Everyone's in Christmas mode it seems. There's a big Juniper Network Christmas party on this Friday, as well as a couple of my old buddies from TelstraClear throwing their leaving bash. I'd love to stick around in Wellington to attend but this Friday the long awaited day arrives. U2 are playing Auckland! I'm really looking forward to it, we've got excellent seats (at least I hope!), plus the build up of more than half a year. If I have to hear "The Rock" FM say "The Station Bringing You U2!" I will scream. Thankfully I don't listen to them anymore because of that very thing. Well that and all the ads. In this day and age where I can block ads on the 'net, I wish I could block them in the air as well...

I got my Karate Gi on Tuesday, now I really look the part and we're...

What a crap effort by Qantas last night. Flight was delayed by 2 hours. Then when we landed, not allowed to get off for 10 minutes. Then we had to wait 25 minutes for them to offload our bags.
At least I got to sit in a comfy seat up the front, a business class one. No idea why but I wasn't going to complain about the only good thing to have happened.

Last week was the usual, work and not much else. Thursday night I went out to dinner with Mark and Jonny (Prophecy Directors) for a bite to eat and a catchup, had a good time, good food and some nice feedback.

Friday morning up nice and early to make it to the 7am Kata class at Karate. Kata is sort of like learning a dance routine, there is a fixed set of punches, blocks and turns that...

I got blown to work this morning. In fact I got woken up by the room shaking, I was convinced this time finally I was in an earthquake, but no. Just the wind slamming into the building making it wobble. No one else here seems to think anything of it though, I guess Wellington people are just used to it being this insane.

We had a good weekend. Saturday we went to Darius' BBQ. We had the best meal ever, Byron bought a big hunk of steak and slow cooked it on the BBQ. I have to figure out how to do that, because the resulting meat was so lovely and tender. It was even better than the meat you get at Wildfire and that meat's pretty damn good.

I went to the gym last night, I was the only one there so I went and had a "play" on...

It's been a nice short work week. Of course this might have something to do with me only working for 2 days.
This weekend we're going to Sarah's friend Darius' pool party, which should be fun. I'm not exactly sure of the details, but I think it has something to do with a pool and alcohol.

Edit: There isn't a pool (well, there is but it's broken), we're just going to a BBQ.

The only other exciting thing planned is that I want to go and buy myself a Karate Uniform, properly called a "Gi." As I might have mentioned already, trying to do some of the high Karate kicks with shorts on can put some "stress" on the more sensitive parts of the male body. Plus, I'm going to look mighty tough and ninja in a proper uniform.

The only other exciting thing is that while we were away...

Planes, I'm so sick to death of them. This story was typed on the 7am too-damn-early flight to Wellington. So excuse the mistakes. We got home late last night and then I was up a few hours later at 5am to catch this flight down to Wellington. It was rather stupid of me not to book the whole week off, I'm not sure exactly what I was thinking. A bit late to worry about it now though.

The last few days in Sydney were excellent. Monday the weather was still fairly shit and rainy, but we ignored that and caught the bus out to Bondi to have a look around. We visited Bondi at just the right time too, there's a display running at the moment called Art by the Sea or something like that. A whole bunch of various bits of artwork as you walk along the cliff/ocean walk...

Another wet and miserable day here in Sydney, which sucks! Where's the damn sun when you want it?

We got up pretty early and had breakfast in the hostel. This is the first time I've ever stayed in a hostel and it's all a bit of a shock to me still. I like it heaps, don't get me wrong. I'm just not used to sharing the breakfast table with lots of people from all over the world.

After breakfast we headed back down to Paddy's Markets to claim our free bags! They're nothing flash at all, but hey they were free and we're practising the mantra of "If it's gratis, grab it!"
Once sick of that we caught the train (we're staying about a 5 minute walk from Central station) down to Circular Quay, then caught the ferry over to Manly. Manly wasn't much better weather wise sadly, mostly blowing...

Hello from Sydney! Our flight over today seemed to go really quickly. I'm not sure if that was because we were both pretty tired from getting up early or because we both have a bunch gadgets to keep us entertained.

The fun started once we tried to get a shuttle at the airport. A little man came running up to us and told us if we wanted to go to the city to sit and wait and someone would come and get us. Sure enough someone did come and get us, but obviously not the right someone because little man came screaming up, pointing and finger waving. Lots of excitement. After a fun shuttle ride we managed to make it to our hostel.

Our room wasn't ready yet so we dropped our bags off (in the disabled toilet which obviously doubles as a storage locker) and walked down to Paddy's...

So I went to the gym last night for the first time ever. Really all the gym here consists of is a smallish room packed full of exercise equipment, most of which I have no idea how to use. I figured out the super computer controlled exercise bike though and also the arm weights thing where you push your arms together.

I also wrote SuperShuttle a bit of whinge yesterday, wonder if they'll bother to reply?

Tim

Hello again from Wellington. I only just made it down this week, thanks to SuperShuttle's lack of clue. I ring them up each Sunday and make the same booking, 6pm at our address. This week at about 5:30 they rang and said they were on their way but would be a little bit late. No worries I said. When they still hadn't arrived by 20 past 6 I decided to give them a call, but they got in first and rang me.

Them: "Can you confirm your address please?"
Me: "Yes, it's number 5 thingus Cresent"
Them: "Oh, right, our driver's just around the corner and will be there in a minute"
Me: "No worries"

5 minutes later another call... They're not anywhere near my place it turns out, they misheard thingus avenue for thingo avenue, a good 20 minute drive from my place. They said they'd organised a cab...