Next Stop...USA!

I am in the Aukland Airport right now about to board my flight for San Francisco. If all goes as planned (i.e. I don't miss my connecting flight to Boston (fingers are crossed!)) then I will be landing at Logan a little before 11 PM on Monday night.

If anyone reading this happens to be near Logan (or wants to be near Logan) around 11 PM Monday night and then might be driving to Cambridge, I would love to see your smiling face!! Give my phone a call if anything like this is happening (-;

I hope you all enjoyed my New Zealand writing. I will write more on other topics in the future (at least that is the plan)

My Last Days

I just woke up for the last time in New Zealand, and as I tend to get cheesily sentimental about events such as the last time I'll do something in a specific place, I apologize in advance if I come off as complaining that I have to leave. I realize what a fantastic opportunity this trip has been for me and don't want to come across as a "woe is me, I have to go back to work" person when lots of people had to be at work this whole time. As a side note: if you have the chance/time/money to do a trip like this, I full-heartedly recommend taking a couple weeks off and really getting into a vacation. This was my first trip for over 2 weeks in one country and I really enjoyed getting to know some of the people and culture of the place I am visiting.

The last couple days here in New Zealand have been fairly mellow but quite enjoyable. Amy and I completed our road trip on Friday, driving about 5 hours from Dunedin north up the east coast to Christchurch. We stopped at the Moerekai Boulders, which are a fantastic grouping of large, round boulders imbedded into the beach. One of the more unique things I have seen in all my travels. After our last "must see" we pretty much just cruised home, looking forward to some time out of the car. Friday night I went to a party for one of Jake and Michelle's friends who is leaving for a couple months to go to Indonesia or Thailand or something. Nothing quite like attending a going away party and meeting the guest of honor for the first time. There was a nice little crowd and I had a nice time meeting some more people that I had heard about in Jake's stories.

On Saturday we headed up to a place called Hanmer Springs, which is about two hours north of Christchurch. We had a group of seven all together and stopped at a couple wineries (Pegasus Bay - fantastic, and Waikara Springs - decent enough) on the way up and had a nice leisurely drive. Michelle had rented a big house for us all to stay in and once settled we turned our attention to the main attraction of Hanmer Springs, the springs. For $12 you get to enter the springs, which consist of a series of about 15 man made springs of varying temperature and could stay as long as you like. Jake and I moved through about five pools ranging from 33 degrees Celsius to 39 degrees Celsius. After about two hours, we were relaxed, pruned, and ready to eat. While others went back to start preparing some food, Jake and I took on the task of finding some wine which is always an interesting task in some of these little New Zealand towns. Despite some difficulty, we succeeded in our mission and headed back to the villa for dinner.

After a delicious barbeque dinner of burgers and venison sausage, complimented by a great salad, everyone just sat around talking and we played a couple games of Mafia, introducing the game to the three non-Americans. People gradually headed off to bed, and Jake and I stayed up chatting for quite some time, which is always fun. Sunday we headed back to Christchurch, and went to see one of Jake and Michelle's friends competing in a Cricket match. I had never watched Cricket before, and while there is a lot of downtime built into the game, I still enjoyed the act of just lying in a nice park watching and learning the game. After Cricket, Jake and I played some non-competitive ultimate to get my last little bit of exercise for the trip, came back and had some dinner and then just hung out. A very enjoyable and relaxing last full day to be sure.

So, I am in the last couple hours of my trip here, trying to tie up some loose ends (like buying the things I've been planning to buy and figuring out how or if daylight savings in the US affects my flight times home) and then I'll be heading off to the airport this afternoon. Time to get into this last day!

Penguinses!

(Editor's note: This is entry 3 of 3 wrapping up my most recent road trip. I will get some pictures up later.)

Our drive to Dunedin was a nice one, probably about 4 hours or so through mostly rolling hills, and we arrived a little before 2 PM. We were both hungry, but we wanted to get our bearings and find our lodging (the Dunedin Holiday Park) first. Dunedin was founded by the Scottish and boasts a rather unique Octagon for a city center.


The city is essentially laid out like a grid, so we had a pretty easy time finding the information center and then finding our holiday park. We were staying in Cabin 51 for the night, which was considerably nicer than the prison cell of the previous night. Of course the sun was shining, so maybe that helped.

Once we were settled, we headed into Dunedin to found some food, which I did by way of a delicious Turkish lamb shish kebab. After the eats, I walked around the city a bit, checking out some of the wonderful architecture and soaking in the suns rays. I entertained the idea of taking the Speight's (rather prominent NZ beer) but decided that since the tour lasted 90 minutes we might have trouble achieving our ultimate Dunedin goal which was to look for yellow-eyed penguins. After meeting back up with Amy, we headed a little north of the city to view the World's steepest street, Baldwin Street. We walked up to the top of Baldwin Street, trying to capture in photographs what we could feel in our calves. As a traffic engineer I was pretty interested to see just how steep this road was; in layman's terms, the road was steep!



Our quest for world records fulfilled we set about viewing some near extinct yellow-eyed penguins, which required that we drive back through Dunedin and out onto the Otago Peninsula. The drive out to the viewing beach was fantastic: steep cliffs overlooking Dunedine with sheep and ocean views worked in for good measure. A couple photo stops later and we were parking the car ready to embark on our penguin odyssey. We walked from the car, through a herd of sheep and onto the beach bordering Sandfly Bay. We passed a good deal of people heading away from the beach and were a bit worried that we were too late, but pushed on ahead. At the far end of the beach hides had been constructed so that you could view the penguins without them seeing you. Penguins are very shy and will not come ashore if they can see danger, so the hides were built in the dunes to allow people to view the penguins while still allowing the penguins to feel safe.

From the hide we were immediately able to see two penguins on the rocks bordering the beach, as well as a number of seals or sea lions (both inhabit the beach and we were a little too far to really identify the creatures). The penguins were simply basking in the last rays of the sun and we were unsure if we would see anything more, so we headed back to the beach to get in the car and get home before dark. On our way down the beach I spotted what I took to be a duck in the water bobbing in the waves. I took a couple pictures and as I was ready to dismiss the bird and head for home, out walked another penguin! I was maybe 20 yards down the shore and got a couple good pictures before alerting Amy to the bird. We decided to head back to the hide and see if any other penguins emerged as there was still a touch of daylight left. We saw our fourth penguin emerge from the ocean onto the rocks, joining the two that we had been watching for the previous hour. Once again we felt as though the time to leave was right and once again we were wrong as we were stopped a couple yards out of the hide and treated to yet another penguin returning from a long day of swimming and fishing. I took a couple more pictures and then we made the last move for the car. Despite the dying light, we saw our sixth and final penguin of the night and then made our way back to the car and off in search of dinner.



Seeing the yellow-eyed penguins is not a terribly common sight and I was thrilled to witness their wobbly movements in person. Dunedin seemed to be a pretty fun city and having an attraction like wild yellow-eyed penguins definitely makes stopping there a must in my travel book. This was a lot of writing for one day, and as I am back in Christchurch after we completed the drive home from Dunedin and the time is now 2AM, I think that I will post all of this later today and catch up with the end of my travels sometime in the not too distant future.

Wanaka, town on a lake

(Editor's note: This is entry 2 of 3 wrapping up my most recent road trip. I will get some pictures up later.)

We awoke around 9AM to find rain still falling from the Queenstown skies, which immediately ended our thoughts of driving through Wanaka and up to Mt. Aspiring National Park, as Richard and Robin had suggested the day before. Oh well. We checked out of our room, and walked into Queenstown, picking up some fresh muffins along the way. We did our obligatory e-mailing and then stopped into Richard's store, 45 Degrees South, to say goodbye. All that done, we got into the trusty Toyota Camry and made our way towards Wanaka.

There are two routes from Queenstown to Wanaka and we chose the more scenic (i.e. steeper) of the two, but the views were somewhat neutralized by the rain and accompanying fog. Still, the scenery was amazing and I enjoyed the short hour drive to Wanaka.


We checked into our lodging for the night, the Wanaka Lakeside Holiday Park, and were shown to cabin number 5, which was a glorified prison cell. We weren't there for the accommodations anyway, so the room didn't matter too much to me. After a quick, refreshing nap, we took to the streets of Wanaka with hopes that the rain would give us a reprieve and that we could actually see what the town had to offer. Wanaka had been described to us a "mini-Queenstown", but we found Wanaka to be a "not as exciting and smaller Queenstown". Still, Wanaka had some charm. To start with, there is a beautiful lake right in the heart of the town, bordered by some majestic mountains. The streets were not as lively as Queenstown, but still gave us plenty to look at. We got some food at a bar called Shooters and watched some Rugby (great sport to watch down here, because everyone is real into everything!) and enjoyed the sun fighting through the crowds. After some more walking around (including locating the "tree in the water" that is a top tourist attraction in Wanaka) we headed back to our room for a brief rest. We went back out wandering around to find a dinner spot and settled on a place called Trout's. I got fresh salmon which was mighty tasty and a glass of wine. After dinner, we were both quite beat and headed back to our room via another round of internet.


I wonder if we were not as interested in Wanaka because we simply didn't have the energy for the town that we did in Queenstown? Perhaps, but I still think Queenstown would kick Wanaka's butt if there were some form of town fight or something.

We woke up early on Thursday (7AM) with grandiose plans of heading to Mt Aspiring National Park to hike onto a glacier. We were out of the holiday park by 7:45 AM and on our way with the sun in our corner. Unfortunately, the last 20 km of the road was a dirt road that we did not feel the Camry was equipped to handle. So, we called off the dream of hiking a glacier and headed back to town for some breakfast before we were to drive to Dunedin.

Queenstown: Round 2

(Editor's Note: This is entry 1 of 3 wrapping up my most recent trip. I will get some pictures up here in a couple days, but I am on dial up right now and can't deal with the speed)

Seeing as there is so much to do in Queenstown, we knew we were in for an eventful full day when we awoke around 8:30 AM on Tuesday. After getting a little breakfast, we decided to go check out the information center and see what our best options were. While browsing the myriad of pamphlets, I decided to take a flight-cruise-flight combo to Milford Sound in the Fiordlands, but that was not to be as there were no flights leaving from Queenstown due to the weather in Milford Sound. So, my attention turned to sky diving versus bungy jumping, but we decided to postpone the decision for a little while and check out more of Queenstown.

Our first move was to take a gondola ride to the top of Bob's Peak, which would provide us with an excellent aerial view of Queenstown. We purchased our tickets and also decided to take a "luge" ride at the top of Bob's Peak (basically you steer a three-wheeled little cart down a winding course). The gondola ride up was fun and as expected the views were fantastic. We snapped some photos and then headed to the luge which was an entertaining, mini-thrill. Also at the top of Bob's Peak is the newest AJ Hackett bungy jump which got me thinking that since there were clouds in the sky and skydiving might not be as wonderful as possible that maybe bungy jumping was the right move. So, I booked a spot on the noon Nevis jump and we hustled down the hill to get to the departure site.

(Refer to the cowa-bungy post for all of the bungy related details!)

Once back in Queenstown we decided that we needed some food, so on Jake's recommendation, we headed over to Ferg Burger for a fantastic burger. Now fulfilled hunger-wise, we decided to move on to the fun of the evening. We went to a specialty wine shop which allows you to taste 80 different wines for all different prices. We had about 8 different wines each which was a lot of fun (I don't think I determined a favorite, but I am big fan of the Pinot Noirs and Sauviagnan Blancs from New Zealand). By now the rain had moved in, and our plan of going to the harbor and just relaxing was washed away. We decided instead to purchase a bottle of wine and visit a BYOWine restaurant to get another little bite to eat. En route we encountered a fresh seafood shack and sampled some of his delicious fare, and then we moved on to Dux de Lux where I had a salad and some seafood chowder and Amy partook in her half of the bottle of wine. With the wine done, we wanted to sample another suggestion of Jake and Michelle's a Thai place called @ Thai. So, up we went to @Thai where I got some chicken Satay and a Gin Sling (Gin, grenadine, lemon juice and soda water...really tasty!). At that point we were both stuffed and were thinking of heading back to our room...

...but, oh no, this night was FAR from over! On the way past the casino, I convinced Amy to go into the casino because I had found a two for one drink coupon. She was in the mood for one more drink and I thought I'd just gamble for a bit and then head to sleep. Well, the 2 black jack tables at the Sky City Casino were both full, so we dejectedly walked out only to stumble upon the sweet melody of Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs Robinson" coming from an Irish bar called Kennedy's. So, in we went for our planned last drink of the night to a semi-empty bar with a three person band called "Those Guys" playing some American favorites. I settled into my first non-NZ beer of the trip (a Guinness since we were in an Irish bar) and we were just enjoying the scene.

And thats when we met Richard.

Richard began his introduction with a classic "guess what happened to me today?", and since we had never even seen Richard we had no idea. So, he pulled out a piece of paper stating that he had, in fact, been arrested earlier that afternoon for get this: shooting a toy arrow at a bus. He had the arrow stuck to his Guinness glass in case there was any doubt. Richard was a native Kiwi though had only moved to Queenstown a short while ago. He was a really nice guy, very interested in helping us plan the rest of our trip and introduced us to his girlfriend Robin, a native Texan with no trace of American vernacular; she spoke just like a Kiwi. We ended up staying for two more drinks, listening to some pretty good music and having some fun conversation with Richard and Robin. As the band wound down, Richard asked if we wanted to see a more local bar, which we were of course up to. Out into the street the four of us went, with rain coming down and not a care in the Southern Hemisphere. Richard took us through some back alleys and we arrived on some street Amy and I had not even encountered in our 2 days of wandering. Fun stuff! I bought a bottle of local (Lake Hayes) Pinot Noir and the four of us continued our lively conversation, covering all sorts of topics. As the wine wound down, Amy headed back to our room a couple blocks away, Richard and Robin bid us farewell, and I decided to say hello to my friend the Sky City Casino.

Apparently I had a little too much wine, because my former friend the Sky City Casino asked me how much I had had to drink that night, and when I responded "five or six...or seven", Mr. Sky City Casino informed me that I was not allowed to take their money that night. Back into the night, I somehow gave directions to another couple of Americans, and off I went seeking the other casino in town the Wharf Casino. I sat down with no problems at this joint and being a pretty good judge of my sobriety, deemed myself not all that drunk (which I still maintain even writing this a couple days later). I played black jack for about 45 minutes, ending with an additional $20 in my pocket and decided that my thrilling day was at an end.

Queenstown Day 1

I am not sure I have the time or energy to get the full Queenstown experience into blog form at the present moment, but we are in a town called Wanaka right now with no real plans for the late afternoon, so I may as well put some effort in.

Amy and I drove from Christchurch to Queenstown on Monday. The drive took about eight hours, but that includes a lunch stop, numerous picture stops and a winery stop, so we may have been in the car for something like six hours. The drive was very pleasant; the road wound through a number of rolling hills and then mountains and we were blessed with some great sunny skies. Our lunch break was along the shores of a giant, turquoise lake, which sand flies aside, provided us with great visuals as we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Arriving in Queenstown was immediately exciting and we headed straight to our lodging: the Queenstown Lakeside Holiday Park to get settled and get into the night.

Queenstown reminded me a lot of Interlaken, Switzerland, but with a more developed downtown area. The setting was magnificent: about a 6 block by 4 block grid of shops, bars and restaurants, backed by tall mountains and bordering the longest lake in New Zealand. You couldn't really ask for more options than were at our disposal. Our first order of business was getting some food and we had a serviceable meal at a place called Red Rock which allowed us to eat outside and relax after the day of travel. We next wandered the streets, popping our heads into various stores and casinos, before deciding to get a glass of wine what we later determined to be "The Mall". So, we sipped local wine in a crowded pedestrian walkway and enjoyed the surrounding feel of life.

We headed down to the lake and walked around a bit before deciding on having a couple beers at a place called the Loaded Hog. We sampled a couple of the Loaded Hog's beers and watched the passers-by before deciding to head back towards our Holiday Park.

Time to go experience some more of Wanaka. Day 2 of Queenstown and more at some point in the future.

Cowa-bungy!

Queenstown is essentially the outdoor capitol of the South Island, and you have everything available to you: white water rafting, skydiving, hang gliding, motor boating, and of course bungy jumping. New Zealand, and Queenstown in particular, is the birth place of the bungy jump: a company called AJ Hackett first started the bungy jumping from a bridge about 30 minutes east of Queenstown.

My original thought was to go skydiving as the scenery around here is amazing, but yesterday was a touch on the cloudy side and my thoughts began to drift towards a bungy jump. AJ Hackett has 3 jumps in the Queenstown area: the orginal 43 meter jump off of a bridge, a new 30 meter jump from the giant hill overlooking Queenstown into trees and The Nevis, a 134 meter jump from a suspended enclosure, the 3rd highest jump in the world. Well, I didn't travel all this way not to go big.

I went for The Nevis.

Amy (Michelle's sister, who I am currently traveling with) and I booked a trip to The Nevis. Amy would just be spectating and I would be jumping. We made the noon booking and were on a bus with 18 other jumper/spectators for a 45 minute ride up to the jump site. The last 15 minutes of the ride were on a winding dirt road that essentially took us up the face of a mountain. As we reached the plateau, we were treated to a wonderful view of the surrounding mountains, a river winding through them, and were staring right at the suspended structure we would be jumping from. Basically, cables are run between the two mountains that border the river and in the middle of these cables, what could best be described as a hut is in the middle. The hut is probably 20 feet by 20 feet or so and sways with the wind. Yikes!

So, as we disembark from the bus, we get into our harnesses get some brief instructions, and start getting shuttled out to the launch site in groups of 4 or 5. The jump order is determined by weight, and as I weighed in at 91 KG (about 198 pounds for those that don't like metric (which puts be back below 200 pounds (thank goodness!!))) I would be the third jumper of the day. I am not in the first group that goes out and as we are about halfway between the safety of solid ground and the mystery of this suspended hut, the first guy of the day launches out of the buidling and we are under way. As we arrive in the hut, I am told that I will be jumping next as they ready the Irish guy going before me. The Irish guy has a very worried look on his face and after edging towards the launch pad decides to chicken out and take a seat, meaning that I will be jumping next having never seen anyone actually jump from the hut. Double yikes!!

I have a harness that wraps over my shoulders and connects to the straps wrapped around my leg and waist. The straps are about two inches wide, but basically as thick as any normal strap. There is a clip at the center of my chest. To this get up, they add leg wraps which effectively feel like really thick ankle braces. I guess this is all I get! As the chicken Irish guy walks dejectedly back to his friends I want to tell him that everything is fine, who cares, but frankly I need to be worrying about myself at the moment.

They have me walk over to a chair where I am checked over by the head instructor, Jase. Once checking that everything is secure he attaches the bungy to my feet and clips in my chest straps. He has me smile for the AJ Hackett camera and then asks if I want to say anything for the DVD. Still feeling quite brave, I give a "Its go time!" and my feet are back on the floor moving to the launch pad. Amy is positioned well, snapping lots of pictures with my camera and I start to waddle over to towards the open air and river below.

With my legs strapped in, all I can manage are baby steps, which makes the process much harder and more nerve racking. The launch pad is actually called the "meat pad" and consists of a grated platform sticking out of the hut, about two or three feet. And I am supposed to walk out onto this thing, except that I can only waddle, so I am doing what Jase refers to as "the bungy shuffle". I get my feet to the meat pad and reach for something to grab, but there is nothing. Just mountains ahead and a river below. Jase assures me that he is holding my straps and I continue with the bungy shuffle. Amy later told me that my face was white as I got out on the platform.

So, I get my feet to the edge of the ledge, and Jase has me wave to Amy for what must be a great photo. He tells me to jump when he says "one" and to try to grab the mountains ahead (i.e. get my body out of the platform as much as I can). Then Jase starts to count down. (Do I only have three seconds to decide if I, two seconds?! I know what comes next...) "One!"




And I am off...an 8.5 second free fall to within 10 meters of the river below (or so they say) I let out a yell mid way down but I have no idea if noise came out of my mouth. The rush was amazing, and as I reached the end of my fall, I bounced back towards the suspended hut as advertised. As a I bounced a second time I gave a "woo hoo" type howl and reached to undo my legs which put me back into a sitting position. I was pulled back into the hut and, shaking noticeably, was released from my bond to the million of little rubber bands which had just kept me alive.



Nice to be done with that one (-; We stayed in the hut for a while just watching others jump and then were shuttled back to land and eventually back to Queenstown.

National Ultimate Champions 2007

Thats what my new hat reads across the front.

Today, I was part of my first National Championship ultimate team, as the Canterbury (Christchurch) team (nicknamed Fox for this tournament) won a thrilling finals game over Aukland's Blue Fish. Winning is always great, but helping an underdog to a National Championship is pretty special.

The New Zealand ultimate season consists of 3 tour events: a placement tourney in Aukland for Men's and Women's teams, a Championship event in Christchruch (this tournament) for Men's and Women's teams and a Championship event in Wellington for Coed teams. We came in seeded number 2, and as I wrote yesterday lost to Aukland (the perennial power in this country) in our pool play game. But, because there were only 6 teams, we had two more pool play games today (we beat the Christchurch B-team and the Aukland B-team by a combined 34-4) and then went into the finals.

The finals featured pretty straight upwind/downwind conditions that made throwing pretty tricky and had me worried about our ability to score going into the wind (Aukland was faster, taller and had more skilled thowers, but they only had 10 guys to our 14, so we had the energy advantage). We started out with 2 upwind goals to take a 5-0 lead and were looking strong, but as ultimate games go, we faltered a bit, taking half 9-6 and giving one of our upwind goals back. Then we fought our way to an 11-9 lead, before giving up two goals to set the score at 11-11 as the cap went off meaning we were playing to 14. We promptly gave up our wind advantage and were suddenly down 11-13 and recieving with the wind. After a couple possessions by each team, including a point where Bluefish had the disc within 5 yards of the endzone to win the game, we finally punched in the goal (I was on the sideline for that point, as I was playing mostly upwind points) to make the game 12-13. We had a lot of work left to do as we were pulling into the wind and were playing without the teams captain and possibly best all around player who had been injured earlier. We came out playing 1-3-3 zone and Bluefish moved the disc down to within 15 yards of victory before Jake got a handblock from the chase position. We marched the disc up the length of the field in pretty heavy winds and Jake threw a goal to tie the game at 13-13. We were all pretty amped and now had the wind in our favor on double-game point. The seven from the previous point stayed on the field, meaning I got to play double-game point for the New Zealand Championship. We came down in 1-3-3 again with Jake marking and me in the wall and after a couple dicey throws on their own endzone, Bluefish floated a swing pass that was caught by one of our players and then thrown short to Jake for the victory!

14-13 Christchurch!

This game meant a TON to all of the players here in Christchurch and I was honored to be a part of their celebration. Though I may never see a lot of those players again, I definitely had a great time getting to know them and taking the field of battle with them.

And now, I can say I am a National Ultimate Champion (-;

The Christchurch Experience

Hello again! I have been back in Christchurch for 4 days now and have been enjoying my time here. I leave on Monday for a couple days down south (Queenstown and Wanaka) so I thoughtI'd take a little time to update the happenings.

After the 5 days of travel, I decided I needed a bit of a rest on this vacation, so I took Wednesday as a relax day and slept in a bit. After waking, I organized the photos I had taken on the trip (570 ish after deleting the bad ones) and Jake was able to get out of work early, so he was home around 3 PM. We drove into the center of Christchursh and threw the frisbee around a bit before heading to one of my favorite spots: The Casino! Jake and I sat down at a $5 Black Jack table and played cards for a while. I was playing with $50 and got up a bit before getting raked over by a couple horrible dealers leaving me with just $10 of my original money. Couple interesting things to note about Black Jack here: a push is called a "stand off" which I think is definitely an upgrade, you can't double down if one of your cards is an Ace (Major bummer!), and the dealer only deals one of their cards face up to start (the rest of their cards come after all of the players have finished their betting, giving new meaning to the phrase "taking the dealers card".

On our way out of the Casino, I decided to let my $10 ride on Twisted Metal black at the Roulette table, and hit to double up my money. We went to get some dinner at Burrito Company and then decided to swing back into the Casino on the way to the car. I started with a $10 bet on Twisted Metal Red at the Roulette and hit again, getting me up to $30. Jake was done gambling, so I sat back down at our $5 table and got down to business. I got my money back, and when we left I was up $40 on the night,which was nice. We went back to Jake's and went to bed pretty early.

My Thursday was pretty productive. I did some internetting at a cafe near Jake's and then headed into Christchurch for some walking around and such. I went to the downtown mall to get a knee brace and then met Jake for ultimate practice around 6:15. At practice I found out that I made the Christchurch A team for the upcoming tournament, which was nice since I didn't really want to play with the B team. We did some good running around, and my knee (which has had limited mobility since a football injury almost a month ago) felt ok. After practice, we got some food from Two Fat Indians restaurant and watched Wedding Crashers on the DVD.

Friday morning, Jake's wife Michelle and her sister Amy arrived from LA around 11 AM and the three of us hung out for a while. Michelle had to go to work, so Amy and I went into Chirstchurch, had a couple beers at Dux de Lux and got some food. Friday night the four of us got some great sushi and just hung out at Jake and Michelle's place, making a pretty early night of things as Jake and were playing ultimate the next day and Amy and Michelle were pretty beat from their travels.

Saturday (today) Jake and I played in the 2nd of 3 New Zealand Ultimate Tour events here in Christchurch with the Christchurch (Canterbury) team. We started out against a team from the North Island called MUA, and took that game fairly easily. I was basically only playing offensive points because my knee doesn't really allow me to reach higher than 75% of my top speed. Our second game was a big one against 2005 Callahan Award winner Tank from Texas and the Wellington team. The game was back and forth, but we pulled away and won 17-12. Our third and last game of the day was against top seeded Blue Fish from Aukland, the cream of New Zealand Ultimate. As the tourney is a round robin and the other 2 teams we play on Sunday (tomorrow) are cream puffs, this game was essentially meaningless as we would be playing them again in the finals. Still, players on both sides really wanted the game, and we ended up losing 13-11 in a game we very easily could have won.

So, I am sceduled to wake up in 8 hours or so and get into the playing again. I hope my knee loosens up enough to allow me to play well, because I am pretty into this tourney. For the day I had one turnover on a number of touches and even got a D! Not bad for a gimp...

Down the West Coast and Across Arthur's Pass

After leaving Abel Tasman we headed west towards a town called Westport. The plan was the spend Monday night in Westport and then spend Tuesday traveling down the west coast and back to Christchurch via Arthur's Pass. The drive from Abel to Westport was phenomenal! The road took us along a river, through rolling hills and sheep farms, and then into the Southern Alps. After a couple of hours of driving, with a couple photo stops we came upon the town of Westport, a town which my guide book described as "lacking in charm". We found that all of the motels had no vacancies and were worried we'd have to spend another night sleeping on the ground. But, we located a backpackers place called the Trip Inn which provided us with a double room complete with real mattresses. With lodging secured we headed out for some dinner and found a place called Porta Bello which served me a nice steak and Jake some beef lasagne, both complete with delicious salad. Feeling content after a nice meal, we headed out into the night to find the entire town closed at 9:30 PM. Oh well! We walked back to our place, split 3 beers and went to sleep, enjoying the comforts of one of the smallest mattresses I've ever slept on.


We were out of the Trip Inn around 10 AM and heading south along the west coast. The west coast of New Zealand is bordered by the Tasman Sea and looks a lot like the Pacific Coast of the US. The road bordering the west coast here even greatly resembles Route 1, so the scenery was wonderful. We made a couple photo stops and then arrived at our first attraction of the day: the Pancake Rocks. These rocks are a wonderful sight and we spent about 30 minutes walking around them, snapping lots of photos.



We continued on to a town called Greymouth, which is probably the biggest town on the west coast and took lunch there. After lunch, we continued south and then cut east heading towards Arthur's Pass and Christchurch. We were again treated to wonderful scenery and great views of pastures and mountains. As we came into Arthur's Pass, we decided to get out and go for a short hike into the woods. With our legs stretched we then got a snack at a small cafe in town (and by town I mean like 3 stores) and then moved on to the home stretch. Our last stop of the journey was at one of Jake's favorite places: Castle Hill. Castle Hill is very close to where Narnia was filmed (we drove past the road that was made to serve the Narnia set) and basically consists of hundreds of rocks on a hill. Some nice photo shots, and also a great place to just wander around and marvel. After our stop at Castle Hill we headed into Christchurch, arriving around 7PM or so. We unpacked, had a nice fish dinner and watched the movie Miracle to unwind from our journey.

The Abel Tasman Experience

I have not done very much hiking, and have not actually hiked for more than one day (i.e. have not hiked, camped, hiked, then camped again without going to a car) so I was very excited to get the double experience of hiking in New Zealand and going for a real hike. After our stop in Motueka, we continued on to Abel Tasman National Park, which is located on the north coast of the south island. We arrived a little after noon and decided to catch lunch and a beer at the last part of civilization we would see for a couple days, a place called Mac's (also the name of the beer they served). Jake and I sat down to a wonderful view of the ocean and enjoyed the tranquil scene. My excitement was growing.

Around 1:30 or 2 we began our journey into the woods with food, sleeping bags, 4 liters of water, a tent and some clothes; pretty standard camping stuff. We hiked for about 2 hours, hugging the coast and enjoying the cover of ferns and trees to shield us from the sun (probably about 80-85 during the day) and then decided we'd stop and go for a swim at one of the many beaches we were passing. So, down we went to Appletree Beach and enjoyed our first of many dips in the mighty Pacific Ocean. After cooling off (the water was refreshing, i.e. cool) we had a snack of sweaty cheese and sweaty pepperoni (always a good sign when your first snack already has elements of sweat) and threw the frisbee around for a little while.



We got back on the trail and plugged along for another couple of hours until we reached our resting spot for the night, Watering Cove. After a pretty steep descent from the main trail, we came upon a campsite unlike any I have ever seen. We were feet away from a nice sandy beach, which had rocks on both sides and a stunning view of Tasman Island with mountains behind. And we were sharing this treat with only 4 other people, which meant we basically had our run of things. So, we took a quick swim and then set about cooking some dinner (soup) and chilled a bottle of wine and a beer in a nearby stream for later. After enjoying some food, we played a game of cribbage and then kicked back with some wine to trade stories and watch the sunset. We were treated to a great light show from the stars and I glimpsed my first view of the infamous Southern Cross constellation, which was great. We tried as hard as we could to figure out how the moon progresses from no moon to full moon and what the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse was, but didn't really come up with much. We headed to bed a couple hours after the sun went down.



Our Sunday began by watching a very nice sunrise over the mountains across the ocean from us. We had a breakfast of granola bars and apples (Gala! purchased on the side of the road as we entered Abel Tasman!) and then headed out on the next part of our journey. We traversed some mud flats because that was the low tide short cut and decided to have a peanut butter and jelly snack on the next beach we came to. As we were eating, a woman in her late 20's and her mother came by and talked with us. She saw we had a frisbee and asked if we played and might like to throw around. So, after our eating, the 3 of us went out onto the sand bar and threw for about 30 minutes; a very nice break from the hiking. Sunday was giving us a bit of rain to deal with, nothing sustained, but just enough to have us a little worried for the evening. We continued on the trail until coming along a wonderful little spot called Medlands Beach where we decided to have a snack and take a swim. As we ate another round of sweaty pepperoni and still sweatier cheese, we played another game of cribbage and enjoyed the company of a couple crazy looking ducks.




After our stop, we plugged through the rest of the hike to our resting spot for the night, Tonga Quarry Beach. We again had a wonderful beach, with a wonderful view and a nice stream to chill our beers. We cooked a dinner of packaged tortellini, and then settled into another game of cribbage and a bottle of Pinot Noir that I'd purchased at one of the wineries. About 3 hands into our game the rain started again, so we went to secure our tent and gear. The moisture subsided so we went out to finish the game and start the wine. As we finished the game, the rains came again and we decided we'd just stay on the beach and wait for the water to pass. After some minutes of just sitting on the sand in the rain we decided we'd better at least seek shelter under the trees, so we moved to a nearby picnic table and resumed our conversation. The rain continued but we were decently covered and all of our gear was fine, so we just enjoyed the quiet (the other 5 people at the site had all gone into their tents). As we sat talking at the table, we were joined by what appeared to be a very furry cat with a long tale. We had no flashlight with us, so we kinda just watched this thing move around us, as Jake speculated that perhaps the animal was a baby puma or a baby jaguar. The rain died down and we decided to head back to the beach and away from whatever this cat thing was. So, we settled back into our spot by a rock and were quickly chased back to our tent by another onslaught of rain. We decided we better just go to sleep rather than risk another encounter with the cat thing.

The next morning was spent drying all of our wet gear in the hot sun and readying ourselves for the short hike to the beach we had scheduled a water taxi from at 2:30 PM. As we were cleaning up we could see that paw prints had been left in the night leading right up to the door of our tent. Everything dried out quite well and we were on our way for the last 30 minutes of hiking. The beach we came upon was again beautiful and we chilled the 2 beers we had not drank the night before in a sheltered stream for later. We decided we'd try to take an earlier water taxi back to our car so that we could have an easier drive to our next stop. After changing our reservation, we enjoyed some swimming, some more photos and those 2 beers. The water taxi whizzed us back to base camp in about 20 minutes or so (what had taken us nearly 10 hours to hike), and we enjoyed a beer and sandwich back at Mac's before heading out on our next adventure. I think we hiked a total of about 15 miles over the two days, with some pretty steep grades and we were both happy to be back sitting in civilization.

They Drive on the Other Side of the Road!

Finally back at a computer! I wrote this on my first day here in Christchurch. I'll be back with some more in a couple minutes...

As my flight was about to take off from Aukland, I thought to myself that since NZ drivers drive on the left side of the road, I should aim for what I think of as the driver side of Jake's car when he came to pick me up, so as not to look silly. Of course, even with the premeditation I had a mental lapse and headed for the normal passenger side before Jake stopped me with a quick joke. Dang! I had the whole event planned out too! The whole driving on the other side of the road thing is pretty difficult to get used to! And riding as a passenger on the left of the car is also quite odd.

Has anyone else ever felt like a book they were reading started relating to their life at the very moment they were reading the book? I feel as though this has happened to me on a couple of occasions and I can't tell if I shape my thinking in life at the moment I am reading a book to have a common theme with the book, or if I am just reaching to find a similarity between what I am reading and what is going on in my life at that moment. But, anyway, I am reading a John Grisham (pure entertaining garbage, I know) in which the lead character is being forced to adapt to a new culture and a new language and he is taking that approach that he take the bull by the horns. Now, obviously I am not trying to pick up a new language, but the culture here is certainly different, and as Jake is working today I am just basically killing some time by myself. Though I have often travelled between places by myself I have spent very little time in new places by myself and I am still getting used to how different you feel walking down a street you've never been on, by yourself, with no true intended purpose.

On Jake's recommendation I decided to go for a bike ride towards the center of town. Simple enough right? But consider this: you bike on the opposite side of the street (so as to travel with the cars) and when you approach an intersection you must first look to the right, instead of to the left, because that is the closest lane of travel. And when you are crossing an intersection, you have to watch for left-turns from your direction of travel and right turns from the opposite direction of travel, which, at least to me, is more difficult that one might think. Now combine, riding a bike under totally different traffic conditions on streets you've never been on, and the simple bike ride into town becomes a bit more of an adventure. I must mention that the temperature is a near perfect 75 degrees or so, which made any worries I had disappear pretty quickly (-;

So, I made my first trip towards town, didn't really get all the way into town, but then rode back to a small shopping center where I made my first purchases on New Zealand soil. Now, I am back at Jake's just relaxing after all of the travels and all of the hectic happenings of the past few days. Nice to sit down with a new beer (Monteith's Summer Ale) and just unwind.

Into the Wilderness

This is the first time I've been on the www since arriving in Christchurch a couple days ago, and as I am just passing through a small town called Motueka, I will be brief. Jake and I are on our way to Abel Tasman National Park on the northern coast of the South Island, where we'll spend two nights hiking and sleeping on the beach. Should be very beautiful, and I am pretty excited.

We spent yesterday driving north along the east coast through rain and grey skies, but made the most of the day by stopping to sample a couple wineries and having a great dinner of Green Shell Mussels in the Green Shell Mussel capitol of the world: Havelock. We had no lodging reservation and things got a bit dodgy, but we eventually found a small campground outside of Richmond and all was well.

My two days in Christchurch were fun and the weather has been great, aside from the rain yesterday. I'll post more when I have more time and will definitely get some cool pictures up here very soon.

Touchdown!

I am on the ground in Aukland, New Zealand awaiting my connecting flight over to Christchurch where Jake is scheduled to pick me up in about 3 hours. New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of the east coast, so add a day and subtract 6 hours to the present time in EST and you arrive at my time. If anyone needs/wants to know the future, I am here and I can help you out for a small fee.

My 13 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean was not all that bad. I was seated way back in row 61 and immediately missing the comforts of first class. The seat was a touch cramped, but since I'd been up since 8AM that morning, I knew I'd be able to get some sleeping in. Air New Zealand featured a nice selection of movies to choose from and I went with Flags of our Fathers which was entertaining, but probably would have been a bit more powerful had I not been viewing a 6 inch screen on the back of the seat in front of me. The dinner of chicken, potatoes and spinach was tolerable and I had a couple glasses of Pinot Noir to ease into sleep mode.

After the movie ended, I nodded in and out sleep for about 7 hours, which was pretty decent all things considered. Once I had determined I wasn't going to be sleeping much more, I launched into The Departed which is a phenomenal movie. I was served a bit of breakfast (which I may regret later) and then we began our descent into Aukland. I cleared customs no problem and after getting turned around a bit in this airport (there are essentially no directional signs anywhere; thank goodness this is an English speaking country!) I eventually made my way over to the Domestic Terminal and am now looking to board in about 40 minutes.

The sun just rose and I am now treated to a cool view of some mountains behind the runways.

Time to head Down Under

My time in San Francisco, while short, was great fun. Dave and his fiancee Tiila picked me up from the airport and took me back to their apartment on Nob Hill. I was feeling the first class drinks, but was nowhere near the level of intoxication Dave had achieved during his day of boozing. After dropping off my belongings we had a couple drinks and then headed to a bar down the street called the Hemlock Tavern. Alli and a couple of her friends came over to meet us and we had a couple drinks. Dave had to call it a night on the early side of life, so me, Alli and one of her friends moved on to another bar whose name escapes me right now. Pretty fun Saturday night.



I spent yesterday doing the tourist thing around San Fran with Alli. We rode the trolley, grabbed a beer at Eldos Brewery and walked around Golden Gate Park for a little while. The weather was great and we had a very enjoyable time. Around 6PM we met Dave at a dive-ish bar called Finnegan's Wake where we had another drink or two and enjoyed some good conversation. Alli bid us farewell and Dave and I headed back towards his apartment by way of a big slice of pizza. We shared a couple beers (Anchor Steam Bock Beer - very good) and caught up a little bit before heading out to gorge on some great sushi. After the sushi feast we headed to a karaoke bar called Encore and settled into the bar. I was pretty beat (I think the travelling had finally caught up with me) and was practically falling asleep at the bar. So, I went back to Dave's place and he stayed out a bit longer, mostly in hopes of doing a rendition of Achy Breaky Heart up on stage (which fortunately for the patrons of Encore never happened).

Today Dave and I got up early (out of the house by 9AM) and enjoyed a fantastic San Francisco day. We were treated to some more fantastic weather and had the good fortune of driving Dave's Miata around with the top down. We headed towards the ocean and were treated to some great views of the Pacific and the Golden Gate Bridge.


Then we had some much needed breakfast at Louis' Diner in the Sutro District. Great view overlooking the ocean and some pretty standard diner breakfast food. We headed to Golden Gate Park in hopes of playing some disc golf but were thwarted in our efforts when all the disc golf baskets had been taken down. So, we had to settle for just throwing around a bit, which was enjoyable. After a little lunch, we started our trek to the airport. We made our way down the coast a bit along Route 1 (such a fun road!) and then wound our way back through the rolling hills, arriving at the airport just after 4PM for my 7PM flight. Everything went great with check-in and now I am sitting at my gate getting ready for the 13 hour flight. Good times!

So long for now America!

Seat 12B? No thanks, I'll take seat 4D

(I wrote this on my flight from Philly to San Fran, which was Saturday Feb 17 from about 5:45 PM EST to 9:00 PM PST)

After getting thoroughly hogpounded by US Air for the better part of 28 hours, I finally notched my first victory of the trip, making the score:

Jason 1
US Air 7

I have a lot of making up to do to right the score, but I am quite comfortable right now, high above what I will guess is somewhere south of Chicago. I took a page out of my co-worker Scott's playbook and decided that I would aim to be the last person on the plane and just claim a first class seat for myself. The prospect of sitting in a middle seat for the 6 hour flight from Philly to Frisco was not very appealing, especially since it took an extremely generous soul to prevent me from having to fork over $100 plus for a hotel room and having to kill almost 18 hours by myself. So, after checking in and being unsuccessful in talking my way into an upgrade (an admittedly half hearted effort) I bided my time until everyone in the waiting area had boarded and then presented my boarding pass. After I was past the ticket checkers a couple more people got in line, but I sized them up and determined that they were not threats for first class. Now, I just needed to see an open seat in that first section and hope that no high rollers were running late for the flight. As I rounded the corner into the airplane aisle, I spied two open first class seats among the 24 possible spots. An aisle in the middle and a window in the back. I decided the aisle was less intrusive and made my move, making some small talk with the elder gentleman sitting in the row as if I belonged there. Next came a somewhat excruciating 20 minutes or so as a couple stragglers trickled onto the plane and I envisioned getting kicked to the back. Thankfully no one came to claim the seat and as we pushed off I breathed a sigh of comfort that at least something about this trip came up Jason.

I am into my third plastic cup of white wine as a I write this, and we have about 4 hours until our scheduled landing in San Francisco

I have never flown first class before, and I must say that I am quite comfortable. To the best of my knowledge the drinks are free (thats what I had heard previously and no one has asked me for any money) and I was also served a hot dinner of breaded chicken and pasta. The food was not great by any means, but certainly quelled my fears about what was going to soak up all the presumably free alcohol I was drinking. Not a bad gig at all up here with the big wigs of airplane travel. Maybe I should do this more often!

So, my plan is to kick in a movie on the laptop (maybe The Illusionist or maybe I'll start the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and kick back with some white wine. Then, when I get within about 2 hours of SF, I'll make the switch to the rum and cokes to gear up for what should be a very fun Saturday night. Dave (or his girlfriend/fiancee) is scheduled to pick me up from SFO and then we will hopefully meet up with Alli and have ourselves a fun evening in the City by the Bay.

UPDATE 9:47 EST (though my guess is that we are somewhere over Wyoming)

Sorry to interrupt The Illusionist, but did everyone know that when you order a rum and coke in first class you get 2 nips of rum?!? So, just to recap, in schwag class you order a rum and coke and get one nip of rum and a a can of Coke while being charged 5 beans, while up here is first class you order a rum and coke and you get 2 nips of rum with that same can of Coke for a whooping assumed fee of absolutely nasing! (I told the drinks lady (aka the flight attendant) that she was doing a great job after my second trip to the first class bathroom and a couple minutes later she brought me a fifth plastic cup of white wine without my asking (thank you Craig Sanders for welcoming me into the world of talking to servers (yes I know you showed me first mom, I was just embarrassed back then)))

UPDATE 10:57 PM EST (we gotta be over California by now. Right?)

The Illusionist: I'll give it a B. Good watch for sure, but nothing super special.

So, gather round: Story time! (some of you may know this story, but I am getting things on the www for you as much as I am for me and I'd like to get this story out there even if I know I can tell a story in person better than I can write a story)

May 2003. My brother Jeff and I are on a Continental flight bound for Rome, Italy. Jeff has planned ahead enough to have a water bottle full of Bacardi Razz and as we are on an international flight run by an American carrier the deal is you need to buy your own beverages. So, a bit before dinner service time, we decide to take advantage of the loaded water bottle. I opt for Sprite (knowing that Sprite creates a nice mix with Bacardi Razz) while Jeff opts for Ginger Ale (without consulting with me).

So a short while after we mix our Adams' cocktails we are served our delectable airplane dinners, and soon thereafter we hit some turbulence. Now we've all been through turbulence on an airplane, and some of us have been through turbulence with an alcoholic beverage in our midst, but here is where this story takes shape. As the turbulence begins, I reach for and pick up my drink, thinking that I can manipulate the tossing and turning of the airplane better than the static drink tray in front of me, thus reducing the possibility of spilling. What does Jeff do? He also picks up his drink, but instead of trying to move with the turbulence, he simply extends his arm in my direction so that his drink is safely hovering above my tray and lap. Needless to say, I manage to contain all of my drink within my cup, and needless to say Jeff douses my pants and dinner with his disgusting Ginger Ale and Bacardi and Razz blend as the turbulence worsens. Of course once his spilling begins, both of us are in hysterics and that only increases the spilling on one of two pair of pants I brought on a 17 day trip.

The elder gentlemen to my right mimicked my choice of rum and coke. Lets hope he has better control than Jeff....

Oy.

Night 1 will be spent in Philadelphia, or wherever Nick Purifico lives. My Boston to Philly flight, orginally scheduled to leave at 2:30 PM finally boarded around 6:20 PM. We probably took off around 7PM after an extended boarding process and everyone was already crabby. I did a little reading and then fell asleep (or came close to falling asleep) as we took off. After a couple minutes of eyes closed, I decided to try out the DVD capabilities of the new laptop by watching Clerks 2. 36 minutes into the movie (somewhat lackluster so far in my opinion) we were beginning our descent. We touched down around 8:20 PM and in announcing the connecting gates, the flight lady said that San Francisco would be leaving from B3, the very same gate that was on my ticket. I immediately felt a surge of hope that maybe the flight was still there and readied myself to get off the plane. Unfortunately, we sat in that plane on the runway for over an hour, including an excruciating 15 minutes where we were less than 50 feet from the gate but no one was available to "park us", In other words, after sitting on the runway for 45 minutes, US Air, in all their infinite wisdom, decided against having a doofus with an orange wand available to greet our flight. The captain went so far as to suggest that everyone open their US Air magazine to get the e-mail address of customer relations in order to complain.

Eventually we got off the plane, and lo and behold, there was no San Francisco departure remaining for that night. Whether the SF plane was available when we first landed or whether the plane was long gone before we even began our descent, I may never know, but this experience has soured an already sour opinion of US Air in particular and the airline industry in general.

I have no idea what tonight will hold. The time is now 10:20PM and I am waiting for a ride from a person that enrolled at Delaware 2 years after I graduated. I haven't eaten dinner...

UPDATE 2:30AM:

I just got back from the Bryn Mawr Pub with Nick and am settling in for bed. Nick really hooked me up tonight: ride from the airport, he hadn't eaten dinner so we went to some diner that could have been in the middle of Arkansas, I get a bed to sleep in, and we went down the street to a little dive type pub and I got to have some Yuenglings. Things on this trip are looking up!!

I am bummed to be missing the Toranado barleywine fest with Dave tomorrow, but I figure things are happening for a reason and this was a fun night (once on the groun in Philly). To tell you the truth I am not even sure where I am, but I know I am near Villanova, Bryn Mawr and Haverford, so check a map.

Tomorrow I have (at least I hope I have!) a flight at 5:30 PM from Philly to San Fran. If all goes as planned I'll get to hang out with Dave and Alli and all this excessive time traveling from Boston to San Francisco will be forgotten.

Not the Start I was hoping for...

So my day was supposed to go like this:
Wake up
Eat breakfast with Anthony and Tricia in Boston around 9:30
Back to the B.A.D. to pack
Leave for airport around noon
2:30 PM flight to Philly on US Air
land in Philly 4:00 PM
Flight to San Fran at 5:30 PM
Get picked up by Dave in San Fran at 9PM PST.

Well, I got to the airport on time and then all hell broke loose! My flight was already delayed 2 hours when I got here, basically meaning that I wasn't making my connecting flight but still giving me a fighting chance if I ran. I chose not to check my luggage envisioning a sprint through the Philly airport to barely make my connecting flight. Of course the 3:30 PM flight to Philly was on time and left at 3:30 PM, leaving me sitting here still waiting.

I checked in with the less than helpful US Air people and was told there was no way I was getting on a new flight to Philly and that the SF flight would not be waiting. I was also told that if I didn't leave tonight to Philly I wasn't "going to make it to San Francisco before Tuesday". Well, thats just great!

So, now it is 5PM and we just got word that our plane took off from Philly and we will be boarding around 6:15 PM, only 45 minutes after my connecting flight from Philly is scheduled to leave. One person clapped, and at least that clapping made me smile.

If anyone has any friends in the Philly area that might want to pick me up from the airport, put me up for the night and then drive me back to the airport tomorrow, let me know. That would be pretty sweet.

Goodnight to My Hero

So, this is my first effort at maintaining a blog and you'll all have to bear with me as it gets up and running. I promise that the general tone of this blog will be happy and fun and I will do my best to transfer my experiences on this trip and beyond into entertaining words, but I do have to start with a somber subject. If you are not big on somber reading than check back in for my next post, which will hopefully happen sometime in San Francisco and not be posted from Philadelphia tonight (my flight to Philly from Logan is presently delayed 2 hours, which has me landing after my flight to SF takes off. Damn connecting flights and damn US Air and United. This should be exciting.)

On Monday afternoon between 11:30 AM and 1:00 PM, my grandfather passed away. He had been through a lot in his life: 3 heart attacks and spending the past year living with a respirator to aid his breathing (though he still did all his own shopping and took care of himself up until his last day). My thoughts can't help but be with him right now as I prepare to cross the Equator for the first time, an Equator which he crossed on numerous occasions while serving on Coast Guard and Navy ships in World War II and beyond. I think my grandfather deserves to be known a bit more by my friends and family because he may have shaped me into the person I am more than any one individual. I hadn't seen him since Easter weekend 2005, and that will stay with me as one of my great regrets. Do not take anything in this life for granted. Check in with the people in your life that you haven't seen in a while.

In 5th grade my class was assigned to write about our hero. At that point in my life, I hadn't really considered if I had a hero and sat down to think about the question at hand. But, I quickly determined, that if I did have a hero, the hero had to be someone in my life and not some celebrity or athlete. I knew that my hero had to have had an effect on my life. I knew that my hero was my grandfather. Reflecting on him this week, I came to realize just how much he meant to my childhood and to my present personality. He reduced every moment into a one-on-one conversation, no matter how many people were in the room, and even at a young age I could tell that he worked hard to make everyone in his presence comfortable. While these are not life-changing or awe inspiring characteristics normally associated with hero, they have had a great effect in how I try to treat people, and for that I am proud. My grandfather was smiling and outgoing while I was still a shy a little boy, and as I think about my growth as an individual I begin to notice that subconsciously I have attempted to emulate a number of the personality traits that made him so great and so easy to look up to. I applied for admission at the Coast Guard Academy, because he had retired from the Coast Guard (can anyone imagine me as a Coast Guard officer?! Yikes! Thank goodness I got thin-lettered from there!)

Last night I drove down to the Cape to have dinner with my parents and my brother Jeff before I took off for my trip. Because of my flights I wasn't going to be able to make the services for my grandfather and I wanted to at least spend a couple hours face to face with my family to help my grieving and maybe to help theirs. As we were getting ready to eat, my dad said that during the service everyone was going to have the opportunity to share a single word which they felt best described my grandfather. My mind quickly processed the situation, and before my mom could even finish saying that I should think of a word and that they could share the word at the services the next day, my mind was made up.

"I already know my word"
"Really? What is it"

With a slight dryness in my throat: "Hero"

Goodnight Grampy.