbeth would have been played by Kristen Stewart or Anne Hatheway or Miley Cyrus and there would be rumblings of academy awards. The swedish version with english subtitles keeps things simple and in doing so creates a powerful movie. With the exception of The Godfather, it is probably the closest book to movie conversion I've ever seen. Looks like I'll be back at the theater tomorrow seeing the girl who played with fire and then counting down the days until the final film is released.

Take along some of your favorite things, cause you're gonna need em

2010-08-23T16:49:00.000+12:00

I don't have to pull up the blog post I created last December when I arrived in Queenstown. I remember most of what I said. Queenstown is beautiful, you can walk everywhere, the bars never close, the sun never sets, everyone has a pet unicorn, and so it goes. I don't retract any of my statements. Queenstown IS one of the most beautiful places on the planet and you can walk everywhere and the bars never close. The sun does set a lot earlier in the winter. In leaving Queenstown, I feel like I need to add some clarity to my writing. Queenstown is not unlike a barbie doll. Physically and aesthetically, it is perfect, in every way. But just like Barbie, Queenstown has no intellectual substance. It has no identity or defining characteristic (except of course for the beautiful scenery). Queenstown breeds instant gratification. It's a whorehouse; a place for international travellers to arrive, get their kicks, and leave in a hurry, tired and broke. And the inhabitants of Queenstown reflect this mentality. Ask a typical Queenstown resident who they are, where they've been and where they are going and you are likely to get a blank stare. Ask the same person how much they had to drink last night and you'll get a 5 minute uninterrupted monologue.

I embraced this culture for a long time. I'm all about instant gratification. Hell, who isn't? Is pizza not the ultimate instant gratifcation. I mean can you think of anything else that is so pleasing when you consume it and provides absolutely no value whatsoever after the fact? But after 8 months, I'm ready to expand my societal requirements. I need better live music than the GC's covering "Sex on Fire" every Thursday night. I want a better cheeseburger than Fergberger has to offer. I think I can handle a little bit more in depth conversation that goes outside of the number of times someone rode through the ski park. And for heaven's sake if the Buffalo Club is the best night life that Queenstown has to offer, I am certain there are other bars in the country that can do better.

Alas, here I go again......bashing, ripping, thrashing my beloved Queenstown. I really do have a talent for bitching. Of course I can't project all this negative generalization on the entire town. I met some amazing people in Queenstown and formed lifelong friendships with some of them....Or at least they have the potential to be lifelong friendships. My two roommates certainly have intellectual substance and don't deserved to be grouped into the barbie doll category. Same thing goes for my old boss and a handful of the Winnie's staff who I will certainly miss. Those people really went out of there way to give me a proper send off and I won't forget it anytime soon. But as a whole, Queenstown is plastic and while everyone loves a good barbie doll, I think I'll go searching for one who talks.

Flash forward to Wellington, where I arrived on the 10th of August. The two most common phrases associated with Wellington are "windy" and "cafe culture". I know what wind feels like and I can't contradict this association. The wind is powerful and mighty in Wellington. I'm learning more about the cafe culture as I go along. I haven't had the word "hipster" pop into my head since I lived in Austin, but I find it very applicable in Wellington. The capital city of New Zealand is highly cultured and diverse. While I'm already missing the simplicity of living in a place the size of Queenstown, I can't deny it is good to be back in a medium sized city. With the exception of outdoor activities, Wellington offers alot more ways to spend my time and money. There's a stage adaptation of the Great Gatsby playing as well as the ongoing tour of the Wellington Ukulele Orchestra (http://www.ukulele.co.nz/). I plan on attending both. I'm not entirely convinced that the people of Wellington are all that different from those of Queenstown. These barbie dolls are just dressed in thousand dollar plus suits and scowling into blackberries as quickly shuffle through the CBD. Either that, or they spent 200 dollars at some trendy clothing store to appear as though they bought their entire wardrobe at a thrift store, so they can be the coolest person sipping a triple shot latte outside the coffee shop on a Tuesday afternoon. So where do I fit into this big pot of gumbo? Who knows? But I'm sure i'll enjoy trying to figure it out.

The Happy Wanderer likes:

Inception - It appears that Christopher Nolan can do no wrong. He's created a directing style that is fresh and provides intense entertainment. He uses the same formula in all his movies, but yet it never feels like you are watching something that's been repeated, like a Guy Ritchie movie. While Inception is not nearly as good as The Dark Knight, it's a solid movie that kept me completely engaged from start to finish.
Band of Horses - Compliments - Every Band of Horses album has one song that is heads and shoulders better than the rest of them. This is the song from there latest album. http://vimeo.com/11838229
The new Arcade Fire album The Suburbs. Arcade Fire cannot be put into a genre because nobody else sounds quite like them. They don't skip a beat in delivering their third killer album in a row.

The crusty cynic bitches:

Do I really have to take Shia Lebouf seriously? I mean Michael Douglas reprises one of the greatest cinematic characters of all time to share the screen with the transformers kid. Give me a break.
"I just looooooove Robert Downey, Jr." Ummm, no you don't. You really liked the Iron Man movies and Sherlock Holmes. But you haven't even seen A Scanner Darkly or Wonder Boys. You like popcorn flicks like everyone else.

Brothers

2010-07-16T10:00:00.000+12:00

I started listening to The Black Keys around 2006, I asked a friend if he had heard of the band. His response went something like this: "yeah, I've heard them, I don't really like them though, they sound like a White Stripes rip-off". I was appalled. Numb-skull statements of this fashion are my inspiration to write about music. If that is the best that people can come up with, I think i can offer a little bit more constructive thinking to the topic.

Brothers is the sixth studio offering by the musical duo of drummer Patrick Carney and guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach from Akron, Ohio, released on Nonesuch Records. The Keys sound has clearly evolved from early efforts like 2003's Thickfreakness which was characterized by the simple formula of heavy drumming and raw guitar licks. Much like 2008's Attack and Release, this album bears all the elements of refined production. It is peppered with backing female vocals, organs, xylophones, sound effects, and most songs have a distinct bass line. Simplicity is still the key ingredient to the Black Keys sound, but they've added some nice layers to create an album that built more on finesse rather than raw power.

The album opens to the steady rhythm of "Everlasting Light" and features Dan singing a high pitched harmony backed by a female vocalist. The next three tracks provide the definite high point of the album starting with the anthemic "Next Girl". Danger Mouse, who produced Attack and Release, returns to produce "Tighten Up" and his influence is obvious. The opening whistling sounds could easily have been ripped from a Gnarls Barkly album. "Tighten Up" also highlights Patrick's distinct drumming ability. Like "Next Girl", "Howlin For You" features the Keys at their best: a simple guitar riff on top of a foot-stomping drum beat plus Dan singing about the pains of a woman. The album takes a nice change of pace with the bluesy instrumental "Black Mud" and returning to high pitch vocals and adding the organs to "The Only One." "Ten Cent Pistol" drops the heavy distortion sound for some distinct guitar picking but then brings it right back for the I'm-a-bad-boy track "Sinister Kid". The last four songs are somewhat disappointing as the album just kind of mellows out and trickles off. They are still good tunes, "Never gonna Give you up" has a motown sound to it and "These Days" is a solid effort to close the album. But there isn't a real rocker in the second half.

As a whole, I'm very pleased with the latest release from The Black Keys. The trend in rock these days is side projects, dipping your little musical fingers into other sugar jars outside of your primary group, and Patrick and Dan seem to be on board with this philosophy. Dan released a successful solo album in 2009 and Patrick organized a collaborative effort in which he played bass in a band called drummer. The two joined forces with several hip-hop artists to release Blakroc, an interesting album that attempted to integrate rock with rap. The live shows to support this album should be great as the Keys revert back to the drums/guitar only sound without all the support of a recording studio. It will be interesting to hear how they interpret their new recording on stage and I relish the opportunity to find out.

Influence

2010-07-14T20:11:00.000+12:00

I've spent the last several minutes studying a picture on the July page of a calendar on my wall. It is a portrait of Town Lake in Austin, Texas with the night sky lit up by fireworks. The focal point is a statue of the great Stevie Ray Vaughn.The late virtuoso guitarist is universally known for reviving blues music in the 80's during a time when synth pop, hair bands, and punk rock dominated the air waves. He helped shine a light on his hero, Albert King, by displaying his music for a new generation of blues fans. In the same way that studying Eric Clapton turned me on to Robert Johnson, reading about SRV made me an Albert King fan. The picture is moving to me because it illustrates how cool and original Austin, Texas is. There are not very many statues that I've seen that really stick out in my mind, but I'll never forget the one of Stevie, in his trademark Mexican poncho and Josey Wales style cowboy hat, sitting on the waters' edge of town lake. Although I would not make the discovery until well after his death, Stevie had a lot of influence on one of my passions.

Before I started writing, I quickly took a glance at ESPN.com. I try to do this on a regular basis to keep up with news in the world of sports, but it ends up happening quite infrequently. I was stunned to see that George Steinbrenner had passed away. Here is another man who had great influence on another one of my passions. As an owner, I think most fans generally loved or hated Steinbrenner. But the one quality he commanded from pretty much everyone in baseball was respect. Like Stevie with the blues, George breathed life into an American pastime: the New York Yankees. But George succeeded where so many other owners have failed: in longevity. Whether or not you supported his brash methods, his overbearing attitude, or his perceived irrational decision making, you really can't deny his success over 37 seasons. I'm sure George will be missed in the yankees community.

My progress as a snowboarder came to a grinding halt last Tuesday. One of the skills I had been working on improving was riding straight. I had gotten pretty good at riding down the hill at an angle and making long sweeping turns. But when I reached the narrow sections at the end of the run I struggled to just ride straight ahead at a slower speed. At the same time I had gotten into the habit of taking two actions when I fell on my heel edge. The first was to roll my body a little bit so as to not fall straight onto my backside. By rolling or twisting a little on the way down, I could kind of hit the snow on my side, instead of my tail bone. The second was to stop putting my hands down to try to brace myself from falling. I've been told that the most common injury for novice snow boarders is broken wrists. It was ok to fall on my hands a few I weeks ago when I was riding cautiously slow and thus falling to the ground slowly as well. But last week I was riding with significantly increased speed, meaning the falls occur quicker and there is much more impact going through my hands and arms. These two subtle changes in my falling techniques would later come back to bite me in the butt. I took a nasty fall on Monday. With my twisting hands off maneuver I managed to land squarely on my left glute. Every ounce of energy I had achieved was transferred squarely into one small section of my body. After a few seconds of crucial pain, I got up and finished off a pretty good day. As luck would have it, I performed the exact same fall to the T, the very next day. I mean composed a mirror image of what I did Monday, on Tuesday. Once again, it hurt like hell, but I got up and rode out of there and went home feeling alright. That was 8 days ago. Currently, I have a bruise that covers the entire left side of my bum and a good portion of my left hamstring. I've never seen anything quite like it. This thing is massive and it's a shade of purple that deserves a new stick in the crayola box. I experienced severe hematoma in my leg after being pinned under a Mardi Gras float in 2003. This bruise makes my mardi gras leg look like a paper cut. When I went to see the physio the first thing she said was "Oh is that it right behind your knee cap where your leg bends?" I responded no as I didn't have any idea what she was talking about. She showed me a new bruise forming down the middle of my leg. She realized a few seconds later when I showed her the actual bruise that what she was looking at was drainage from the original. There is so much blood caught under the skin that it is actually flowing down my leg when I stand for a long periods of time and forming new bruises. Pretty good stuff. Anyway, no snow boarding for me until the swelling goes down. It's not the worst thing in the world. The New Zealand school holidays had the slopes overcrowded with people anyway.

To my delight some Americans opened a proper sandwich shop in Queenstown. Johnny Barr's probably would be considered mediocre in Texas or Louisiana, but in Queenstown it's a top notch hoagie joint. The pulled pork sandwich brought back fond memories of cooking Boston butt in my dutch oven back home. I had it served on a wheat baguette with coleslaw as the dressing. The defining characteristic of the sandwich was the BBQ sauce. The only BBQ sauce I have ever had in New Zealand is the same industrial slop we put on our BBQ pizza at Winnie's. It is the color of Hershey's chocolate syrup and is nearly as sweet. It bears no hint of smoke or hickory flavor. When I inquired about the origin of JB's bbq sauce I was informed that they make their own and the recipe was a secret. Whatever it is, it's legit and light years ahead of anything else available in Queenstown. For as long as I can remember, good submarine style sandwiches have been a staple of lunch for me. It's really nice to have a quality sand which option again.

And with that I think I've covered the most random topics I can think of and will sign off for now. Peace.

I see dead people

2010-06-29T22:26:00.001+12:00

I should not be able to see my breath inside my house. If I'm outside, that's fine. If I'm inside my van just getting it started, OK. I should never see my breath in my bed when I wake up in the morning. But this is the situation I'm starting to find myself in. I'd like to think I look as cool as Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense.

It is a huge mystery to me why New Zealand contractors have built an entire country of residences without insulation and central heating. The only thing that I can speculate is that it saves the builders money during the development phase. But these savings are just translated into extra costs for homeowners whose power bills are absolutely outrageous due to the use of heat pumps and small (but inefficient) electric heaters. As I sit typing I'm running an electric heater in my closet in an attempt to get my clothes dry. I also continually toggle off and on a medium sized heater next to my desk to knock the chill out of my room. It's 28 degrees outside right now. During the day, it is colder inside of my house than it is outside. I've visited Chicago a few times and always really enjoyed my time in that city. I also got up to the Grand Junction area of Colorado two years ago and thoroughly enjoyed that trip as well. On both occasions I left those cold weather climates acknowledging that while I liked the locations I could never live in either one due to the brutal winters. I think if I make it through this winter I'll be completely open minded to trying a cold city in the states.

As it turns out, Voodoo, in all his glory, is not a good transport for getting me up to the ski slopes. I drove him up there a few times last week and made it to the parking lot just fine. But the first day that there was a hint of ice and grit on the roads he starting slipping and sliding all over the road well before I had reached the steepest sections. I had bought snow chains the week before, but I've never used them before and don't really have any desire too. They are not half as cool as they sound. Instead I opted to put the chains up for sale in the weekly bulletin and buy a season bus pass instead. This allows me to listen to music and sleep while being transported to the mountain instead of worrying about my icy road driving skills. It also gives me motivation to get up early and catch the first bus up the hill. And today I did just that. Being first on the mountain was quite an amazing experience. The cloud cover was low today and sun was coming up slowly. With hardly anyone around so early I rode the chairlift up alone. The peace and quiet really allowed me to take in the beautiful mountain views. Then I rode down freshly groomed snow without worry of colliding with 12 year old ski school students. It was great...while it lasted. By 11 a.m. I had been knocked down by two skiers and taken out a few of my own. By noon the place was a complete cluster and hardly worth dealing with anymore. On several runs I had to abandon whatever I was practicing and just focus on not hitting people. But I continue to make small improvements from day to day and continue to have a blast. I also continue to take some vicious falls but I think I have even started to fall better than I used to. All the traffic on the beginner slope has motivated me to progress to the next level where I can ride a little bit more freely. So over the next few days I'll be getting on a longer trail lift and heading up to a blue level run. Yikes!
Here's some pics I took on the lift and one of a snow covered Voodoo from last week. Don't be scared of the mustache. It's only temporary amusement.

Compare and Contrast

2010-06-28T21:30:00.000+12:00

I haven't seen much of the world cup. I watched about 15 minutes total last Saturday night in a crowded bar in Dunedin. The sound was off and replaced by a three piece cover band who was actually not half bad. I'd probably be lying if I said I was giving the match 50% of my attention. I had every intention of trying to follow the world cup, until I realized the logistics of it. The matches that I would be interested in watching air at either 2:30 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. here. We don't have the cable service to watch them at home so it's not as simple as just watching them in bed, or on the dvr. I can't even get the highlights at home. This means I'd have to be fully dressed, functional and in a bar in town to watch these games, more than likely spending a lot of money in the process, not to mention losing a ton of sleep. I'm just not that big of a soccer fan to make all of that worth while. I find it very difficult to get excited about soccer. I definitely appreciate the athleticism, but it's not enough to hold my attention for any significant length of time.

I kind of felt the same way during a rugby match I attended last Saturday night. About a month or two ago, I learned from friends that the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team would be playing an exhibition match against Wales in Dunedin. This was thrilling news as Dunedin is about three and half hours from Queenstown and by far the closest city to me that the All Blacks would ever be travelling to. Attending an All Blacks match is generally on every traveller's "NZ to do list", including mine, so I immediately bought tickets and tagged onto my friends trip plans. The match was to be of special importance as it was to be the last rugby competition held in Carisbrook Stadium. The stadium is set to be demolished (or closed I really can't remember) in favor of a new modern indoor stadium.

The drive to Dunedin was not as scenic as my previous excursions through the south island. Upon arriving I quickly found that 4 lane highways, billboards, traffic lights, and buildings over three stories tall had become completely foreign to me. Dunedin is a true city and I realized that it was the first one I've visited in over six months. My appreciation for Queenstown's small size grew. After rounding up the crew, having dinner and pre-game drinks we made our way to the stadium. While locating the correct gates, I noticed that not many fans were sporting their teams' paraphanelia. It was difficult to distinguish between NZ fans, Wales fans, and casual spectators. This is usually not the case back in the US. Merchandising allows every article of clothing we adorn to bear the logo of our favorite team and most avid sports fans take advantage of this. (I still think LSU crocs on full grown men looks pretty ridiculous) We hurried to our seats in time to catch both the Welsh national anthem, the New Zealand national anthem and the Haka. In one of my first posts to this blog I posted a youtube link showing a Haka. It was exhilirating to see live. It really sucks for the other team to have to just stand there and stare as the All Blacks do a taunting dance right in front of them. They don't really get a chance to answer the battle cry.

With all the pre-game festivities in the books, the match began. I watched intently. I've picked up some basic rugby knowledge and terminology and I can follow what is going on. I quickly realized that I was having trouble paying attention to the action on the field. I was talking to my dutch friend Roos on my right. I was talking to a stranger on my left. I was watching the strange looking ginger security volunteer who stared eerily into the crowd with his back to the field, oblivious to the athletic competition going on only a few feet behind him. I watched the wave circle the stadium. I found myself focusing on everything but the game. This frustrated me as I truly wanted to enjoy the experience and get excited about what was happening. I began to compare what I was watching to an american football game, specifically a Saturday night game in Tiger Stadium. Here's what I came up with in no particular order:

Music and Huge Screens- Obviously these teams were not travelling with full marching bands, but the stadium also did not play any kind of music. I realized that the music played in a stadium sets up a rhythym for the game. Certain songs and tunes are synonymous with results from play on the field. Also, jumbo screens give instant replays for effect and also can be used to energize the stadium with "Get Loud" and "On your feet" messages. This element of stadium interaction was completely lost at the rugby match.
Cheers - No organized cheering!!! This is the best part of being a football fan. I know I've been to a great game when I leave with my throat starting to get a little sore and my voice getting raspy from all the yelling I've done. There was nothing of the sort going on at this match. Probably because there was no cheer leaders to get the crowd going.
The Clock - The clock counts up......To 90 MINUTES!!! I couldn't really get a sense of urgency with 85 minutes left to play. No play clock, no quarters, no timeouts. There was never an intense moment in the match where somthing needed to happen quickly. Clock management in football really contributes to the excitement I feel when watching the game. Once again, this doesn't translate into rugby and for me, it made the game seem extremely long.

These were just a few of the obvious differences between rugby and football that I committed to memory. I don't want to downplay the athleticism I witnessed on the field. The rugby players are extreme physical specimens and definitely in tip top shapes. They are superior athletes who showed great speed, agility and physical strength. I think rubgy is more like a moving wrestling match than an American football game. A guy at work once implied to me that rugby players were tougher than American football players because they don't wear pads. This could not be further from the truth. The rugby players generally don't hit each other from more than 6-8 yards away. They follow a ball and have an open view of most anyone who is going to make contact with them. There is no equivalent in rugby for a 230 pound linebacker plowing into standing quarterback with the momentum of a 20 yard sprint. Basically, i believe there are a lot more football players out there who could cut it at the professional rugby level. But I seriously doubt there are many pro rugby stars out there that could transfer into the NFL.

In the end I had a great night at Carisbrook Stadium and New Zealand really stomped Wales. I think the final score was 42-9. I'll keep trying to find ways to be a more enthusiastic rugby fan, but I don't think it will ever hold my attention the way the pig skin does......

My invitation to the cult

2010-06-25T00:32:00.001+12:00

There's never any shortage of irony in my life. This makes reflecting on my past quite an amusing activity. On Tuesday I got up early and put on a layer of thermals followed by pants and jacket, both heavy duty and waterproof. I drove up to the Coronet Peak Ski field and laced up the most ridiculous pair of footwear I've ever owned. A pair of completely white Burton Snowboarding boots, US sized 14. They are massive and look like something Missy Elliot might have worn in one of her late 90's music videos. I strapped these monstrosities into bindings on a snowboard and awkwardly boarded a chair lift. To my astonishment I successfully exited this chair lift without falling down and began making my way down the beginner's run, also known as "the big easy". I wouldn't say that what I was doing was actually snowboarding, but there was definitely snow, and a board involved. I haven't had as many bruises as I do now since I played football in middle school. After my tailbone and knees could take no more torture I headed back home to squeeze in a quick 3 mile run before going to work.

It was on my to work that I smiled a little bit about the irony of morning. 5 years ago if I would have viewed my recently completed activities with a fair amount of disdain. For as long as I can remember I've been an uncomfortably cold person. I might find it chilly in a well air conditioned room where most other people were indifferent to the temperature. On a breezy day where most of my friends wore a long sleeve t-shirt, I'd be sporting a mid-weight jacket. Naturally, I've never thought to highly of snow. Other than a few freak appearances of snow in Baton Rouge in the last 25 years, I have absolutely no relationship with snow. It's fairly obvious what I thought about snowboarding back then. An activity that is generally considered dangerous that I would have to travel to a cold snowy place to participate in was about as appealing to me as flying to the moon. The idea of me snowboarding was ridiculous. I thought even less of running. Back then, I thought running was incredibly boring and painful. How could people enjoy running? The concept was beyond the scope of my imagination. I think my imagination has grown exponentially in the last five years.

So why not include snowboarding on my list of new activities? Well there's tons of reasons why not to snowboard, but I couldn't resist accepting my invitation to the cult. Snowboarding, or skiing, in Queenstown, has a following like I have never witnessed before. I think I might know roughly 40 to 50 people in Queenstown if I include loose acquaintances. Of those people I know 3 people who aren't snowboarding or skiing this season. Everybody is doing this. And they aren't just doing it, they are absolutely strung out high on it. The mountain talk dominates all conversations I partake in. My buddies at work are pretty much certified meteorologists. They can tell you the weather predictions to a T for up to a week in advance. People plan their entire days and weeks around getting "up the hill". A once coveted opening shift at work is now absolutely dreaded by most who much rather be riding all day and working at night. The energy that people exhibit when talking about snowboarding is undeniably strong....and it's infectious. After a couple of extremely rough days and a change in board and bindings I was jumping on the bandwagon with the rest of the cult. I don't know all the terminology yet and I definitely don't think I'm on my way to being a sick boarder, but I'm having a blast playing along. My first day was brutal. I can say with a heap of certainty that snowboarding is absolutely nothing like wake boarding. Have both immobilized is extremely scary and I spent most of my first couple of days building up a little speed, getting scared, and promptly falling on my butt. Some snow is soft, but most snow is pretty unforgiving to fall in. However, I've continued to make improvements, however small they might be, from day to day. And most importantly, I'm laughing and having fun. I'm sure that I'm pretty funny to watch, so I'm also entertaining others.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a great weather day on the mountain and I can't wait to see what kind of bruises and I can get after in the morning......

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?

2010-05-18T14:32:00.000+12:00

Let's start with the short circuits first this time. Don't ever go into Queenstown Barber, or qt barber as the modern font on the trendy looking sign displays on 62 Shotover street. I've been to this place three or four times before just to get my hair cleaned up and had found a stylist who I was very happy with. When I arrived yesterday afternoon my usual red headed hair cutter was no where to be found and I ended up with a young blonde. While she was pleasant and friendly she absolutely BUTCHERED my hair. I explained to her, as I've explained to every hair dresser/stylist/barber for the past four years that I'm letting my hair grow. That all I need is a very small trim, about a half inch in the back and even less than that in the front. That my hair is very deceptive and that when its dry it curls up and is not nearly as long as it looks when it's wet. That my real purpose for being there is not get a noticeable hair cut, but to get the areas around my neck and ears cleaned up. She in turn took all this information, threw it out the window and promptly cut destroyed about 8 months of my hair life. Yesterday morning I could put my hair in a pony tail and then measure about 3 inches from the rubberband. This afternoon I can't even get all of my hair into pony tail. It's a monumental screw up. It would be like someone asking me for a small cheese pizza and me producing a large thai chicken with extra anchovies. And to add insult to injury I had to pay 27 New Zealand dollars for this debauchery. I feel violated.

I'd like to think that I'm fairly knowledgable about films but apparently I let a very good flick slip under my radar back in 2008. I've recently received a 1 terabyte external hard drive from home and had several friends load it up with movies, music and South Park and Family Guy Episodes. The other night I laid down planning to watch about 10 minutes of a movie before going to sleep. Not finding anything that immediately grabbed my attention, I chose the first movie in the folder that I had not seen: Bigger Stronger Faster*. My 10 minutes passed and I knew I wasn't going to sleep anytime soon as I was wide awake and in tune. The movie is a documentary by Chris Bell intertwines his life story with the anabolic steroids phenomenon in the United States. If you haven't seen it, you need to go rent this movie tonight. I'm not going to fire up a big steroid conversation because that could take ages but I do like one of the more powerful questions the movie invokes: When congress called in the baseball players to answer questions about steroid use, why did they not ask Govenor Arnold, an admitted former steroid user, to come answer some questions as well? And as far as Barry's concerned, I don't really care what you think about him but people should recognize that with or without steroids, Barry Bonds is one of the greatest baseball players to ever lace up a pair of spikes. PERIOD.

Take me to see the voodoo queen, let her put a spell on me

2010-04-09T22:31:00.000+12:00

I'm a natural born procrastinator. In fact, if you asked me to name one thing that I think I could do better than anyone else I know, I would have to go with procrastinating (although I'm pretty sure I can out eat just about everyone I know). Most self proclaimed procrastinators actually just never do the things they say they are going to do. I get my tasks done....EVENTUALLY, and usually after it's too late or the task has become irrelevant anyway. I keep the proverbial "to-do list". Everytime I cross an item off, I add five more. So this morning I decided to pick some tasks that I could complete by the end of the day. So I went through my list and scribbled down 6 activities that I would attempt to get done in no particular order:

Taxes
Insurance Claim
5 mile run
tattoo
spreadsheet for mom and dad
blog post

And to my delight, by the time you read this, I will have crossed out all six items. The taxes aren't exactly complete, but I reached a stopping point and have to wait until America wakes up to try to find a 1099-R form (FUUUN!). 5 mile run got done with ease. I ran 16 yesterday, my longest run to date. I'll run 8.5 tomorrow to bring me up to 40 miles total for this week. Next week I will start to taper off my mileage and basically try to stay loose and rest up for the big race. I mailed an insurance claim to my travel insurance agency that I should have mailed in mid-February. Got the spreadsheet completed and sent to mom and dad and I'm working on the blog post now. And I got a tattoo. I'm the last of the Romero children to get inked, but that's alright because my tattoo is better than any of my siblings. And if you want to know where or what I got tattooed, then you'll just have to bring your ass to New Zealand and find out.

Before the Mt. Cook road trip there was another. The destination? Wanaka. Wanaka is commonly described as Queenstown's little brother or sister. It is eerily similar to Queenstown, only smaller and more tranquil. Wanaka, unlike Queenstown, pretty much shuts down after the sun sets. If Queenstown's nightlife is the main strip in Vegas, then Wanaka is Bingo Night at the 1st Presbyterian Recreational Hall. But that's not important, because that is not what me and Ben headed down to Wanaka for. Ben, from Scotland, is another proud employee of Winnie's kitchen. We made the hour long journey to Wanaka from Queenstown looking for the Big Nige Canyon.

Canyoning is one of those warm weather activities that I got really anxious to partake in again when the weather started to change here. I had also heard good things about Wanaka and a trip down there was on my to do list. The canyoning in Wanaka was rumored to be a little bit more intense than the Queenstown area. So we asked the boss to let us off on the same days, threw our bikes in Voodoo and headed down. The Big Nige canyon lived up to it's reputation, and it's hefty price. From the deep canyon website:

"With spectacular views out to the alpine scenery, it is particularly beautiful and hugely enjoyable. It features exciting abseils in strong water flows. The situations are dramatic and the abseils often take you into and behind spectacular waterfalls – visually sensational and very dynamic. Big Nige is a longer day – be prepared for around four hours of continuous descent (and the walk up the hill takes 40 minutes). As we descend we link into Niger Stream with its many jumps and slides – so you get in a lot of everything…
Group sizes are small and personal (max of four in a group). This trip is for people who want a bigger day of hands-on action and enormous amounts of fun….

As with all my New Zealand excursions, we got lucky. We had a small group, just Ben, myself and two others. We also had a great guide, Richard, who was an accomplished canyoner, mountaineer and climber. I'm always taken aback when I meet people like Richard. The
y are absolutely crazy. They take huge risks that could end in unfathomable injuries or even death, and yet they are the most down to earth people you will ever encounter. Luckily, Youtube was onsite to capture a few of my finer moments in the canyon, including the worst summersault in the history of summersaults. And I'm wearing a pink helmet, to add insult to injury.

We made it back to Wanaka in time to get checked into a hostel and hit the bike trails for a couple of hours. We learned just how quickly Wanaka shuts down when went out for dinner around 10:30 and found only two options available. We were the last customers to be served at the thai takeout joint we chose and they weren't happy about our arrival. Later we met an American at the only bar that stayed open past 11. The guy was wearing the exact same STS9 t-shirt that I picked up at ACL last fall and happened to be one of only six t-shirts I brought to New Zealand. Small world. The three of us completed the Rob Roy Glacier walk the next day right outside of Wanaka. I never would have guessed that frozen pieces of snow and ice would be so dazzling to look at. I've been fascinated with the handful of glaciers I've seen here and I still haven't seen the big ones (Fox and Frans Joseph) yet. I enjoyed my time in Wanaka and hope to get back there soon. There's a lot to explore there and apparently they have a really nice ski field as well.

Easter came and went without much fan fare from me. I opened on Easter Sunday and I think I worked a solid 10 or 11 hours that day. I tried not to think about the crawfish boils my family and friends were indulging in. But I did get a fabulous easter egg from my fabulous roommate Melissa.

Homemade and personlized, this egg was composed of chocolate over pink marshmellow and it was magnificent. The larda chefs at Winnie's are now all properly trained to bring me every bowl of icing, whipped cream, butterscotch, caramel and of course chocolate before they take it to the dishwasher. Between them and Melissa's steady stream of cakes, cupcakes and afgans; my chocolate addiction never goes long without being addressed. It's a good thing I'm running 40 miles a week.

Short Circuits

Let's go back to the Easter weekend for a second to have a look at what I think is a strange regulation in New Zealand. Good Friday and Easter MONDAY are public holidays, or days in lieu, in New Zealand. This means they are simliar to federal holidays in the states: kids are out of school, government offices are closed and on and on. Here's the interesting part: the New Zealand goverment says that if you are open on a public holiday, you have to pay your employees time and a half on that day. This creates a tricky situation for the food service industry. They respond by imposing a 20% surcharge on their customers. So if on Good Friday you take your kids to church and then want to go have some pizza at Winnie's afterwards, you'll pay 20% more than if you did the same thing on Holy Thursday. The restaraunts are up in arms about having to pay their people time and a half. Most of them are trying to get through those days on skeleton crews to keep costs down. The customers are up in arms about the surcharges all over town. It's more money for me, so I'm happy about it, but every public holiday stirs up this huge debate and argument about that regulation.
A fellow Baton Rougean has arrived in the Queenstown area. Emily took a job in close-by Arrowtown and just happened to be travelling with lots of grits which she was willing to share with me. I enjoyed a delicious breakfast of grits and eggs the other day. Still haven't figured out how to describe them.....
If I hear "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn one more time, I'm going to cut my ears off with the pizza knife.

I got that green light baby, I got to keep movin on

2010-04-02T13:38:00.000+13:00

I tallied up some interesting figures a few weeks ago while sending an email to my sister. From that email: "I just did a mental count and the bedroom that I'm sitting in now is the 8th room that I have called mine since 2005. Those eight rooms have spanned 2 countries, 2 states, 4 cities, 2 apartment complexes, 4 houses, and 9 roomates." I've never considered myself a restless person, but the stats don't lie.

Mt. Cook

Last Wednesday night, Nate and I loaded Voodoo down with camping gear and food and started our journey towards north towards Mt. Cook. It was late when we left, after 10:00 if I remember correctly. With the knowledge that neither of us are "morning people" or particulary speedy at getting packed and moving, we decided to drive to Mt. Cook through the night so that we'd wake up there and be ready to rock and roll in the morning. I quite like driving at night. I spent a lot of time on Interstate 10 between Austin in New Orleans and everywhere in between over the past few years. I always found that highway to be easier to traverse at night. Having both spent the past few months working night jobs, there was no way we were going to get to sleep before 12:30 anyway. However, we realized along the way that we were missing all the scenic views of approaching Mt. Cook in the day light. We shrugged this small loss off and tried to slip quietly into our bunks at the hostel without waking up the six sleeping travellers in the room. We were out of the hostel and in the DOC office by 10:30 the next morning.

The DOC agent booked our beds in the Mueller Hut for a hefty $35 per person. She then advised us that the 1000 meter climb to the hut was alpine walk (above the tree line) and we should be prepared for snow, rain or both. She suggested waterproof boots, gaiters, and trekking poles. This caused a little uneasiness as I looked down at my worn out New Balance trail runners. We stopped into the local outfitters and rented gaiters. This provided a little bit of reassurance until I saw the 65 plus year old couple that had booked right before us heading out on the trail. They were decked out in full blown mountaineering gear: beanies, boots, poles, and packs about half the size of ours. I questioned whether I had the proper hardware to get this job done. We stopped back by Voodoo, filled the camelbaks up, layered up and chucked our overloaded packs on.

I've had startling good luck when it comes to weather and long walks and this day would be no different. The sun was shining bright and there was nice drafty breeze kept the mountain air swirling about us. We walked on a flat graded trail for about 15 minutes before we started climbing. At the this point our path ceased to be a guided trail and became a route. A trail is simple and easy. You are either on it or you aren't. Routes are a little bit more complex. A route is a series of markers, usually orange in color. There is a somewhat obvious path between each marker, but it's basically up to you to get from one to another. Routes are more technical. The rocks are bigger and there is some hand climbing involved. We quickly realized when we moved from the trail to the route that we misguided the warming power of all of our layers. Once I took my mid-layer shirt off I was surprised to find I was perfectly comfortable in a base layer thermal and a snow jacket shell....as long as I kept moving. When we stopped at the top with all the snow and wind it didn't matter how many layers I had on I was eventually going to get cold.

We encountered a quirky little hiking group on the way up consisting of two guys, a Russian and a German, and an Israeli girl. We continued walking with them for most of the way up. I eventually got seperated from the group as we encountered more snow. I became very conservative with my footing and I guess this really slowed me down as everyone else appeared to be confidently stepping through the snow covered rocks. At one point I became truly concerned that my shoes wouldn't hold up against the terrain. But a few minutes later I watched a guy walk down the steepest the stretch of snow on the walk and was overjoyed to see him wearing a pair of nikes. He smiled at my shoes and assured me that if I could keep them from getting too wet I would be alright. This was encouraging, but slowed me down even more as I began to obsessively avoid any sign of water.

We made it to the hut right at 3 hours and 45 minutes, about 15 minutes over the suggested time. The hut sits on a plateau (I think) surrounded by mountains. This plateau was covered in snow as pictured below.

Most of the pictures leading up to the snowy ones are either looking behind us into the Mt. Cook Valley where we started, or they are views of Mt. Sefton, which is due east of the hut if I'm not mistaken. We were the second group of many to follow that were arriving at the hut, which sleeps 28 and must have been near capacity that night. I found that the hut provided a perfect mix of simple comforts while still maintaining a very rugged feel. It is constructed completely of wood and contains no sort of mechanical heating or cooling system. Large windows are found on all walls to allow sunlight to warm up the hut during the day. At night the hut serves as nothing more than a shield from the wind. However we had no problems sleeping as there were about a dozen of us in a space no larger than a small garage. That's a lot of warm bodies to draw heat from. There is neither running water in the hut, nor power outlets. But there are sinks, gas burners and water tanks outside. There is ample lighting that runs off of some sort of battery system. I did not to think to ask about this, but there were definitely no generators running. Everything is on a timer in order to prevent overuse. The gas lines are on a 30 minute timer and the lights were on about an hour cycle. There are no bathrooms inside the hut, but an outhouse about 40 ft. away whose path was quite tricky to navigate once it got dark.

We checked in with Rod, the hut warden. Rod is a kiwi who works in Australia as a paramedic. He is part of a volunteer program that keeps the Mueller Hut manned 24 hours a day. He arrived at the hut, carrying all of his own gear and food and a few supplies for the hut last Sunday. His service calls for him to stay up there for a full week. It's a quite a committment when you think about it. From a very strategic location outside the hut he can get a cell phone signal and he also has a radio that he talks to the DOC with twice a day. Other than that, no communication with the outside world for a week. Rod turned out to be a really interesting character and later provided us with some dried onions for our pasta.

Throughout the afternoon we were awarded several great views of Mt. Cook as the clouds played peek-a-boo with the faces seemingly carved into the snow. Everytime the clouds lifted away from the mountain the entire hut would run outside with their cameras to take pictures. Rod claimed that it was the best weather day he had seen all week. Nate stayed close to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of a falling avalanche, which are common. We ate better than most of our fellow hut travellers that night. They were carrying the basics: dried noodles and powdered sauces. Not us. We realized that one of the reasons our packs had been so heavy during the day was due to the amount of food we were carrying which included a pound and a half of ground meat, pasta, hummus, peanut butter, jelly, sliced bread, pita bread, a roll of salami, trail mix, banannas and about a dozen Nature's Valley bars. We also brought our own frying pan and pot. The hut has no waste disposal system. It's pack in, pack out so even though we ate most of what we brought up there, we had all the rubbish to deal with as well.

Two Americans arrived later in the afternoon and taught us an interesting new card game called Yannif. They had learned it from some Israeli soldiers. Apparently the game is immensely popular in the Israeli army, where it originated. It's a pretty simple play and discard game but moves much faster than gin rummy or 31, which we play quite frequently. So after a 500 point game of Yannif in which we polished off Nate's flask full of scotch it was time for bed. I slept well in the hut, being the last one to rise out of his sleeping bag.

We enjoyed breakfast and an intense game of scrabble with our hiking friends from the previous day, before setting out to descend down the mountain. We took our time going down, snapping plenty of pictures along the way. We left the Mt. Cook Village smiling with content at a great road trip.

Every reassurance just magnifies the doubt, better find yourself a place to level out

2010-03-31T00:42:00.002+13:00

I recently found a check list of Queenstown activities I wanted to complete that I made about a week and a half I arrived here. I was surprised at how many I was able to cross off. The list has lengthened since I first created it. There's a lot to do in Queenstown. There's even more to do in the less-than-one-hour's-drive surrounding areas of Glenorchy and Arrowtown. And you could spend five years here and not cover everything there is to do on the entire south island. When the temperature dropped a few weeks ago, my buddy Nate and I both realized that most of these sought after activities are most enjoyable in warm weather. During the winter, you either snowboard, ski, or both. Daylight is scarce, and it's painfully cold. With this in mind, we started planning to get some of these warm weather adventures on the books before it was too late.

The Routeburn track is an attractive multi day trip for both Nate and myself. I need to check this "walk" out as I am meant to run it in less than a month now. It's attractive to Nate as it is one of the Great Walks and is reportedly spectacular by pretty much everyone who has done it. I've never spoken to someone who has done Routeburn and not raved about the experience. So after a few weeks of missed opportunities we finally both got the same days off work and booked beds at the Mckenzie hut for last Thursday and Friday. We had all our travel arrangements worked out and I had gotten all the camping equipment we needed on loan from my roommate, Mark. We were set, and getting damn excited about the trip. On Tuesday Mark sent me a text that read "Don't get too excited about R-burn, the road to Milford is closed due to a landslip, they don't know when it will reopen".

As the map illustrates, the Routeburn track is a one way path. You have the option of starting at Routeburn Falls, right outside of Glenorchy or at "the Divide" on the western end. We planned to drive to Glenorchy, about an hour away from QT, walk to the Mckenzie hut, a suggested 6 hour day, and spend the night. We would then have an easy 3-4 hour walk to the Divide. From there we planned to hitch hike the four hour drive back to QTon highway 94. My roommate Melissa had agreed to let us borrow her car to drive back to Glenorchy to pick up Voodoo. Like I said, we had it all figured out. The landslide occurred somewhere around the divide. You can read all about that disaster here: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/queenstown-lakes/98807/department-evacuates-trampers
The DOC confirmed what we already suspected. We could start walking from Glenorchy as we planned, but we would not be allowed to walk out to the Divide. We were given two options: Spend the night at the Mckenzie Hut and then turn around and walk back out the way we came (not very appealing). Or spend the night at the Mckenzie Hut and then take the Greenstone Caples track out (very appealing, but turning a 1 night two day trip into a 3 night, 4 day trip). Forever optimistic, and not about to let two days off in a row get wasted, we started to investigate our alternatives.

You may be asking yourself why I provided you with a boat load of background info about a trip that got cancelled. And there is a good answer to that very good question. All of the information will be very important when the Routeburn Classic rolls around at the endof April. On that note here's a quick training update. I ran 15 miles today in about 2 hours and 40 minutes. This includes 4 bathroom stops (ridiculous), two waters stops and about 7 minutes I spent trying to find my dropped car key on the track. This is the furthest distance I've run in my training and I'm very pleased with how I feel today. I'm confident that I'll be ready on race day. The next two weeks will be the most important as far as training and nutrition are concerned. After that I will start to taper down my weekly mileage and focus on resting up for the big day. I am bubbling with excitement.

Back on point. We quickly narrowed our potential destinations down to a couple of choices. Drive south to the Catlins, or North to Mt. Cook. In his pre-travel research, Nate became particularly fascinated with this website http://www.mountainphotographer.com/ (click on the New Zealand category) and grew a little obsessed with this one photo http://www.widerange.org/photo/mueller-hut/. The picture shows the Mueller Hut. I took a look at the picture and the decision was made. We were heading North to Mt. Cook to stay at the Mueller Hut. If you really have too much free time on your hands at work (and I know some of you do), you can read about the Mueller Hut here: http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/tracks-and-walks/canterbury/aoraki-area/mueller-hut-route/.

No surprises here, I have completely outdone myself and written a whole lot about nothing at all. It's gotten late on my end and I need to get some rest. But the Mueller Hut story is soon to follow.

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It really ain't hard to understand, If you're gonna dance you gotta pay the band

2010-03-20T10:48:00.000+13:00

I'm coming to some painful realizations. 2010 is going to past without me seeing a live baseball game. I can't remember the first baseball game I ever went to. I have hazy memories of t-ball. But I do know that since I was old enough to walk and hold a baseball, I've been a participant in the sport in some fashion for every single season there after. I've been a player, a scorekeeper, a groundskeeper, a fantasy team owner and an entusiastic fan. I've read over a dozen books about baseball and I've made my pilgrimage to Cooperstown. I've watched every baseball film ever made. Baseball is the one sport that I truly love for the game itself. I can watch and appreciate baseball being played at any level and from any time period. I'm really going to miss Minute Maid Park, Dell Diamond and the New Alex Box Stadium this year. It will be one of those things that I appreciate even more when I return. I'll close the baseball sob story with some words of wisdom from Crash Davis:

"This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes....it rains."

Instead of watching baseball this year, I'll be spending a good bit of time on my ass. In the past two weeks I have purchased a season ski lift pass to the surrounding mountains of Queenstown, a used snowboard and a load of jackets, beanies and long underwear. I've never been through a cold winter and I've never skied or snowboarded before. I'd like to think that everytime I go out and embark on these little adventures I have no business embarking on that it builds character...or something.

I think I've written about the New Zealand bacon on the blog before but I can't remember. Basically, what kiwis call bacon would look like a thin slice of cheap deli ham to Americans. The bacon on the toppings bar that goes on the Italian pizza doesn't look all that much different than the ham that goes on the Hawaiian pizza. It looks more like what we would call Canadian Bacon. I'll never forget the first time I ordered a "Bacon Burger" and received a bun with a burger made from lamb meat with a slice of ham on top of it. Anyway, Zoe, one of the restaraunt managers, decided that the Caesar Salads did not look too appetizing with chunks of fatty ham on top of them and asked Muzz, the kitchen manager to try to find some more visually appealing bacon. So Muzz ordered what he calls "streaky bacon" and a few days later I was staring at a 6 pound box of proper bacon strips. I was in heaven as the smell of cooking bacon permeated the kitchen. It smelt just like my grandparents house where the house breakfast for so many years was 2 fried eggs, a plate full of greasy bacon and a fistful of piping hot grits. Oh yeah, here's an exercise for you. Go find someone who doesn't know about grits and try to describe it to them. Bring asprin. So anyway, I got to eat some good bacon but in the process, one of the other managers, Erin, had to show me this video from Wifeswap. Now I'd never watch wifeswap on my own, but I'll leave you with this clip as it is hilarious.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1919941

The beard that I'm growin, not fully grown, the years are not coming the way I thought they would

2010-03-19T21:17:00.000+13:00

17 days. That's almost another full blown hiatus. Time to jump back into the game. I'll start by clarifying a few things about my blog. With the exception of one or two posts all of my titles have been lyrics from songs. My intention was for the titles to be a nod to fellow music lovers who might identify the song and artist by the lyric. But I realized that I need to give credit where it is due, or at least notify my readers that the titles are not my own original work. I generally choose the lyrics based on songs that I've been listening that speak to my mood at the time. Today's lyric comes from the Delta Spirit song "People, Turn Around".

The blog titles lead me to my next topic: the blog audience. I know very little about my blog audience. I assumed that the only people reading it were my family and the handful of friends who have told me that they read it. When I first started writing, I wrote the blog as if I was writing to my family members. Today I am writing the blog more like a journal. The audience is me. Someday I'm going to use the blog entries to reminisce about this whole experience. So if you find my topics and language to be strange and emotional, its probably because I am writing about the things that I think will be enjoyable to read about five years from now. And if you don't like the way I write, believe me you are not alone. I pretty much despise everything I publish. But as we've established many times before, I'm overly critical.

Finally, I'll address the issue of title of the blog itself. It would seem strange to name a blog about New Zealand after an American city I haven't called home in over a year. I created this blog account in 2007 after returning from Chicago where I attended the Lollapalooza festival. I had read the blog writeups for the fest and found them to be unspectacular. I also found most of the writers' taste to be foul as well (using Amy Whinehouse and talented in the same sentence, WTF). So I created the blog with the intention of writing about concerts and festivals that I attended. Lord knows I went to enough of them to justify a full time blog. I planned to kick it off with writeups of Lolla and ACL. Of course, I didn't write a damn thing. I thought about it alot, but never got anything out. On that note, I flipped through an astrology book the other day and naturally checked out the Libra section of the book. I read the quick synopsis on Libras and it included something along these lines "Libras are prone to developing interests in mulitple activities, pulling them in several directions at once and sometimes preventing them from gaining excellence in any single activity." Now, I believe in Astrology about as much as I believe in Scientology, but I will definitely drink to that notion. Anyhow, when I set out to create a blog for my Kiwi experience, I found that my old music blog from 2007 was still up and running and just waiting for someone to use it.

So, now you have a whole heap of more or less useless information and I have run out of time. I have to go meet some friends. But I am still going to publish this. My most consistent reader, who shall remain nameless as to not inflate his already swollen ego, has told me on several occasions that my posts are too long. I shall address his constructive criticism will this short and simple post. And I'll be back as soon as possible with some more entertaining storytelling. In the meantime, I have posted new pictures. Rock on.

Don't look back it won't do any good, And don't look ahead you'll just be misunderstood

2010-03-02T01:20:00.001+13:00

It's a beautiful night in Queenstown. There's a full moon outside that is so bright I can barely make out the craters. Although steady rain accompanied strong winds for most of the day, the evening sky is eerily still. The clouds look like cotton balls stretched accross a navy blue canvas. On these nights the stars are unbelievably visible and distinct. I hate to admit it but I think that the summer is officially over. It's about 55 degrees outside right now and we haven't had weather fit for swimming in over a week. I experienced only about three weeks of true summer. That's definitely not enough for me, but I will make amends for now.

In a previous post, I expressed intentions of writing about the entire Winnie's menu. I think I only gave a description of the Monty pizza. My sister Chelsea (aka Food Court) has requested that I write more about New Zealand cuisine, so I'll oblige her with two more pizzas. I've chosen the Thai Chicken pizza and the Chicken, Cranberry, and Brie pizza (CCB), because just like the Montanara I cannot recall having a similar pizza in the states. The Thai Chicken is one of my favorite pizzas. The CCB is tasty but needs to be eaten in small doses as it is quite sweet. The definining factor for both these pizzas is that they are not made with tomato sauce. The thai chicken gets a base that we make from coconut milk along with red and green curry. We put tumeric in this mixture so that the final base comes out to be a nice "thai" yellow. So to make a Thai chicken I start with my flat dough, spread the thai chicken base evenly across and then cover that with cheese. Next comes chopped red onions, baked chicken breast that has been sliced and then red and green peppers. At this point, I will have a nice colorful pizza that is almost ready to go in the oven. But first I'll drizzle sweet chili sauce over the pizza and then top it off with some coconut and peanuts. After the pizza has been cut, I'll make a nice mound of crispy noodles in the center. The thai base and the sweet chili sauce melt together to build a taste that is sweet, but has a kick to it. The crispy noodles, peanuts and red and green peppers give each bite a nice crunch. This is really a good pizza and I'm kind of wishing I had one right now since I've starting describing it.

The CCB is really like nothing I've been accustomed to eating before. The only thing I have ever put cranberry sauce on is turkey. The CCB uses cranberry sauce as its base. So from the bottom up I have flat dough, cranberry sauce and cheese. The CCB gets sliced smoked chicken, as opposed to the baked chicken breast like the Monty and Thai. I throw on a sprinkle of fresh rosemary followed by a few slices of brie and that's it. The CCB is done. This is a great pizza as well, but like I mentioned before, it can't be eaten too often and you'll never want to eat too much of it. It is also the pizza that is most likely to burn the living daylights out of you. That cranberry sauce gets piping hot and its temperature is very deceptive based on it's appearance. I accidentally turned a small CCB over onto my hand while pulling pizza out of the oven one night. It felt like I had submerged my hand into the deep fryer in the back.

That's enough about food. I really am getting hungry. While the summer may be over I've found a new way to enjoy the heat that I love in the form of Bikram Yoga. After spraining my back on the river surfing trip I decided I needed a better injury prevention plan if I'm going to make it across the finish line at Routeburn. I decided to give "hot yoga" a shot and I freaking loved it. The temperature of the training room is about like the fourth of July in the south. Within 10 minutes of starting, everything I was wearing was completely soaked through with sweat. It reminded me of my lawn mowing days in college when I'd sweath through 5 or 6 t-shirts per day. I love that kind of heat. I've made alot of foolish mistakes in my time, but one of the biggest ones is never getting my other sister, Hannah, the certified yoga instructor to teach me about it. If I carry out my training plan and incorporate this class in a few times a week, I'm confident I'll have a great race in April.

I found another great album on my Ipod that I had forgotten about. It's Ryan Binghams sophomore release "Roadhouse Sun". Bingham essentially recreated his first album "Mescalito", but it doesn't really matter because NO ONE else sounds like Ryan Bingham. Mescalita was an excellent album anyway. I've been playing the track "Tell My mother I miss her so" on repeat for about three days now. This kind of music sounds extremely country to people around here who generally only listen to hard rock, reggae, and club music. But they still like it.

I finally finished reading The Fountainhead. I could write for days about the book but I won't. I did find one line delivered by the primary antagonist in the story to be fitting with my thoughts on Avatar:

""Don’t set out to raze all shrines—you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity, and the shrines are razed."

Write that down. Good night.

There was a wicked messenger from Eli he did come

2010-02-23T22:38:00.000+13:00

I'll act as a wicked messenger. I will not speak eloquently, but put it in language that the masses will understand. Avatar sucks. Rub your eyes again in disbelief and re-read the sentence because it really is there. I just typed that and it's not a misprint. That movie is a train wreck and I'm gonna tell you why. But first, let me finish delivering my messages. Shutter Island is awesome. The Ziptrek course in Queenstown is ok. Now that you have the syllabus, let's start the lecture.

So I've had the last three days off and I've seen two films at the cinema in that time. I'm proud of the fact that I watch almost no television in New Zealand. But I still love movies and the entire process of seeing a movie in a theater. I was excited to see Avatar due to the ridiculous amount of buzz surrounding this movie. Everyone of my friends in Queenstown had seen it and raved about it. And I'd read at least two dozen facebook status updates professing the awesomeness of Avatar 3D. I had high expecations going in. Alright first things first. I don't care that James Cameron directed this movie. This does not immediately validate the movie. James Cameron is not incapable of making crap movies ("I'll never let go Jack"). So let's pretend that James Cameron was not associated with this movie in any way shape or fashion and look at it for what it is: CGI porn. To me, that's the only thing Avatar has to offer. Yes, it was visually stimulating to see the Avatar creatures running through a black light forest that looks like it jumped straight out of a Timothy Leary coloring book. But that's not enough to justify calling this movie anything more than mediocre. The dialouge is horrendous. It's borderline comical. I actually laughed out loud when Jake Sully asks hot Avatar chick why she saved him and she responds "You have a strong heart." Really? How in the hell did she figure that out? The audience sure couldn't have. The only thing we knew about Jake Sully was that he is an edgy marine who has lost the use of his legs. Guess that gives him a visibly strong heart to an Avatar and makes his life worth saving. The Avatar storyline doesn't bother me. I like sci-fi and magic. I'm a big fan of the LOTR trilogy and all of the Star Wars movies. I think Serenity is one of the best sci-fi movies made in the last ten years. It's not the Avatar story that's piss poor, it's the acting. Giovanni Ribisi and the scarred GI Joe are unbelievable in their respective roles and again comical at times. I mean the guys flying into a battle zone drinking a cup of coffee. Come on. Is this a blockbuster film or Snakes on a Plane (I actually enjoyed Snakes on a Plane, it was hysterical)?

This movies got an 82% rating on rottentomatos.com. That means that of all the reviews it was given, 82% of them were positive. This is a startling figure. It suggests to me that we've got a lot more CGI porn to look forward to. Hell, pretty soon they won't need the actors to make these movies. They will be CGI's as well. And if "Do you know how much cheddar is under that rock?" is the best script writing they can come up with, they might as let the graphic designers write the damn scripts as well. If this is your cup of tea, you don't have to look far for some more Avatar like films. "Clash of the Titans", which is 300 re-packaged for your viewing pleasure, is right around the corner.

I can't write too much about Shutter Island as you really need to see this film knowing as little as possible about the synopsis. I will say this: It does not view like your favorite Martin Scorsese movie. It's like nothing he's ever done. I was consistenly reminded of Darren Aronosky and Alfred Hitchcock while watching. Some of the shots I think must be direct nods to Hitchcock. Leo brings his A game and Ben Kingsley nails his part as well. The suspense keeps you sitting rigid from start to finish and here's a stunning concept: the movie makes you think! Can you imagine that? You actually have to pay attention to what's going on and formulate interpretations on your own. Awwwwwww, sorry Avatar fans. It won't be as simple as "You have a strong heart" this time around. Don't cry though, Avatar 2: Jake's Smurf Babies Attack will be in theaters soon enough.

While I'm on a freaking mass communications roll let me plug some other stuff that's been keeping me entertained lately. I was quite fond of reading Bill Simmon's commentary on the sports world back home. I lost track of his work while in New Zealand but I stumbled upon a great article to get me back on track. Like the rest of the world I watched Tiger Wood's press conference. I guess public speaking is not for everyone. Bill pretty much shreds Tiger on this one, but I agree with pretty much everything he says here. Read on for yourself.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100219

One of my favorite shows at ACL last year was put on by K'Naan, a hip hop artist from South Africa. My brother found this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYfa0__P_pI

Alright, that's enough media. Let's get back to New Zealand. Sunday was locals day at the Ziptrek course. Occasionally, the adventure companies here have "locals day" in which they lower there outrageously high prices for locals who can show proof of address. This is usually done by the companies whose excursions have shady reputations already. They need the locals, who otherwise could not afford the ticket, to come in and participate in their adventure, so that they will spread buzz amongst the tourists passing through. The ziptrek had mostly lukewarm to negative marks from what I could gather. But you have to take that with a grain of salt. In a town and a region that could arguably serve as the adventure capital of the world, it is going to be very difficult to excite people. You can't go from the Nevis High wire to a ziptrek course and expect to be an impressed. I actually was impressed. I liked the zipline. It was quite thrilling for me, because once again, I don't like the heights and the open space. My heart pounds, my adrenaline soars, and I have a good time. Melissa also enjoyed it. Nate wasn't too wound up about it. However we all agreed that the forcefed Eco tour was complete garbage. Part of the zip trek tour was that at each launching station we had to listen to a spiel about the environment. I really don't mind hearing about environmental issues as they are important. But I hate it when someone rattles off a bunch of stats to you and then doesn't give you any suggestions as to what you are supposed to do about. It's like here, here's a bunch of information to make you frown and feel bad about yourself as a human and that's it. I'm not gonna tell you anything you can do to make it better. Thanks. I'm glad you incorporated that into my afternoon.

I suggested earlier that I might be overly critical. Well, I might also be overly dramatic. Sunday was a wonderful day. I played the frisbee golf course for 6 over par, hiked up to Ziptrek course on a beautiful afternoon, enjoyed the Ziptrek course and then ate way too much popcorn at the theater. It was not nearly as bad as my "reviews" might have you believe.

Short Circuits

The beauty of having an Ipod with over a hundred gigs of music on it is that you get to discover and re-discover music you either hadn't gotten to yet or forgotten about. I've found two really good albums on my ipod on my days off. The first is Eric Lindell: Gulf Coast Freeway. I saw Lindell at Chelsea's last fall and had listened to the album once or twice, but had totally forgotten that I had it. This is a great album. Eric's got a nice a little following but I expect him to continue to build steam over the next few years. Get on board. The second group, I honestly cannot remember downloading. The band is called the Bridge and the album is Blind Man's Hill. I listened to it twice today and it is solid. It's got a nice bluesy feel to it with some country casually blended in.

If you plant ice your gonna harvest wind

2010-02-19T23:38:00.001+13:00

In general, pizza chefs do not talk to customers. We work out in the restaraunt. With the exception of those sitting on the balcony, we can see every almost every customer in the building. But it's kind of an unwritten understanding that if we should not engage the customers unless it's absolutely necessary. I have no problem with this and tend to just look straight down and make the pizzas, absently tuning the customers out. One night a lady caught me off guard and asked me for some serviettes. Thinking that I had heard silverware somewhere in there I handed her a fork and a knife and she looked at me like I was crazy, handed the utensils back and once again asked me for some serviettes. I had to find a server who quickly handed her a stack of napkins and she walked away satisfied. I let the servers deal with the customers because customers can be a royal pain. We have to deal with the servers, who can also be a royal pain, but not nearly as bad as customers can be. The servers also get tips. It is not customary to tip in New Zealand and few people do it. I certainly don't. But some do and it can provide a nice chunk of change at the end of the night for the servers. They don't rely on it, but they enjoy receiving the additional income. Even though we try to avoid the customers, every now and then one will swing by the pizza bar and compliment us on a pie we made that they enjoyed. At times like these, a few of us newer guys questioned why we were not getting a piece of the tips. Well as it turns out, we have been the whole time.

At the end of each shift, a manager takes all of the accumulated tip money and divides it by the number of servers working plus one. The plus one is the kitchen staff. That money gets socked away and eventually when it has built up to some substantial amount gets kicked back to us in the form of.....river surfing. So a few days after the Super Bowl, I joined some fellow kitchen staff for a river surfing excursion, compliments of the tip jar. River surfing has an interesting history that I cut and pasted from the Serious Fun website (http://www.riversurfing.co.nz/history.htm)
"Jon Imhof, a surfer from Hawaii, came to Queenstown to go snowboarding and he liked Queenstown so much that he decided to stay for summer. Missing the waves of the ocean, he looked for an alternative and came up with the crazy idea to follow the rafters down the Shotover River and surf waves on his bodyboard. Although the rapids were great, he found it was too shallow and decided to go down the Kawarau River instead, and the sport of riversurfing was born.

In 1989, with riversurfing in high demand, Jon established Serious Fun Riversurfing, the original riversurfing company. A few year later, after looking for other suitable locations around the world, he started a sister company on the Zambezi in 1995. A few years after that, some of the African guides took the sport up to the White Nile in Uganda, and to this day, these are the only three places in the world you can go riversurfing!"

During the week leading up the river surfing trip, we were all warned of the potential dangers involved and a story of a girl drowning in the river last year was repeated several times. I've heard different versions of the story, but the general consensus is that she did something that the guides had specifically told her not to do. I made sure I paid close attention to the guides on the bus ride to the start point.

So basically river surfing is swimming through a white water river on a body board with a life jacket and helmet for protection, and flippers to help push you through the water. That's all you've got: a wetsuit, life jacket, helmet and flippers. I've been running, hiking, strength training and cycling consistently for a few months now. None of these activities prepared me for the way I would use my muscles and lower body in the river. As the guide explained to us - "it doesn't matter how strong you are...the River is stronger." And the river is damn strong. I mean that water is moving and the second you don't respect it, it will put you into the rocks. We all struggled at first to get used to the flippers, the powerful current, and finding the proper body position on the board. We didn't have very long to get situated before the first set of rapids. The guides were helpful and any time we started to float astray, they would swim out to us grab and boards and pull us in the right direction.

We eventually reached the section of the river called the chinese dog leg. One of our guides, Bjorn, had explained to us that due to the recent rainfall, conditions were perfect to surf this part of the river. Basically there is a set of standing waves and if your timing and positioning are on point you the wave will hold you and you can "surf" on it for as long as you like. Obviously, none of our timing and positioning was going to be anywhwere near on point. We would need help from the guides to get on the wave. So our plan of attack was for Bjorn to swim out into the rapids and start surfing. We would then attempt to do the same and he would attempt to catch us and get us up on the wave. As luck would have it, I got up on the wave the first time for about 5 seconds.....with nobody filming. When I went back for a second turn while one of the guides was filming with my camera, I missed Bjorn and passed right through the rapid. But you can kind of get an idea of the thrill of river surfing from watching the video. In the video you will see me swimming upstream in the river. I am swimming upstream at a 45 degree angle against the current trying to position my self for Bjorn to be able to catch me. As I come into view fully I am turning completely around so that I am coming down the river feet first on my stomach on my bodyboard. You will hear the guide start to count. She is counting off the standing waves. The reason she is doing this is because on the third wave you want to be kicking as hard you possible can to slow your momentum down to ease Bjorn's task of catching you. You will then see me fly past Bjorn who is surfing the wave. So if you can imagine me actually stopping and surfing with Bjorn, then you will have an idea of what happened on my first attempt. This is the thrill of River surfing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXpOwM-LaSg

The chinese dog leg was definitely the high light of the excursion. We hit a much longer stretch of rapids towards the end, about 800 meters. This was very intense as the waves were high and we were forced under them several times. We also had a nice stretch of just cruising down the river. The trip also included two magnificent sitings. The first was a Lord of the Rings filming location. I can't remember exactly which movie, but I'm almost positive it's in the Fellowship. Frodo and members of the fellowship are traveling by boat in a river and pass between two giant statues of kings. We did the exact same thing except the statues of the kings are CGI's. What we saw was just two giant mountains of stone. But I could definitely recognize the setting from the movie. The second site was that of the A.J. Hackett Bungy jumping platform. One of the most famous and popular adventures to take part in in Queenstown is the A.J. Hackett Bungy jump. We swam directly underneath the bridge and platform where the jumpers leap from and got to watch a jumper go before we crossed under. It was awesome.

I have to say river surfing is easily one of the top five experiences I've had in New Zealand and I'd recomment it to anyone looking for a wild adventure. The only downside was that while kicking up the river I tweaked my back pretty good and have been unable to do much physically since then. But it is healing nicely and I expect to be back on my Routeburn training schedule tomorrow.

Whichever way your pleasure tends

2010-02-17T01:03:00.000+13:00

A little over a week ago the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts to win Superbowl 44. In Queenstown, the Superbowl would begin at 12:30 p.m. on Monday. Due to the peculiar time of the event, it was no problem for me to be given Monday and Tuesday off from work. I started making my way to Ministry of Sports around 11:15.

Ministry is the only true "sports bar" in Queenstown. Cricket and rugby matches are randomly being played on bar screens all the time. But Ministry is the only bar with multiple high defnition televisions that broadcasts the sound of the main event on the PA system. The head bartender is an avid sports fan who is friendly enough to record events for regular patrons who have to miss their games and then replay them while it is not busy. I watched the last few regular season games and all of the playoffs at Ministry, usually alone or with few others. I was surprised to find a crowd of decent size gathered to watch the Superbowl. I shot dirty looks at a few colts jerseys before joining my crew of black and gold clad friends who were busy drawing up a squares board. I was extremely pleased to learn that Ministry had imported Budweiser longnecks for the even. I have not seen a Budweiser, or any other American beer, for sale in any liquor store, bar, club or pub in New Zealand. I had not drank a Budweiser since last July and welcomed the familliar kick of the beer. I bought 10 squares, ordered some nachos and was ready for the game to begin.

Shortly before kick off we realized that the colors of a yager bomb are black and gold. We marched straight to the bar and told Adam that for the rest of the day yager bombs would be referred to as black and golds, and ordered a round. And of course, as everyone does, I would pay for these later that day, and most of the next day. I won't try to recapture the magic of the game. You all have your superbowl memories and I can't improve upon them. It was great feeling to watch the Saints win. The only thing that I saw different from you was that we missed the damn Superbowl commercials. Sky TV, New Zealands only cable provider did not air the commercials, but instead inserted their own advertisements. This meant that I saw pay-per-view previews for Twilight and Marley and Me instead of Bud Lite commericals. (On that note I just want to say the Owen Wilson is free to stop making movies whenever he's ready. Just go ahead and jump off that ship Owen, its already sunk)

Robert's Rant
For a while now I've been thinking about commenting on bandwagon fans. I'm not going to write about jumping on the Saints bandwagon. I don't want to take away from the Saints' success and I'm happy to see everyone enjoying. What really grinds my gears is the people jumping off of the LSU bandwagon. I heard alot threats from so-called fans before I left the states. "After that game I wanted to burn my LSU hat." "If LSU doesn't fire Les Miles, I'm going to sell my season tickets." What? Are you serious. You weren't burning LSU hats when LSU was pounding Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl a few years ago. I didn't see anybody outside of the Georgia Dome with their season tickets up for sale after we won the SEC championship in 2007. Didn't see any hats ablazed or tickets for sale outside the Superdome when we won the National title a few weeks later. It's like this. As an American, I support the United States of America. PERIOD. I support the president, whoever the hell it may be. I'm not a fan of Barack Obama. But as the President of the United States of American, he has my full fledged support. Same goes for LSU. I support LSU no matter who is coaching the football team, or the baseball team, or who the Athletic Director is. I support them, proudly - win, lose, or draw. I'm sick of listening to people claim to be "life-long-die-hard" LSU fans talk about burning their LSU hats. Are you really a "die-hard" fan? Did you even own an LSU hat during the Curly Hallman days? But for the love of God, stop talking about it. If you want to go burn your LSU, then by all means go do it. Or give it to me, I can always use another one. If you want to sell your tickets, then sell em. They won't be on sale for long. LSU football has been around longer than any of these so called fans. It will be going strong long after these so called fans are in the cold earth. So if you can't think of anything better to say about LSU, then as Eddie Murphy would say "Have a coke and a smile, and shut the fuck up."

A few days before the Superbowl, I became concerned about the squares board. Although I have never had a winning square, I have been buying squares on a board for as long I can remember. I didn't want to let this time honored tradition die in New Zealand. Luckily my American friends shared my concern. We surprisingly sold all 100 squares and I surprisingly one the second half. With the Saints victory, winning an extra $50 was lagniappe. It turns out I needed that fifty to go straight to my bar tab. Apparently it wasn't very cheap to import those buds over. I was estatic though. The Saints had won, Peyton Manning was pouting and it was a beautiful day outside in Queenstown. We celebrated hard for the rest of the afternoon.

I finally got to watch most of the Superbowl commercials yesterday. I really liked the one where the people are stranded on the island like in Lost and one passenger finds a radio, but the other finds the beverage cart. Good stuff.

Some come to make it just one more day

2010-02-14T00:54:00.121+13:00

Someday, I will master HTML and make this stupid blog look exactly like I it looks in my head. Someday....Maybe in the winter on an ugly day.

Wow so much to write about I don't even know where to start. Let me first give a quick congrats to the New Orleans Saints. I have been an extremely lucky sports fan to this point in my life. I grew up during the golden years of LSU baseball, which I'm glad to see are not yet over. I have fond memories of sneaking sandwhiches and apples into Alex Box stadium for double headers on Saturdays. I've been in the Superdome for both of LSU's BCS titles. I watched the Astros clinch the National League Wild Card spot in 2005 by beating the hated Cubs in Minute Maid Park. (I was also present a couple of weeks later when Albert Pujols knocked a Brad Lidge slider into another dimension to keep the Astros out of the World Series for one more game) And even though I wasn't in Miami witnessing the Saints super bowl victory live, it was just as special as all of the other championships I've been a part of. I hollered "Who Dat?" all day long in Queenstown, and received plenty of confused looks in return....

I also need to give a quick congrats to my very dear friend Catherine Salazaar for sending me a beautiful calendar filled with pictures of events and landmarks in Austin, Texas. Thanks Cat! You rock.

Milford Sound

The first few weeks that I spent in New Zealand were on the road. Traveling from one new town to another and sleeping in a van provides a high level of excitement. Queenstown has been far from boring. But it has become very familiar to me. After a couple of months of staying in one place, I was ready for a road trip. And I luckily stumbled upon a great one.

There are currently three Americans employed at Winnie's: myself, Kile, from Colorado and Kelli, from South Dakota. I learned of the availability of my current position through Kelli. She told a friend about the kitchen position, who in turn texted me suggesting that I go to Winnie's and inquire. The rest is history. So naturally I became fast friends with Kelli and also her boyfriend Hayden. Kelli planned a trip to Milford for her birthday and I was fortunate enough to get to tag along.

In 2007 (i think), in an effort to promote national tourism and travel, the New Zealand Automobile Association compiled "The 101 Must-Do Kiwi Experiences." http://www.aatravel.co.nz/101/ Sitting at the top of this prestigous list was? You guessed it....Milford Sound. What is Milford Sound you say? Well, don't ask me. Ask Wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_Sound

View Larger Map

As you can see on the map above, Milford Sound is only about 50 or 60 miles due west of Queenstown. However, there is no drivable road that traverses these miles as it is straight through the mountains. Thus, it's about a four hour drive to get 60 miles away from where you started. I've been told that this a good nuisance. It is spectulated that if you could get to Milford Sound from Queenstown in an hour or so, it would be raped by tourists. I've always enjoyed road trips, so the drive didn't bother me one bit.

On Thursday, February 4th, I filled my backpack with far more clothing than I could possibly need and started walking down the hill towards Kelli's house which is less than half a mile away from mine. It was there that I met Nick, Kelli's roomate, who also happens to be Hayden's best friend. We split up into two cars and drove to the Queenstown airport to pick up another Kelli (Kelli S from here forward), Jenna and Erin. These were Kelli M's friends from the states. They had flown from Australia where Kelli S is working as a nurse. Jenna and Erin were visiting from the states where they both work as nurses. Why I feel like these details are necessary we will never know.

And so the 7 of us set out for Milford. There are several different ways to tour Milford but one of the most popular is to travel on a cruise ship through the fjord. And that is one of the things that you learn on the cruise tour. Milford Sound is actually not a sound at all but a fjord. Before I went on the cruise I did not know what either was but I am definitely going to share my newfound tid bits. A sound is a narrow channel of water connecting two seas. A fjord is a long narrow inlet of the sea between high cliffs created by glacier activity. The tour guide explained why Milford is incorrectly called a sound but I wasn't listening as I was completely mesmerized by what I was looking at. You may recall that I wrote about being dazzled by the hills in Taihape that been formed by Volcanic activity. Well that was childs play compared to what Glaciers have formed. Unlike the Remarkables ski park, which gradually ascends over a piece of earth, these mountains shoot straight up into the sky. You can see waterfalls. You can see snow caps. You can see beautiful trees and vegetation. You can see the brilliant dark blue water of the inlet that makes you shiver just to look at it. You can see seals resting on rocks below. And the one thing you absolutely cannot see is much sign of human activity. Milford Sound is managed exclusively by the Department of Conservation of New Zealand. This is quite brilliant as it prevents commerical activity from taking place in this region. No one can capitalize on Milford Sound. Imagine that. After our tour, we had pizza and beer at the Blue Duck Cafe and Bar. Then we stayed at a lodge about a mile and a half up the road. These were the only fecilities anywhere near Milford Sound. There's no hotels, no restaraunts, and no gas stations. When we ran out of beer at the lodge around 9:00 o'clock, we had to walk back to the Blue Duck cafe to get more. We had no other options. This turned out to be quite an extraordinary walk though. As we walked back to the cafe, the sun was setting and it was extremely foggy I continue to be reminded of the Lord of Rings throughout all of New Zealand and this sparked images of Mordor. There were no street lights. When the workers at the cafe get off and return to the lodge, it is so dark outside that they cannot see even a few feet in front of them. They have to walk or ride their bicycle on the white line of the road looking straight down at it, lest they end up in the tree.

Milford Sounds' only visible scar was the sand flies. The lodge we stayed at is nestled above a river and shortly after checking in, we climbed down a few big rocks to dip our feet in the water and throw the football. (I've gotten in the habit of carrying my football with me everywhere I go. People are intrigued by it and are always inclined to toss with me. In fact, I have probably thrown a football more in New Zealand than I did in all of 2009) The sand flies attacked us the moment we stepped outside. They were in packs so thick you had to swat them away from your face. Sometimes there were so many I had trouble seeing the ball being thrown to me. At one point I was spraying Off from a can onto a sand fly on my arm and it was not even phasing him. He just carried right on biting me while being soaked in Off.....

The next morning we had a nice cafe breakfast and took our time returning to Queenstown. We stopped at a small trail called the Chasm, where Hayden showed us a hidden swimming hole off of a side trail. Hayden and I were the only ones to jump in and believe me that glacier mountain water is about as cold as jumping into Barton Springs before the sun comes up for those of you who have had the pleasure. I had a delicious meat pie in Te Aneu, the last town of any relevant size before Milford, which I chased with some Hokey Pokey flavored Ice Cream. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokey_pokey_(ice_cream) Wiki is your friend.

We arrived back in Queenstown late in the afternoon, but not late enough to stop at Lake Hayes for a quick swim and jump off the rope swing. We concluded the road trip that night with san gria, margaritas, coronas and big plates of mexican cuisine at Sombrero's.

I can't wait to get back to Milford.

2010-02-07T10:32:00.000+13:00

I've updated the picassa web album to include the photos from the Remarkables trek. I've also added my roomate Melissa's website to my links. If you use google earth and would like to see the path we followed up the mountain, shoot me an email. I have a .kmz file from my GPS watch that plots our course in Google earth. You can then zoom down into the mountains in 3D view and see exactly where we walked, stopped and how where we took a different course back down than on the way up. It's really cool to look at, but I don't have any idea how to post it here.

Ciao.

Some come to laugh their past away

2010-02-07T01:56:00.000+13:00

Here's a new trial: blogging in the morning with a fresh cup of coffee. Actually it's a cup of instant coffee and it's not that great. Coffee is a topic I've been meaning to sound off on for a while. There are no drip coffee makers in New Zealand. Anywhere. The people have no use for the phrase "coffee pot." You basically have only a few options to getting a cup of coffee here. The first is to buy a plunger (french press) and ground coffee that is made for a plunger. Pour boiling water over about 3-4 tablespoons of the coffee and let it sit for about 5 minutes. This is decent but it's no Cafe du Monde. Your second option is to buy coffee from a cafe, which is all espresso based. So basically you are limited to how do you want to drink a shot of espresso. There's no equivalent to getting just a cup of Community Coffee house roast. You also cannot find a coffee drink that is more than 6 ounces here.

I drink coffee everyday without exception and I love it. In fact, it may be the most consisent thing I have done since I was 15. I can remember being served coffee by my parents and grandparents when I was kid. Back then I got about 60% warm milk and 30% coffee and however much sugar I could get in the cup before someone got the jar away from me. I've used this recipe ever since, although I've tapered down on the sugar. It's difficult to recreate this cup of coffee over here, but I'm working on it.

I finally got fed up with having a square on my blog showing the blog template number. Most readers probably did not notice but it aggrevated the daylights out of me. Sorry mister blog template designer, but your work was not so fantastic that it needed to be numbered and permanently marked. So I killed that template and replaced it with a new one that has eliminated the template number but created a whole new set of problems. I'll deal with those later.

The Remarkables Ski Park - Single Cone

If you want to ski/snowboard in the Queenstown area you have a few options. But the closest slopes to town are found at the Remarkables Ski park, or simply "the Remarks". http://www.nzski.com/guides/09/theremarkables/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Remarkables
The remarks has two peaks, single cone and double cone.
.............................................................................................................................................................................................................
And I'm back. All those periods represent lots of time passing. I started this post on February 3rd in the morning. I rambled on about coffee for 20 minutes and was finally getting to more important topics when I realized the weather was just too damn good to be inside typing on a computer. As with almost every residence I've entered in New Zealand, our house does not have an air conditioner. A consistent breeze blowing through opened windows keeps away stifling heat. The heat reminds me of the cold days and inspires me to get out and enjoy. So I left that morning, with every intention of finishing the post before work. Needless to say, I didn't finish it, but I wasn't about to scrap the writing I had accomplished. And without further ado.......

One of a la carte chefs at the restaraunt is a Brazilian guy named Amauri. Amauri is an avid outdoor athlete and has run the Routeburn Classic. He also skates, snowboards, mountain cycles, runs, etc, etc. We've passed each other on the trails before and had a few conversations about Routeburn and training. It came as no surprise to me last Saturday while at work, Amauri asked if I wanted to go for a hike the next day. Of course I was eager to do a hike as I still have several trails around Queenstown that I have not conquered yet. A few minutes later Amauri remembered that it was going to be a full moon that evening and got very excited about doing an early morning walk to single cone; the idea being that we could hike in the moonlight and watch the sun rise from the peak of the mountain. This sounded unique to me so I agreed to go. Let me point out that every hike I've done in New Zealand as been along a very well laid out track or trail, complete with gravel, steps, and signs. There have been steep climbs and some grueling hills, but still always upright walking. When I first arrived in Queenstown, I walked with some friends up to Lake Alta. Lake Alta is a small body of water that sits in the valley of the remarkables ski field. We drove up to the ski car park, and walked a short distance along the ski lift to the greenish blue lake. From there you can see the single cone and double cone peaks. On that particular day, I thought I saw a trail running along a saddle on the back side of the mountain. And I thought it looked like a relatively easy hike to get up to the top along this trail. So when Amauri suggested walking to single cone, I figured it would be a challenging hike along a well marked trail. And what do we say about ASSUMPTION class????

Amauri picked me up at 3:15 a.m. and we headed towards the ski park. I had plenty of proper cold weather gear this time thanks my care packages from home. The car's outside temperature meter read 11 degrees celcius in Queenstown, and then 7 degrees when we parked up on the mountain. It was chilly. We began walking along ski lift, following the same path I had the first time I went to Alta. I used a head lamp, but Amauri was able to see with just the moonlight. We stopped at Lake Alta but did not stay long as we wanted to ensure that we were at the top of the mountain for the sunrise. We had to stop a little ways up from Alta to soak up one of the most memorable views I've seen in New Zealand. I sat down next to a waterfall running down the mountain and to my left three items formed a perfect triangle. The base of the triangle was the waterfall and if you followed it's path down you would have immediately noticed the second point of the triangle, the sparkling reflection of the full moon on Lake Alta. This would prompt to look up at the third point, the moon itselft, which was magnificent. And then you might happen to notice the mountains themselves. This could not be photograped effectively so I tried to the burn the image into my brain. I think I got a pretty good copy saved.

When we started back uphill I thought that surely we would reach a trail soon. If a trail exists we were not headed for it. I found the mountain getting steeper and solid dirt turning into giant movable rocks. I used to do train with a group called Crossfit in Austin. One of our regular drills was to do "mountain climbers". To complete a mountain climber you drop down to a pushup position with your arms fully extended. The movement is to bring your left leg up, attempting to pull your knee to your chest. As your left leg returns to the floor, you being the same motion with your right leg. I did 50 of these the other day after a run. I soon found myself doing real mountain climbers on a very steep mountain. Amauri and I had to create seperate paths so that I was not directly behind him, in danger of sliding rocks he may have shifted out of their resting state. In hinesight, the darkness really changed the outcome of the excursion. Had we been doing this in broad day light, I would have quickly realized that the climb was going to be much steeper than anything I had ever embarked on. I probably would have turned back. But in the darkness, I could not see exactly what I was getting myself into. The mountain climbers eventually turned into just straight climbing. I don't want to exaggerate. It was not 100% vertical. But there was absolutely no walking anymore. It was one hand on rock, two hands on rock, find a foothold, move one foot into postion and push up placing other foot into the next foothold. As we got higher and higher the sun started to illuminate what lay behind me. And that is when the fear set in.

I've mentioned before that I have a fear of heights. This statement is misleading. I am perfectly fine with being abnormally high of the ground, when I am enclosed. Enclosed in something like an airplane, the space needle in Seattle, the observation deck of the John Hancock Center in Chicago, or the car of the Batman The Ride roller coaster at Six Flags over Texas. When I worked on the rigs, I had no problems climbing a six foot ladder that was strategically placed between the driller's cabin and a large cable tray and running wires. But if you put that same ladder out on the middle of the floor with nothing surrounding it, I would not be able to climb the first two steps and work. My fear is of open spaces. It occurs when I can clearly see and visualize the path from which I will fall. As the sun came up, the climb became steeper and these danger paths started to strike my imagination like a rusty hammer pounding nails into a two by four. Amauri showed no signs of any such fear. He climbed quickly jumping from boulder to boulder with ease. But on several occasions we had to stop so that he could show me exactly where to put my hands and feet to get up a certain section. I should also point out that I have a huge climbing disadvantage in my gargantuan feet. A size fifteen shoe just does not sit in a bit of rock the same way that a size ten does.

So I pretty much spent the last two hours of the ascent in absolute terror of sliding down that mountain. I would reach a certain point, look down and think "How the f*** did I just get up here, there's no way I can go back down where I just came." Then I would look up at where Amauri was and think "How in the f**** am I going to get up to where he is, there's no way I'm climbing that." At these junctures Amauri would scamper back down the mountain and guide me up. Each section that I climbed was an amazing moral victory. A few times I tried to tell Amauri to go on without me, that I wouldn't go any further. But he knew and I knew too, that I wasn't about to get that far and turn back.

At 6:30 a.m. I pulled myself up to the highest point of the single cone of the Remarkables ski field. I looked out, with my back to Queenstown and saw the sun making it's own climb above the clouds BELOW me. I turned around and saw Queenstown, a tiny little playground 5,000 feet below with the full moon still hanging around above. I was cold and tired. The stress of the climb had worn on me. But it was the greatest feeling in the world. I had a climbed a mountain. I traced a path into the earth that will never again be traversed exactly the same by another person. I know this, because I kicked rocks down the mountain in the process. I won't say that I conquered my fear, but I dealt with it. I was cursing Amauri the entire way up, but on the top of the mountain, I thanked him for not letting me bail out.

As with everything else in New Zealand, the pictures do not do justice to what I actually saw, but I think you'll enjoy them none the less. Climbing down was pretty scary as well, but easier than going up as I knew each small section brought me closer to complete safety.

It's 1:53 a.m. now on Sunday morning. My writing brings our timeline up to about 11 a.m. last Sunday. I had an amazing day on Wednesday and then a hell of a road trip on Thursday to Milford Sound. I've got a lot to write about and even more great adventures on the horizon so stay tuned.

Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration, If we don't we're gonna blow a 50 amp fuse"

2010-01-29T01:26:00.002+13:00

As you know, I took a long hiatus from writing on this blog. This coincided with a long hiatus from uploading and publishing pictures. I'm happy to officially announce that both breaks are over. I have just added over a hundred photos to my picassa web album. The pictures cover a wide range of events including: hiking to the Ben Lomond summit, the Winnie's Staff Christmas Party, New Year's Eve, White Water rafting, the Ice Bar, and most recently Canyoning.

I talked to some friends on Wednesday and found out that the cliff jump I did on Tuesday is known around Queenstown as "Little Thailand." Little Thailand was a just a precursor to more aerial amphibious adventures to come. I opened on Wednesday and was slightly dissappointed when my boss told me to go home at 3:30 as I was planning on getting more hours that day. This feeling immediately vanished when I received a text from roomate, Mark about half an hour later that read "Canyoning at 5:30 if you're keen." I was keen indeed. If you are not familiar with canyoning, I'll let wikipedia enlighten you.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyoning
I've been on a canyoning excursion once before in Interlakken, Switzerland. On that occasion, I paid to go on a trip led by professionals. I am really impressed that my roomate and his buddies have the gear and the knowledge to go out and do it on their own.

Mark and I loaded up his van with wet suits, harnesses and carabiners and headed out for 12 Mile Delta. We picked up two of his friends on the way, an Australian named Gavin and Martin from the Czech Republic and met 3 more of Mark's mates at the river. I barely squeezed into two of Mark's older wetsuits. You can see in the pictures that one wetsuit covers the holes from the other and vice versa. Before I knew it I was abseiling down the rock wall a canyon using ever bit of my will power to not look down. I made it, quite slowly, but without harm. I tried to photograph this entire trip but my camera battery was dying and the shots I took did not come out very well. It is pretty dark down near the water, but at the time of day the sun is shining brightly through the tree tops. So in auto mode the camera will flash because it does not register very much light, but then the pictures are blurred by the sun above. I actually have no idea if ANY of that is true, but it is logical to me. Anyway, the pictures don't do justice to the experience. We did some really fun jumps. The more experienced guys could climb higher and be a little bit more daring. The danger in canyoning is jumping and missing your target area of water, which could be very small, or jumping and landing on object that is hidden like a rock or a branch. It is pretty much a dare devil's playground. I'm no dare devil, but there were plenty of easy jumps for me to enjoy.

I had such a good time canyoning, that I went the Warehouse the next day to purchase my own wet suit. It's pretty cool to get a text message that says "meet for canyoning". I can't imagine that there is too many places in the world where you can receive that text.

It is 11:38 p.m. on Saturday night in Queenstown. I worked a double today, putting in a nice 10 hour stretch. One of my buddies at work just called and informed me that it's a full moon tonight and we should hike up to the top of the Remarkables Ski Park to check out the sunrise. Estimated departure time 3 a.m. I guess I should try to get an hour or two of sleep. Rock on.

I went down to the demonstration, to get my fair share of abuse

2010-01-27T01:27:00.000+13:00

Lots of new experiences today. I kicked it off early with a 5 mile run around Lake Hayes with my roomate, Melissa. This is one of her favorite running courses and it was new to me, so I enjoyed it. I noticed a rope swing anchored from a tree that intend to investigate further. After we returned from the run I took off to pick up Cam, a friend from work. Cam is from Australia which reminds me I need to wish you all a happy belated Australia day. That's another new experience, I've never celebrated Australia Day. Of course, I didn't really celebrate it today, but I observed other people celebrating it. Anyway, Cam knew about this cliff jump a short distance outside of town so we headed in that direction. I parked Voodoo on a bend off the road and we followed a tight trail down to an open patch of earth overlooking the water. It was a solid 30 foot drop that required you to spring out about 4 ft. to clear the rocks below. In order to see the water I had to kind of tip-toe out to the ledge and look over. It was quite intense for me. I don't tell most people that I'm petrified of heights but I am. So Cam showed me where to start from and where to jump off from and then took a flying leap into the water. I watched him swim a few feet away and then followed suit. At first my only focus was clearing the rocks. It soon shifted to how my body would enter the water. I realized in mid-air that I was coming in at a bad angle, but couldn't really make any adjustments in time. I didn't completely flop, but I didn't exactly slice in with no splash either. I've got a nice little strawberry running from the backside of my leg on up my side to illustrate my graceful jump. However pain was mild compared to the reaction my body took from the water temperature. As soon as I submerged every muscle in my body contracted and I swear my lungs reduced 50% in size. I came up gasping for air as if I just done a round of suicides on the basketball court. My lungs were screaming for oxygen and not seeming to find any and my heartbeat could have been knocking trees down. I couldn't speak until I reached the shore and got out of the water. What a rush. I loved it, but opted not to take a second jump as I was already aware of the bruise forming on my side.

I returned to town around 12:30 and got some sun-bathing in my Queenstown Lake. It eventually got hot enough for me to take another swim. I just ran in from the share this time, but it was equally cold and I was quickly out of the water. I'm very happy to have swum twice today. Even though my water time was about 3 minutes total. I enjoyed beautiful weather during the afternoon in which I played a round of frisbee golf (frolf) followed by an ice cold Guiness at the Irish Pub. Later on that evening I had another new experience at Minus 5.

Rebecca, one of my new Queenstown friends, works at the famous "ice bar" and I went to check it out this everning (another new experience). http://www.minus5experience.com/
I will post my own pictures soon, but you can get an idea of the concept for now on this website. So everything in the ice bar is frozen. The glasses, the cash register, the shot glasses...All made of ice. It's really cool. Minus 5 provides you with gloves, boots and a huge jacket to go into the bar with. You can only go in for thirty minutes at a time and when you are finished you get to break your frozen glass. I found the drinks to go down really smooth in their. They were all vodka based fruit drinks.

And of course you can't have just one drink in Queenstown so I headed to Winnies for a few after that. Now I'm home closing out what has been a wonderful day off and trying to avoid the fact that I have to open tomorrow. Or even worse, that i need to get up and run before I open tomorrow....

Come back home, Have to rumble in the alley

2010-01-22T01:22:00.001+13:00

When I woke up this morning, I didn't plan on making any big decisions today. I was scheduled to be free from work but last night I picked up a shift from a co-worker for today. So basically when I woke up this morning, I knew I had to be at work at 3:00 p.m., that I needed to clean my room, and that I needed to complete some sort of exercise before going to work. I planned on coming straight home after finishing at Winnie's. This was to be a routine day with nothing exciting or out of the ordiany planned. Of course I don't plan on much of anything these days. And I guess I never really get up and sa y "I'm going to make some big decisions today". But after a 20 minute conversation with my roommate I have made the very big decision of registering for the Routeburn Classic (http://www.goodtimesevents.net/). Click on the link and watch the video for a good visualization of the race. The Routeburn Track is one of the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) Great Walks. From the DOC website:

"The Great Walks are the department's premier walking tracks, through areas of some of the best scenery in the country. The huts and tracks on the Great Walks are of a higher standard than other tramping tracks, and many of the Great Walks have booking systems to manage visitor pressure. The Routeburn Track traverses 32 kilometres of Mount Aspiring and Fiordland National Parks, part of Te Wāhipounamu – South West New Zealand World Heritage Area and is administered by the Department of Conservation on behalf of the New Zealand public. Located in the southwest of the South Island the track extends between the head of Lake Wakatipu and S.H. 94, the Te Anau – Milford Road. The nearest townships of Queenstown, Te Anau and Glenorchy have a full range of accommodation. Shops in Queenstown and Te Anau can cater for all your tramping needs, including equipment hire. You can walk the track independently or as part of a guided group. Ultimate Hikes hold the only DOC approved concession for overnight guided walks on the Routeburn Track during the peak walking season."

The DOC lists the time to complete the track as 3 days. On April 24th, 2010, I am going to complete it in 7 hours or less. That's a shade over 90 days away. Go big or go home.

This is very exciting for me. I haven't trained for an outdoor race since last year when I trained for the MS 150. I haven't been this nervous about an event since my very first road race: the Decker Challenge 20K in December of 2007. I remember signing up for the training group for that race and thinking that I had absolutely no business embarking on something as ludicrous as a 20K through the hills of Austin. Deja vu. I'm pretty sure I have absolutely no business embarking on a 33K through the mountains of New Zealand. But making it my business will be painful, challenging and rewarding at the same time in large doses. And hopefully it will help to limit my intake of pizza and beer over the next few months.

I better go to sleep and get to rest. Official training for the Routeburn Classic 2010 starts tomorrow. Shit, it's 12:50 a.m. here, training starts today...what have got myself into?

Short Circuits

Everyone in the restaraunt besides the Americans pronounces the word tomato as "ta-motto". Americans say it as you know "toe-may-toe" or some similar variation. As a ruse, I pretend not to understand the other pizza chefs when they say ta-motto. For example, if one of them says "Can you get me some sun-dried ta-mottos out of the fridge?", I respond "nope, I don't know what those are". So the other day, I'm pulling this little stunt in the kitchen and I turn to one of my American friends and say "Kyle, he keeps asking me for ta-mottos, do you know what a ta-motto is?" Without skipping a beat Kyle responds "Yeah, it's like a to-may-to for morons." I thought this was hysterical.
Winnie's pizza ovens and prep area is out in the public area of the restaraunt. The customers can watch us make their pizzas if they wish too. So when we are out front making pizzas we are forced to listen to the Winnie's soundtrack, which consists of about 200 songs that are played over and over and over again. Most of these songs are awful, "American Pie" by Don McLean, "Give it Up" by KC and Sunshine Band....you know what kind of music I'm talking about. Pop hits from the 70's and 80's that make for decent background music. Strangely enough, there are some really odd gems thrown into Winnie's mix like "Whiskey in the Jar" by Thin Lizzy and "American Music" by the Violent Femmes. But for the most part it's all crap. Listening to these songs all day as inspired me to compose a list: "The Top 5 songs I hate by Artists I Love". The theme of this list is that sometimes great artists put out shitty music. Sometimes great artists put out great music that mass communication rapes into something that you end up hating. Take "Under the Bridge" as an example. Brilliant song that has been absolutely bludgeoned to death by the radio. Without further ado, here's The Top 5 Songs I Hate by Artists I Love.

Number 5 - "Here Comes My Girl" by Tom Petty

radio didn't ruin this one for me I've just never liked this song. The lyrics are unoriginal and Tom's singing sounds winey. Frankly, I don't understand why it was ever released as a single.

Number 4 - "You Can Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac

OK, I don't really hate this one....yet. Winnie's is pretty much ruining this tune for me as I hear it three times a day and for some reason every female server thinks that when it comes on they are magically transformed into Stevie Nicks and they can just walking around the restaraunt belting the corus out. Tell em Lee: Not so fast my friend!!!

Number 3 - "Hungry Heart" by The Boss

No explanation required.

Number 2 - "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison

Van Morrison is one of my all time favorite musicians and the fact that this is his signature song is a complete misrepresentation of his talents. Little known fact: the song was originally written as Brown Skin Girl, but the record label wanted something that would appeal to a larger audience.

And the number 1 song I hate by an Artist I love issssssssssss:

SWEET HOME ALABAMA by Lynard f-ing Skynard.

Oh man, I can't stand this song. From the jingle jangle rhythym guitar to the dissing of Neil Young to it's association with the University of Alabama to it's mass popularity and drunken idiots singing along to it, this song is a complete trainwreck. I heard it three times today. Can I hear "Give me back my bullets" three times a day instead?

Go out yonder, peace in the valley

2010-01-21T00:48:00.000+13:00

It doesn't feel like it, but I worked an 11 hour shift today. The sun rises around 6:30 and doesn't set until around 9:30, making for plenty hours of daylight. I was up by 8, which is unusual for my schedule, allowing me to squeeze in quick run before starting my shift at 10:30.

Spending 11 hours straight in the kitchen of a pizza restaraunt makes eating any kind of sensible diet a monumental challenge. My shift today is called "opening pizza" and is considered to be a double shift. When my shift starts before noon, I receive a free small pizza as my lunch. Each evening, the a la carte chefs cook a plated dinner for all the kitchen staff that are working so just for showing up today, I get a small pizza to eat plus a dinner. And you won't find either of these meals in your Zone books. Before I made my lunch pizza, my english mate and co-worker got to talking about good the apple crumble desert pizzas looked. We make these all night but have never gotten to try one. So we came up with the brilliant plan of splitting our small pizzas. I would make us a small meaty pizza to munch on during the day and then he would make us a desert pizza for the afternoon. This proved to make for a wonderful afternoon as the apple crumble pizza with ice cream on top was amazing. When the evening a la carte chef arrived, I suggested Chicken Parmesan for dinner and he catered to my request, even going so far as to some cajun seasoning to the chicken. Now these are just the meals I enjoyed at work today. As a pizza chef, our first duty is to make pizzas for the customers. Pretty simple. But when we do not have any pizza orders, our second responsibility is to prep. We prepare the toppings and ingredients that go on the pizzas. This involves cutting ham, bacon (the bacon here is not what you think of as bacon, i'll come to this dilemma soon), salami, feta cheese....Basically if it goes on a pizza, you prep it in the kitchen and let's just say that we do a good job of quality checking our ingredients before they make it to the pizza.

And yes, I did just type an entire paragraph about what I ate today. Which brings me to my next topic of discussion, The Montanara. The Montanara is the best selling and most popular pizza at Winnie's. It is referred to by both customers and staff as the "monty". I have know idea why it is called a Montanara and neither does anyone in the restaraunt (believe me, I've asked everyone). Quite frankly, some of the pizza names are down right ridiculous. The monty is a very good pizza, but it is definitely not the most tasty dish on the menu. I think it sells very well because it does not contain any ingredients or toppings that people vehemently dislike, such as mushrooms. Let's break it down. First of all our pizza bases are thin, very similar to thin-crusts pizzas back home, and circular. However the way we make the pizzas does not really leave it with a true crust. We try to push the sauce and toppings all the way to the perimeter of the pizza. Since the base is consistent in height, there is no thick ring of dough that you could call a crust. First on the base is freshly made tomato sauce, no surprises there. Then we add some sun-dried tomatos. Next is a layer of cheese, on top of which goes baked chicken that has been sliced. A handful of chopped spring onions are thrown on, mainly for color as you would never taste the difference with or without these. The next step is where it gets interesting. Our next ingredient is sweet chili sauce, which we drizzle back and worth until most of the pizza is covered in it. Before arriving in New Zealand, I had never heard of sweet chili sauce. But this liquid is almost as popular as catchup is to us. In fact, it is pretty much used like catchup. If you order french fries in NZ, they will probably be served with sweet chili sauce. If you order a kebab, you will have the option of getting sweet chili sauce as your topping. Catchup as we know it is very hard to find here. If you ask for catchup, you will receive tomato sauce. I don't know how or why, but tomato sauce IS NOT catchup. So people generally go with sweet chili sauce instead. The best way I can think of describe the taste of it is sweet and sour sauce, just a little bit sweeter. Basically, it's good but not great. To me, it is definitely an odd item to put on a pizza. The final pre-oven topping for a the monty is sliced bree. Now I think this is pretty damn brilliant. I've never seen a pizza in the states with brie on it, but why the hell not. Just think about it. Hey, what can I put on this meaty-cheesy-bready dish to make it better? Answer - more cheese, but make it a fancy cheese. Done. This is what the sets the monty aside....Well this and the nut cream. The monty goes in the oven for seven minutes, comes out with cheese and sweet chili sauce bubbling and then gets an ice cream scoop of nut cream slabbed right in the middle of the pizza. Nut cream is a mixture of sour cream, cream cheese and chopped pistachios. So when you eat a slice of a monty, you grab a slice dip it in the nut cream and bite into the sweet chili brie chicken goodness. Like I said, there's really not too much on the monty that you can dislike. I mean who doesn't like brie?

I can't really think of a pizza back home from any restaraunt that is similar to the monty. If you know of one, let me know. Those 11 hours are starting to take their toll so I will shut it down now. Tomorrow I will explain the correct pronunciation of the word tomato.

Short Circuits

For the most part I am completely comfortable with the fact that I'm closer to 30 than 25, until......I put on a 311 album in the kitchen today. One of the younger pizza chefs asked "Where are these guys from?", I replied "Omaha, Nebraska, these guys have been around forever". He had never heard of them. I told him that this was one of their earlier albums and probably came out around 1991. He laughed and stated "No wonder I've never heard of them, I would have been one year old when it came out."

Alright, Alright, Alright

2010-01-20T00:39:00.000+13:00

Christmas definitely came late for me this. When I think of Christmas I think of massive trees with flashy ornaments and decorations. I envision a plethora of gigantic boxes with gigantic bows and ribbons. I remember opening so many gifts at so many different Christmas parties and loading my car up to haul them all back to Texas. Today I opened a much smaller box than those I remember. About the size that you would wrap a sweater in. This box was not wrapped, but covered in packing tape, shipping notifications and international customs stickers. It did not contain anything flash. In fact, if I had received this package on any Christmas prior to this one, I would have found it rather unremarkable. But the contents of the Christmas box I opened today provided more excitement than any gift I've opened in the last ten years.

The package I'm referring to was sent from my parents and family back home in Baton Rouge. Due to a small scheduling dilemma it was actually sent to Winnie's and that is where I opened. My co-workers at Winnie's get a real kick out of my American southerner culture. They enjoy my accent so much that most of the time I thicken it into a bad John Wayne impression just for their enjoyment. I brought a can of Slap Ya Mama cajun seasoning to work and left it there. My co-workers are fascinated with the fact that I really do put it on everything I eat. When I arrived at work and I picked my package up and brought it to the changing room with no intentions of opening it until later on when I returned home. But apparently my boss and co-workers had been speculating all day as to what was in it and asked me to open it in front of everybody.

I think the expression "like a kid at Christmas" is quite overused, but when the first thing I saw as I ripped cardboard away from tape was the familiar brown leather of an AMERICAN football, I really was as happy as a small child at Christmas. I've been looking for a football here since I arrived and they just do not sell them here. The only thing you can buy is a rugby ball which has no laces and is not meant to be thrown with one hand. I was even more estatic to pull the ball out and see that it had LSU and the eye of the tiger printed on it. I've just returned home from work and inflated my ball and I can't wait to go toss it around. I dug a little bit deeper and pulled out a can of Tony Chachere's that was stuffed inside a New Orleans themed koozie. I listened with a sly grin as each kitchen member tried to pronounce the famous cajun seasoning unsuccessfully. My gift opening turned into a small teaching session as I pulled out three t-shirts. The first was a black saints t-shirt with "Who Dat Nation" printed on the front. The second was bright green t-shirt with "Try a King Cake" printed on the front and "There's a little Jesus in every one" directly below that. The third was a baby blue Dirty Coast t-shirt illustrating lots of people at a festival using flags to mark their positions. This shirt was inspired by Jazz fest. I proceeded to try to explain "Who Dat", King cake, and american music festivals and eventually gave up. If you're not familiar with Dirty Coast, you should check there website out http://www.dirtycoast.com/home.php. I love their t-shirts and have at least a dozen of them at home.

I then proceeded to go through the stack of photos with my kitchen friends which of course led to more explaining. It was great fun and I really can't thank my family enough for all the stuff they have sent over.

It appears as though we are finally enjoying a proper summer here in Queenstown. Monday was the first full day that I have spent in New Zealand where I did not put on some piece of long sleeved clothing. I spent the entire day in shorts and t-shirt and then slept in boxers and a t-shirt that night. The high was 82 and the low was 58. This was a far cry from the first week in January when were getting fresh snow on the mountain and cold, gray, rainy days (on January 8th, the high was 48 and the low was 43 and half an inch of precip fell). Needless to say, I was pretty damn miserable during this strange weather pattern. Of course now that it has gotten warm, my friends, co-workers and roomates are complaing about the heat, and I'm as happy as a pig in shit. Being hot has never bothered me. If being hot did bother you while living in Texas and Louisiana, then you better be prepared to spend most of your year being bothered. I actually enjoy the heat.

With this new heatwave, my next mission in Queenstown will be to find somewhere to go swimming. Unfortunately the water that immediately surrounds Queenstown is way to cold to swim in for any significant length of time. But I've heard rumors of some good lakes and cliffs to jump off of in the surrounding areas and I fully plan to scout out these places on my next days off.

Well, my dear friends, this is two posts in two consecutive days. Dare I say that I'm on a streak? No, I won't go that far. But I will say it feels really good to be writing again. I plan to start discussing the Winnie's menu with you soon. Ciao.

Short Circuits

New Zealand television is quirky. We don't have Sky TV, the national cable provider, so we get about 4 channels. Oddly enough, we get these same four channels twice. During the day, these channels broadcast the worst of the of worst of American tv shows: Rachel Ray, Tyra Banks, Ellen Degeneres. I used to turn the TV on while eating to have back ground noise, but I would rather listen to fingernails scratch a chalkboard while I eat than to hear the mindless cackling of Rachel Ray. Then at night, the New Zealand public channels will randomly broadcast uncensored R rated movies during prime time hours. A few weeks ago I was feeling under the weather and stayed home all day and all night. Naturally I watched some TV. During the day, I couldn't even find something that was monotonous enough to just fall asleep to. The programming was so awful I had to just turn it off. Then that night, at 7 oclock for all of the nation to see, they broadcast AMERICAN PSYCHO uncensored! Now, don't get me wrong, this is one of my all time favorite films, so i was tickled to see it on. But American Psycho on network TV? Think about if they showed that on NBC right after 30 Rock. Like I said, quirky.

Well I'm standing next to a mountain, I chop it down with the edge of my hand

2010-01-19T00:36:00.000+13:00

It appears that Christmas has come a little bit late for me this year. Seeing Texas and the Dallas Cowboys get beat down in their respective season finales brings joy to my heart. I've also received several care packages from home with lots of American products and goods that I haven't been able to get my hands on since I left the states.

Welcome to 2010 friends. 18 days of this year have already raced by fast enough to make my head spin. As usual I have to apologize for the ridiculous delay in postings. I could write a paragraph of excuses, but I won't bother this time around. I am sorry that as soon as I started to build momentum and gather a handful of faithful readers, I dropped off the face of the earth. But I am back now, in full force. I have a permanent residence, a solid internet connection and lots to write about.

Over the past month I have transitioned from a backpacker's lifestyle to a resident's lifestyle. Shortly before Christmas I moved into a nice little 3 bedroom house on Wakatipu Heights. (My address is 14A Wakatipu Heights, Queenstown, 9300, New Zealand if you want to google earth me) I am still within walking distance of the Town Centre, but its a longer walk than when I was living on Hay Street. Basically it takes about 15 minutes for me to walk to work, and about 20 to walk home as I've got a nice little climb to get up to our place.

My roommates are quite interesting. Mark occupies the upstairs master bedroom and bath. He works a professional job during the week from 9 to 5, and spends every other second he can flying threw the sky on a hang glider. This adventure sport fascinates and I nag him with questions about piloting. It is quite the thrill seeker's activity. A few days before Christmas, one of his buddies had a hang gliding accident and broke both his legs and fractured his hip in several places. I've moved it to the bottom of my ever growing list New Zealand to do list. The kitchen and living room are also in the upstairs part of the house as well as two balconies. One of them overlooks the lake and has quite a scenic view of the mountains.

There are two bedrooms downstairs, one belonging to me and the other to my second roommate, Melissa. Melissa is in the process of the opening a cake decorating business in Queenstown. She is a native kiwi and is very well traveled, having most recently spent 5 years in London. She is in the process of opening a cake decorating business in Queenstown. This makes me the lucky recipient of the lots of cupcakes and various other baking goods. Melissa's family was kind enough to invite me over on Christmas day, so I did miss having a proper Christmas feast.

My eyelids are starting to lose their strength, so I think I'll bring this posting to a close. I'll be back soon with much more.

Short Circuits

Popping your shit collar is the easiest and quickest way to looking like a sure fire douche bag.

I lived with them on Montague street in a basement down the stairs, there was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air

2009-12-15T16:15:00.002+13:00

Ugh. I've been writing this lengthy wordy descriptive blog post in my head now for three weeks and and I just can't seem to find the time to get it out onto the damn screen. So instead of doing what I do best, procrastinating, I'm going to give a very quick update, with an IOU for a better writing.

I've made it Queenstown and have been sharing a room with Morgan for about three weeks. He has plucked me into the social pipeline here and I have made several new friends and found a job. I am pizza chef at Winnie's. http://www.winnies.co.nz/ and I love my job. I work with awesome people between the ages of 18 and 35 from about a dozen nationalities. I enjoy going to work just to learn more about my co-workers. I have found the German kids to be the most interesting.

As I mentioned before I could fill volumes about Queenstown but here are the essential facts: 1. It's the most beautiful place on the planet. 2. The sun never sets 3. The bars never close 4. You can walk everywhere you need to go 5. There are no children or elderly here, just teenagers to 30 somethings 6. The beer flows like wine 7. It's the most beautiful place on the planet.

I've stated this before and I'll say it again. I have severely misjudged the weather in New Zealand. This is a cold country. This may be the only thing that stops me from staying here forever.

That's all I have time for now kids. Those pizzas aren't gonna make themselves. I promise to write more soon.

Short Circuits:

I love music. I hate Christmas music.

One, two, three, four, five against one

2009-12-05T01:18:00.000+13:00

Christchurch (11/28-11/29)

Top 5 people that I’m told I look like:

5. Jeremiah Johnson

4. The dude

3. Eddie Vedder

2. The Geico Cave Men

1. Jesus (fully grown Jesus, not sweet baby Jesus)

I have also heard Grizzly Adams, Kris Kristofferson, Sebastian Chebal and most recently Charles Manson.

After eating a second Thanksgiving meal for breakfast on Saturday morning, I split with Team Lacy and set a course for Christchurch, New Zealand. It was there that I met my long lost friend Morgan Tucker. Morgan and I were classmates together at Chapel Trafton Academy (which is currently referred to in the common tongue as Dunham) from grades 1 through 4. I learned through mutual friends that he has been a kiwi for about 8 months now. I contacted Morgan before leaving the United States and he has been my personal New Zealand advisor ever since. He lives in Queenstown and is hosting me until we find a new place. In a similar fashion to Harry Bowers, I hold Morgan in the highest regard for everything he has done in helping me transition into New Zealand.

Morgan and two of his buddies, Craig and Ed, had driven to Christchurch from Queenstown that afternoon and I met them at their hotel. Craig and Ed are both from England and at the end of the weekend it still was a struggle for me to understand them. It was also quite frustrating to realize that Craig could imitate our southern Louisiana accents perfectly, while our impressions of their British accents were pretty much god awful. I was impressed that both of the Englishmen were big fans of Team America. They would randomly yell out “America” in the fashion of the movie, and I would whole heartedly finish the line for them in call and answer fashion. We gorged on some Chinese food and then hit a mildly cheesy bar called Sullivan’s where what I thought was a Kings of Leon cover band was playing as that was all I heard for the first 20 minutes we were there. The band turned out to decent, covering a wide range of material, and about halfway through the night the lead singer announced to the crowd “hey, Eddie Vedder is here tonight” and then pointed at me. We all got a kick out of that.

Of course Eddie Vedder was not in fact at Sullivan’s, the Irish pub, but he was in Christchurch gearing up for the Sunday night gig we were anticipating.

An American Sunday

On Sunday morning, Morgan and I checked into the Base Hostel in downtown Christchurch. Base is a chain of hostels in New Zealand and I believe Australia and from what I can tell are the most popular hostels to stay at in the country. Each Base hostel is flanked by a bar that never seems to close, with edgy original names like Basement, Sinners & Saints, and Altitude. The hostels themselves vary in quality, but Christchurch seemed to have a decent facility. The weather in the city was pretty dismal: cold, rainy and overcast. This was discouraging to me as the concert we were there for was to be outdoors at the AMI rugby stadium and I was starting to develop a throat cold.

We threw our backpacks on our bunks and walked a few blocks to a giant sports bar called The Holy Grail (a name that I actually do think is kind of original). We ordered French fries, pizza (my first pie since leaving the states) and beers and sat down in front of the only TV that had an American football game on, which was Stanford vs. Notre Dame. After weeks of not seeing any football, I FINALLY reach a destination where I can see a football game and the ONE game they are showing is Notre Dame vs. Stanford?! We watched this game with no sound as the Grail’s speaker system was broadcasting a cricket match. On that note, if I ever meet a professional cricket player, I’m going to immediately punch him in the face for participating in the promotion of the most boring sport on the planet. I’d seriously rather watch my fingernails grow and have plenty of opportunities to do just that, as cricket is broadcasted on TV’s everywhere in New Zealand. But I digress and I exaggerate as we were actually quite content to watch any kind of football that involved pigskin. I caught a few clips from the LSU game and found myself more distracted by horrendous uniforms the Tigers were wearing than the score of the game. Happy to leave Charlie Weiss on the screen in the bar, we bolted for AMI Stadium around 4:30 with our British cohorts.
If my memory serves me correctly the first live rock show I ever attended was a Becky Sharp concert at the Varsity in Baton Rouge and I was probably 12 or 13 years old. Or maybe it was Better than Ezra? Either way, since then I have spent countless hours in various bars, venues, arenas, stadiums and grassy fields listening to live music. As a live music fan I’ve endured the sweet with the sour. Some concerts are spectacular and others are more forgettable, but once in a blue moon you catch a show that can only be described as special. I wasn’t expecting a special show when I bought the Pearl Jam ticket and the weather was all the time lowering my expectations, but I was in for a nice surprise.

Liam Finn was on stage when we arrived. I wasn’t familiar with his music, but immediately suspected that he must be some descendant of the Crowded House Finns. His music was experimental and noisy, but not awful. He proved to be a decent drummer on a few of his tunes, but I wasn’t rushing out to buy his album after his set. The first highlight of the night came when Eddie Vedder joined Liam on stage to do Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl”. Eddie’s voice is so distinctive that anytime he covers a tune it takes on an entirely different dynamic. He seems to have a real knack for singing Neil Young songs.

Ben Harper and the Relentless 7 took the stage after Finn. The Relentless 7 is Harper’s latest backing band and is in fact comprised of only 3 guys. Critics and fans alike trashed the album he recorded with them and I was longing for his original band, the Innocent Criminals, for most of their show. The music wasn’t bad; it just didn’t keep my attention for very long. Eddie provided a spark in their mellow set and stole the show when he jumped on stage for “Under Pressure”.

The general admission area in front of the stage was tightly packed by the time Pearl Jam took the stage. The first hour of music was solid and included fan favorites like Once, Animal, and Elderly Women behind the counter in a Small Town. The show really kicked up a notch with Even Flow. Pearl Jam normally plays their songs tight and fast, with little improvisation or variation. This night proved to be different as Mike Mccready wrecked havoc on lead guitar for about five minutes at the end of Even Flow. He was on fire and really got the crowd energized despite the light cold rain that started to fall. I was pleasantly surprised to hear one of my personal favorites, “Garden”, played a few songs later as it rarely makes it onto the set list. This was followed by two rockers, “Do the Evolution” and “Go” and then PJ took their first exit. As it turns out, this was the last show of Pearl Jam’s international tour and also the first time they had included New Zealand as a stop in over 12 years. They wanted to go out with a bang and they certainly would.

The first encore opened with Eddie singing an acoustic song I didn’t recognize. Then the crowd got to participate in singing Happy Birthday to drummer Matt Cameron. Ben Harper came out to play slide guitar on “Red Mosquito” and sing on “Indifference”. They closed with “The Fixer”, a very radio friendly song from their latest album. I could have left more than satisfied with what I had seen and heard after this. But it was not to be.

The second encore opened with the 1-2 punch of “Jeremy” and “Betterman”, which was followed by another great cover in “The Real Me”, by The Who. I thought for sure that would be the end of the show, when I was stunned to hear Eddie welcome Liam Finn and his father Neil Finn to the stage. I was enthralled. I knew that the Crowded House front man was extremely popular in New Zealand and also a huge PJ influence, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to see him perform that night. 35,000 people screamed along to the Crowded House classic “You’d Better be Home Soon”. Neil and Liam stayed on for one more number and then the band launched into “Alive” as the rain picked up, heightening the dark song. Every musician who had played that night returned to the stage for a roaring rendition of “Keep on Rocking in the Free World”. PJ members loaned instruments to Relentless 7 players and Eddie threw tambourines to anyone who didn’t have something to play. Harper got the crowd clapping and stomping while Mccready and Stone Gossard burned through face-melting guitar solos. Everyone took a bow to a well deserved ovation and THEN I REALLY THOUGHT THE FREAKING CONCERT WAS OVER when Eddie ran back on stage grinning and said “How bought one more?” as the familiar chords of “Yellow Ledbetter” came on.

Remaining consistent with all things I have experienced in New Zealand, the entire evening was truly amazing. Back at the hostel guy who looked nice and buzzed threw his arm around me and told me how awesome it was that I looked like Eddie Vedder. One final incident really made the day truly American, at least for me. Morgan and I were standing outside the hostel when a barefoot kid who could not have been over 20 years of age or over 110 lbs. in weight came shooting out of the entrance. He lunged for the handrails and immediately started projectile vomiting. He then looked up at us grinning and attempted to stand, but ended up stumbling about 10 feet in the other direction before falling over onto a drain grate where he lost the rest of the bourbon and cokes he had been consuming all night. We found this incredibly funny and reminiscent of something you might see in Tigerland or East 6th street on a Saturday night. It was a good note to end the evening, and the Christchurch trip on. I would not find the Japanese kid who decided to blow dry and straighten his hair in our dorm room at 7 am the next morning nearly as amusing……

Personally, I see no resemblance what so ever

Living on the road my friend, was gonna keep you free and clean

2009-12-02T19:41:00.001+13:00

Wellington (Tues. Wed. 11/24-11/25)

After three nights of camping near Mount Taranaki, it was time to start thinking about crossing over to the south island. Hopping islands is achieved by boarding a ferry in Wellington that carries you down to Picton, or vice versa. Living on campgrounds and sleeping in Voodoo is wonderful, but I was definitely longing for some amenities of a larger city. On Tuesday morning, Snow thawed out some White Bait fish. I’m not familiar with it, but according to him it is a rarity and quite expensive. It looked and tasted like long pieces of lump crabmeat to me. We saw an advertisement a few days later in another city for $69 per kilogram, so I guess Snow was right. After the white bait tasting we rocked out for Wellington.

Wellington is a big city and has a big city feel to it. It has been dubbed “Windy Welly” due to the constant flow of gusting winds that, like most other New Zealand weather, attacks when you least expect it. Wellington also serves as New Zealand’s capital with a city population of 164,000. Team Lacy has been utilizing information centers, called i-sites and marked by easy to spot blue signs, in each town/city that they have traveled to. I hit my first I-site in downtown Wellington. This hub puts the “Welcome to Louisiana” center right off Interstate 10 past the Sabine River to shame. Brochures for accommodation and activities lined the walls, organized by price range and location. The center is also staffed with 3-4 capable employees that can do everything from suggest a mid price range Thai joint to booking your first jet boating trip. I inquired about a cheap room close to downtown where I could park Voodoo safely and at the suggestion of the i-site clerk, found myself at Rowena’s lodge. Rowena’s is a cozy little run down hostel tucked right outside the central business district (CBD). I dumped my backpack on my hostel bed and headed out into the city to meet Georgia Cottrell, Mark and Elizabeth’s daughter at St. John’s Bar on the waterfront. The walk through downtown highlighted the well known trendy-hip side of Wellington. I walked past heaps of coffee houses and clubs decked out with modern furniture with well-dressed 20 somethings packed inside sipping 9 dollar lattes. The water front area was quite stunning and I took an extra long stroll along the harbor admiring the mountains and ultra blue water. I was surprised to see teenagers jumping from the harbor into the water as it must have been extremely cold and about a 30 ft. leap.

I met Georgia and two of her roommates, or flatmates as she referred to them at St. John’s bar, which appeared to be at max capacity with people drinking pints of beer and soaking up the afternoon sun. They corrected my misconception that I would have to give up live music in New Zealand, informing me of several festivals and events which I scribbled down furiously to google later on. We also discussed the subtle but intriquing differences between American and Kiwi education systems. When the sun started to set it became quite cold and it was time for me to meet Team Lacy at the Flying Burrito Brothers Mexican restaurant for dinner. We polished off two pitchers of margaritas and heaping plates of fajitas like the seasoned Tex-Mex patrons we are. The food was tasty, a welcome change from all the fish we had been eating, and the only difference we noticed between New Zealand Mexican and American Mexican was that their fajita tortillas were burrito sized and each order included only two. And of course the margaritas were watered down compared to Texas margs. We sat at the table waiting to pay for about 10 minutes before realizing that in New Zealand, once you have been given your check, you take it to the counter yourself and pay for it. We left the restaurant stuffed and satisfied and hit the Wellington streets looking for a little bit of night life.

This led us to a hostel bar called Basement which is as cheesy as it sounds. As it turns out, I would find myself in several cheesy bars over the next few days. I am clearly too old to be frequenting these establishments, but not quite old enough to stand out yet. At least I think so. Basement is your typical stomping ground for 19 to 23 year-olds traveling the country and looking to get closer in proximity to the opposite sex. I found it quite enjoyable to watch the hair-gelled guy with his popped collar polo two sizes too small try to yell over the Black Eyed Peas being blasted at arena volume levels at the drunk girl with a full glass of wine in each hand throwing her neck back in near convulsions of screaming laughter. I am all too familiar with this scene, but it still never fails to amaze me, especially when I realized that it is the same all over the world. But in the end, we didn’t stay amused long and our hearing started to suffer so we made our way out of there. I expected the evening to end after this, but in a strange twist of events it was only getting started. Someone suggested karaoke and someone else seconded that notion and before I knew it I found myself barking out the lyrics to Gloria in a completely empty karaoke bar. Nate did a stunning rendition of Cracklin Rosie in which he rarely had to check the monitor for lyrics. We all sang, we all danced and we all had a brilliant time. Upon returning to the hostel we talked to some interesting young German travelers before retiring to our 6 bedroom dorm where a young man from Chile (or maybe Brazil or Belize) tried to go to sleep as we giggled uncontrollably at the evenings’ events.

The next day was essentially all business for me. I did laundry, booked my ferry crossing and had the cables on my bike installed. I was ready for the south island.

Nelson (Thurs. Fri. 11/26-11/27)

On Thursday I rose early, drove Voodoo down to the docks and loaded her onto a large ferry and got settled on the passenger deck. The ferry crossing across Cook Strait is very scenic and I was lucky enough to have beautiful weather on this three hour tour. I arrived in Picton on the South Island, rendezvoused with Team Lacy (who had crossed over the evening before) and we all set out for Nelson with one thing on our minds: Thanksgiving Dinner. The drive from Picton to Nelson afforded me my first views of the south island. The south island is consistently billed as one of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet and it lived up to this reputation. I was told by someone a few days earlier that it is similar to the scenes in Jurassic Park where the helicopters are flying to the island and this is an effective way to try to visualize it. Nate accompanied me for the snaking drive through the mountains and our jaws were pretty much glued to our chins for most of the ride.
We checked into another 6 bedroom dorm at the largest holiday park in the southern hemisphere, according to the desk clerk. We searched high and low for a turkey that we could cook for Thanksgiving dinner, but were unsuccessful and in the end settled on rustling up four drunk chickens instead. We also made broccoli and rice casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, cream corn and the best imitation queso we could muster up with the limited ingredients we could find. All in all, it was a huge success and we ate like kings as usual. I had a wonderful Skype video conversation with most of my immediate family and also several members from Mom’s side. One new born baby plus aunts, uncles, cousins and even my 95 year-old grandfather squeezed in front of a webcam and wished us all a happy thanksgiving. One of my younger cousins asked if Nate’s mustache was real and I felt like I should go ahead and publicly clarify that it is. Even though the video cam picture was blurry I cannot exaggerate enough how much of a blessing modern technology is. Seeing my family really made my day. I have not experienced homesickness yet. I think it has been replaced by a longing desire for my family and friends to be here with me. The video conversation kind of allowed that to happen for a little while.

After cleaning up the kitchen we headed out to the beach to toss the Frisbees around. I tried to teach Team Lacy how to play Quashambo, a game that I helped create with some good friends at a campsite in Texas around this time last year, but it was entirely too windy to play properly and we soon made our way back to the dorm. We agreed to lay down for about 20 minutes before getting up to head out to a bar. That notion drifted away as quickly as it had been drawn up as we were all in deep slumber by about 8:30 pm, and would not stir again until nine o’clock the next morning. Needless to say, my first New Zealand thanksgiving was a roaring success.

Short Circuits:

I want to thank everyone who has posted comments on the blog, emailed and facebooked me. It may be hard to believe, but hearing from y'all is just as exciting to me as all the adventures I write about. I love to read about what is going on in the states in your lives, so please keep the communications coming. I may not always be able to send an adequate response, but you can rest assured that I read every single transmission and I am always thinking of you.
I have been posting interchangeable words on the blog pretty regularly now. I have even started to mix a few of them into my own speech. However, I have encountered one that really aggaravates the day lights out of me. That word is queue. When people want to reference a group of people standing one behind the other, they use the word queue. We use the word line as in "Dammit the portapotty lines at ACL are long". Where as they might say something like "Bugger, the bloody toilet queues are full at ACL." And for some reason, this really grinds my gears.......
I've added a few little gadgets to the side of the blog, I hope you enjoy them. I have also updated the photos BUT they go further ahead in time than I have written about, so you may want to wait to look at them if you care about spoilers at all.

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you

2009-11-27T01:51:00.000+13:00

I've tried to include as many pictures as possible in each blog posting, but it does not do justice to what I've seen and photographed. With that in mind, I've created a web album and link full of pictures for your enjoyment. I will continue to post pictures to this album. I have added this link http://picasaweb.google.com/robert.romero3/NewZealandWebAlbum?feat=directlink

to the websites found under the click on this section to the right of the blog. Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving! Geaux Tigers!

I set out running but I take my time, a friend of the devil is a friend of mine

2009-11-25T22:40:00.001+13:00

I had every intention of leaving Auckland and driving to Raglan last Wednesday. When I woke up that morning, it was cold and rainy and Harry told me I could expect that sort of weather all along the west coast of the north island. I sent an inquiring text message and when I received the response I was quite happy to scrap Raglan for a new destination.
I made a final trip to the Warehouse, New Zealand's version of Wal-Mart, loaded up the van with gear and snacks and hit the road. I stopped by Harry's shop on the way out to thank him profusely for everything he had done for me. I tried to explain to him how much he had aided in getting me started on this trip. He responded with a very simple but powerful remark "That's what you do for your friends."
As it turns out I would find many friends, both old and new in the days that followed. I did a city search on the GPS for Taupo and started following the illustrated directions leading me out of Auckland. I have thought about it for days now and I still do not feel that I can effectively describe the experience of driving from Auckland to Taupo. I could have had Robert Frost riding shotgun with me, spitting out descriptive poetry and it still would not do justice to the emotional high I made that drive on. The night before I left, I made a massive playlist full of driving songs. I shuffled the playlist and burned its contents to 6 CD's, unaware of the track selection of each disc. One of them came out absolutely perfect, and I will share it with you now.

This music was the perfect complement to the rolling hills, blue skies and picture perfect clouds of the New Zealand countryside. It hit me like a ton of bricks and I am still in awe of everything I have seen since leaving Auckland. It wasn't long before I arrived at the Tongariro National Holiday Park, where I pulled up next to a blue 4 person tent and a 1999 toyota mini van very similar to mine. Hanging around this site were some of my best friends from the Austin days.

Pictured above from left to right are Michael, Nate, Lacy and to my left is Ley.
I met Michael and his girlfriend lacy the summer I moved to Austin and we've been raising hell together ever since. Michael is of the rare breed of guys who I can have an in depth conversation with about the holy trinity: Live Music, SEC Football (Michael and Lacy=Mississippi State), and cycling. Lacy is one of my favorite foodie pals and might be the only person on the planet who is as passionate about chocolate as me. Nate and I lived together for about 6 months in Austin and it wasn't long before he had my stomach hurting from laughing with his vivid story telling. Ley is a friend of Michael and Lacy's and hopped a plane from Maui (where she was living and working) to New Zealand. Life's a bitch.
Although I have seen my pals as recently as September, we talked as if we hadn't seen each other in years. They have been tramping around New Zealand since October 28^th and I thouroughly enjoyed hearing about their recent adventures. I was still quietly glowing from the drive down.
From time to time I address Lacy with the nickname "Team Lacy". There's a story that goes with this name and someday I might tell it to you, but for now I will refer the aforementioned group of four as "Team Lacy". As I said before, Team Lacy is traveling in a mini van very similar to mine which they have named Turbo. After a day or two of consideration, I officially named my transport Voodoo. Voodoo the van. I slept in Voodoo for the first time in Tongariro National Holiday Park and was quite pleased with my slumber. The next morning, the five of us embarked on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. It is regularly listed as New Zealand's top ranked walk.

Tongariro National Park includes three active volcanic mountains (Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, and Ruapehu) and appears as pieces of Mordor and Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings films.
The hike definitely was reminiscent of Frodo and company traveling middle earth. The weather made dramatic temperature swings causing us to sweat on the steep inclines and then within minutes be shivering from the piercing wind. We walked through fog that seemed to materialize from the ground and would then suddenly disappear with a cold gush of wind. The hike included two steep climbs, one known as the Devil's Staircase. As we climbed higher the wind got brutal and we all had to put on every layer of clothing we were carrying. We reached the highest point of the hike and started to descend the other side. This is where we found the crystal clear blue lakes and snow. The vegetation and growth of the mountain changed as frequently as the weather. The final leg of the hike was through a rainforest like atmosphere with full tree coverage and plenty of small streams and waterfalls. We finished the hike in a little under six hours and were groaning and moaning in protest of our aching bodies for the next 24 hours.
Upon returning to the holiday park we cooked a huge pot of chili and potatos and then capped the day off with an hour long soak in the hot tub. Sleep came easy that evening and was more than welcome.

Taihape

The next morning I split with Team Lacy and headed towards Taihape to meet some new friends. Kacee is another one of my best friends who is lucky enough to reside in Austin. As it turns out she has a cousin who lives in New Zealand and was kind of enough to invite me to her home. Elizabeth Cottrell grew up in Atlanta and met her husband Mark in Colorado on a ski trip. Mark was born and raised in the farming community of Taihape and was visiting the United States on his Overseas Experience (OE). All kiwis travel internationally at some point in their young adult life, usually before or after uni (college). Mark and Elizabeth are sheep and beef farmers and live in a beautiful home outside Taihape. This was my first visit to a farm and Elizabeth and I spent the afternoon walking through the paddocks of their land. Once again, I was astounded by the beauty of the land. The terrain is extremely hilly, but I'm not talking about the Indian mounds on LSU's campus. These are volcanic hills and appear chaotic and out of place. The colors of the grass and trees remind of the first time I saw a Pixar movie. They appear so bright and vibrant that it is almost as if they are enhanced. Elizabeth gave me a crash course in farming terminology and procedures. That night we ate a delicious piece of lamb shoulder accompanied by koura (potatos). I made her show me exactly how she cooked the meat so that I might be able to reproduce the dish someday. I got to sleep in a full sized bed that night with about 7 pillows, an electric blanket and a comforter. Luxuries like that will be few and far between over here and I soaked up the comfort like a spunge. In the same fashion that Harry did, Mark and Elizabeth provided me with extremely valuable information about the kiwi culture and traveling the land. They sent me off fully rested and carrying a bag of fresh walnuts and another bag full of fresh corned beef. I was smitten.

Mt. Taranaki

My original plans included me rushing to Queenstown as quickly as possible to find a summer job. However, as many do, I caught the travel bug after getting a little taste of the New Zealand scenery and decided to rendezvous with Team Lacy. I found them at a campsite outside Manaia, which is south of Mt. Taranaki and New Plymouth. I was particularly interested in this region of the country as it is highly likely that I could end up here for a professional job. We camped at the intersection of the black sand beach of the Tasman Sea and small river that dumps into it. Team Lacy had encountered a new friend who called himself Snow and is an accomplished fisherman. Snow had shared many secrets of the area with Nate and Michael and also given them a dozen and half fresh mussels that he picked. We ate those for dinner and hatched a plan to pick our own mussels the next day.
Nate, Michael and I gave mussel picking a try the next morning, but only came back with a handful of small ones. According to snow we needed to be out there when the tide is at its lowest point and he advised us to give it another go around 8 pm. Michael was determined to catch some fish that day so he and Lacy hung back around the campsite while Nate, Ley and myself went to go explore Mt. Taranaki.

We were able to complete the Wilkies Pools Loop which included lots of steps. Mt. Taranaki is unique in that is surrounded by a "cloud of tears" as legend has it. It is usually completely hidden by clouds. However, when it is visible, it is another New Zealand view that looks so picturesque it almost looks fake. You should Wikipedia Taranaki as it has an interesting little love story that goes with it.
That evening we went rooting about the underbellies of the rocks along the beach again. I think picking mussels might be one of the most enjoyable activities I have ever taken part of in my life. The tide was low and the weather was beautiful. Once we got the hang of it, we found more mussels than we could shake a stick at. 127 to be exact.

I had never cooked mussels before but quickly learned that there is nothing to it. We ate every single one of those little buggers on plates of imitation Ramen noodles and fresh broccoli (yes, you read that right). It was delicious and for the umpteenth time as I was totally content. We capped the night off with a bonfire on the beach.
On Monday we returned to Mt. Taranaki with the full crew this time and did a more challenging walk. As was the case the day before there was a lot of stairs involved and in general we found the hike less enjoyable than the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.

Before we set out for the mountain, Michael and Snow had a set a shark line in the river. I had my doubts about them actually snagging a shark, but sure enough they had one hooked when we returned. I can't recall ever having eaten shark before, but it is a bright white fish meat. Snow instructed us not to botch it up with a bunch of herbs and seasonings as it would take away from the natural taste of the meat. He showed us the best way to batter and pan fry it and we followed his instructions. As it turns out, shark is a very tasty fish. The filets were thick and a really good consistency. Not too chewy and not too flaky. The flavor is simple and not overbearing, but still savory. This meal was accompanied by a fresh green salad and a few people claimed it as their best New Zealand meal to date. For me the fresh caught shark is still in a close footrace with the fresh farm raised lamb.
I'm grinning slyly now. Who would have every thought I'd have to rate shark over lamb in New Zealand. I am totally content.

Short Circuits

It has been taking me forever to get these blog posts set up the way I want them. The blogspot editing software is awful and I really hate using it.
I went to kindergarten twice because I had a late birthday. In New Zealand, all kiwi children start kindergarten on their 5th birthday, no matter what day of the year that is. So, in my case I would have walked into my kindergarten classroom at Westminister elementary late in October, a solid month and a half after the first students would have started. And yes, to answer your question, if there birthday is on the last day of the school year, they can choose to go to school for this one day.

You may find yourself.....

2009-11-18T00:34:00.000+13:00

living in a shotgun shack (check) You may find yourself

in another part of the world (check)

You may find yourself

Behind the wheel of a large automobile (check)

You may find yourself

in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife (negative ghostrider)

You may ask yourself: Well, how did I get here? (check! check! check!)

I'm not the first person to feel connected to the lyrics of David Byrne and Brian Eno, but as I scurry around trying to get ready to leave Auckland, I can't get this song out of my head. It really fits me at the moment.

Hello fair readers. I apologize for the delay in posts but I do have a lot of material to cover so I'll get right to it. As you can see from the photos I have acquired a home on wheels of sorts, but to understand how I came to be a proud owner of a toyota mini van, you must first understand how I came to know Harry Bowers.

Before leaving the states my uncle phoned my dad and informed him that his neighbor was leaving to travel to New Zealand on business, the day before I was to depart. He provided a phone number and asked that I call this lady, Becky. I had a nice conversation with Becky in which she provided useful information about traveling the country and I shared my plans with her. These plans included buying a used car in Auckland. She mentioned that she had a friend who worked on vehicles and sometimes also bought and sold them and offered to put me in contact with him. Enter Harry. I emailed Harry with a list of questions and he politely replied to give him a call when I got to Auckland and he would help me sort out finding a used car.

Harry thought I was from Tuscon and I thought Harry was a friend of Becky's. Needless to say, we knew very little about each other. Last Tuesday, after one night in the hostel, when I was ready to began my car search, I rang Harry up. I was very surprised when he not only offered to help me find a used vehicle, but also offered to have me as a guest at his house where he lives with his son Jeff. While the 2 irishmen, the long haired french guy and the blond from Sweden made great dormmates at the hostel, I gladly accepted Harry's offer to stay with some real kiwis. It has been the best decision I've made since I got off the plane.

As it turns out, Harry is a "petrol head", and an extremely generous and friendly person. I have lived with him and Jeff for a over a week now and we have carried on like long lost friends. Jeff is also a petrol head and shared a boat load of information with me about the New Zealand car culture. They use an interesting term here called "boy racer" which refers to teens who drive cars that have had distinctive performance modifications made to them. The street racing scene was very prominent here until the law made a concerted effort to end the accidents it was causing. If you get three "boy racing"-type citations (i.e. illegal modifications to your car, being caught at an illegal race), then the government will impound and crush your car. Glad I'm not a petrol head. Over the weekend I had the pleasure of watching Harry and Jeff drive Harry's 1987 Mazeratti Biturbo around a professional raceway. It was my first time to go anywhere near a car racing atmosphere and I thouroughly enjoyed it.

On Sunday we attended the Auckland car fair in an attempt to sell a car that Harry had been working on flipping, and also to try to purchase a ride for me. Harry successfully sold his vehicle and I looked at lots of camper vans that tired backpackers were trying to sell before there visas expired and they had to go home. In the end, I bought a 1992 Toyota Estima from a buyer off of tradme.co.nz (New Zealand's ebay), only after receiving Harry's mechanical stamp of approval. I've spent the last few days gutting the van and building a bed and now I'm ready to roll. When I first started driving the van I was reminded of Liz Lemmon's trip to Kenneth's hometown where she painfully asks "Why is everything a little bit different here", while staring at a bottle of Pepty Bismilk. Point being, everything in my van is ass backwards. The steering wheel is on the right side of the vehicle and when I try to signal a left turn, I end up with the wind shielf wipers on at full speed. But I am getting used to these nuances and I have managed to navigate the roads safely, so far....(I did purchase insurance and roadside protection just in case)

On Sunday night, I cooked a chicken gumbo for Harry, his girlfriend Brenda, and Jeff. I was lacking several key ingredients, but was impressed with what I was able to pull off. On Monday, we had a farewell dinner at a nice japanese restaraunt. And finally, I am ready to leave Auckland.

Introducing SHORT CIRCUITS

Short Circuits is a new feature of the blog I know I will enjoy. Can't really promise too much for you though. This will basically be my version of random thoughts by jack handy. It may include rants, raves, mindless ramblings, useless information and in general things that I feel like writing about that don't fit into the blog narrative, or that I just plain forgot to put in. Here we go:

On Kia Ora - you may have noticed that I have signed my first few blog posts with Kia Ora. This is a maori phrase meaning live long and prosper, or something like that. Pretty much every email I received from New Zealand before I left included a Kia Ora salutation. I was very excited about using this phrase, as I thought of it as Italy's version of "Ciao", which I love. It IS NOT Italy's version of Ciao. Not a single person has said Kia Ora to me and it is apparently just a catchy phrase to use in emails, not in conversation. I am not happy about this.
Auckland is COLD - I thought I was coming over here at the begining of the summer season. Harry keeps telling me that is spring right now. In Louisiana the definition of spring is hot, but not as hot as summer. Apparently in New Zealand the definition of spring is cold, but not as cold as winter.
Mussels are dirt cheap here and I've enjoyed eating about 4-5 per day on average.
And last, but certainly not least you know I'm representing Louisiana up in here!!!!

Ciao Bella

Call me the tumbling dice.....

2009-11-11T13:27:00.000+13:00

......after landing in Auckland 20 minutes earlier than the scheduled arrival time, I hustled through customs and retrieved my bike case and back pack. Both were unscathed. It didn't take me long to find "Seal N Secure" baggage services and pay for a few days of storage of my bike and then hop on an air bus that would take me to Auckland Central Backpacker's Hostel. I had some time to kill before my orientation with the International Exchange Program (the organization that provided me with my visa) so I bought some internet time, emailed, dozed in and out on an aging leather couch in the lounge, and watched 20 minutes of Charlie Rose's War in the movie room. I've been watching a lot of movies that I would have otherwise ignored on this trip.

The orientation was less than a block away from the hostel and proved to be extremely beneficial. I met a guy from Seattle who I was happy to tell all about my trip to Washington for the LSU opener earlier this year. The orientation itself consisted of presentations from 3 young women: 2 of them native kiwis and 1 an American kiwi who was actually a participant in the program years ago. They provided all kinds of useful information including where to stay, where to work, how to open a bank account and long list of do's and don'ts. They also provided a list of kiwi slang which I will share with you:

- Chur - in agreeance/Thanks. I haven't heard this one used yet, although I have heard "cheers" consistently used in place of "thanks".

- Mean - it is really good

- choice - not choosing, it is also really good. In a sentence "there's a really choice kebab stand right up the street."

- Heaps - lots of something. In a sentence "you won't make heaps of money, but it's a great experience."

- Mint - is also really good. Haven't heard this one used yet.

- Sweet as bro - Everything is great my friend/mate. This one is my personal favorite.

Another interesting fact covered in the orientation is that when referencing kiwi fruit, you actually need to say just that, "kiwi fruit", and not simply refer to it as a kiwi as we would in the states. Here, a kiwi is either a person from New Zealand or the flightless bird that resides on the south island.

They also showed a really amazing video of the "Haka". This is a ritual that the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team performs before each match.

Watch the video and then try to imagine Drew Brees and Jeremy Shockey leading the Saints through the same thing on the 50 yard line at the dome before tearing into the Patriots on Monday Night Football.

After the orientation ended I hit the pavement and got started with opening a bank account and applying for an IRD number (equivalent to a social sec number in the states, so that I can be paid my NZ employers and pay taxes here). I opened a bank account at Kiwibank which also doubles as the national post office. So now I can wait in one long ridiculously slow line at one facility instead of two. I enjoyed a mixed kebab (lamb and chicken) for lunch and got a lot done until around six when the jet lag kicked. I stretch out in my bunk with the intention of listening to an audio book for 20 minutes and fell fast asleep. I woke up around midnight when my roommates came in for just long enough to actually get under the sheets and then slept until 7:30 the next morning.

So that brings the blog up to Tuesday morning. I am still in Auckland searching for a car and staying with the friend of a friend of my uncle's. I am about to grab some food, so I have to finish this post, but I'll first share a little bit of my upcoming plans.

Before arriving in New Zealand, I was planning on buying a car in Auckland and then heading straight for Queenstown, with only stops that were absolutely necessary along the way. After attending orientation, I have changed my agenda to include a stopover in Raglan. It is described as a small relaxing surf town that serves as an artist's haven. Although I do not claim to be a hippy, I have found that I generally enjoy places that are labeled as hippy hangouts (Austin and Asheville for example) and Raglan has a well known reputation as a choice hippy hangout....

Kia Ora

2009-11-10T14:05:00.000+13:00

Think you could live off just these contents for a year or two?

Time to start blogging

2009-11-10T13:21:00.000+13:00

Greetings from Auckland, New Zealand!

I have arrived safely from the United States. I am now a full 19 hours ahead of Louisiana and Texas. It is Tuesday November 10 at 1:23 where I am. I am hanging out at the International Exchange Program office and had a few extra minutes. I figured it was time to get the blog up and running.

My travels from Baton Rouge, LA to Auckland, NZ went extremely well. What a far cry from my flights from Houston to London in 2005? I awoke on Saturday 11/7 around 6 am and finished packing. I left my house with my mom with a Kelty backpack, packed to its maximum capacity, a Camelbak cycling pack - also 100% stuffed and a huge plastic case on wheels carrying my mountain bike. I was extremely nervous about moving to another country, with three pieces of luggage. The nervousness soon turned to adrenaline and excitement and I would continue this rollercoaster of a cycle for the next 24 hours.

I arrived at the Baton Rouge airport where I was to fly on Continental to LA, with a stopover in Houston. I was offered to upgrade to first class for $99 and immediately declined. I am way over budget for this trip and my first impulse at the opportunity to spend more money was to say NO. Thank goodness for my mother. While I was busy frivolously turning down once in a lifetime deals, she was parking the car. When she arrived she quickly advised me to buy the upgrade and I am extremely glad that I did. I had planned on paying continental $120 in baggage fees to get me to LA in a coach seat. $100 fee for checking the bike case and $20 for checking my backpack. After I purchased the upgrade, I was charged NOTHING in baggage fees. So I ended up paying $100 to get to LA in first class style.

The flights from BR to Houston and Houston to LA went off without a hitch. I watch Julie and Julia on the way to LA, which ironically enough is about a young blogger. I was not impressed with the film, but I was impressed with the hot towel, the shrimp salad and the extra leg room. I didn’t realize they served drinks in real glasses in first class instead of plastic cups. Needless to say, I was impressed.

I got through international security in LA in time to see Julio Jones catch a tipped pass and run it in for a long touchdown to put Alabama up 20-15 against LSU. I watched the end of the fourth quarter as LSU squandered a few opportunities to knock off Bama. I hate to see LSU lose, but I quickly got over it and started focusing on my long flight ahead.

I lucked up again and was granted an exit row seat, which allowed me to fully extend my legs in front of me. The travel gods saw fit to pay me back for years of lost luggage and sitting in front of teething babies and kicking children. The girl sitting next to me was born and raised in Auckland and we swapped interesting travel stories. I watched Twilight on this flight and I still have no idea what all the fuss is about, but I do know that the chick from that movie is unconventionally hot. I felt the same way about her after seeing Adventureland. For my money, she blows Megan Fox out of the water. I had no problems falling asleep on this flight, but I did really struggle to wake up. The two meals we received were decent, but the crew was comprised of mostly New Zealanders and I got my first taste of the kiwi friendliness.

It appears that I have rambled on about the trip over for so long now that I will have to continue at some other point. I guess time management is something I’ll have to improve upon when running this blog. Spelling and sentence structure are on that list as well. Plenty more to come from New Zealand, but for now, you can rest assured that I am safe and content.

Kia Ora