Month: January 2006

  • Just when you’ve thought you’ve seen it all…




    UPS trumps Sesame Street!

  • All this spending in New Zealand over the last month is a great boost for my credit card rewards points! Who cares about the dollars I have to repay now that I’ve earned enough points in a month to redeem a free Hamilton Beach 12-Speed Blender! I could do this all over again just for that!

    So in between packing for this weekend’s ski trip I’m uploading pictures from New Zealand and skiing out west.
    Caving (I did this the first week I was there, but after ski diving)
    Skiing (with Esther and her Oregonian friends)

    I’m sooo thankful for all these opportunities! It’s really incredible. Sad news for today is that I can no longer be in this Xanga Metro. If I’m going to give the address in our family newsletter, I cannot remain in this metro, no matter how important it is to Yusen and I. Any recommendations on a new, (PG-rated) metro?

  • *gasp*

    2005 Tuition Statement
    Amounts billed for qualified tuition and related expenses: $9,719.30

    *gasp*

    Spring 2006 Business Masters Tuition
    $4,956.80

    *chokes*

    Mumbles last words about state budget priorities going to K-12….

    Here’s an idea of what the 747 I was cruising around in can do when you’ve got spare time…and spare cars.

  • Home again! It’s great to be back and be bowled over by little kids clutching my leg and firing off questions!

    The month isn’t over, and I’ve had 11 flights already. Unfortunately,
    the two today weren’t particularly restful, and I’m quite exhausted.
    There’s so much to share! My first experience skiing on a mountain,
    getting my skis stolen, and lots more. Tomorrow, my work day will be
    pretty relaxed, and I can get caught up on returning comments and start
    organizing pictures.

    There’s a bit of a recap that I would like to offer on everything, but
    I want to ask if I left anyone wondering anything about the trip or New
    Zealand, the people, the culture, the costs, the ease/difficulty of
    going and getting around, the weather, my sunburn, whatever! So what
    would you rather hear about?

  • Flying Back



    You will
    need Quicktime
    to view this. Direct
    link     to the video clip.

    Possibly
    the most fascinating clip of all time, I know. Actually, it sort of
    captures the essence of a 12 hour flight in a full Boeing 747-400, one
    of the double-deckers (no, I did not go upstairs, I belong to the lower
    classes). You’ve got the yelling kid in front of me that you can hear
    at the beginning, the sleeping Nick (for about 11 of those 12 hours, I
    slept through dinner and woke up for breakfast flying in both
    directions), and the rummaging person behind me. Really, nothing to
    complain about on my end, a number of the people would continue on without leaving the plane to
    go to London’s Heathrow airport. So, you’ve got entire British families
    sprawled out there with toys and games and portable dvd players, with a
    full accompaniment of stressed out parents! The movie system didn’t
    work, so we all were given $60 vouchers, but you could pull out the
    video game controller and play on the screen in the seat back. For my
    part, I just watched the GPS visual to satisfy my geekiness.

    After that, it was just 2 more flights for a grand total of 5 in 3 days
    and only 2 more to go in a couple days. That puts me here in Oregon! Pronounced Oragain.
    Yesterday, I went to some of Esther’s classes and some more
    today.  Got to see my first Chi Alpha outside of Wisconsin,
    meeting the many now-familiar faces! =) Next up is going to her cabin
    with a bunch of friends, driving through tons of snow hopefully, and
    going skiing! Really, I should be shopping for textbooks… For now,
    though, I’m going to sleep lots today in the name of jet lag, hopefully
    get caught up on commenting on your blogs, and begin in earnest to sift
    through the stacks of CDs of pictures we’ve accumulated!

    Have a wonderful day, everyone! This week, I’ll be writing reviews for
    the 2 books I read on the trip and the third that I’m almost done
    reading. Considering I haven’t finished a book since grade school, this
    is serious progress! What should I read next? No fiction, no coloring
    books (okay, maybe), no Sudoku challenges, no romance novels, usually
    my preference is for books off the business shelf. So…with that
    consideration taken briefly into account and promptly ignored, what
    should I read next?

  • Bonus Footage



    You will need Quicktime
    to view this. Direct link to the video clip.

    This was flying back from Steward Island on Sunday night since the
    ferry we took over was canceled going back due to the weather. By far
    the smallest plane I’ve ever flown in – 10 people including the pilot.
    Jojo is sitting next to the pilot and, believe it or not, struck up a
    conversation with him. It was the pilot’s sixth trip of the day, and he
    wasn’t bothered in the least by the pouring rain and high winds!

    Monday



    You will need Quicktime
    to view this. Direct link to the video clip.

    It was a little windy! Jojo and I were on the Southernmost Point of New
    Zealand’s South Island, though not as far south as Stewart Island where
    we were coming back from. Good times, though, good times. We had
    spent the night in a farmer’s field, sleeping in our sleepings bags in
    the back of the truck with Dodgeball playing on Jojo’s laptop (we had
    already seen Anchorman, Van Wilder, and Blazing Saddles). I took a
    really cool time lapse picture over about 30 minutes which I’ll post
    soon, but just after it got dark, around midnight, a buzz of brightly
    colored lights slid out on the ocean around a point and came towards
    us. We both shot up in our sleeping bags and quickly realized a cruise
    ship was passing by! A wee bit cold and windy for that, eh mate?


    Tuesday




    You will need Quicktime
    to view this. Direct link to the video clip.

    Video clip is pretty self-explanatory. I should note that it is the steepest, inhabited
    road in the world, at least that has claimed the title and accompanying
    tourist traffic.  That was the last stop in Dunedin – we had
    visited New Zealand’s only castle and their albatross colony, along
    with the Cadbury Factory and the Speights Brewery the day before!

  • Arrrgghh maties! No USB ports on this computer, but it is the fastest connection I’ve found in New Zealand! Sad, sad news today, folks! I’m leaving New Zealand in a couple of hours! You can’t have too many exclamation marks! The good news is there’s a girl picking me up in Oregon to go skiing with me this weekend!


    Oh, and I leave tonight from here at 11p on Wednesday, January 18th. I arrive before that. And fly to Phoenix. And to Portland. All before 11p on January 18th. Gotta love the International Date Line. Someone please figure that out and get back to me on how it all works. Kidding kidding kidding….well, if it means you’ll comment, fine, make a dissertation in that case!


    *gasp* Still can’t get over the fact that I have so much video and pictures to post and not a port to plug into. Haha, someone just said “lorry” walking by. Yes, Sarah, I know what that means! I can’t be bothered! As soon as I can, though, I’ll get these videos up and start uploading the 4000 pictures I took here. Plus Lehnert’s 3,000 and Jojo’s 600 pictures. We’ve got hours of video, too….but that will take longer. Should I: a) buy a Mac b) buy a fast PC c) wait for the new ATI technology to come out to buy a PC? Your vote will be taken into serious consideration.


    Okay, I do have a question for all y’all. Walking around here, if I hear someone say they reorganized their boot, what do they mean?


    I will also accept suggestions for a prize for the best answer, accurate or not.




    Yeah, still in the airport. There’s a sparrow flying around next to me in the terminal! Speaking of which, I saw the tail end of that movie and was confused….I hope that doesn’t happen to me. I need to go through customs now, so I’m gonna wash the dirt off my hiking boots so I don’t have any trouble getting into The States (as they say here) because I’m carrying dirt-borne organisms or something. Did you know that there were no mammals besides bats in New Zealand before Europeans brought them over? Okay, okay, I’m leaving! God Bless New Zealand! Next time you think of a destination, don’t think Cancun or Aca-can’t-spell-pulco, go south! Watch for web specials like I did, and have a blast!! Thank you Lord for this wonderful opportunity!





    PS: I have a sunburn. It stays light out until 11p. Boy will I miss this. I’ll miss you, too, Jojo.

  • Today

     



    You will need Quicktime to view this.

    Headed off on the smallest plane I’ve ever been on to get back on Invercargill since our ferry for tonight was canceled due to the weather. Unusually bad weather for them, but what can you do. We miss you Lehnert!! It was a crazy windy night last night with amazingly strong winds, but we’ve survived and stayed dry, even with a pile of hail outside our tent. =)

    So this is the furthest south I’ve ever been, in the Subantartic. Yet I’ve never been to the Deep South of the US, except to get to Florida as a kid. What’s the furthest south you’ve ever been?

  • Today

     



    You will need Quicktime to view this.

    Yes, gale force winds predicted for tonight! Yay for tents. Here are a couple pictures from today – at Bluff, New Zealand and in the hostel here on Stewart Island.



    PS: E-mail me your addresses! I have tons of postcards!

  • Today



    Bonus Footage



    Lance was great – he offered a lot of insights as a New Zealand-born, Washington state-raised, New Zealand-employed tour guide who appeared in the Lord of the Rings movies and has a lot of local knowledge. Really great, yes, tons of pictures. I filled up my 512mb card and started on the 1gb card, still only one battery charge required. =)

    The other video captured our other highlight today in a slightly discombobulated format since the employees were yelling at me during the taping. I can’t stress this enough, just wait until we get all the video together from our three cameras and my cell phone, it’ll glorious.

    Today we bid farewell to Lehnert who is flying from here in Queenstown to Christchurch to Aukland to Hawaii to Los Angeles to Atlanta to Milwaukee. Please pray for his safety! And my sanity as I lose him… *tear* but Jojo and I are looking forward to the space in the vehicle so we can cozy up together and sleep there on rainy nights. But today is beautiful! In the 80s and absolutely sunny!

    One last tidbit, I am going to Portland via Phoenix next week on Wednesday, so I’m looking forward to seeing Esther. If you’re in the Phoenix airport that night, I’d say hi, but I think I’ll just inhale some hot desert air and head up north. Good times, good times… not looking forward to the end, but I know the adventures never stop. Today I overheard a conversation at a fish and chips shop. The girl was telling her co-worker that she dreams of Prince Charming coming and the two of them traveling the world together. A little different than the dream I always hear of buying a huge house and so on. Traveling is awesome, and I wouldn’t want it to be my whole life, but I wouldn’t want parking myself to be my whole life either. I really don’t have control, so it makes no sense for me to say this but anyways….no worries, mates!