Taupo the morning to ya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.