NZ Life

It was great — better than the Caribbean IMHO. Must go back, and must stay longer. Have a look at the photo set on Flickr. There aren’t any comments yet but we’ll get around to those in short order.

I received the following email today which just made my day:

Hello Kalafut
You have taken a very nice picture of the French Farm
winery . At the moment I am trying to find some photos for
a special edition on vineyards and wineries for the New
Zealand magazine Cuisine and this photo would be perfect. I
was wondering whether you would give your permission for us
to publish the image in the magazine. It would of course be
credited with your name. If you were happy with this, we
would need a reasonably large resolution for printing
(300dpi)
Please let me know what you think.

With kind regards

Sybille

I knew that $25 Flickr Pro account would pay off. I’ve always dreamed of being published in “NZ Cuisine”! And the photo in question is hardly stand out… Just a building, lots of parking lot and kind of washed out. Nonetheless, I see coffee table edition of Cuisine in our future 🙂

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Tomorrow, we’re Fiji-bound for a few days. It’s a four-hour flight from cold and rainy to warm and rainy (at least the next couple days), and we can’t wait. I’ve viewing it as a big decompression chamber where I’m isolated from everything CAT, Trimble, NZ, computers, rental stuff, winter, … Books, beach and oversweet resort drinks are just too appealing right now.

In the morning just after sunrise (provided we see the sun on that particular day), we’re treated to a fantastic view of the Southern Alps due east of Christchurch. As you can see, they’re snow covered–very much so this year. NZ has had a lot of precipitation this winter, and that’s making for a very good ski season. This weekend we’ll check it out for ourselves at Mt. Hutt.
The ski field is only about 1 1/2 hours from Christchurch, but the road conditions deteriorate enough that chains are required. This chain thing is a new one to me and I was shocked at the price: $250-350 NZD for a pair!?! But that’s for the good ones. A decorative set that will get you past the checkpoint only runs $98, seen here in all their flimsy glory.

I’ve got a new friend :-). He visits me almost everyday. He loves sunning himself on top of the grill, oh what a life!! It’s going to be cold again this weekend, so I suppose my dear friend will not be keeping me company.

Jim’s been away to Japan, and I am on a mission…. to get away from winter 😉
Well, I have just booked our winter vacation away from the rain and cold. Jim and I are going to FIJI 🙂

Just before work there was enough light to take some photos.

…and raining and blowing and generally nasty out. I’d heard that it would be pandemonium here when it snowed, since they get practice with it about once a year, so I’m quite looking forward to seeing what disorder results. I could tell something was awry when the morning DJs who wake me up were overly giddy and talking about school closings. (They’re even playing “The Flight of the Valkyries” during the weather/traffic report which means it’s really bad.) It’s still dark here and while I did see some snow on a neighbor’s roof, the roads looked perfectly fine. No photos just yet…

I thought I’d have to wait a bit longer for this given that it was about 65F only two days ago, but weather calamity strikes NZ! Snow here and down the East coast, tornadoes and floods on the West coast. Bring it on, Tasman Sea.

Well our broadband has decided to revert back to pre-56k modem speeds. It’s shockingly bad how unusable most every web service is at these speeds. I spent a good 3o minutes on the phone with the Xtra tech support and they’re actually taking an interest and seem rather competent. My fear is that there is something with the neighborhood service that they won’t fix, as I’ve seen some little newsletter blurbs about crap internet service in Westmorland. If it stays at 26k, we’re breaking our lease and moving! No satellite TV is tolerable, but dying internet offends my post-1998 values.

Feel free to rub in just how snappy your connection is by clicking here.

For the past week the NZ media hasn’t had enough to say about The Handbag Incident. The abridged story goes something like:

• Wellington rugby player Chris Masoe is in a Christchurch bar following their defeat in the Super 14 tournament finals (it’s finally over).
• Masoe is pissed (in the NZ sense) and trips over an innocent bystander. Masoe then gets pissed (in the US sense) and punches the guy. The guy’s friend Nicole Davies is sitting right there.
• Masoe’s teammate Tana Umaga takes Nicole’s handbag and whacks Masoe with it, eventually making him cry and leave the bar.
• Masoe is fined $3000, Nicole’s cell phone is broken.

Enter TradeMe, the NZ eBay. Since the Incident people have wasted no time selling silly memorabilia and spending outrageous sums to buy this crap. The crown jewel is, of course, The Handbag, and that just sold for a handsome $22,000 NZD ($13,800 USD). An acrylic drawing of the handbag picture on TradeMe sold for $600. Bidding on camera footage from the bar is at around $2500. In a week I bet this stuff goes for 1/2 the price, in two weeks 1/20th. So go the opportunist!! I was impressed that Ms. Davies jumped at the chance to sell the bag while the getting was good, but then I came across this interview quote:

“She confirmed she had only traded once on [TradeMe] before – and that was to buy a DVD which claimed the Twin Towers were deliberately demolished and the September 11 attacks were a fraud.” –New Zealand Herald

Hmmm… not as impressed. OK so she’s an idiot who is $22,000 richer. Better than the “successful” bidders Sue Langmaid and Aaron Crapp (I kid you not) who have just paid 733x face value for a bag. Huge amount of media minutes/pages, lots of TradeMe junk, a $3000 fine and broken cellphone… this is a major economic event in NZ! (Dislodging the other economic story in NZ about rising petrol prices which keep people from putting food on their table… not nearly as fun and The Handbag Incident.)

Hello Mums (Tan & Kalafut). Have a wonderful Mother’s Day. Sorry Jim and I could not spend the day with you. We hope you spend the day doing nothing for a change 🙂 Relax and just enjoy the day.

We love you.