Self portrait, Palo Alto Bowl.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Friday, March 18, 2005
Buy This Album!
Check out M. Ward's new release, Transister Radio.
I found out about it from this report on NPR. Listen to it and you can hear snippets from the disc: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4510551
It's really interesting. Part folk, part rock, some tracks seem old fashioned, some sound totally modern. It's hard to describe but worth checking out.
-Rich
I found out about it from this report on NPR. Listen to it and you can hear snippets from the disc: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4510551
It's really interesting. Part folk, part rock, some tracks seem old fashioned, some sound totally modern. It's hard to describe but worth checking out.
-Rich
Friday, March 11, 2005
Home!
Well, it took about 25 hours door-to-door, but we left Auckland Friday morning at 9:00 am and we arrived at SFO at about 9:45 am Friday morning. It takes 2 days get there, and only 30 minutes to return. Gotta love it!
More later-
-Rich
More later-
-Rich
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Days 11 and 12 - Hobbiton and Rotorua
It's been busy here, and there wasn't any internet access in Rotorua. Let's see. When last we met our heroes, they were in Auckland. We'll pick up the story from there.
Auckland, part 2- Not too much to say here, we spent our second day in Auckland buying some souveniers and visiting the Maritime Museum, which had LOTS of old boats, pictures of boats, drawings of boats, models of boats, and pieces of boats, and pictures of people who sailed on boats. Did I mention that they also had boats? All in all, it was a pretty cool museum, especially for boat lovers.
Next day, we headed down to Rotorua, a spa town with thermal stuff like geysers. But first, we had to stop in Matamata for a tour of Hobbiton. This involved us exchanging currency for a bus ride to a sheep farm, complete with authentic sheep poo.
Hobbiton is on a working sheep farm, and part of the original set was left behind because it started to rain. It was pretty interesting to see. Many of the scenes from the beginning of the first movie were filmed here. The hobbit holes, of course, are only facades, as they filmed the interior scenes in the studio. The area around Hobbition was also very beautiful.
Next stop- Rotorua. This town really stinks! It's true- there are so many geysers, bubbling mud pits, and steam vents around the town that it literally stinks of sulfur. Takes some getting used to. It's a wild place- driving down the road in the middle of town there is suddenly a block that has steam rising out of it instead of a building.
We went to a couple of different places with a collection of thermal features, and also took in a Maori show. Maori are pacific islanders who settled down here years ago, before the property market really took off. The show was similar in many ways to the stuff you'd see at a Hawaiian luau. Of course, they are cousins.
Another thing we discovered about NZ- road construction. The whole damn country is being repaved right now. Apparently, they start construction this month so that they can be sure of getting funding to finish in next years budget. This was annoying, but is superior to the Costa Rican way, where the road is torn up and then everyone leaves and never comes back to finish.
We're leaving tomorrow AM early, so we'll probably post a few last pictures and comments on Friday afternoon, California time.
-Rich
Auckland, part 2- Not too much to say here, we spent our second day in Auckland buying some souveniers and visiting the Maritime Museum, which had LOTS of old boats, pictures of boats, drawings of boats, models of boats, and pieces of boats, and pictures of people who sailed on boats. Did I mention that they also had boats? All in all, it was a pretty cool museum, especially for boat lovers.
Next day, we headed down to Rotorua, a spa town with thermal stuff like geysers. But first, we had to stop in Matamata for a tour of Hobbiton. This involved us exchanging currency for a bus ride to a sheep farm, complete with authentic sheep poo.
Hobbiton is on a working sheep farm, and part of the original set was left behind because it started to rain. It was pretty interesting to see. Many of the scenes from the beginning of the first movie were filmed here. The hobbit holes, of course, are only facades, as they filmed the interior scenes in the studio. The area around Hobbition was also very beautiful.
Next stop- Rotorua. This town really stinks! It's true- there are so many geysers, bubbling mud pits, and steam vents around the town that it literally stinks of sulfur. Takes some getting used to. It's a wild place- driving down the road in the middle of town there is suddenly a block that has steam rising out of it instead of a building.
We went to a couple of different places with a collection of thermal features, and also took in a Maori show. Maori are pacific islanders who settled down here years ago, before the property market really took off. The show was similar in many ways to the stuff you'd see at a Hawaiian luau. Of course, they are cousins.
Another thing we discovered about NZ- road construction. The whole damn country is being repaved right now. Apparently, they start construction this month so that they can be sure of getting funding to finish in next years budget. This was annoying, but is superior to the Costa Rican way, where the road is torn up and then everyone leaves and never comes back to finish.
We're leaving tomorrow AM early, so we'll probably post a few last pictures and comments on Friday afternoon, California time.
-Rich
Monday, March 07, 2005
Day 9- Poor Knights Island Dive
Carol gave me the day off to go diving. I had to get up at 6:15 am to drive down to Tutukaka and go diving with Dive! Tutukaka (http://www.diving.co.nz/poorknights.htm). It was a glorious morning, and I saw very few cars as I drove over winding country roads.
Poor Knights is a group of "islands"- big rocks- that is part of an extinct volcano. It's about 25 km off shore, and it is one of Jacques Cousteau's top 10 dive destinations. it is cool water dive- the water is in the low 70's. There isn't any coral or many tropical fish, but they do have lots of pretty stuff to see. Of note were:
Manta Rays- the first I've seen. One was over 6 feet in wingspan, with a huge long tail. I was about 3 feet from it. I spooked it and it swam off.
Kelp Fields- they have beautiful kelp that is only about 3 feet tall.
Blue Mao Mao fish- these are 1-2 foot fish that are very blue.
The second dive was especially memoriable- going through the Blue Mao Mao arch, light was coming in from above and there were hundreds of Mao Mao's swimming through with us. It was like a TV nature show. My dive partner Chris took some pictures, hopefully we'll get a few posted here.
-Rich
Poor Knights is a group of "islands"- big rocks- that is part of an extinct volcano. It's about 25 km off shore, and it is one of Jacques Cousteau's top 10 dive destinations. it is cool water dive- the water is in the low 70's. There isn't any coral or many tropical fish, but they do have lots of pretty stuff to see. Of note were:
Manta Rays- the first I've seen. One was over 6 feet in wingspan, with a huge long tail. I was about 3 feet from it. I spooked it and it swam off.
Kelp Fields- they have beautiful kelp that is only about 3 feet tall.
Blue Mao Mao fish- these are 1-2 foot fish that are very blue.
The second dive was especially memoriable- going through the Blue Mao Mao arch, light was coming in from above and there were hundreds of Mao Mao's swimming through with us. It was like a TV nature show. My dive partner Chris took some pictures, hopefully we'll get a few posted here.
-Rich
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