Remains of the Day

Better Business Bureau comes through

I ordered an Epson 2200 Stylus inkjet printer from PCNation last June or July, and as I was leaving for New Zealand I still hadn't received it. On a whim I filed a complaint online with the Better Business Bureau just before leaving for Los Angeles. Past readers know the issues I have with PCNation, including false availability promises.

A short while later, while checking my e-mail from New Zealand, I get an urgent e-mail message from a PCNation customer service rep asking if I'll be home to accept a Fed Ex package.

I arrived home and my printer was there, along with two notes. One was an acknowledgment from the Better Business Bureau that they had forwarded my complaint to PCNation. Then, a few days later, another note from the BBB, with a response from PCNation attached. Lo and behold, they had located one unit for me and it would be shipped with an upgrade to overnight delivery. So for seven or eight months I didn't hear word one from PCNation, and then one quick note with the BBB and my printer appears out of nowhere.

Count me as a huge new fan of the Better Business Bureau.

The NZ fraternity

Having visited New Zealand, I joined a small but growing fraternity of American travelers who have sampled Kiwi bliss. I had lunch with two others today, Lauri and Brian, just to swap stories. It has to be near the top of most English speaking travelers' lists this time of year, especially with current political tensions. It's a safe, neutral nation, the people are friendly, the goods and services are extremely affordable, and the landscape is awesome, as showcased in The Lord of the Rings.

Jason and Jamie, and Julie, and Jodie and Lee...so many have been there. Just about two years ago I couldn't tell you the first thing about New Zealand, didn't even know where it was relative to Australia on a map. Now it's one of my favorite places in the world. As Brian put it, it's one of the few places you'd go back and visit within five years of your first visit.

Lauri and Brian also welcomed me to the non-working fraternity. Lauri just passed the one year mark, and Brian's even further along. Their sage advice? Acknowledge that to take the time out to travel for months on end before you have any restrictions or commitments (read: kids) in life is a blessing. Don't feel guilty--seeing the world and greeting our fellow man is never a waste of time. Don't feel guilty about spending money even though none is coming in--if you're on vacation there's no use being miserable.

I knew some of that already, but gosh it sure helps to hear it from another mouth.

Frasier would be jealous

A lot happened while I was gone. Traveling for a month straight is like hitting the >| button on your DVD remote, skipping to the next chapter. Come home and the changes are visible to the naked eye. They're enough to summarize over one night of beers, but it's one intense and fascinating night.

Toni had her baby. Michelle had her baby. Dan sent out wedding invites. All sorts of changes at the office, of course. Trista chose Ryan, Evan chose Zora. And Jason and Jamie bought a house.

Not just any house. I swung by to visit what will be, in 24 hours, the place they sleep at night. Can I steal two syllables from Paula Abdul?

Phe. Nomenal.

Good God. It's a mansion on Queen Anne hill with the view to die for, of the city and of Lake Union and Puget Sound. I staked out a room already, though Jason doesn't realize it. I've now spent more time in the home than Jamie has. Is she in for a treat or what?

I waver on whether or not to buy a home--it seems much too mature for me. But when I walk through a place like that and imagine what it would be like, I have to stop myself and count to twenty. It must tap some primal instinct, stemming from the days when settlers worked all their lives to stake out a piece of land and to build a home of their own.

Riso Gelato!!!

After my lovely lunch with Brian and Lauri and seeing the wonder that is Jason's new home and seeing Jason's mother (Big Mo!) again, I didn't think the day could get any better.

But then we're at the top of Queen Anne, picking up lunch for Jason and Big Mo, and we swing over to the gelato shops just down from Noah's. Now, anyone who knows me really well knows I've been obsessed with rice gelato every since I tasted it in Florence. They'd know that I've walked into every gelato place I've passed since that visit to Florence, and never once have I found rice gelato.

Rice (riso) gelato, the sign read. As the saying goes, I did a double take, reading it again to make sure I wasn't having a brain cramp.

Are you kidding me? Has some guardian angel been assigned some after school detention time, to watch over me? Just when you least expect it, when you've given up all hope, your epic quest ends in a gelato shop in your own hometown.

Big Mo bought me two scoops from the Project Pregnancy envelope (ask Jason), and while it wasn't quite of Florentian quality, it was symbolically the most important gelato I've ever had in my life. It represents proof that we can and should seek a higher plane of happiness than we imagine possible.

In fact, that's what my whole month off and all my experiences in New Zealand and Australia have taught me. Life can be really really good. 1998 taught me that no matter how bad things can get, they can get worse. But the reverse is always true, and now I won't and can't be content with a life less extraordinary.

Filled my passport!

Every visa page in my passport has been filled. I can't travel anywhere until I get an extension or a new passport. It will have to be a post-Rio project, when I'm planning my next excursions.

Flipping through all those pages, plastered with stamps, filled me with a unique satisfaction.

Poor Kiwis

Can it get any worse for the Kiwis in the America's Cup? One of the writers in the NZ papers called a 5-0 sweep for the Swiss. Give that guy a medal. Most people favored New Zealand slightly and thought they had the faster boat. You couldn't script a more devastating or depressing first four races for the defending champions.

I never in my life imagine I could find sailing enthralling to watch, but a lot of things in New Zealand were more contagious than anticipated.

The cure? Sunshine and life

Another things my travels have cured me of is my desire to watch television or movies. I haven't watched a minute of TV since I've been back, even though my TIVO has hours of all my favorite shows in its belly and even though a gazillion channels beckon from the satellite dish. I don't remember the last time I felt this way, if ever. It's completely strange.

So this is what it feels like. It feels amazingly healthy, much like what I imagine converted vegetarians feel when they finally walk into a restaurant and have no craving for any meat products whatsoever.

Or maybe I'm ill. Can this last? What's wrong with me? I mean, not even ESPN?

It has to end when All the Real Girls comes out in Seattle. I adored George Washington, David Gordon Green's first movie, and maybe I am ill, because I'm actually in the mood for this, his new movie, a romance.

Lost in time

I got on Seattle time this morning. Now it's about 5:15 in the morning and I'm back off of Seattle time. It just takes one long phone call to Australia to kill your schedule.

For the life of me I couldn't remember how to dial an international number from the states (you need to first dial the international direct dial code, which is 011). Hmm. Since the country code for Australia is 61, that meant I woke up a lot of people in what I presume was the Boston area. Yikes. To all of those people who cursed me out, and those I hung up on, my deepest apologies. I deserved every four-letter word. With the thick Boston accents I wasn't quite sure what was being said, but the tone of voice left little to the imagination.

Sliding down memory lane

Got all my slides and negatives back today. Most of them came out, too, save a few stray shots taken when my shutter was closed or that brief period when my batteries crapped out and every other picture came out black.

I need a smaller, lighter camera to take with me into places where I couldn't or wouldn't bring my F100. I see gaps in my pictures, events and people and places, and I wish I had some photos to keep them fresh in my mind. And when you're out at a club or a bar and just want a picture of you and your inebriated companions, who cares about picture quality? Especially when posting to the web. I need a really thin, small, digital camera.

Well, next time. And nothing beats looking at slides on a light table with a loupe. That's about as close to seeing it with my own eyes again as I can get. Tomorrow I need to write down as much of the specifics of my trip as possible before it fades into history. My photos will help refresh my memory. Given my past ratios of success, I'd say I did okay this time around. About a little more than half of the photos are decent and usable which is pretty good. Throw out the five hundred photos I wasted on obscure dolphin fins and sperm whales off in the distance and I'd say about 3 out of 4 of my pics were ones I'll keep. Since I shot 17 rolls of 36, that's a lot of friggin slides to scan into my computer.

New Zealand's scenery helped. It's what you call postcard country. Everywhere you point your camera and click the shutter? Instant postcard. If my PC doesn't drive me crazy tomorrow, you may catch your first glimpse of some of my NZ and Oz shots.

New Zealand and Australian soundtrack

Clubbing in NZ and Australia, you get a feel for what's going down in the music world. Wouldn't you know it, the cool kids overseas listen to pretty much the same stuff you hear on the radio over here.

Let's see, I have to start with Eminem. Lots of Eminem. It wasn't a night out if I didn't hear Lose Yourself at some club. Good tune, but it always inspires thug dancing and mugging. Not attractive.

Creed?! Sure, you can label someone a snob if they raise their noses at popular music, but when I have to put up with garbage like Creed out clubbing I can understand where they're coming from. Not only is it destined for tomorrow's trash heap, it's also impossible to dance to.

Red Hot Chili Peppers. Haven't heard their new album, but By the Way is a good tune. Not really a dance tune but you can jump around and karaoke.

Kylie. Grrrrrrrr. We'd be out clubbing, drinking, yapping our heads off, and then suddenly a tune from Fever would come on, and Kylie would appear on the video screen, 15 feet tall, and everyone in the club would stop and stare, transfixed. Australia's sex kitten, purring "Come....come....come into my world." Every guy was ready to follow. What a great dance album.

If Michael Jackson is the monstrosity plastic surgery wishes to lock in the cellar, Kylie Minogue is the its poster child. Good lord. Speaking of which, if you don't have a copy of Kylie singing Can't Get You Out of My Head over New Order's Blue Monday, get thee to a file sharer straight away to download it. She's performed that mash in concert, and it's awesome.

Nelly. Hot in Here. I thought it had peaked at clubs here in the US but apparently, as with movies, everything lags by about half a year there in the Southern Hemisphere. Can't stand ten seconds of it on the radio, but in a dance club context it's groovable.

Back to the negatives. NZ and Oz are not immune to dreck like YMCA by the Village People and the Ketchup Song. Stuff like that, most of which I've erased from memory. It's like the wave at a sporting event. Exercise your freedom as a human being and resist. They'll tell you you're having fun, but you really aren't.

Down Under by Men at Work. Hearing it in Australia put it in a whole new light for me because I finally had a taste of . Packets of it could be found at breakfast each morning, next to the butter and jam. I tried it and will do it a favor by labeling it the Spam of the Southern Hemisphere.

The highlight for me was the first bar we visited in the Bay of Islands. One stretch of classic techno--Alice Deejay, ATB, New Order...good stuff.

Sniff

Sharon sent me this pic today of Alan and my new nephew Ryan. How beautiful is that?

@#$*&ing Windows

Okay, Macs are slower, but I'm really about ready to kick my Windows desktop over the edge of the deck here. Since Windows XP crapped out my CD-RW drive I installed a new one today, one that's supposed to be compatible with Windows XP and Roxio Easy CD Creator 5. I updated all the drivers for Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 off of their website. All of this took hours since my PC now takes about 30 minutes to boot after the Windows XP upgrade and I had to restart it several times.

Go to burn a CD. No luck. Easy CD Creator 5 engine failed to initialize. Go to the Roxio website and they claim they've had a rash of these because of antivirus software. So I disable that and try again. Same error. I update some more drivers and reboot. Half hour later? No dice.

I also get these annoying "Your paging file is too small" errors everytime I boot. It tells me to set a larger paging file. So I do. Then I have to reboot. Then the same error comes up again. I'm flipping my computer the middle digit the whole time, with both hands.

Fortunately I finally found some random program that Sony included with its CD-RW drive. I think I've got it working. I'll need it to burn all the photos from New Zealand and Australia to CDRs b/c my hard drive is getting really full.

Yes, Macs are slower, but damn if my laptop didn't work beautifully the whole trip. I could take digital photos from my travel buddies and load them into iPhoto and have a slideshow going in minutes. I could import digital video from my camcorder and burn movies onto CDs for other folks in about half an hour. Yeah, sure, you can do all these things on a Windows PC but you'd be sweating driver compatibility the whole way. I'm not quite ready to sign up for a Switch commercial, but outside the business environment I dread having to go to my Windows desktop for anything.

Alas, that's the only platform my slide and negative scanner is compatible with. I have hours of fun ahead of me, what with Photoshop crashing after every four photos I open and edit because my virtual memory is too low.

The only book I buy every year

I should stop writing about baseball because I don't think any of you give a damn, but I can't help it. Little League and years of watching the Cubs on WGN have distilled baseball into my blood.

There's one book I pre-order every year and await with the eagerness of a groom on his wedding night, or a young child on Christmas Eve. That book would be the annual Baseball Prospectus. This year's version is the best yet, with a whole new set of statistics and expanded player coverage.

I'm not sure how many times I've plugged Baseball Prospectus, but if they'd start putting out crap I'd stop. Move up to the next level of baseball understanding and buy yourself a copy.

Blog as vanity plate

Katie ranted about the blog as self-congratulatory exercise in vanity tonight, and I must admit that much of what she said is true. There's a certain presumptiousness in boring the world with the mundane details of your everyday life, and who really cares what I think about this or that anyway? In that respect, I almost crave to keep the visitors to my site at a minimum. And maybe I should reduce the frequency of my posts--perhaps I'm guilty of using this as a writing outlet at times. Maybe 2003 is the year I cut back my posts.

You can twist yourself into a pretzel trying to please your audience, too. Just who is my audience anyway? Random people from all over the place, who know me in all different contexts. Perhaps a large audience is a good thing. They keep you honest, because most will disappear if you sling too much BS. If no one was reading, would I still be writing? I had about one visitor a week for the first two months, and I never really publicized my site, but somehow one day suddenly all these random people were reading it. I have no idea how they found my site, and I still don't know who half of them are, but I read the traffic reports and they're there.

Of course, most my readers are too embarrassed to admit they visit my site, or if they do visit, it's a dirty secret. Boy, let me tell you, that's a great feeling. This must be what it feels like to be People magazine.

And what about blogging about blogs, like I'm doing now? That must be the ultimate in intellectual masturbation (I can't remember where I read that term, but it makes you cringe, and that's exactly the punishment you want to mete out to those guilty of perpetrating it).

I'm overthinking this. Why am I thinking about this right now anyway? Self-conscience is a terrible thing.

Jameson's

Johnny, my tour guide in New Zealand, was fond of Bushmill's Irish Whiskey, but tonight out at Mr. Lucky's I discovered the joys of Jameson's Irish Whiskey. Peter, clearly a scotch and whiskey aficionado, has set me on the path of goodness and there's no turning back.

American bourbon? As Johnny put it, f***ing swill.

Use it or lose it

Speaking of Mr. Lucky's, I met a few friends out for drinks tonight. Just as Tour de France bike racers have to get out even on their two days off during the Tour just so their body doesn't go into shock from not being pushed to the limit, I need to keep my liver primed and active in anticipation of Carnival in Rio. I'm not doing my gut any favors, but I suppose another week won't hurt.

I'm less worried about drinking myself to death in Rio than of getting shot. At least four people sent me e-mail links to articles about the recent violence in Rio, suspected to be caused by gangs. City of God may hit a little too close to home this weekend. I'll have to keep my head down and steer clear of danger.

Speaking of drinking...

Must send out props to Laura, who was one of the folks who showed up for drinks tonight. She thinks she doesn't get enough airtime here, and yet she definitely rallies for fun nights out more than just about anyone else here in Seattle (and after 4 weeks of living large in NZ and Oz I'm acutely aware of how slow my social life here is).

So Laura, your very own post. BTW, Laura also organized a birthday dinner for me this year, and since it was my last day in the office it was a doubly special event. It's also the last birthday I'll ever celebrate since next year that first digit is supposed to change (and after 4 weeks of living large with mostly younger kids in NZ and Oz, many of whom like to remind me of my age, I'm really hyper-tuned to my life clock...TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK, what have you done with your life old man?).

Libeskind

The Libeskind design for a memorial at Ground Zero has won. The slide show outlining the ideas behind the design are really intriguing.

I don't profess to know much about architecture, but the various Frank Lloyd Wright houses and buildings I've walked through are so inspirational. There aren't many things in life I have to have personalized for me, but it would be amazing to design your own home with an architect. How sad, that we must always live in someone else's conception of an ideal shelter, especially when our physical reaction to space is so personal.

Someday, perhaps, a place of my own.

Not so slim but pretty darn shady, back again, back to reality

Nothing welcomes you home better than your own bed. I'm so tired my eyes are crossed and blurry. 13 hour flight from Sydney to Los Angeles, and I barely slept the whole way. Watched a lot of movies on Qantas' new 747 entertainment system: Sweet Home Alabama, The Ring, Knockaround Guys. Then I had to sit around in Los Angeles for 6 hours waiting for my United flight to Seattle. Fortunately Mark was able to grab me for a quick breakfast out to break things up.

I dropped off all my film tonight so let's hope they turn out okay tomorrow. Carrying some 20 rolls of film back from a long vacation is nervewracking, especially with all the powerful x-rays in use at the airports now. If all goes well, some of you poor souls may be sitting through a slide show soon.

Flying is really unpleasant in this day and age. I went through an obscene number of security checks at Sydney airport, but at least the folks working there had that pleasant Australian demeanor. I get to LAX and all the security personnel were rude and working at a snail's pace, and after rifling through all my check-in luggage they didn't even throw everything back in neatly or tie up all the straps. I reached over to close up the zippers and tighten the straps and some big oaf yelled at me. My sleep-deprived, grumpy self was ready to open a can of whup-ass right there.

I'm glad I only have a few days before heading off to Rio. Otherwise I'd surely sink into a severe state of post-vacation withdrawal. I already feel like I'm coming down off some drug-inspired trip.

On the other hand, I've missed lots of friends and family. As Sam says at the end of The Return of the King, "I'm back."

Some random recollections of Sydney

I signed off prematurely. My flight out of Sydney has been delayed an hour so I'm using up my last few Aussie coins on this Internet terminal here while I expire of boredom.

Some good memories of Sydney:

The strange urinals at the nightclub Home, in Darling Harbour. You basically are taking aim at a giant mirror with water running down it. Trust me, everyone's looking straight ahead in this bathroom.

Point Piper. The most exclusive real estate in Sydney. A home there recently sold for $28 million Australian. Maybe someday I'll be able to afford a second home there.

Rainy day in Sydney when I arrive. A drought of months ends the few days I'm here. I still have vertigo from being on the water for 3 days scuba diving. Apparently it's quite obvious. After two drinks one night, I head to the upstairs level at Home and the bouncer asks me how many drinks I've had. I say two. He looks me over suspiciously and tells me to "take it easy in there, mate." Then, a day later, I'm still dizzy. Now I have to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The liability waiver form says that if you have vertigo you can't climb the bridge for risk of endangering your life and the lives of the other climbers.

I pass the breathalyzer test and decide to risk it. At the top of the climb we're exactly 134 meters above the water. That was the height of the Nevis bungy jump. I smile and look around at Sydney at night. Off in the Domain, Russell Crowe is judging movies at Tropfest and Groove Armada is playing a concert at the Fox Studios. There's always a lot to do in Sydney.

Everybody's a comedian

Another funny memory from New Zealand. I'm standing at the edge of the Kawarau river bungy jump, the original one that started it all, awaiting my first of 3 bungy jumps that day. I tell the bungy operator dude standing next to me, "I haven't been this nervous and excited since I lost my virginity."

He says, "This will last longer, mate."

2.4 seconds.

Shit, one more thing

Damn, I forgot another bitter defeat in NZ. Corinna can swing higher on the swing set at the playground. We had a competition in Queenstown late one night. My swing must have been defective. Laura reminded me of this in Sydney. I'm licking my wounds, much like Dean Barker and Team New Zealand in the America's Cup.

Leaving or going home?

A last view of Sydney Harbor from my hotel window as I prepare to head to the airport for the 13 hour 25 minute flight to Los Angeles. Has it been nearly a month already? Sometime during the past few weeks my internal clock just stopped and I never knew what the date was, or what day of the week it was.

Seeing traffic marching across the Sydney Harbor Bridge into the city reminds me that the work week continues for most people. Olav, Kjetil, Laura, and all the others who are students elsewhere in Australia are going through orientation this week and start their classes next Monday. I lurk outside it all, stranded outside time, loitering. I'd love to stay longer, but the timing is probably right. Last night we all went out prowling and the city's clubs and bars were fairly subdued and empty. One last drink at Establishment and it was time to pack.

Last nights of vacations are bittersweet. I can never sleep. I stayed up until 4 a.m., packing slowly, pacing the room from one end to the other, glancing out the window at the large cruise ships docked in the Harbor. Nowhere to go, not ready to leave my new life.

But hope springs eternal. I have to secure my Brazilian visa upon returning to the States. The process is painful and needs reform. There are only 5 cities in the U.S. who can issue tourist visas for Brazil for American citizens. The one I have to use is in San Francisco, and they only accept applications in person. So I have to get to LAX, rush to Fed Ex my passport and visa application and passport photo overnight to some agency, they have one day to get my visa and Fed Ex it back to me, and if anything goes wrong I'm not likely to gain entrance to Rio de Janeiro at the end of the week. And the whole thing will cost me $212, too.

All countries need to put their visa application processes on the Internet.

It will be fun to see Phil again, though, and a couple days off should leave my liver ready to roll again. Carnival in Rio is the Tour de France for livers (yes, I heard about Lance Armstrong's impending separation from his wife, and it saddens me). I used up exactly one travel-sized tube of toothpaste on my travels here, and exactly one bottle of 45 SPF sunscreen. I'm still extremely dark, with a nice white strip on either side of my face above the ear, thanks to my sunnies (in Australia and New Zealand they shorten every object name by attaching -er or -y or -ies to the end of it; sunglasses are sunnies, swim suits or bathing suits are swimmers or togs, chewing gum is chewies, running shoes are runners, etc.). The sun just pounds you down here.

A shout out to all my homies in Seattle. Did you miss me? See you soon.

The freaking morning song works

This morning Ali and Laura came by and I played the morning songs before we headed out, and lo and behold, the sun was out and shining all day.

The morning song is Mr. E's Beautiful Blues by the Eels. Johnny would play it each morning before we headed out on the bus, and while we scoffed at it in the beginning, by the end of the trip we all attributed great meteorological powers to playing it early in the morning. Bright sunshine everytime we put it on.

Come to Sydney, rain. I finally play the morning song, and, god damn right, it was a beautiful day.

Correction

Oops, Olav and Kjetil read this everyday.

Let me note that Olav and Kjetil disappeared while we were out drinking tonight. I saw them leave with four Swedish supermodels, one on each arm. Must be the Scandinavian bond.

Beware the bearded woman, Olav!

Olav, if you're still out there at that Irish pub/dance club right now...it's a trick question. None of the 3 phone numbers is a winner. Don't do it! There's a reason she has a man's name!

It's 4 a.m. in Sydney now (all the folks back home in the States are getting the wrong time and date stamps on my posts; extrapolate a day ahead and 3 hours back peeps), and I have to get up in 3 hours to cruise around town on some tour bus. Aiya! But what do they say? We'll have plenty of time for sleep when we're dead. I'm certainly not going to get much these next few days. Sleep is a luxury on vacations.

Sydney is an impressive city. I've just been here about a half day, and it has already made an impression. Reminds me of San Francisco in some ways, but any such comparison would be simplistic. There are bats flying around here at dusk. I looked up and saw what looked like a bat and thought I was dreaming. And then I read in my guidebook that there are indeed bats flying around at night. How cool is that? I could move here, except I have no idea what I'd do.

It's good to see Laura, Olav, and Kjetil again. After about 10 beers, some fun confessions come out. I learn more about the New Zealand trip everyday, and it only gets funnier. We cruised around from club to club in the rain tonight, all through the Rocks and all around Darling Harbour, and then back to the Rocks for more. Damn if all of them don't make me feel old, with Laura being 21, Olav 23, Kjetil 24. Oh well, I missed my mid-twenties so perhaps I get a mulligan. I was in the office for 7 years increasing shareholder value.

The other thing I find incredibly funny is hearing some of my new friends using the English language in some creative ways. Not that my Norwegian or German would be good enough to even string together a coherent thought, but sometimes Olav or Kjetil or Corinna will say something, and I'll know exactly what they mean, but some unintended double meanings just leave me gasping for air. The literal translation of pre-party in Norwegian is "foreplay" according to Olav. I've made sure he understands not to ask new friends over to his place for "foreplay" at any point in the future. It could ruin a good night before it even begins.

Damn I'll miss all of them.

My travel agent did me right on this hotel in Sydney. I'm right at the foot of the harbor, at the start of the Rocks here. I'm within walking distance to all the major city sites, and I have a view of the harbor from my window. Best of all? Ethernet high speed Internet access in the room. For once I don't have to put coins in a machine to surf the Internet at prehistoric modem speeds. Some days I feel like some senior citizen feeding my social security check into slots machines.

Laura brought by all her photos from New Zealand. Seeing them again brought back a lot of fond memories. Seeing myself in print also made me realize I miss my bike. Yikes! By now I've usually put in a few hundred miles in the early winter season, and instead I'm fattening up at nice restaurants across the Southern Hemisphere. Boot camp starts the day I get home.

I'm so exhausted it's ridiculous. Vacation is hard work, not that anyone working should sympathize. I've drank more in the past 3 weeks than I did in the entire previous year in Seattle. On the other hand, I've also just finished an entire bottle of sunscreen in these 3 weeks, and in 5.5 years in Seattle I'm still working on the same bottle which is still sitting on my nightstand. Our bodies kick into high gear on vacation--it's like shifting into 4WD to go offroad.

Narcosis

I am now officially a certified Adventure Diver after 8 dives at various sites around the Great Barrier Reef with Pro Dive Cairns.

Scuba diving is very relaxing. I felt like an astronaut down there in the water, everything moving in slow motion, including my breathing. My dive instructor Ben looked like Ewan McGregor, and the boat dive supervisor Christian is a 6' 6" German who's a dead ringer for Dirk Nowitzki. Except no one on the boat knew who Dirk Nowitzki was.

The best moment was actually above water. We were moored off of Flynn Reef last night, and I stayed up late lying on the sundeck, with a nearly full moon laying a shimmering white carpet down on the ocean to our boat. The clouds and stars hovered overhead, a cool ocean breeze ruffled my hair, and an occasional fish would leap out of the water and break the silence with a splash. I listened to music on my iPod and looked at the heavens with the skipper's star chart. I learned a few new constellations besides Orion: Eridanus, Lepus, and Canis Major. I also learned that half of Orion does indeed have the nickname "the saucepan".

The night dive was pretty magical as well. We spotted a giant green turtle swimming under a rock. Some of the coolest activities are ones that are usually done in the daytime, shifted into the evening. My night safari in Kenya, and the night dive here on the Reef.

Sydney awaits.

She's even better from the nose on up

Hey, my sister Joannie is famous! Isn't she a babe?

That's her photographer in the next photo if you scroll down the page a bit. Doesn't he look like Billy Zane? The whole time during Joannie's wedding, I couldn't stop thinking about Zoolander.

"Hey man, listen to your friend Billy Zane. He's a cool dude."

Off to the Reef

Tomorrow, bright and early (5:45am) I head off from the coast of Cairns to live 3 days on a boat and scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef. I've spent the last two days in the classroom and in the pool training. It all reminded me a little too much of school, especially since I'm on vacation, but now comes the payoff.

Getting certified in scuba is not that tough, though I barely survived the swim test because they held it right after I had a huge sandwich for lunch. I cramped up during a 200 meter swim and barely stayed afloat for the 10 minute water tread test. I'm about as buoyant as a lead sinker.

It's been difficult to fully enjoy Australia thus far. I miss the weather and friends of New Zealand. The air in Cairns is heavy, languid, and damp. The fan in my hotel room is always on high just to keep the air circulating and active. Can one be homesick for a country that isn't home?

I thought I'd miss American television and movies and sports and news much more than I have.My mind is in a travel cocoon, and I feel just as busy as I do when I'm home and working. Every morning I have to be up early for something, and every night I'm out late. It sounds rough, but I enjoy it. Lying around on a beach or sleeping in until ungodly hours is not my idea of a vacation.

My next update should come from the lovely city of Sydney, where I will arrive Saturday (Friday for those of you back in the States). And by next Tuesday night I'll be back home in my bed in Seattle. But my heart will be thousands of miles away.

My New Zealand hangover

Today I left New Zealand early early in the morning and arrived in Cairns this afternoon. I had a 6:35 am flight, which meant getting to the airport by 4:30am or so. In the past, I've usually just stayed up all night packing in such situations, and I adopted that strategy this time as well. Of course, I failed to factor in that I hadn't slept more than 4 or 5 hours or had less than 5 mixed drinks in about 8 days, and it all caught up to me. I've never been so tired in my life as I was last night. After arriving in Cairns today at around noon, I laid down for a moment in bed and when I woke up it was 6:00pm. I don't remember a second of it, I slept like a corpse.

Fortunately Corinna stayed up with me all night and kept me going. She's on vacation from her semesters abroad at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, and she'll be returning to Bonn in German later this year. We've been pushing each other a lot these past few weeks. It helps that we're both pretty competitive so we're always looking at ways to compete. I hate to admit defeat in any avenues, but I have to concede that she's a better kayaker, ping-pong player (we played about five thousand fiercely contested points over 3 hours in a sauna of a room at Lake Ohau lodge--there was nothing else to do), glacier hiker, spoons player (I hate that card game), golfer (I'm blaming the damn rental clubs even though she had to use them too), and luger (though I gave her a headstart and Stefan was blocking me the whole way down). What an ego buster. I think she pinned me in Nelson at the beach party but that doesn't count because I was drunk. She's definitely a better dancer, and she's been to musical school so she's almost certainly a better singer.

I'm a better pool and air hockey player, a better chess player, and a better jet ski driver. Damn, my list is a lot shorter. Let's see, I'm a better English speaker (ignore the fact that English is her second language). And, umm...ahh, forget it, I met my match. Corinna, along with Laura, Jens, Kjetil and Olav, Rachel and Kerrin, Steph and Brendan, Alison and Ben have formed my own little travel fellowship these past two weeks. I'm not sure we could have continued on such a hard pace of life for much longer, but now that we've gone our separate ways I feel the usual post-vacation depression, my New Zealand hangover. I miss them all a lot and wish they were here in Australia with me. But some of us may cross paths again in Sydney later, and I'm holding on to that thought. Life on the go means constantly striking up new relationships in every next port of call.

We were blessed with the most fantastic weather the whole time. Someone's watching over me. Sunshine and blue skies whenever it mattered, and that was just about every day considering the number of vistas and landmarks we passed per day. If any of you come to New Zealand, do it from February to April.

I think last time I mentioned that I hadn't snapped as many photos as I thought. Well, that all changed. I've pretty much burned through 15 rolls already and had to cough up serious dollars to purchase a few rolls of Fuji Provia 100F. I thought 20 rolls would be enough, but New Zealand's beautiful countryside will do that to you. Oh, it doesn't help that a group of us spent the last day wandering the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, posing for silly photos to remember each other by. Always carry more film than you need. I tell myself that but need to take my advice more seriously.

One other great travel tip for those using pro-size 35mm camera bodies. Always put filters on your lenses. I dropped my camera coming out of the helicopter at Fox Glacier and shattered my UV Haze and 81a warming filters. But better those $70 filters than a $800 camera lens. Yikes.

I survived the bungy jumps. The Nevis, the 134 meter one, was incredible. I consider myself a pretty unflappable dude. Not much scares me (horror movies, speed, public speaking, stuff like that), but the Nevis got my blood going pretty good. You have to ride out in this small cage (you can see through it in all directions) out to a gondola suspended between two mountains, hanging about 200 meters or so above a small river flowing through the canyon below. And then you have to step out onto a small metal platform about a foot and a half by a foot and a half and throw yourself out of this gondola for 8.4 seconds of falling towards the earth at some 128 kilometers per hour. It's one of the most amazing feelings I've ever had, and I highly recommend it for anyone who ever gets to Queenstown.

Poor Laura got picked to go first, and she chose me as her jump buddy so we got sent out to the gondola first. All this is after a bus ride up this narrow canyon road in a rickety bus. The bus ride was nearly scarier than the jump. It's all part of the experience. Laura, like myself, is not a huge fan of heights, and she clearly felt every one of those 134 meters as she stood on that platform. I was filming it all, and I was tense just watching. I could see in her body language the thoughts going through her head, and the way she was slowly overcoming her fear and talking herself into the jump. What a stud. As I told her, it's not courage without fear, and by that measure she was the bravest of us all that day. I'll give Olav credit for the best jump. He dove out far, arms spread wide. Beautiful.

Travel is made easier by the presence of an iPod. Too bad I didn't have more time to download or rip music before I left. Still, going on a Lord of the Rings safari is greatly enhanced if the soundtrack is playing in your head. We visited the places where the ring wraiths were washed away by the river outside Rivendell (the Ford of Anduin?), the place where the fellowship rode by the Pillars of Argonath (much smaller in person), drove along the path they used as the road to Mordor in the upcoming Return of the King, and a whole lot more. None of the sets are there anymore, but the landscape is still beautiful in and of itself, and seeing it with your own eyes gives you an appreciation for the vision of Peter Jackson, to see in normal landscapes the potential for dramatic backdrops, merging the natural with the digital in his head.

There was a Making of the Lord of the Rings Exhibition at Te Papa museum in Wellington. Awesome. The making of the movies is almost as much of a cottage industry as the movies themselves. Peter Jackson and the whole cast and crew contributed to the exhibit where I spent 3 enthralling hours. Among other things, I learned that to make the chainmail used in the movie, two constume designer hand joined over 12 million small metal rings. They spent nearly five years doing it and by the end, the fingerprint marks on their fingers had worn away! I learned that Viggo Mortensen ended up buying the horse he rode in the movie, he developed such a rapport with it. That the reason some soldiers turned and ran the first time they ran the Massive program was not out of cowardice or self-preservation but because they couldn't spot any enemies. They also had an exhibit on all of the seven or eight different techniques they used to make the hobbits appear much smaller than the other characters. Some of them aren't even covered in the making-of DVD.

One of the techniques was brilliant. It involved building a device that would automatically move characters on platforms as the camera moved, always keeping the characters in the proper perspective. I can't begin to describe it properly, but it's awesome. The exhibit stays in Wellington until March, and then it goes on the road. If it passes through your town, definitely go see it!

There's a lot America can learn from the rest of the world. I already mentioned the metric system (I refuse to answer anyone who asks me at what temperature water freezes; yes, it's 32 degrees farenheit, and it's ridiculously arbitrary, and the 0 degree celsius is much more sensible...leave me alone). New Zealand has a wealth of public bathrooms, all quite clean. Can you imagine that in the U.S.? When we abbreviate dates, why do Americans go month/day/year instead of day/month/year? Why not go from smallest unit to largest? Why don't we study more foreign languages in the U.S.? It's embarrassing that everyone's English is so much better than our French, or Spanish, or German.

We're also not winning many fans by beating the war drum. Hopefully most people are anti-administration rather than anti-American. Bush isn't helping by portraying, to a T, the stereotype of the ugly American. Aloof, arrogant, uncooperative, a cowboy who wants to use his guns. If the UN inspections team gets Iraq's cooperation and we have over half the country under British and American air cover, why send in young Americans to die? The process has hardly been efficient, but it seems to be working.

I'm not sure where I'm going with all of this. My vacation hangover is scrambling my brain, and the time pressure of seeing these Internet terminals counting down my time left online is too much pressure. I look back on my time in New Zealand and amazed by it all. So much happened that I didn't expect. It always does when you travel with an open mind, an open heart, and a sense of adventure.

Tomorrow I begin my first lesson towards scuba diving certification.

The Yankees of sailing

Looks like New Zealand is in big trouble in the America's Cup. The whole country is in a fervor over the even because they're defending champs. The storyline here is that the challenger, Alinghi, is being led almost entirely be Kiwi sailors, some being former members of New Zealand's last championship team. Alinghi, with their deep pockets, basically bought the best sailing team in the world, including skipper Russell Coutts who has won the last ten Americas Cup races he's skippered with today's win (that's an all-time record). The poorer New Zealand team rests their hopes on a young and talented team of sailors and what they feel is superior boat speed and design.

Thus far it's been all Alinghi. The New Zealand team had to drop out of the first race after they suffered a series of disastrous breakdowns. They started taking on water just a short while into the race, then a beam broke, and finally their front sail sheared off. Then today, in race two, Alinghi stole the race in the last leg by 7 seconds.

As you can imagine, New Zealand is incredibly upset at the defection of so many of its sailors to the Swiss team. They can do so by buying a residence in Switzerland and jumping through a series of loopholes, all funded and facilitated by Alinghi. It's like an Athletics fan watching Jason Giambi play for the Yankees which is the team Alinghi would be compared to in the U.S.

I don't know a lot about sailing, but I'm getting into the America's Cup. It's infectious, being out here. I even cheered on as Australia beat England in soccer in England. That's a first. England isn't too happy about losing to Australia in just about every sport right now.

The only sport I still can't get into is cricket. It's seriously on television 24 hours a day here. Someone finally explained the rules to me, and I still find it boring.

Planes, kayaks, helicopters, and buses

I've arrived in Queenstown, the Aspen of the Southern Hemisphere, and adventure capital of the world. Tomorrow I do the Thrillogy 3 bungy jump package. The first is the original bungy jump, 43 meters from a bridge into a river. A.J. Hackett is the inventor of this crazy sport. Then a heart-stopping 134 meter drop from a gondola--that's the Nevis. My palms are sweaty just thinking of it. Finally, the Ledge, a bungy in which you're attached at the waist so your legs are free to run towards the ledge as you hurtle off into nothing. Crikey!

I've done so many activites I can barely keep it straight. I've kayaked on the open sea and through mangrove tree forests. I've seen dolphins leaping from the water within swimming distance of the beach. I've watched as sperm whales came to the surface of the ocean to breathe, and snapped away like mad as their tales waved to the sky as they began their descent back down into the water.

I've travelled in kayaks, sail boats, former World Cup racing boats, catamarans, touring ships, helicopters, small biplanes, mini prop planes, touring buses, trolleys, double decker buses, taxis, hydrojets, luges, gondolas, and quad bikes. I've jumped out of planes, off of sky towers, and tomorrow I'll add to that list. I've sky dived in Nelson, trout fished in Lake Taupo, abseiled in the dark down into Waitomo cave, and white water rafted over a 7 meter waterfall. I've seen fur seals, a million sheep and cows, a hundred different types of birds, and every form of sea animal except the giant squid.

I've been in New Zealand for a week.

What an odd mix. The country is filled with laid back Kiwi folk, but they love their shots of adrenaline. I'm getting addicted to signing "In case of death" waiver forms.

I've made a whole lot of great friends here. You get to know each other quickly when you spend every night together drinking as a sport. Crown Lager (crownies), Victoria Bitter, Mac's Gold, Speight's. All interesting new beers to try. The girls love to make me drink these shots of butterscotch schnapps and Bailey's--they're called, ahem, cock-sucking cowboys. Way too sweet for me. I threw a beach party in Nelson at a lifeguard shack and we all stayed up late teaching each other drinking games while the ocean lapped the beach. Hey Karen: I taught everyone the animal drinking game. Everyone quite enjoyed it.

Meanwhile, l learned that Orion's belt is actually the base of a saucepan. It took me about an hour to realize that Kerrin was saying saucepan since the Aussies pronounce it soss-pin. I thought she was saying "swordsman" and I was like right, it's Orion the swordsman. It was our very own "Who's on First" routine, aided by a few too many bourbon and cokes and vodka shots.

I'm the only American in this group which is somewhat surprising to me. I gather that a popular foreign impression of American now is that we're arrogant, litigious, self-centered, and rude. It's actually quite sad how poor our reputation is internationally. I'm trying my best to be a popular ambassador of our country. I've been trying to be a bigger personality than I usually am since I am on my own. It's working, I think.

This morning I took a helicopter up to Fox Glacier and hiked up it with crampons. I had my camera with me the whole way, with an assortment of lenses, and I felt like a National Geographic photographer trying to navigate with all that gear on. Fox Glacier was stunning. We were so fortunate--the clouds were low, so initially it looked hopeless. It rains 200 days out of the year here in Fox Glacier so many people never get the chance to see it from the sky.

Then, suddenly, a break in the clouds and a group of us rushed up. On the way back, just as the helicopter lifted off, it started raining. I like to think that the heavens cleared the sky for a few hours just for me.

Okay, I need to get off of this computer. There's so much to do I've just detached from the rest of the world, though I did watch Powell's presentation to the U.N. and have read up on the Columbia tragedy.

There are so many moments each day where I just get this big wide grins on my face because life is so good right now. It really is.

Speed update

My bus leaves in 5 minutes. This will be fast.

I've done lots of crazy stuff thus far: hydrojet racing, quad bike racing, sky diving, white water rafting (7 meter falls), abseiling into a cave, and more which I can't remember. Ahead of me are 3 bungy jumps in Queenstown, a short Lord of the Rings safari, parapenting, and mountain biking off of a helicopter.

I'm the only American on this bus I've been travelling in. Strange. I'm self-conscious because I sense some antagonism towards Americans in general, so I feel like I'm representing the good old USA. Made lots of good friends thus far and have realized the US needs to move to the metric system.

Haven't had as much access to the Internet or taken as many photos as I thought I would. It's all been about doing things, drinking a lot, stuff like that. Sometimes I feel like I'm channelling Scott, and it works. I've made a lot of good friends. It's all bloody fantastic.

Very strange--being around all these foreigners, I'm losing my flat American accent. It just happens. Strange.

Alright, I see the bus moving. Kia ora, mates.