Finally.  It’s been near a month before I’ve seen someone who I could call a good old friend, rather than a new friend.  I was really looking forward to, and really

And what a wonderful weekend!  After getting off the plane (Tauranga and Wellington are about 7 hours by car - 1 hour by double-engine propeller plane) in Wellington Airport, we ( Read more... )

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This morning, I got up, and it turns out two things I’ve been waiting for have arrived - the mirror for Wendy (my car) and my IRD (tax) number.

I can has paycheck? W00t!

I spent a couple of minutes out in the sun working on the car, got the mirror in place after a few missteps, so now I’m WoF (car inspection) ready.

After that, Kelly and ( Read more... )

Something cool before I get to the pretty pictures.  First, the Otomotai pool is awesome… but the heating pump broke.  The pool temp was 23.5 degrees Celsius, which I knew was cold, despite not having any idea how to convert Celsius into Fahrenheit.  I’m pretty good with most metric system estimates - meters, liters and kilos. Temperature still ( Read more... )

Perfect timing, too.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been running off of adrenaline.  And I’m starting a new job, new life, new friends, new country… and right now it’s 7:00pm, and I’m extremely worn out.

It’s stress.  I’ve had it before - when I moved back to Austin.  All the symptoms are there - that run-down feeling combined with back pain ( Read more... )

No, really.

Was planning to head to Rotorua but my neighbor, student-nurse Kelly (along with her roommate, Melanie,) offered to go with me up to Mt. Manganui.  Figuring that Mt. Manganui with people was more fun than Rotorua alone, I went.

And got these pictures.

And a sunburn.

( Read more... )

Work is frustrating; not in a bad way, or maybe, yes, in a bad way, but…

It’s odd, but there’s a lot more corporate paperwork in this job than their is at my old job.  Which is weird, because my old job was at a $200M corporation, but there you go.

I’ll get used to the idea as we go, of course.

Spent today’s exercise session away from the ( Read more... )

Can’t really talk about work for a couple of reasons, but it is the primary reason I’m not blogging.  Only observations that I can talk about: I have my own desk but not my own office - in many ways, it helps the workspace.

I’m bringing in my own laptop everyday to work, because the computer they ordered for me hasn’t arrived yet.  But it’s nice ( Read more... )

After the fiasco this morning, I headed to Otumoetai’s public swimming pool.  It’s awesome.  For $3.30 NZ ($2.20 US) per day, you can swim in a heated pool that’s open to the elements on hot summer days, and closed on cold winter ones.  It was awesome, and the best part - it’s less than a mile from my flat!

Afterwards, I went to the beach near ( Read more... )