Happy Places

I have a few places that I consider my happy place. When I think back on these happy places, I wonder, why did I ever leave? Why didn't I stay there all day? Besides the ever present and wonderful happy place of Bryce's yummy bear hugs, my happy places are:

• Sailing in the middle of Union Bay, alone or with a friend, relaxing in the sun.
• Drifting off to sleep on the beach in Rio; the matronly, confident women lounging around me making me comfortable to wear a bikini in public for the first time since I was 12.
• Laying on a warm, flat rock in the sun in the middle of Denny Creek.
• Standing at the alter, watching the waves crashing and being married.
• Watching the sea turtles swimming near me on the beach at Kealakeua Bay.
  
• Sitting in the thermal wonderfulness of Kerosene Creek in Rotorua.
• Relaxing in the waves in Coromandel Bay and Cathedral Cove, thinking how much my mom would love this!

Didn't realize that the list would all have to do with water! Should have known.

Just had the Rotorua and Coromandel experience during this last road trip. That means that that was a high scoring trip! Just think that we weren't going to do the trip because of budget constraints. Bryce and I remembered that when we had more money, time was what we wanted the most.

Nice warm creek-- about 95 degrees F

Merry Christmas!

People at work have asked me if I'm missing home around the holidays; and although yes I wish we could hang out with the people we love; Christmas isn't necessarily making me feel all wistful. It doesn't feel like Christmas at all here, and frankly I feel like it was coming 'round a bit too often. I don't think I mind this Christmas-every-other-year type of thing. Our goal for the holiday-- find a nice beach to relax on. That may be a difficult goal as the weather hasn't been too nice lately. But we're heading north to warmer temperatures so we're doing all the right things.





Hope everyone is doing well; have some nog and grogg for me! ~jx





NOTE: this picture is actually in full colour. eek huh?

Another month gone by

I need to try to post a bit more regularly I think.
Well since our last post was Halloween I've got a lot to catch up on.

The weekend after Halloween we went sking/snowboarding. Our newest 'home' mountain of Turoa had the last closing day of the season November 7th. We went and took part in their "Snovember", not much snow left, but we still had a good time of it. I think they had to truck this snow down to the base area for people to put their gear on before they loaded the lifts.
We got the clearest views yet of Mt Ruapehu, the large active volcano we ski on.






The following week contained my Birthday and one of our new friends, Dervla, as well. We celebrated at our new favorite haunt, The Southern Cross. It's large, has outdoors(including fireplaces) and almost always busy). Our group included 4 Americans, 1 Irish(wo)man, 2 Spaniards, and 1 Kiwi. Plenty of beer was enjoyed and we took advantage of the public transportation of greater Wellington.

The next weekend(11/22-23) we went to go walk down to the nearest lighthouses. There are two of them, one on the short line and one about 300ft above it on a bluff. It's about a 2 hour walk each way, but when we got there I noticed the bike stand and jokingly said, 'we should rent bikes'. Julie took me serious and I'm glad. It was a windy day(like most), the bikes made it much more fun despite occasionally feeling like we were standing still. You haven't experienced NZ until you've seen Sheep on the Beach. Man do they scamper when they see me barrelling down the dirt road trying to bunny hop mud puddles. (can you tell someone likes biking?).

Finally Thanksgiving. We decided to celebrate on Friday so we could share the day with you Americans who are a day behind us. Turkeys weren't too hard to find, but at 5-7$ a pound, they weren't cheap. We decided to enjoy the day just the two us partially due to space limitations but partially just to have it to ourselves.
I whipped up the following while Julie worked:

• 6lb Turkey
• Mashed potatoes
• Mixed Mushroom and Brioche stuffing
• Real Turkey gravy
• Hand whipped cream to go on

The real Pumpkin Pie made from real whole pumpkin which Julie made the night before

It was quite a feast. I think we managed to stretch if for barely three days though(my voracious appetite certainly helped.)

Since then it's been a bit more low key, we've gone a few short walks on the beaches. Attended our first Net-ball game(like basketball, but completely different) to support a friend.
I'm prepping up for our first 'tramping' trip, which is like backpacking, but you stay in enclosed huts(imagine a super rudimentary cabin in the woods). Not carrying a tent and the sleep pads(leaving 10lbs of ... stuff... behind), sounds like an activity we can both get behind.

Halloween, down under-er

So in our discussions with our Kiwi friends, we established that Halloween is known, but not heartily celebrated.
We, the Kiwis as well, decided that we need to have a little get together to share the joys of Halloween. Plus Jules and I are always looking for an excuse to host and have fun.
First the joys of pumpkin procurement. For most the world pumpkins are like any other vegetable, they're produce, they're for eating. Not just pumpkin pie, roast pumpkin is quite good and pumpkin soup is something the Kiwis are especially fond of. (though neither Jules or I care for it).
As a result of this recognition of produce as... produce, the pumpkins are small, thick, meaty and mostly available pre-quartered for ease of consumption. They would never be found in mounds beach ball sized orange squash outside of a store. The best ones are right by the kumara(sweet potato), around the corner from the onions.
After selecting three greenish/orangish beauts from the produce section I proceed to the check out. While in line I hear, "a little bit of pumpkins soup, eh? Good stuff" "nothing wrong with pumpkin soup.
I offered back a muffled, 'yis' (fake kiwi accent).
This elderly man , possibly even looking for an invite for the massive amount of soup I'd be able to make from three large pumpkins, added. "good ole pumpkin soup"
I didn't want to break his heart and let him know that wasteful Americans actually bought pumpkins simply to hack to pieces and let rot on the front step. That be like telling me that in China they use beer to clean drains and not to drink.
So I gave him a smile back and quickly and quietly checked out.

As our party neared we prepared for our night by decorating our pumpkins.
Julie opted for the easier drawn pumpkin.









I meanwhile carved an apple as part of an odd tradition I started with Ryan and Amy. It's a bit trickier than a pumpkin, but it's still fun. Plus you can eat most of what you carve out.



Finally the moment had come. Time to take the knife to my green-orange veggie.

I scooped and scooped. Guts, pumpkin meat, IT ALL MUST GO!







After a warm up beer, it's finally time for the carving. Equal parts determination to saw through the thick skin and determination not to saw off a digit in the process...
Tada.







But of course I've done this before. We had to have some rookies give it a try.

Dervla, representing Ireland.









Laua, representing the UK.





Amy, also from the UK, and on her way to Australia




We enjoyed a good night of our guests company over a few beverages and tons of snacks.
Saturday, beginning a bit late in the Wood household, is mostly spent relaxing.
At 5:30, as I open the door to get a stronger cell signal for a text,. I see what appears to be a trident reaching across our door-step to poke my prized pumpkin. I'm perplexed until the owner of the red pitchfork appears decked out as a devil with three costumed accomplices.
TRICK OR TREAT!
'Oh, of course. Um, uh. We don't have any candy. I don't know what we have for treats.'
Thankfully my quick thinking wife called from her relaxed position of reading a book.
'Give them popsicles'
'Yes, um I hope there's enough unopened ones'(I hate pineapple popsicles and they package each popsicle in opaque packaging to confound me).
Luckily there were exactly 4.
I heard the children brag from accross the street as they opened their popsicles.
'I got red'
'I got green'
(drat those could have been mine, now I only have opened pineapple).

Well Julie sent me to the store after to take care of our candy shortage.
Now we've got a stock pot filled with mini-chocolates and a properly decorated house.

Happy Halloween

It's been a while now.

So I'd say we're pretty situated. Julie's weeding and ask I try to catch everyone up. It's been 6 weeks in Wellington. A lots happened so I’ll try to keep it a little organized.
Wellington is very lush, we have 6-8ft fern trees in our yard and Tuis which make an amazing set of warbles that sounds a little like R2D2. We're about 1 hour from wine country which is a nice bonus we didn't count on too much. I've been indoor climbing in some of my free time, took Julie on Thursday night and I think we both had a blast. Julie is working a lot and getting into the swing of things, lots of of little differences in the structure of the job. I’ve been playing house husband, lots of cooking and cleaning.
We've had our first guest, thanks Ryan, and took him around a little bit. We tried skiing with Ryan (our first trip to N Island ski fields), but got rained off. Then I got one weekday with Ryan while Julie worked. We visited one of the in city nature preserve with Ryan and saw more birds, giant bugs and dinosaur descendants, the tuarara. All native. We also saw some more seals up close with Ryan along the beach. They stink for the record. We went up to Rotorua(also stinky) too and Taupo . We did see a whale which along the coast, it was quite far away though.
We've made friends! It's cheesy but it's been nice. One of Julie's co-worker recognized how cool Jules is and invited us on the above ski weekend with some other friends. We got rained off the mountain, again. Possibly the worst weather I've skied in. I don't think I've been that wet since my first season in non water proof clothes. Made an excellent roast and played games all day. We lucked out on the second day with them and got light clouds clearing to blue skies for an intense half day of riding. I know we all had the biggest grins after some good exploring. I get along awesome with co-workers' husband so it's been awesome. He's invited me surfing and kite-boarding(I'll have to man up about being such a wuss in cold water). We've also talked about going to the top of our ski field(more on that) and some other hiking or tramping.
So New Zealand geography/geology is a bit crazy. The North Island is very different that the South Island. Very, very volcanic. Our ski field is on an active volcano (Mt Ruapehu), it erupted in 1996(?) and has had lahars (mudflows triggered by volcanic activity) since. There’s a volcanic crater lake that stays unfrozen year round but is surrounded by snow year road, that’s the source of the lahars... There's two ski fields on it that are both at risk technically. North of there is Lake Taupo in a giant volcanic 'super caldera', like Yellowstone valley. Further north is Rotorua(which Ryan and I visited), known as 'sulfur city'. The whole city smells like sulfur, strong. There's boiling pools in the city park. There's boiling puddles right by the lake shore. Between Rotorua and Taupo are a series of volcanic parks, feature geysers, boiling lakes(most small), boiling rivers, hot streams that smell like kerosene, etc. There’s a village buried in ash, a mountain that’s split from volcanic activity, etc. We did visit one of the parks and we can share the pictures if you missed them. Further north is a heated beach and even further North is White Island, pretty much just a volcano in the ocean, which you can visit.
So that’s my attempt at summing up the last few weeks. There have also been cable type ‘swing’ bridges and weird pinnacles, and unsuccessful attempts at spotting penguins. Lots of homemade Mexican and Indian food. Even some good Mexican food out with margaritas. So much cool stuff, but it is feeling like normal life too. Pretty awesome stuff.

Wellington summed up

"Well, it's windy. But it's actually a lovely place, where you're pretty much surrounded by water and the bay. The city itself is quite small, but the surrounding areas are very reminiscent of the hills up in northern California, like Marin County near San Francisco and the Bay Area climate and some of the architecture. Kind of a cross between that and Hawaii."
From Peter Jackson i guess he directed some movie?
Since I'm house husband it's probably one of my responsibilities to communicate more. I'll try to start providing more regular updates. Suffice to say we're both pretty busy and having fun. We had a blast with Ryan visiting, lots of huge home cooked meals and wine to be enjoyed. Even got some skiing in.

In the swing of things

We've now been in Wellington for about 5 days, still waiting for our internet hook-up.
Here's a little recap.

• The ferry ride over was nice. The ship was large which made it pretty smooth(couldn't even feel it pull away from docks). It was sunny and we were able to see dolphins which of course made our day. However we saw evidence for why a 18 y/o drinking age is a bit too young.
• Our place is quite nice. It doesn't however have baseboards, I guess they didn't quite get that done.
• Wellington is smaller looking that I expected. The CBD(downtown) is wedged between steep hills and the harbor and most the housing is hidding in the hills and valleys around the city. It's very green everywhere. Very different than flat Christchurch.
• It is cloudier here, and the windiness, while exaggerated, is still constant.
• I rode the bus and then the train into the city with Julie Monday. A nice efficient system. Hardly any waiting and the walks weren't too far either. It was fun to go with her.
• Tuesday Julie felt very cosmopolitan taking the bus and train herself. She got her pass and was able to assure the agent she didn't mind missing the next train because she knew another was coming in just a few minutes. She really likes her 5th floor view of part of the harbor and the river valley that lies below our home. We both think it's pretty cool to set down in a new place. It's a different feel than our first month(which was felt a bit more like a vacation)
  
• I've taken to lots of walking/driving around being not really lost but not really on task. We'll call it unguided exploration. It feels unproductive, but I totally know my way around now.
• I've found the internet cafe system to use, and I've found that they cluster their stores by type. Outdoors stores, check! Snowboard shops, check!
  
• I'm looking to join a climbing gym shortly to stay in shape and improve my climbing. There's not much traditional climbing here or long hikes. However there are many day hikes and bouldering (unroped, low altitude climbing with a pad for any small falls). The deep outdoors is mostly a day drive away, which works. I think I do miss the south island, but this place could definitely be fun place to call home for 6-9 months.

Well that's my summation, hopefully we'll have home internet soon so we can more easily post pictures and Julie can post as well. Tonight I'm making our tacos. You wouldn't beleive how hard it is to find uncooked black beans. I've been to 4 grocery stores and 4 Asian/Indian markets to find them, success!

Winter spirits are high

Today marked our 9 and 8th days and our return to back to back days at Mt Hutt. My has the weather changed. Where as our arrival was cold with fresh snow it's about the groomers the last two days. Off-piste is a moonscape of wind swept ice with sun cups, sastrugi(wierd ice hooks formed by wind) and other snow-sliding atrocities of ice. Meanwhile the groomers are firm, but with good dust on top from scrapings and groomer chewings. We've been kicking a bit free-style lately with some friend jaunts into the terrrain park. Julies been cleaning up her big air on the park feathures while I've been cleaning up those grabs(still can't nail the tail grab, argh!) and a couple Front-side 180s on the bigger features. Yesterday was a sleep in kind of day and for our mid-afternoon relaxation we finally made it inside the lodge at our home mountain after 5 days there. We enjoyed a couple light flavored Export 33 (I think I need a beer blog), and some onion rings.
Today was all about early starts as we finally got out of the house before 8. Made the ski field by a hair past 9 but decided we had skippped breakfast! That would not stand! So we made a bee-line for our new favorite mtn place, which also served a mean breakfast. We enjoyed our cappuccino and mochaccino(eveything is a damn ccino, and good luck getting normal brewed coffee), with a delicious apple & cinnamon porridge and a ham and cheese croissant. We finally made it on snow at 10(no worse than a morning back home I suppose). There was a warm breeze on the slopes but the snow was similar to yesterday. Fast break-away groomers and moonscape elsewhere. We did explore to find a high angle hard-pack/ice slope which my single edge tool(snowboard) didn't adhere to as well as Julie's Skis(excuses, excuses, it was also some balance issues). Don't report me, but we did some freestyle even though I forgot my helmet. No spins on the big stuff today, but I busted a big Method Grab off a park feature. We left early for lunch a pretty resort place called Terrace Downs. Apparently they were having a private party so all us lowly guests were forced to eat outside in 55 degree weather(no prob) with 30-40Mph winds(problem). We scarfed our garlic bread while trying to keep everything from blowing away. We couldn't help but laugh. the garlic was blowing off the pizza, my wine glass started sliding, my dinner plate even lifted up a little. After that we skedaddled home to a pleasant Christchurch early evening.

1st day Skiing, Southern Hemi style!

So on Sunday, our second full day, we got up to the mountains.
Quick geography, Christchurch is ~60 miles east of a North-South range called the Southern Alps. The prevailing wind pattern is from the West. So all in all it's alot like being in a pattern like Cle Elum, though less winds because there's no low pass like Snoqualmie.
Mt Hutt is our new Home mountain, roughly 90 minutes through some of the flattest country staring right out a huge range of moutains that continually grow as you get closer. The fold of the landscape are very different from the Cascades, I'd liken them to what little I know about the Rockies.
This view is to the Northwest and the only operations in this direction are Heli Skiing.









As we neared the resort there's a parking lot for the shutte where the road conditions are posted. As we passed we saw two girls raise their arms. We hadn't noticed the thumbs. Ok, we're picking up hitchhikers in a foreign country, awesome. Turns out the two gals(lasses?) are Irish, both ski a little, and one is a PT(Physical therapist) who's lived in NZ for 8 months, the other training to be a teacher who's been around less. It was pretty funny to listen to the conversation on the way up.
Let's cover the road real quick, definitely not an American road. 14Km of no asphalt, just gravel, and ice, oh and a little bit of sluah. If clings to mountain sides, avalanche valleys(I'm not exagerating) and gains the occasional ridge top with out a second thought of guard rail. Meanwhie our 4wd(awd) Mazda Wagon has 1/2 bald tires. All while listening to the Irish girls chat with Julie about their relocation and Grey's anatomy(they love that Patrick Dempsey). Oh and driving on the other side of the road. And it's sunny. Not my Northwest ski commute to be sure.
The Mountain was stunning. It's based in one large folded valley with lots of stream valleys forming amazing contours and tons of natural half pipes. It shone in the cloudless sky. Both Julie and were instantly enamored with the mountain. Ironically the one song we heard playing in the base was American Pie by Don Mclean. It almost felt like just another day of spring skiing at a New American resort.
After a couple warm up runs we decided it was time for lunch. As we walked to the car, we noticed a metal walk-way that extended some 50 ft out from a cliff band that was the parking lot(no guardrail). Oh yeah, bungee jumping from the middle of the resort. I did not partake(too cold), but was impressed by the Kiwi's persistence in the pursuit of all that is extreme. As we walked between the other cars, I noticed a large green bird. I'd heard of the Kea, it's a mountain parrot that resides in the Southern Alps. Somehow I thought it might go lower in the winter and that it was like a parakeet in size. This thing is big enough to eat! Apparently they'll chew on anything. Their known to drive motorcyclists nuts as they'll chew the seats, the grips, etc.. Eitherway, the bird and the bungees jumping was enough to thoroughly remind us that this wasn't back home!

We packed in some great laps after lunch and called it an early day as my quads were starting to burn already from all the jumping around.
It felt great to regain our skiing legs so fast and to do it in such a cool place.
Today it's back to a few chores and tomorrow will hopefully be skiing again(weather dependant).












Conditions/terrain:
The snow was about 1 week old. Groomers were firm and fast with smoke type spray rising off. Off-piste had a break-away styrofoam texture(soft crust) 1 cm of snow-dust on top with loose dry underneath (10 cm?) that was rarely reached through riding. Aspects that received sun slightly softened, but low temps keep event the solar melting to a minimum. Terrain is a great mix of complex fall lines caused by a very folded rock. Stream cuts have further refined the contours creating constantly changing steepness and contours. Summit was wind swept. Clear, reported -2 at base at 1PM.

Grocery store, Akaroa

This has been the longest day ever, because we were wide awake at 2am. However, there's no negative connotation meant to saying it's been the longest day; it's been a fabulous day. This morning we took advantage of the empty early Saturday morning streets by driving on the left hand side of the road (we're careful not to say the "wrong" side) to the grocery store. The meat section was my personal favorite-- so many different types of sausages! The weird flat fish! I picked up a huge bag of "savories" (meat filled pastries); I devoured 1 or 2 as soon as I got home. Afterwards I decided to check to make sure that the meat was cooked (it was). Lunch: kiwi, nutella and jam sandwich. Ryan, Roy, and Tammie all skyped with us-- that really helped to make us feel that we're not alone out here.

Then off we drove to Akaroa, an area that was a sunken volcano that is now a gorgeous bay. It looks like Napa. I am in heaven here. I can honestly say that this place is more beautiful than wine country; can you believe that? Oh and it's wayyyy less expensive. The drive out and back to Akaroa was worth the stress of driving on the wrong, errr, left side of the road. Bryce did all the driving but I can tell you that it's a bit scary sitting up front on the left hand side of the car with no steering wheel-- at one point I had such an adrenaline rush of fear (no fault of Bryce's, the car just went a different way than I thought it should) that my fingers hurt for minutes afterwards as if I had been electrocuted.



After almost a year of living with the bare necessities, it feels so luxurious to have furniture. We don't really mind too much that we don't have a spaghetti spoon to stir our noodles, that there's no plug in the bathroom, that the fridge is 1/3 of the size we're used to, and that there's no clothes dryer. It's like we've been training for this. :-) We're happy with the luxurious: heated towel rack, coffee press, internet, and heated mattress pad. The cold is something that we've been fighting here-- I can't understand why home owners here don't all replace their drafty windows with more energy efficient ones; all the heat pumped into a room lurks away the second the radiator's turned off. There's 2 extra doors in this house to help divide up the cottage so that part of it can be heated at a time. Oh, and speaking of doors,the handles are so high! Not good for hobbits.

Arrival

Wow, so much to say!
First, we made it with all luggage, no customs problems, no car issues.
Second this place is amazing, even flying around on a partly cloudy day you could see that.
Third, the books didn't exaggerate how nice the people are. We already got one invite to stay at person's house and our car rental offered to help me buy a car from the local dealerships(not from his fleet).
Fourth, the summer to winter thing is a bit brutal. It felt amazing to walk out of the hot airport, but walking into the cold cottage is another story. I'll have to document the fireplace that functions for looks only.
Fifth, it's just amazing so far. It's starting to sink in how long I'll be here now that all the travel worries are done. I can't wait to go skiing. Well off to unpack some more

Sunshine and snow, part one

Hiked up from Paradise on Mt Rainier with Jules, her Sister Laura, and Laura's husband, Geoff. For those that don't know he's an aussie, so we had lots of fun having him speak Kiwi. All in all and awesome day and I've got a great famer's burn (red-neck + red upper arms).
Tomorrow the Chaos amps up a level. We fly out!
Finally, 18 months of planning, hoping and madness culminates.
We've still got to work out the car situation, and our longer term home in Wellington. But we've got our home set for our arrival on Friday(1 day air-travel, 1 day 'time-travel').
Our new home resort has been hyping their constant snow. Roughly a meter since the 4th of July. It'll snow one day and they'll have sunshine the next, it makes for perfect blue-bird days.
I figured I'd share.

Talk to you you in 2 day!

Oh, Really?

Julie says I should write a blog... So I'm writing.
Originally this was going to be the story of our adventures, and trials and tribulations of moving to New Zealand. Not so much a blog as just a history. However it's impossible to tell a story without characters, and a good story has plot and character development. One could document that development through actions, but I'm more a fan of the first person, so I'll go ahead and say I'll continue the trend of sharing my thoughts.
In the last two days I've successfully sold both Julie's and my cars. Anyone that knows us, knows we were pretty willing part with our cars. While both had served us well, they were never quite ours. We both received them as part of hand-me-downs. Julie loved her V6 and options, and I loved the subie's utility which helped facilitate my outdoors resurgence. However the line of emotion ended there. They were good, practical cars.
I was thinking about how practical we were. I have just a bit of materialism, and it seems it bites me most when it comes to automobiles. I started like cars at 14 and just got fascinated by them. I love shiny, loud, faster, good handling, you name it. Yet as both Julie and I have been succeeding at work I'd resisted buying myself a new car, as did she. I've noticed over the past few year of working with more of my peers that I drove one of the roughest and oldest car. Most drove something at least made in the 00's and many bought their car new sometime after college. My friends and even most my family seem to have all upgraded in the last few years. I'd be lieing if I claimed I was never jealous. I've always wondered if I was being too miserly or others were too reckless with their spending. I've come to peace with defining it as a sense of priorities. It'd be unfair to judge others solely one purchase, and my small level of skill with a wrench has allowed me a bit more 'freedom' in my choice of automobiles. So they prioritized peace of mind and a bit of flash. I've prioritized this crazy adventure that starts in only 2 days.
Now both of our cars are sold, both to girls getting their first cars. It's kinda cool and funny in it's own way. I guess it's not too surprising it's not for people our own age. It seems like our cars don't fit 20-30 somethings. Both girls seem very driven and practical. I hope they have their own adventures too.
But enough waxing philosophical about cars.
We fly out in roughly 50 hours, and by and large we're ready. I'm relaxed in someways but I'm still get fits of nerves. The current situation of sold cars and a job for Julie was exactly the plan from the get go. It took some work on both of our parts, but 18 months after we first started talking about it, we're here.

I'm Done

So today was my last day. Scary, but relaxing. Julie is right that we've planned this so much it'll probably be almost boring... almost.
I was suddenly reminded of when I quit Les Schwab. I'd worked there between college & high school and again my Junior & senior years at UW. When I went to leave in Sept 2004 I was 3 months out of school and not having much luck in the job search. Working 50 hours a week busting tires wasn't faciliatating a good effort though. Ultimately I picked up some money doing some political work and ended up at B. At B I moved twice and manged to handily beat inflation/cost of living. B allowed me to learn lots and do things I've always wanted. I wouldn't be an instructor, have gone to whistler/tahoe or proabably started climbing again with out the income, and the boredom. It challenged me mentally and emotionally at times. But it's never been 100% what I needed to be happy, or rounded. The last years have been good and very comfortable. But I've been craving a different meaning to my life. Paychecks and having the yuppie staples are nice. But that's never been who I am. I always be a little punk, a little WT and a little too hyper.
So now here I am. Unemployed, with no near term prospects. I've been here before. I'm starting to grasp it'll all work out in the end

Anniversary Day

I've joked around with Bryce that our impetuous little NZ adventure is so well planned out that it might turn out to be pretty boring. Pretty much everything's in order-- we have every day until our departure planned out. A big surprise came when we found out that my sister and her new husband will be coming from Australia to visit a few weeks before we leave-- luckily we are able to fit them in too :-) The plan is for all of us to go on a Mt. Rainier hike the day before our plane takes off. Hopefully it'll be nice and warm so we get our fill of summer before we plunge back into winter.

One major bump in the road though is the vehicles-- we haven't had one person contact us about the car or the motorcycle. We'll lower the price a bit but there's only so low we'll go for vehicles that work great-- especially if we may be coming back in 7 or so months.

I'm enjoying my last day of work and our 1st anniversary today-- puttering around and making the best chocolate chip cookies EVER. Later tonight Bryce and I will celebrate by walking to Cafe Juanita near our apartments.

Afraid?

The whole New Zealand thing is definately already opening my eyes and we've still got 4.5 weeks.
I actually had someone come out and say they'd be afraid to do it. I've had older people try to talk me out of it, older say go for it, say they're jealous, young say their jealous, and recently I've noticed a couple my age say 'they couldn't do it' and finally one gal came out and admitted she'd be too afraid.
Fear is a funny thing. It's seldom truly rational or we'd never get in cars.

People throw around adrenaline junky, but I think too calously. Most people I know that participate in 'risky' behaviors take tons of steps to reduce risks. Meanwhile we all drive our cars distracted or tired. Climbers spend hours practicing knots and anchor placements that minimize risks, scuba divers triple check their systems, sky divers will patiently arange their chutes.
I think a lot of people that participate either due so to conquer fear, or really just love the activity for the experience. I'm somewhere in between myself. I find I don't like fear or an adrenaline boost. I definately like conquering my fear mostly before I even take a step outdoors.
But that last little bit remains....
I feel like as scramble solo, as take that first hand-hold up the mountain, that first step off the cliff as you rappel, as I eye-ball each speed check going into a snowboard jump, or as I enter the point of no escape on a snowboarding line I've never taken.

To me it's about eliminating the foolish risk, taking all the precautions, thinking out every possible outcome, weighing the good and the bad... and then you've got to jump.

One can't stand on the edge forever. Backing away is embarassing, not even if no-one knows. It's the internal pride.
I wouldn't say I leap for just anything, until yI know how hard I can fall. But I try not to exaggerate the fall in my mind. As we tend to mature and gain experience we take less risk.
Hell we've already outlived our foolish years. Now we can make informed decisions, but too many of us confuse the being informed with being trapped.
Thank goodness my wife is brave enough to do this and encourage me to jump with her. I've always known we were like minded, but I'm realizing how much I can learn as we each push each other.
It's good to be afraid, it means your alive and your aware of risks. But I won't let fear define a life of boredom for me. I'm not afraid of sitting still, one day, but for now I won't be afraid of enjoying the adventure.

If New Zealand means 1 less nice car in my life or one less bedroom on my house... good.

It's beginning to look a lot like... well winter.

Call us crazy, well specifically me.
I love spring, the warmth, the longer days. I've got a four day weekend starting.
Riding the bike(motor), hiking, sitting in sun, drinking in the sun, sleeping... in the sun.
But I noticed a feeling about 2 months ago.
Stronger than ever I felt it.
Nostalgia? Sadness?
I'd walk into a "post ski season sale" and feel.... well in a word, mopey.
I'm always torn as the days get longer and the tempartures wamer, sure I can run/hike/hike/camp/climb more. But what about the snowboarding. Honestly the longer days of April make me feel like post work skiing more than ever and that's when most resorts shut down.
Alas. the restless souls that make up the royal "we" have decided to move to the Southern Hemisphere. I didn't even have to develop this evil genius plan.
"Genius Plan" you ask...
It's May.. um 21st....
The average NW resort has dwindled to a 20-30" base and a 50-80" summit. I've earned my turns at paradise and again soon at hood.
But what does my wistful eyes see when researching NZ season passes. 80cm base (30" for you yanks) and a record early open.
To which I can only respond %)#)$ WHY CAN'T WE LEAVE SOONER?!?
My little understanding of things says things happen for a reason.

So America, see you later.
New Zealand, see you soon, alas not soon enough.Oh, and welcome to the 70 day "season" of snowboarding.

Getting ready to travel

Julie has her Leave of Absence secured
Bryce has gotten his manager to agree to a ~6 month LOA and agree to ask for more if I request it.
We've got our travel gadgetry:
Super cool lap-top with good wireless and a built in web cam
get Skype, we used it tonight to talk/ video-chat with Denise in Saudi and it's super cool! It'll be the most common tool we'll use to reach you.
Unlocked Quad band phone that will take sim cards from anywhere else in the world(except Japan because the don't use GSM, sim card, technology). This will facilitate some phone conversations though we'll probably try to focus on using skype.
Tickets look like they're even cheaper now than they've been. That and our short-term savings looks like it could sustain us for a while even if the job market doesn't pan out.
I'm freaking amped...

Snowboarding, continued

Sunday, Stevens' Forecast: Rain
Well thank goodness for inaccurate forecasts!
I've never had a stellar day at Steven's. Bad timing I guess. This time we had a triple certed(Skiing, Telemark, Snowboarding) level 3 instructor at his home mountain.
Needless to say it was fun. We had to kill 20 minutes to get our lift ticket coupons so we practice on some pvc pipe for freestyle. 50/50s and a couple mediocre FrontSide board-slides.
Third day out of four I ended up in a natural half pipe created by a deep cut creek bed. That right there made the 10$ lift ticket worth it. Then we dropped another run with warning for cliffs through the trees(jeez this weekend was fun and tough!). More chutes/ double diamonds. Some food after 3 hours of leg burning laps on some of the best/hardest terrain at Stevens. Time for some freestyle.
Got our park passes and hit it. Rusty at the pipe. But hit the mid-sized hits cleanly with just straight air. BS 180s off random hips. Need to work on bringing the A tricks to the bigger terrain.
Got some credit on my riding again for fellow instructors. It's nice to here from peers or people I consider better some props. It's been a lot of work over the last 3 years to unlearn and relearn snowboarding on challenging terrain.
Got some good pointers too.
Over all this week I rode thousands of vert, lots of diamonds and double diamonds(WA double) at three major resorts. Did some huge drops, free style, 3 different natural pipes, three different tree routes. It felt great to slay to three resorts in Washington. Some great narrow lines including the middle stretch of Chute.
One of my best weekends or riding, in terms of fun and in terms of quality of my skills. Rode a ton of terrain.
Now time to bring it for the exam.

Long Time, no Blog

So it's been a long time since I(Bryce) expressed any adventures or thoughts.
My life has been consumed by way too many hours behind a desk and too few on the snow(thought I've been super busy with that too)!
Lots of teaching adventures to share at a later date, but I want to share my weekend first and foremost.

So on adventures:
This week I took Thursday and Friday off. That was the smartest thing I've done in a while. We lucked out and Julie had Thursday off so we went with Ted (whom I encouraged to take the day off as well). A powder day on Alpental was a blast. Ted and I have very similar riding styles/instincts. Face shots, cliff drops, stump booters. I felt like I was in a video at times even when I got bogged down in the wet snow or had heel slide a 6 ft wide gulch between two cliff bands.
Friday I followed it up with an early start and long car ride up to Mt. Baker with Ryan and Ted. While the snow wasn't exactly fresh or uncut, the weather was beautiful blue skies and the company was awesome. We rode our asses off on any thing from groomers to iced out tree runs to small powder fields(3 turns max) to soft but cut chutes.
Highlights: 19$ ticket, first run, some beautiful control dynamic turns down a 12 foot shoot rated double diamond, watching people drop the backcountry, 3-beer lunch, dropping a ~10-12 drop into cut powder then an accidental somersault but ending right back onto my board, the weather, the lift convos, jamming out on the way into and out of the parking lot, and finishing the day down the canyon in the sunset...
Yes a whole paragraph of highlights.
Saturday was some casual turns at Alpy with Julie and her work friend Karen. A good time. Karen was super jazzed to ride some Washington snow and it was infectious. The girls both had energy and it helped because I was tired. Met up with Nate(another ski school friend), and got a few turns, even found 3 more powder turns. Finished the day with some yummy Ethiopian food and an early bedtime.
Sunday was a clinic at Stevens...
More to come on that, too long of a post and it's bedtime.

Facebook

Facebook is really helping me out here. I got in touch with an old co-worker who mentioned that she stayed in NZ for an extended period-- I got a wealth of information out of her. Namely, hostels on the south island are really cold and you have to pay a premium for heat (shoot!). Also, the drive from Auckland to the south island is so long that it's preferable to fly. Also good to know. I wanted to get plane tickets this week and just figure things out later, but the rigid part of me really wants a plan! I checked the Ministry of Education's website and there's still no SLP job openings. Man I wish I could have taken that Auckland job that was available over Christmas-- if only I had known about it.
Right now I think that a good plan would be to just live in Christchurch or Wellington-- the two cities that we hear are the best-- and settle down so I can get an internship in a hospital setting and Bryce might get a little job with snowboarding or cars. I'm studying up on all my old med speech notes and I have more observations planned. I've got to get myself marketable!

Life isn't a rehearsal!!

I'm trying to learn how to be a medical SLP so that I can be more marketable (esp in NZ). Today I went to a nursing home in Renton to follow an SLP for a few hours. S. was great and even invited me to observe her for a whole weekend in a few weeks! While she was writing up notes at a nurse's station, we could overhear the news broadcasting from a nearby TV area. The news was about the stimulus package and the economy... S. looked at me and said something like, Can you believe all this happening? I told her that we were taking off to NZ and weren't going to wait around for the economy to get better; it could take years. She basically told me, Good for You and then said that this mess has made her realize that you aren't really as secure as you think you are, which she said was kind of freeing in a way.
I like that way of looking at things, and told her so. She said her sister has a quote,
Life isn't a rehearsal!!

Later we went over a client list that showed that someone just passed away over the weekend. The computer software actually stated, "Expired." Not a very compassionate term... S. was unsure of how I would react to that and just looked at me. I said, "Oh she went to the play."

filtered sunlight

On the radio yesterday I heard that the weather would be "filtered sunlight." That's a nice sounding phrase for the worst type of sky at all: High Clouds Sky. yuck.

The day started off right with blue sky and bagels at Hot Bagels in Ravenna. We walked around Green Lake, got Sarah a souvenir in Fremont, and tried to get burgers at Gordo's in Ballard but found it was closed! We checked out Twinline Motorcycles in Georgetown and ended up at Starbucks in Alki to read for a bit. The day was just sunny enough to make me really, really dread the forecasted rain for the next day. I sat in a parking lot in West Seattle reading and watching the blue sky until it got dark.


I desperately want to live somewhere where I don't have to feel so depressed on a sunny day because I know how fleeting it is.

Hawaii?!

A woman at one of my schools is married to a Kiwi. I talked to her today about how she gets to NZ; she said that since she has kids, they break up the long flight by stopping over in Hawaii. Now THERE's an idea!! Bryce and I looked up flight info and it's totally feasible; just a few 100 bucks each for us to fly there. We're pretty excited because losing out on our Summer by spending it in Southern Hemisphere's winter sounded a bit dreary. Hawaii might make us feel A LOT better. We're going to see if we can use one of our timeshares in Honolulu to make the trip even cheaper. Plus the trip will coincide nicely with our first wedding anniversary!

Goals

So I don't beleive in N.Y. Resolutions.
I read someone quoted as saying they're a procrastinators excuse and while I'm the ultimate procrastinator I don't partake. I like to pick any day to make a change.
However it just so happens to be the 4th and I'm thinking of goals. I'm going to keep the published ones limited to physical goals.
My life has changed a lot since the last time I really made a goal list. I decided to start the climbing that I've always wanted to do last year but I haven't truly made a goal list...
So here I go...
Use ellipses less in my online posting... J/k
Run a new type of race, I've ran two 1/2 marathons now. I've improved and want to continue to improve but need a new challenge. See below post...
Get a stamp on my passport Julie encouraged me to finally get my passport, now it's time to use it. The worlds an amazing place, or so I've read and heard.
Snowboard my rear off 360s, boxes, big air grabs, exiting a super pipe and carving the Nat(sh). A late start of the season is no excuse to not hit 40, and why aren't I hiking more once the lifts stop.
Climbing is my summer snowboarding That means train, study, get better, stronger, faster, etc. I need another volcanic summit this year.

Mountain to Sound Relay, Who's in?

23 mi mtn bike
50 mi road bike
12mi kayak
13.5 mi run
6 mi "sprint"
From Snoqualmie pass to Golden Garden park
June 21st. Unfortunately it's only 6 days before the Seattle(Bellevue) Rock'n'roll marathon I want to do.
I'm thinking I'd like to do the 6 mi if I can piece together a team...