Lori Lori Lori

Well... weekend is now. I have a CD that I made for Lori ages ago, but I suck at mailing things so I need to go mail it today before she comes over here and kills me. Wait... maybe I shouldn't send it. I could get her to come over here. And I won't let her leave...

This weekend I am going to try and hit the slopes, but looks to be icy as tomorrow and I don't think Ben and Mel can go on Sunday. Maybe I will go by myself.

I will be tramping and hitting up Gaz's birthday otehr than that... Sarah, SImon, and Gaz are all having a birthday together at the Kakanui house. Gonna be a good one. Maybe Sam will come from the Mount for it...

Last night Si and I hit the climbing wall and I climbed one thing that I had never done before... I need to get rock climbing shoes!

Ok, off to post Lori's CD.

Work then climbing

After work last night I just went home and chilled out all night... Did nothing really. Tonight Simon and I are going rock climbing as usual... Whoa!

Hmmm... where did the Darkness go?

Current music: Death Cab for Cutie - Lightness

I thought I had the Darkness on my mp3 player, but it is not there... Weird...

Last night after work I brought some pictures over to Sarah's house. I ended up staying there all night. Gareth shaved my head. We all went out for Chinese. Good night.

I wanted to do some snowboarding today, but I guess it is good that we didn't go because there are high winds on the mountain and pretty much everything is closed down there anyway...

Yesterday I became a fan of Gthumb. Excellent photo album (iPhoto-like) software for Gnome. I want it to have the whole music with photo album thing that iPhoto has though. Other than that, very cool!

I feel no pressure

Current music: Queen - Under Pressure (w/ David Bowie)

Last night was one of the nights that reminds me why I am here. Sometimes I get frusterated and miss my friends back in the States and feel like I don't have any friends in NZ. It was Gareth's birthday yesterday and we had a kick ass time. Sarah and Aimee threw Gaz a surprise party at their house. We all showed up there at 6 and had a big dinner. Everybody brought food to pass and stuff like that. Narissa even showed up!

After dinner we all just hung out like old times and had some laughs. Simeon and I went in to town later on and shot some pool at Spirit'd. When I was driving home I felt really happy that not only was I in a country that I love and doing things that I love, but I really have some great friends here.

Pictures from the party!

Sometimes I wake up early just to say GOODBYE!

Current music: Modest Mouse - What People Are Made Of

Well, another weekend gone and another week of work starting. I worked most of the day on Saturday to make up for skiing on Monday. On Saturday night I went over to the Kakanui house and hung out for a while with Gaz, Si, Daryl, and Gaz's Dad.

Sunday I went tramping. I couldn't find any people to go tramping with so I decided to set out on my own for the day to walk up Mt. Te Aroha. It was a perfectly clear day. At the first lookout point (Bald Spur) I stopped to rest breifly and Met an American and a South African. Then I kept moving. When I got to the top I could see Ruapehu, Ngaruahoe, Mount Manganui, and even Mt. Egmont. Spectacular views... Here is a shot from the top to the Tongariro region:


Tonight we are having a surprise birthday dinner for Gareth...

Workin on a Saturday

I was planning to hit up the mountain today to do some riding, but looks like that is not gonna happen. Not much going on down there because of crappy weather. Maybe I will go tomorrow unless i go hiking.

Last night I went over to the Kakanui house and hung out with the guys for a while. Learned how to shoot dice. Pretty fun game. I'm gonna have to hang in the ghetto and start playing on the streets. After that I headed over to Jeremy and Brooke's. Chilled with them briefly then went home and hit the sack.

I am in here at work for a few hours today. Not bad... drinking coffee and getting some coding done.

I wanna ride, but weather sucks

Current music: P-Money - Scribe 2001

Looks like the weather tomorrow is gonna be not so good. It is raining on the mountain today. I want to ride though. Maybe I will go and just rock the park. I haven't riden the park yet this year anyway...

Last night I went over to Sarah's to give her the pics from the 80's party. Her, Gareth, and Jack were having some dinner. All of a sudden, Ben and Joel showed up. Then he rang Mel and told her to come over and she brought Jade. I felt really rude because here I had turned up uninvited and then all my mates that they don't know showed up just because they heard that I was going there. Oh well, Sarah and Gareth enjoyed the company.

Time to go home

Current music: Snapcase - Weak Tyrant

80's party last night was pretty wicked. 80's Trivial Pursuit and 80's clothes...

Ben rang me today to go to the Hilly for lunch. Went there and he was nowhere to be found, so I came back to town and just went to Subway. Then I was told he was in the back, I was in the front... Ugh...

Anyway, I am done for the day and going home.

Moving time... in 3 weeks

Ok ok... the new pics are up now... http://cotton.is.dreaming.org/nzlife

Last night I went over and looked at Jeremy and Brooke's new flat. I am going to move in there with them in 3 weeks. It is a nice place and it will be a good change. Amanda was pretty upset when I told them I was going to be moving out, but I guess she needs to deal with it. She is pretty much the reason I am leaving. She feels the need to completely control everything and I am sick of it. She does it in a real sly way though and tries to make it look like she isn't controlling. Too much like my old girlfriend, Stacy...

October 9th is the move date and I am pretty stoked about that.

Here is a shot of me jumping off a cliff at Turoa on Monday:

it's been a long long time

It has been a long time since I have written anything here... Here is a summary of what has been going on:

Friday:
worked all day then went home and hung out with Hamish for a while. Nothing really other than that.

Saturday:
it was awesome weather in the morning and I sat out in the backyard and read a book. Enjoyed the sun and warm weather and just relaxed. In the afternoon I made some roll-up taco things for Jeremy and Brooke's potluck dinner. Went over to Jeremy's and met Lauren and decided to do some hiking on Sunday with her. Lauren is an American from California. Pretty cool chick... Hit up the potluck dinner in the evening and had a good time.

Sunday:
Lauren and I left to head up to the Billy Goat Track near the Pinnacles in the morning. A ways into the track we stopped by a river and decided that we would walk up the river and meet back up with the trail farther up. Yeah... we got really wet, then thought it would be a good idea to walk through the bush back to the track. 45 minutes through a swamp full of razor grass and we got back to the track bloody and tired. It was rather amusing though. We ended up sitting on some lookout overlooking the Pinnacles and east towards Waihi. Beautiful spot. Lauren made monkey calls and scared some random kids hiking the track. After the hike we went to some hotpools and had a soak. Came back to Hamilton and she cooked me dinner. I talked to James and we decided to skip work on Monday and go down to the mountain and do some skiing. We took off at 9pm and got to Ohakune at about midnight.

Monday:
In the morning we woke up and had some breakfast at the Rimu Lodge (where we stayed) and then headed up the mountain. The Giant Lift and the High Flyer were not operating because they were doing avalanche control on the upper mountain. It was about noon before it opened and everybody just stood in line and had a massive snowball fight. Amusing, but annoying. We had a good afternoon of skiing on dry powder. Pictures are coming soon, but I accidently left my camera at home this morning.

Tuesday:
I am at work now. I guess there was a bit of commotion about James, David, and I taking off yesterday, but I am not worried about it until I am told directly. My immediate boss said what I did was ok, so I am sticking to that.

I am seriously slcking

Ruapehu got 20cm last night and I am not there... Damn! I wasn't paying enough attention to the ski reports. I knew it was gonna be snowing and that today might be ok, but I dismissed the idea of going. Now I am missing out on the nice freshies. Ugh...

Last night Simeon and I hit up Spirit'd for a little while and played pool. He kicked my ass as usual. The reality show My Big Fat Obnoxious Finace just started last night. Now I get to see it twice because it was just on in the States before I left. Good stuff...

Work it work it

Current music: Cake - Short Skirt/Long Jacket

Workin it today. Worked late last night... went home and just ate some dinner and hung out. Damn I lead a boring life during the week. Jeremy just txt me this morning and wants to hit up the I-cafe for a sushi lunch. Mmmmm...

Stupid rain

Current music: Collective Soul - Heavy

Sometimes when it rains I just don't feel like leaving work. I just get stuck here and keep working. I don't really want to walk out to my car. Maybe I will just stay for a while. Damn... this MP3 has clicks in it.

Short weekend

Current music: Mazzy Star - Fade Into You

I had a short, but very productive weekend. On Saturday after I left work I went home and had some lunch then went to Kathmandu to check out their sale. I ended up getting a really cool laundry bag/clothes line thing and one of those microfibre towels really cheap. Then I went over to Trek N Travel and checked out their tramping books. I bought one of "Weekend Tramps on the North Island".

Simon and I decided to do the Tuahu Track near Katikati. It is just to the south of Te Aroha, but in the same range. Jeremy's flatmate, Lauren, was gonna go with us, but she went out and got on the piss instead. She is an American chick from California. Haven't actually met her yet, only talked to her on the phone.

Simon and I left early as because we weren't sure how long the walk would be. Turned out it wasn't too long or really very difficult. We bushwacked a small peak and got really muddy. The rest of the track was full of mud too and we were coated. It rained on us a little bit, but not until after we got some views. Here is a shot Simon took of me checking out the views towards Matamata:

Busting my ass

Current music: Loveline

Back at work even though today is Saturday. I guess it's cool though because I had a wicked day riding on Monday. I mean... look at this:

Talkin to myself...

Current music: Blind Melon - 2x4

Last night was a more eventful night than usual. Simon and I went rock climbing with his mate Andrew. That was good. We are really progressing and it is getting to the point where we need better shoes because our sneakers don't cut it.

After that I went home and Ben and Mel were there. Mel left shortly after I got there, but Ben stuck around and we went to a party at his cousin's house. Tiger was there. I didn't really talk to him much, but good to see that guy once in a while anyway. We didn't stay at the party long and then went home to get Amanda and Olivia. Everyone went to the Home Bar after that, but I stuck around home and went to bed. Hamish will probably have stories about the night when I get home from work tonight.

Maybe some snow this coming weekend?

Looks like there is a front coming in that will affect Ruapehu on Saturday evening. I hope some snow falls. I might head down there again next week in the middle of the week!

Last night I just chilled around. Went over and saw Gareth and Sarah after dinner. Tonight Simon and I are going rock climbing. Haven't been in 2 weeks, so it will be good to get back out there on the walls.

At work... are you surprised?

I am at work as usual and hacking away. I think I am gonna rewrite something to get better performance out of it.

Last night I just went home and made some dinner and chilled out all night. I need to start doing stuff at night other than sit on my ass.

We have no coffee here at work. We are waiting for Rocket to bring some over. I am sleepy and I want coffee.

Tired and sore - rewards for powder

On Friday night after work I left and drove down to Turangi to stay at my co-worker's timeshare that he had for the week. Saturday morning we got up and headed off to Turoa because the snow was looking better there than at Whakapapa. We had an excellent day. Plenty of loose snow and some powder to be found. The clouds were pretty low so we skiied above them all day and it was clear as. That night we went back to Turangi and ate dinner at Valentino's then had a spa and crashed out.

Sunday morning the weather looked terrible so we took our time and cooked a nice breakfast. We hung out for a while and then Darran and I went to Taupo for the day. David stayed behind and rested up. James and Geoff showed up that evening.

Monday morning they had received fresh snow at Whakapapa and Turoa, but Whakapapa was saying it was hard off trail and Turoa said soft. We went to Turoa again and it rocked! A lot of fresh snow and nobody there. The sun was shining and we had a lot of fun kickin around in the powpow. Rode lots of steep terrain and jumped off some cliffs. Check out the few photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/ldm5180/20040906?authkey=Gv1sRgCKS9-Yrolcr-Jg&feat=directlink

Last spa at Matt's

After work last night I was planning to do some cleaning, but I ended up going over to Matt's house with Ben and Hamish for a spa. Matt is moving out next week so that was probably the last time I will be there for one. I had to go home and do some cleaning after that. Since Ben and Mel are moving out we need to clean crap so that we get our security deposit back.

Tonight I am heading down to Turangi after work. I am staying at one of my co-worker's timeshares for the weekend. Should be some good skiing if the weather clears since there has been new snow all week. I think I will stay there right through Monday. I talked to my boss this morning and he is cool with me skiing during the week as long as I make up the time on the weekends. Stoked as!

full of mussels

Ben and Mel are moving out this weekend, so last night we went out for dinner with them to Lonestar. It was quite a group. Hamish, Amanda, Joel, Matt, Brooke, Jeremy... Good dinner and I ate a lot of mussels.

Before dinner I had gone over to Simon's house and used his washing machine to do a load. Much cheaper than going to the filthy laundromat.

Don't really have any plans for tonight. My elbow is a little bit funky from when I crashed in the halfpipe on Sunday, but I think I might go climbing with Simon anyways. If I don't I will probably just end up sitting around being bored at home as usual.