The Yellow Brick Road in Oz

Currently Roberta and I are in Australia at a little beach town called Byron Bay. If you were to take downtown Ashland and move it to southern California and put it on the beach then that would be Byron Bay. There are almost more crystal shops here than people. It has a good vibe.

Here are some maps to get your orientation on places in Oz.

Byron Bay Map

I originally came to Oz last week for a security conference called AusCert which was really thought provoking. It will require a whole post to itself when I get back. But in the short of things, I realized that the security concerns in Windows might drive me to get a Mac.

AusCert Conference

There was a very interesting talk from an engineer on the One Laptop Per Child project. He designed the hardware and security requirements of the project. If you have not heard of the project it sounds like a good thing.

One Laptop Per Child

Expect more updates when we get back to NZ.

Lost cat == found cat

We recently got a cat door installed so the little terrors(cats) can practice their interrogation techniques on birds when they choose. It is one of the cat doors that has the magnetic lock so that only our cats can get in(or any other cat with a magnet) but we haven't been using it yet.

About a week ago I was walking upstairs in the morning and saw this big black cat in our house. Needless to say Haka and Tica didn't like the idea of sharing their food bowl with this guy. He slinked outside when I yelled at him but I could tell that something wasn't right. I went outside and found that he was extremely skinny and his collar was wrapped around his leg and had been for some time. You could tell by the look in his eyes that he was damn hungry and need a vet quickly. I tried to get his collar off but it was too tight and worn into his skin so I ended up cutting it off with a pair of scissors. He seemed fairly happy about that. Roberta went down and got a small bowl of cat food and some water which he scarfed down. It looks like he hadn't eaten in days.

I ended up taking him to our local vet who handed him off to the SPCA. I got word yesterday from our vet that he got reunited with his owners. Woohoo!!!

I doubt that they will be letting him outside again for a long while.

Blow Jobs in the Viaduct

Last night I went out with some co-workers after work. We ended up in the Viaduct. I had not been to the Viaduct yet, been meaning to do so. Quite the happening place. The Viaduct is this mini-harbour place where fancy boats are parked and there's this walkway around it with lots of bars and restaurants.

We came around the corner and there was this girl giving a blow job in front of all the restaurants and everybody is pointing and laughing. Whoa, didn't want to see that! They stopped after a few minutes. Neil my co-worker turned to me and said last week they saw another couple getting it on full stop!

Well I guess this is where the exhibitionists go. Adam's first thought was "was she a prostitute?" I have no idea, but prostitution is legal in NZ. I just don't know about public acts of sex.

At this point I'm more traumatized by my hangover and the fact that I have to go play a soccer game in a half an hour. My stomach feels like a gurgling, stuffed up and flowing sink. ugh Ah, yes, this is why I don't go out too often...

Congratulations Andrea!

I'm very proud of my little sister. She aced a test to get into a nursing program. She's always wanted to be a nurse. She got a little distracted by a cute little boy named Andre (my nephew), but now she's on a mission. Good on ya!

*Big thanks to Kurt for reformatting my old hard drive and cleaning up my old college computer for Andrea. May she suffer as I did with late night studying! The rewards are worth it.

For every girl and every boy, Yay!

Here's a link to my favorite radio station here in NZ. If you want to hear what all the cool kids in Auckland are listening to, this is it. I recommend listening to it at 7 am our time or 1 pm Portland OR time for the morning show. Then you'll get the title.

Radio 95bfm

Exchange Rates

When I was living in the States I couldn't care less about exchange rates. Now I'm a little obsessed. The kiwi dollar has risen against the US dollar to the highest it has been in 23 years.

This means that in the last six months our kiwi dollar is worth about 15% more against the US dollar. It was .60 kiwi cents to the dollar and now it's about at .75.

The US dollar has also been dropping against the euro as well.

We've been planning on sending some money back to the states to pay down some house debt but we might as well wait to see how high the kiwi dollar gets compared to the US dollar. Plus a regular savings account here gets about 7% interest as compared to 3-5% in the states.

High,stinky, hot, and cold.

Roberta and I had the opportunity to take a week off from work and have a nice vacation. We started if off by heading down to Taupo which is about 4 hours south of Auckland. There is a "World Famous in NZ" glider field there that does week long training courses. Roberta was interested in going solo so this was perfect. When we got there the weather couldn't have been any better for gliding although it could have been a bit warmer in the mornings. Luckily we found a nice natural hot spring river that you could go sit in and bake.

We stayed in bunk rooms on the glider field for our time there and they were really nice. There was this Czechoslovakian guy named Dennis who had some sort of OCD which made him the perfect club mother. He was always running around making sure that everything was done just right and that everyone had what they needed.

I was expecting to go down there and do training myself in the two seaters with an instructor. We did one check flight and he oked me for flying in their PW5(single seater) which was a little scary as I only had about 5 solo flights in the PW5. It turned out nice because the thermals were booming the first couple days and I had a few really good flights.

I took a second check flight to get my ridge orientation. To fly on a ridge you use the up going wind that is striking a ridge face. That means that you need to fly really close to the ridge face, which at times can be fairly nerve wracking. After getting checked out on the ridge I spent two days carving out the corners and having a great time. It really teaches you control because if something goes wrong you don’t have much time to recover.

Roberta was able to get some really good compressed instruction on flying because the weather was so good. She had a number of hour long flights which leads to great instruction time. By the end of the camp she was doing the takeoffs and landings with little help from the instructor. With a couple more days she could have been solo.

The final day that we were supposed to fly there the weather packed in so we decided to head over to Rotorua which is know for its stinkyness due to geothermal activity. The good part about that is it also means there are a ton of hot springs. Roberta was to do the swimming portion of a half triathlon the following day so we just chilled out in Rotorua and did the tourist thing. We checked out out the Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland which was really nice and stinky.

The following day we headed down to the lake where the triathlon was and Roberta and her team got mentally prepared.

Roberta started off the swimming portion in a pack of about 200 people.

If I was doing it I probably would have ran into the water and then scampered back out because of the temperature of the water. I am a cold water weenie though. Their team finished in a good time and everyone seemed to have fun.

It was a fun vacation and good to discover new parts of NZ.

Oh yeah, our cats are still cute.

Click here for more pictures of the trip

New Wetsuit for open water swimming

Sunday was a grueling day of trying on six different wetsuits in two stores.
The same brand, same size, two different wetsuits would fit totally different.

Triathlon wetsuits are skin 'freakin' tight! It's like putting on a small pair of nylons over your entire body that is 3-5 mm thick. I have little bruises all over my body were I was trying to grip the wetsuit to pull up but instead was gripping my skin. Ouch! This on top of my healing sea lice saga.

I took it for a test swim at Parnell baths and have come to the conclusion that I am totally screwed It's like adding an additional five pounds to each arm, whereas I was once a stealth fast swimmer and now, with a wetsuit on, I feel like my arms are brick weights.

But at least I won't drown, since there is 5 milimeters on the torso it's like wearing a life vest. I couldn't sink even if I tried.


Here's a link to the Orca wetsuit I bought.

FYI - It's Adam's birthday today!

Sisterhood of the traveling fighter pilots: Battlestar Galactica

OK, if I haven't already said this before I will say it again. Battlestar is the best show of the decade. Yes... it is 2007 and I can't think of a better show, we don't even watch TV, we have to schedule it to download and watch later.

Anyway here's a great article on Battlestar.

I hope Starbuck comes back...

Auckland Lantern Festival and Sheepworld

A while back I went to the Chinese Lantern Festival. I can't believe how crowded it was it was so hard to move we left early. But here are a few pictures of the display. Also you can click here for some pictures of a little trip we took to Sheepworld, which was essentially, a nice petting zoo.

I went with Margaret and Darren

First Single Seat Glider Solo

Roberta has been getting on my case about posting to the blog so here it goes. I actually haven't been posting much because I have just been gliding on the weekends and not much else.

Gliding has been progressing nicely and last weekend I had my first solo flight in a single seat glider. On Saturday there was a national gliding awareness day called "The Big Day Up" where the public is encouraged to come out and give gliding a try. A lot of the club members came out and put their planes together for display and there was a lot of flying.

I talked to the CFI and got him to let me go solo in the club's Smyk PW5 which is a single seat glider. It has a really short wingspan and is a tiny glider all around. Supposedly it is like a race car compared to the Grob 103 Twin Astir that I had been flying.

All of the experienced guys on the field had been scarring the crap out of me with stories of how hard it was to take off with PIO(pilot induced oscillation). PIOs happen when you correct to get the glider on track but you over correct. Then when you correct for that correction you over correct. Then it just gets out of control. Each pilot told me different tricks to get over the PIOs in the PW5. Bracing my arms on the side of the plane, putting a finger on my wrist to steady it, trim it back for takeoff, just use two fingers on takeoff, stick hard back, etc.....

So I got mentally prepared for the flight and pushed the plane onto the runway and got in and waited my turn. This is always the time that I notice that I have to pee. One of the instructors came over and gave me a couple more words of advice and right before he left he said "And this plane crashes nice too".

With all the pilots and instructors from the club standing up watching, I did the takeoff and it was perfect. No problem. The lift was scratchy and I just got used to plane which was very quick and nice compared to the beast that I have been flying.

I came back in for a good landing and got cheers and handshakes from most of the pilots. Making the transition to the single seaters is big accomplishment for me. Now I just need to figure out how to keep the damn things in the air.

Roberta and I are going to Taupo down south for 5 days for concentrated gliding instruction. Roberta wants to get up to speed but doesn't want to spend the time waiting around at the glider field. I just want to get closer to getting my full glider pilot license. Should be fun to see that part of the country from the air.

Wish us luck.

Sea Bathers Eruptions

OK, you know how I was talking about training for the Xterra, Blue Lake swim portion of a triathlon? Well, I signed up for lessons with Future Dreams. I tried all last week to get a wetsuit rental lined up. I couldn't get that to happen, but the coach said to just show up. I was going to wimp out and not go, but Adam wouldn't let me. Great, it will be like the polar bear club, but I will have to do laps in the cold water.

I show up and I was surprisingly in shape. Basically it was a crew of 11 girls and 1 guy, I was in competition with the guy for first each time. (Pst..that picture is from futuredreams website).

Unfortunately I felt kind of itchy out in the water. I thought it was just the sea water in contact with my chlorinated swimsuit. Later that day I felt really tired and puky. Turns out I got sea bather's rash or sea lice. You get this when the larvae of jelly fish get caught in your swimsuit and get rubbed around like a scrub bush shooting you full of poison. It was great. I figured out why I was so dizzy driving away from the beach. Because I was SICK! So now I have a wicked rash covering my torso.

I've been told that this is a one-off kind of thing, I've been swimming in the ocean here and other people do it all the time without getting this rash. I'm going to give it one more try. If not I'm joining a soccer team.

Summer is over here, wah!

It started to get cold here again. Bummer. Summer was fun and not to hot, which was nice.

I`ve been swimming pretty hard training for the Xterra. I'm up to about 1500-1700 meters three times a week, which is pretty good.

The cats still have poopy butts so we took them for a couple of overnights at the vet so they can figure out what's wrong with their tummies. Tough shit is better than soft shit in this case.

Went to see La Clique last night. I think I am officially over my circus infatuation. It was good, but nothing new....Except for bendy man who dislocated his arms in disturbing ways. Right now I'm inspired to pop my knuckles, but that's it.

Poor Knight's Diving

Last weekend we took a trip up to the Poor Knights Island and went diving with Daren, Margaret, Steve and Holly. The first day was really great, saw lots of sting rays, big slugs, fish, eels, kelp. Obviously I'm not a biologist, or I'd be giving you all of the 'official' regional names. Basically lots of fishes.

We went with the Poor Knight Divers and I would recommend them to others. Their boat is really nice, the skipper gave some historical context of the area. Much nicer than the Crazee Diver boat I went with last time. There was some confusion about filling dive tanks, but Jill gracefully gave us 25% off our next trip. We also stayed at their cabin in Tutakaka and it was really nice, though not right on the beach it had a good view and was convenient to the marina.

Hopefully for Easter I'll go up with Margaret and Darren to dive the Rainbow Greenpeace Boat that was destroyed by the French.

Swimming the XTerra

Crap! It's been a whole month since the last post. I blame it on Adam.

Anyway, I'm getting nervous. I was asked to join a team to compete in the XTerra triathlon in Rotorua. I'll be doing the swimming portion. Basically I've been going to the pool about twice per week but I need to up that to at least 3 or 4 for the month of March so I won't drown or get kicked in the head.

Wish me luck. I've gained about 1.5 kilos (couple of pounds) since moving to New Zealand, and that is not OK. I think it's all of the dairy and Movenpik ice cream. And the desk job....

Cat Scratch Fever!!

OK, I don't want to turn into those crazy people who blog about their cats, but check out what Haka did to my hand! BRUTAL!!

Ragged Ass in Raglan

Adam and I went to Raglan, which is about 3 hours southwest on the west side of the North Island. We stayed at Wild Coast which was totally cool. We had isolated cabins overlooking oceans and hills. Kind of like what the Oregon Coast looked like in the 50's.

They had horse expeditions, and it was definitely one of the most challenging rides I had been on in a while. There were very steep hills and a number of times my horse, Sundance, slipped and fell to his knees as I struggled to stay on and avoid the branches gouging holes in my legs. When we got on the beach the guide told us not to let our horses out of control because the horse would take off in a sprint and the rest of the herd like pack would follow. OK-Doky! I've been on a horse riding flat out and it was one of the most scary things to happen to me during my childhood. We did eventually get to run the horses on the beach, which was super fun. Those were some spunky horses! Ride-um cowboy, when are we going again? Just as soon as my ass recovers...Thanks Helen for referring me!

And of course Adam went gliding during this time. See all those hills in the background? Them are good for riding hot air, which is exactly what Adam is thinking about at this moment...

Christmas in Portland OR 2006

Well, better late than sorry....I went to Portland this last Christmas to take care of the house AND to see my family. I really had a good time and it was nice seeing my family and friends. Big thanks to Shar for putting me up and thanks to everybody else who helped me take care of the house.

Here's some pictures.

CATZ!!!! OMG

We did it. This weekend we acquired two cute kittens from the pound.

This is Tica:


Initially we thought that it might be interesting to get a pure bred cat of some exotic breed. We went to a couple cat breeders and were thoroughly disgusted by the treatment of the cats. I just don't think that you can humanely raise a large number of cats. And as soon as they are bred for money it looks like they stop being treated as pets.

Our first trip to the SPCA(pound) was a shocker. We got there at 2:00 on a Saturday and they were completely out of kittens and there were only a couple other older cats there which were by no means ugly or mean. We talked to an attendant and she said that there is stiff competition for the kittens and that we would have to get there at 10:00AM to get a good kitten.

We went back at 10:00AM the following weekend and there were already about 15 people pointing and talking about which ones they wanted. We pushed our way into one of the cat rooms and surveyed the cuteness. There were two kittens that were constantly playing and that liked to be held. They also had interesting markings like some of the pure bred cats we were looking at. Roberta and I quickly agreed and I raced off to make sure no one else got them.

This is Haka:


They have been nothing but cuteness since, well aside from this morning when one of them unleashed a flood of pee onto our comforter. They just jump around and run and play all the time. We got them these little catnip mice that they just love. We have take them aways at bed time or else they will be bouncing off the walls all night.

Here are some pics:

Pictures

First Glider Solo Flight

For the past 7 months I have been flying at the Auckland Aviation Sports Club which flies out of Whenuapai (Pronounced Fen-ew-uh-pie). Today I took my first solo flight which is a major achievement in my gliding career. Prior to 7 months ago I had no real concept of how to fly an airplane.

Today the instructor took me up for a check flight to make sure that I was ready to go up on my own. He didn't say a word on the flight which was a little strange. Usually the instructor is back there chatting away about one thing or another and I am constantly vocalizing my intentions of what I am doing. On this flight I was talking but getting no responses which was an odd feeling. I had to do everything right on my own without the typical confirmations.

I came in for a perfect textbook landing and we hopped out of the plane and he said that it was time to go solo. I strapped in and did all my pre-takeoff checks talking to myself. The takeoff went great and I released at 2000 feet. I flew around looking for some lift and found enough to keep me at 1700 feet for a few minutes but not enough to keep me up for an hour long first solo flight. I came in for the landing and stuck another perfect landing to much amazement of the people on the ground.

After that flight I couldn't stop smiling for an hour. What a great feeling to be completely in control of something so amazing and to see the months of work paying off.

The club is completely volunteer and people seem genuinely happy to be out there helping out. The aviation sector has a lot of die hard members, of which I am officially one now.

For any glider pilots out there, my first solo was in our Grob 103 Twin Astir since our Blanik is out of commission.