OK, Postie fiends....

As promised.

Waiheke Island
21 - 22 Dec



This is one of the reasons we decided NZ was the place for me to work... It reminds me of home


My lovely looking out at Whakanewha Bay, Koi Island in distance. This was on a hike from our chalet on Waiheke.


Just the bog standard view from the chalet...


Totally travel-sick... and still beautiful.


Apparently, this is the face I make when I get out of the US


I know... you are all tired of the boring, bland photos...


I might want to mention that all of these are un-retouched. These are the colours.


Who would want a house here?


'cuse me sir, we wuld like a 'ouse 'ere!


A sunset view to Auckland


Slightly more West, Auckland with Rangitoto Island


Spooky, Scary


...and with that, the first part of my holiday photo update comes to a close.
Next time: Wellington.

I'm Back.

So. This will just be a teaser post. I'm back to unfortunately being physically solo in Auckland. Plus, work resumes in a few hours.

Here is a wee list of our tour de North Island:
21 Dec - take ferry to Waiheke Island, pick up hired car, drive to Stoney Batter, and to our awesome chalet, celebrate our 18 month
22 Dec - drive around, go to an olive oil tasting and Te Whau winery, go for a short walk... ends up being a few KM of precarious tramping, very pretty, though, hung out with some alpacas
23 Dec - take ferry back to Auckland

AZT Break

25 Dec - Fly from Auckland to Wellington, pick up hired car, drive to hotel
26 Dec - spend a good portion of the day at the best museum I have ever been to... Te Papa
27 Dec - Drive the 2 to Napier, eat at Indian restaurant
28 Dec - Drive to Te Mata Peak (pretty), go to Te Mata/Black Barn/Church Road vineyards, Shop, get take away (same Indian restaurant - it was good)
29 Dec - Drive to Rotorua by way of Taupo, go to see all the cool geothermal stuff, check in to full-on B&B... (it was lovely, we just might not be B&B people)
30 Dec - Hiking, swimming(-ish) in Blue Lake, massage at Hell's Gate
31 Dec - Drive back to Auckland, return car, go to first night thing at aotea centre, back to apartment to watch fireworks from skytower

photos coming....

For your Desktop: 13 Dec

Auckland from Waiheke Island

In other news...

The web team made me a vegan chocolate cake for my US birthday today.
It was quite good.
...and very nice.

More MacIntosh Than Wright...meethinks

For Kyle:



...this is tucked away under an awning. CityScapes. Art.

I found it walking back from grocery shopping. There will be many more pictures soon. Especially since Liz will be here in hours... and we will be doing a lot of sight seeing.


(but I will not post enough pictures satiate people's desire to come visit)

Berth Day

So. Starting to write this just as it transitions from 12 to 13 December in enzed. Which means it is 12 December in the US. Which means I've had a full birthday today, but that my birthday is really today in the US.I'm watching an episode of Big Love... which I already watched yesterday. Which means it seems a bit like Groundhog Day. Which means it seems a bit like Groundhog Day.

Midway through the week of spending half of my working hours with our web developers. I must say I enjoy it. Getting better in C#, not that that means a lot... but now I'm all cuddly with nesting repeaters. I do really enjoy working on websites... and I like cutting down on calls and finding a good flow, both for the technology and the user. I haven't let the term "compromise" enter into my brain just yet... as we're still looking for the best solution... with the looming deadline in the fore. But the SYownS is speeding up... just trimming the fat... and optimising the functionality. As Yoda would say, wearing two hats, I feel.

That being said... splitting my time between two jobs (ultimately) is a bit taxing. Really it just means that 2 sets of 5 people are pulling me in different directions... while I'm trying to do what I need to do... never boring. There is something about breaking things up... web coding to report writing to SQL to business meetings to catch all IT stuff (server configs, etc).

enzed birthday was good. Made some good web progress. Got some client-side stuff done. Playing the appropriate cat-and-mouse game to let the team here discover functionality for themselves. Teaching troubleshooting...

I came in to the office this morning and my desk was decorated in birthday regalia. American flag toothpicks stuck all over my keyboard, a guitar-shaped container of magic bubble blowing solution... and several noise makers (and a bottle of nice scotch). It was nice. No birthday lunch, because I had to go to the web team's HQ... left there at 7. talked to the wife for an hour... then just relaxed... ate left-left-overs. Trying to sort out some Hawke's Bay accommodation.

today...

Somehow, the Universe must read this blog... because the day after I write that I shouldn't be doing all of the web stuff... I get farmed out to the web development team. Which is exciting... from web development perspective... but I have plenty of non-web issues to monitor.... whatever, it's probably only for a week... stupid cocky post Karma.

I think Boston is a fine city. Had a talk today about the mapparium. Also, I love "The Departed" ...

So, I just did another presentation for the "potential" arts partners... it should have been titled... "why you should be a sub-licensee"... like I've said before... I can be a great salesman... if and only if I truly believe the product is a perfect fit... I think there is quite a bit of excitement... and several questions/concerns were answered... Maybe my love of the software comes through quite clearly... what ever the case... I'm happy. I'm issuing an apology to the following XXXs.com, XXXmaster, XXXtek, etc. You may be old news in A-town.

-We're ahead of our timeline before xmas... which means we can all actually take some time... and come back in full.

-I just made soup... excuse me...

---

-ok, back. mmm. I love soup in summer.

-Speaking of, how's your weather?

-Data privacy laws are a beauty and a curse.

-CEO=CEO=CEO

-CFO=CFO=CFO

-The entire organisation is concerned with my holiday plans...

-Did I mention... I just heard about the presentation yesterday?

-lots to do... lots to do...

-not going in to work this weekend... because we were going to shift offices... then... after we packed all of our stuff up... we heard the network in the new building was wonky. So, maybe we'll shift sometime monday... I'll be with our web team all day, so it won't matter much anyway. We're doing some joint programming.

-bullet points... yeah.

-I feel like I've given more presentations since I've been here than in the rest of my life.

-speaking of which... I'm saddened to miss out on the conference planning committee this year.

-In the grand scheme, this is more important.

-anyone going to the feb conference in Melbourne?

-my Australasia pals, and I , are in talks to plan a regional conference... just because only the select few get to travel to the states... and by conference... I mean fancy user's group meeting.

-we started printing subs tickets.

-having trouble with a superscript registered mark... nothing a little Font 1, 1, 1 "R" inside a Font 1, 2, 3 "O" can't fix... in the interim.