Quit Blog

Ok guys, the time has come the walrus said, to speak of many things.
It's kind of a hassle to have a blog. I don't like the extra work in it as it basically eats a few hours of my precious weekend to fill it with information that i already have on Facebook. Until further notice, most everything will be posted to my facebook as it does a better job of organizing everything and is just easier to use in general. If I take off globe trotting again I may choose to continue the blog but honestly with facebooks new layout I doubt it's necessary. Thoughts?


Well I did quit blogging. Facebook's timeline can do a lot of this for me but since I'm going public with my love affair with vintage airstreams and my personal blog mostly related to travel anyways, I've decided to combine the two. A few of my friends do not have Facebook so this is a good way to keep in touch with them as well as continue to share my own explorations.

You can now find me at www.vintageairstreamlove.com

Happy Travels

Geek Convention

Me chilling with Darth Vader 

Master Sword

Funny packaging

ONE REMOTE TO RULE THEM ALL 

AND IN THE DARKNESS BIND THEM!

Before and After Stamp

Before stamp

after stamp :)

Oh Birmingham

B'ham street

Super cute that there is a Birmingham street (which is really quite nice). It's close to the park and Shamrock St. Ah the little things

Random stuff in palmy

I have no idea what this is suppose to advertise. Why it has lopsided teeth or why it's outside of an electronics store. Sometimes marketing is weird.

Meanwhile, At Work

Meanwhile, at Loudhailer the week is winding down. The long, long week. Wind has been ripping thru town for the entire week making it impossible to get any sleep. I know that may sound wild but when the wind is opening your doors for you it makes everything uneasy. In any case we are stocked up at work with Dr Pepper and Cocaine to get us by till 5pm.

Everyone says the cocaine tastes aweful. Apparently Dara bought it back oh say , 3 years ago. That's how often we clean the fridge.

In related news we've been doing a lot of draining creative work coming up with brand names and illustrations for multiple clients. Mentally exhausting doesn't begin to cover it. But it is a lot of fun. At 15 I could be found in the art room of the high school doodling on the white board in chuck ts and a t shirt. Ten years later I'm doodling on a white board in the same chuck t's and a star trek tshirt in New Zealand and getting paid to do it. Funny how some things work out.

Slacking on the Job

Not really slacking. more like taking interesting pictures of his posters he made but whatever

Scooters

Le scooter i bought in october

So friends, by now most of you know that I have a scooter for getting around town. I bought the blue one back in october, painted it up a bit and gave it some love. New tyres, basket and a new battery later it's doing heaps of good. It still looks a bit crummy and this past weekend I ran accross a deal I couldn't pass up. See while my blue scooter runs it smokes. It has a busted headlight and the basket is from a bicycle. The nose is cracked and the electric start is sporadic at best. So I upgraded to the below:

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

Vmoto Milan

Behold le New Scoot!

evan 'helping'

The new scoot is much lighter which at first made me feel less stable but now I'm used to it. It turns a good deal sharper which is nice for getting around things since it's longer also. Maneuverability is nice. 

Also the keys are in a different position which is good so they don't fall out (this one time on the blue scoot in traffic, it doesn't turn off automatically but then you drive for a mile looking for your keys in the road) and it has a lock box. Sadly all the locks are broken (an issue with this model apparently) and I just took the one out of the back box entirely and use it the same way I used my basket. I'll probably try to get it fixed in the next few weeks. The under the seat lock was jammed and I had to take the whole back end apart to fix it. Eventually it wound up at the mechanic (who was kind enough not to charge) to fix that issue. I baked him some brownies as a thank you.

I have to check the pressure on the break fluid this week for my rear break (which I pretty much only use to turn anyhow) as it doesn't have enough strength to use the electric start. Right now I'm trying to hold the right hand break while reve the engine with the right hand while holding down the ignition switch with (you guessed it) the right hand.

Went and got insurance for this baby today too. Stupid cheap. About equal to what I spend on gas so that's not too bad. The gas tank on this one is also about half the size so I have to fill up every week instead of every other week but that's not a big deal. Ah well! all for now!

Catan

Look at my epic road bitches!!

I'm white

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

For the holiday (which blessedly landed on Saturday) me and the Loudhailer ladies got gussied up and went out on the town for the first time together in ages. The weather was pretty much perfect in the low 70's with no wind and lots of sun. That night several drinks were had, live music and dancing were enjoyed and a general good time was had by all :) 

Shamrock St. , Palmerston North, New Zealand

Incidentally I also talked someone out of a shiny hat.

Le Shiny Hat

Happy Birthday

A very happy Sweet 16 to my kid sister!

New Rig

Well back in 2005 I saved up all summer and bought my first mac. Well incidentally the first computer I ever bought myself. It was a little white case macbook that had just enough juice in it to get me thru college because macs are kind of pricy but darn good at what they do. After years of abuse riding on bicycles, being slammed into unpadded book bags and left to overheat on my bed; my logic board in the macbook is failing. While it continues to chug on, it will no longer charge or run off of battery power which makes it next to useless as a lap top. Also with the increasing size of my working files, 350GB just isn't cutting it anymore. 

In anticipation of it's imminent demise I have purchased a new rig which is an older, used mac mini complete with cd drive (the newer ones don't have that) and a tv for my monitor. I already had a wireless mouse and I bought a blue tooth keyboard (this is a wired in the pic until the new one comes in the mail). At 500 gb and the same intel processor my old macbook has it's not anything super flash or exciting to a geek but to me it'll do just fine. I was able to purchase this exciting rig which I have dubbed 'short round' for my christmas holiday pay that I forgot I signed up for at exactly $802.  A few more flash cables and some accessories later and I'm closer to $900 for a total rig. :)

Exciting!

Alright 2012. I'm ready now

I fell into 2012 feet first and full on. I danced in the new year with friends old and new before traveling to Mexico and then back to New Zealand. Once there I was met with a full on load of work as clients also scrambled to catch up with the new year and I tried to keep up with that and 1,000 other things that piled up. Today I had enough. I have too much crap in my life, so with that in mind it's time to cull the herd. Last years goals went something like this:

And so the tally for this year begins as follows:

Goals for 2011:
- work on learning Spanish
- get over fear of syringes
- go spelunking
- be completely debt free
- learn basics of drums
- create more artwork
- learn more about html and css to the point I can build web pages properly
- visit another country (again) or better explore the south island of NZ

Just as important to me as what to do with this year is what NOT to do with this year since it consumes valuable time and resources that could be spent more productively.

Not-To-Do list 2011:
- World of Warcraft
- more than an hour of tv or one movie per day
- waste money on things vs experiences
- nothing

Most of this I failed at because halfway thru the year I made new goals as my interests changed and my experiences here grew. And so, here is the new list:

Goals for 2012:
- continue learning Spanish
- go spelunking (doing in april?)
- be completely debt free (minus student loan) and save money
- get website published

- eat and maintain a healthy lifestyle- visit another country (again) or better explore the south island of NZ (dec?)

Just as important to me as what to do with this year is what NOT to do with this year since it consumes valuable time and resources that could be spent more productively.

Not-To-Do list 2012:
- World of Warcraft
- more than an hour of tv or one movie per day
- waste money on things vs experiences
- nothing

My nothing list pretty much stays the same. Cut out the waste, enjoy the fruit. I also have to cut out other projects such as Kung Fu, art projects, some free lance and gaming. Do less to do more.

Only Tuesday

It may be only Tuesday here but it feels like the week has already been full on. Some of it comes from a weekend of sleep depravation some because I had 5 'urgent' ads given to me on monday that were also due on monday. In any case I survived but man what a long week already!

This weekend was some good fun as I went to Himatangi Beach with Rachel, Marc and Evan in the caravan. The beach has black sand that stretches out endlessly out of view in either direction of the shore line. There were cars parked along deeper close to the dunes and the ocean was filled with swimmers, kayakers, and small time surfers. There were a few lifeguards on duty to keep watch on the kids in the water while others built small sandcastles. There were dogs barking at waves and people going by on horses. Good times.

Valentine's Day

I usually try to ignore Valentine's Day every year, even if I am dating someone. Of course this is completely futile especially in a workplace where everyone is dating but me. We've been busy all week and working late but the upside to the holiday is that even with the work load we all got out 'early'. So I spent my Valentine's Day at work and sleeping in a hammock which was completely awesome by my reckoning.

The only thing I really missed was getting flowers from my dad like when I was a little girl. They always made me feel special. My family did send me a card in the mail!

Speaking of which, a very happy anniversary to my parents!

It seems my single friends state side also had some fun :) Incidentally it was also his birthday.

Monday

Case of the monday:


My scooter tyre is flat and since it's a holiday all stores are closed. After pushing my scooter to the air pump do I: 


a) ride it home, closer but have to bring tyre back or 
b) the further- may-not-make-it-to- closed motorcycle shop to get a tyre in the am? 


Correct answer is c. Tyer is so slashed by drunk peoples broken bottles scooter can't make it out of parking lot

Recognize this guy?

Anyone remember him??

 >
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

this cracked me up! Any case you can see more stuff about NCIS at the address below :)

http://tv.yahoo.com/slideshow/840/photos/1

Gypsy Faire

Gypsy Faire came into town again this year with a lot of the same stuff as last year. As always the food was good and the caravans were awesome.

$5 pony rides for kids

awesome wooden caravans

really cool doors

caravan dogs snuggling chew toys sleeping

First week back

It's my first week back in New Zealand and it's been a rough one. My plane landed in Auckland on Sunday and I managed to get thru customs fairly quickly which was nice since I had yet another plane to catch. What didn't help my time table was that my luggage didn't make it to New Zealand. Lost Luggage said that it had been left in LAX but they would ship it to me and since I had a plane to catch I didn't argue much. On the upside when transferring from American Airlines to Air New Zealand there would have been an baggage fee (international vs domestic rates) so I wasn't going to be charged that and I didn't have to lug my gear across to the other terminal which involved co-ordinating a 3 min bus ride.

I was also hoping to score a free ride home by texting friends however my phone was not having it. I ran a lot of updates on my computers while in the US because of data caps in New Zealand and apparently one of them screwed up my phones ability to work in New Zealand. One stupidly over priced taxi ride later I'm finally back to my now dusty apartment with no food or phone but hey my bed still looks comfy. A fun little scooter ride later in the cold (because it was warmer in Alabama than here) I've settled in with food and get some sleep. Jet lag is a incurable hangover that has lasted me a few days.

Monday back at work was nice just to see everyone. Rachel and I got almost nothing done as we spent most of the day catching up. I went to her house afterwards to continue our talk so that we could actually get something done on Tuesday. It was nice to enjoy her new house (which she just built with her family) and hang out with her son Evan who didn't seem to miss me all too much ;)

Tues afternoon my luggage could be picked up from the airport so Rachel was kind enough to take me after work but unfortunately on the way we were hit by another car on the rear passenger side. Foolish driver tried to cross two lanes of traffic at 5:05 instead of just going out where the light was.  We were all ok but it was just one more thing for the hectic week at work. Stress was piling on.

By Wendsday my phone still doesn't work and continues to mock my efforts to use it. We all have back to back meetings which end up giving us more work which is good but no time to do it in. Wed night I noticed my kindle doesn't want to turn on. The button at the bottom wont click on. I can turn on my kindle with my computer but the power switch is non functioning. >sigh<

Now it's Thursday and I feel just as behind as yesterday. Poor Todd and Rachel had a 3 hour meeting. Rachel had two before that and one with me after. Phone still doesn't work and kindle is glitchy. So I decided to update my blog with all the posts I wrote on my phone until I realized that 15 posts have been erased. Super.

Come on Friday

Backup

Well I've managed to get majorly backed up over the christmas holidays so I'm going to post things on the day they happened. Be prepared to skip all the way back to Dec 22 and hold on. You are in for a wild ride!