Die Geek Die!

In the interest of being more productive and keeping work separate from home, I’ve been going to school early and staying late. I bring in my laptop and set up camp in an empty classroom until my noon class begins. It's been a great way to quietly catch up on my notes and review the lessons for the day.

Then the geeks found me.

At first, it was just one. He’s annoying but means well, and kept quiet unless asking me competitive Mac questions like “Do you have Tiger or Leopard?” I didn’t mind, and even had fun geeking out with him by comparing Leopard and Tiger, and whining about the crappy Auckland internet.

Word has spread and today my quiet empty classroom became HQ for 4 of the biggest geeks in my class, including the little kid I suspected of being American (wrong – he’s from Holland and is 16 years old).

I was trying to work, but the intermittent WiFi I was using/stealing from a nearby company kept going out. (that’s right: the school that specializes in digital and internet technology and design doesn’t allow its students WiFi access)

When the boys all started talking, it was game over. Topics of note:

1. the train conductor who didn’t know how to open the back doors (repeated to each person upon arrival)

2. Celsius versus Fahrenheit

3. Whose laptop gets better WiFi

4. My friend who owns a design company in Chicago says, "......"

5. Dude, I'm so psyched - I finally sold my old PC on TradeMe last night!

6. Whether a blog uses PHP or JavaScript

7. My girlfriend is hot - you should see her. She wears bikinis.

8. The roadblocks down the street: why are they there? (LOTS of debating over this one)

9. Oh yeah? Well, you know my friend? The one who owns the design company in Chicago? HE says, "....."

10. whether the A/C and heat is adjustable in our classroom (this revived the Celsius and Fahrenheit debate. It was ruled that Fahrenheit is "stupid" and all eyes turned to the American, like I would take offense somehow)

11. who makes the best external harddrives?

12. why Safari is the worst web browser

13. I'm just waiting for my Green card so I can go to Chicago and work for my friend. He owns a design company.

I sat there quietly, rolling my eyes and stifling all homicidal urges. After all, these kids and I will be spending almost as much time together as one does with coworkers. But it's safe to say that I will no longer be going in to school early. They've effectively taken over my once empty classroom. Geeks: 1 Sas: 0.

Nothing.

Let's see... the highlight of the week so far has been my failed attempt at using my 3-hole punch because the paper over here is a different size. It's slightly larger than 8 1/2 x 11 and this fact threatened to ruin my evening. I was on the couch armed with my 3-hole punch stolen from some ad agency I used to work for (RT? EMA? Who knows...). I was very excited to put all of the loose papers from school into my brand new binder when I realized there was a problem.

I said to Iain, "What the --- ! How come this paper is the wrong size?! It doesn't fit!" He retorted with, "How come your 3-hole-punch is the wrong size?"

In other news, Iain won his bid on an extension ladder on TradeMe (like eBay) last night - we're very excited.

Our neighbor's dog escaped somehow and got in to our yard yesterday. I heard her yell "JAKE!!!!!!" and thought, "This can't be good." I went down to the kitchen just in time to see a gray and white streak of kitty race through the cat door (Tama). Blue was not as quick, and was standing on the porch all poofed-up to like 5x his normal size. I looked down in the yard and there was Jake, the neighbor's black lab, racing around our lawn. It was all pretty funny (not for the cats) but I hope it doesn't happen again. The cats are not used to dogs!

Action shots!

Here are some pictures of Iain and me enjoying our Thursday evening with TV and the cats.

Iain gets dressed up - that's hot!

Working from home has allowed Iain the luxury of putting his suits and button downs in the back of the closet for good, while jeans, shorts, and t-shirts have taken over. This was rather bittersweet for me -- I love the way Iain dresses but sometimes a conservative button down or a nice pair of pants (I will NOT say 'slacks') is really hot. This sexy shot features an old button down and was taken while Iain cleaned and prepped our deck for staining. I sat inside writing the blog while downloading "How I Met Your Mother".

Token cat pictures

I woke up this morning to the unmistakable sound: "Oh sh*t -- somewhere in the house a cat is getting ready to puke -- where is it? Follow the sound!!" Anyone who has ever had a cat will know what I'm talking about -- the sound will wake you from the deepest sleep. It's probably similar to a mother waking to the sound of her baby crying, only the thing that's making you bolt upright at 5am isn't concern for your baby, it's concern for your carpet, or your clothes, or worse: your comforter. 95% of our house is hardwood floors, but the puke always winds up on the carpets.

So, my morning began by cleaning up cat puke containing a whole dead grasshopper -- SO glad we're letting them outside now.... The puke wasn't on the bed (thank god) or on the floor -- it was under the bed on top of a plastic zipper bag containing winter coats. But it can't be ALL on the bag -- it's got to be half off the bag, and all over the zipper.

Here are some pictures to remind us of why we love our cats despite the puking.

(for those wondering "Where was Iain when all this was happening? ", he was on a 6am conference call -- I think that rivals the cat puke for grossness)

Exercise

We wake up around 6am most mornings and are in bed by 9:30pm. I try to get my walk in by 7:30am so I can do homework until I have to catch the bus at 10am. The walk has gotten pretty boring -- there's only so many places you can go to within an hour walk, and I'd grown really tired of the same old streets. And this is only after 2.5 months -- I can't imagine what my motivation will be like in a year. I am not one of those people who enjoys exercise. Iain is. Iain feels a difference if he doesn't go for his walk and do yoga. He likes to fit exercise into our vacations and our weekends. I could (and will) sit on the couch for 6 hours watching tv and there'd be no problem.

The only reason I exercise is so I can eat and drink what I want on the weekends and not gain 40 pounds. That is my only motivation. So, anyway - I was super excited the other morning when I stumbled upon this incredible nature preserve right behind a senior citizens home. I usually walk around the rugby field by the home, and on this particular morning I turned right instead of left, walked into the woods - excuse me, bush - and all of a sudden I'm on this cool path leading down to the water. Excellent. I can't wait for the summer - I will totally go swimming here.

I went back this morning and took some pictures. I had to stop for milk on the way home, and I was feeling super self-conscious because I look like a total freak when I'm exercising. I get REALLY red - it's mortifying. So... to make me look more legit, I jogged up to the store. I know.... But it seemed like a good idea. See, that way, the people in the store wouldn't be like, "Man, look at that girl just walking down the street - why is her face so red?" This way, they'd all be like, "Wow - that chick must've been doing some serious running. Maybe she's a sprinter!" It was a total George Costanza moment and absolutely no one noticed. I'm an idiot.

No, it's not!

This is awesome. Iain lived in Philly for like 5 years and never got called for jury duty, until now.

Anzac Day

Today is Anzac Day and we have the day off.

I'm using the free time to update the blog and catch upon emails and laundry.

School update:

School has been going well but it's a real challenge. I'm working every day before and after school, except when Blue decides to sit on my notes. I get kind of obsessed with it, which is a good sign. Today however is a day off. I'm exhausted.

We designed a 4 page website this week - it was fun but it took almost as many days to build using XHTML and CSS, and my design skills are severely lacking. It doesn't help that the teacher gives us the goofiest assignments for fictional companies. I mean, "Lavish Lawns"? I found some fancy pictures of lawns and gardens, spent an embarrassing amount of time in Illustrator "creating" a logo (read: typing the name in a cool font in pretty colors ), and then built the site in code which was the REAL challenge.

I was TERRIFIED that my site would be laughed at. I figured that all of my classmates would present gorgeous sites done in Photoshop and Illustrator (most of the kids have design backgrounds). But after seeing everyone else's, I was pretty proud of my own. That felt really good. I actually thought mine was better than some, which I did not expect. It's still dorky by professional standards, but that's okay.

The best part is that it's valid, which means all of my code is correct according the internet police, aka the World Wide Web Consortium (w3.org). I was really psyched about that. You upload your file to their site and it tells you if it's right or wrong. Okay, I'm really geeking out so I'll move on...

Here is a picture of the cemetery by my school. I eat lunch here every day -- it's pretty in a Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil sorta way.

Classic headline from Slate.com

I thought this summed it up perfectly! Of course, I didn't read the article, just the headline...

Damn it!

I should've checked the link I provided for the Uncle Mark spot. It's for a site you have to pay for -- I'm sorry guys. I did a search for the spot online and can't find it.

More about advertising in NZ

Check out the latest public awareness spot for drinking, titled "Uncle Mark". I actually gasped when I saw it. Iain and I don't like the tagline, though.

http://www.advertolog.com/paedia/reels/2008/4/16/511522/

It's part of a campaign. Another one is about a woman having drinks after work. I must admit, I saw it and was like, "What?" but then in the end she gets dragged down a backalley by a rapist.

They also have these great spots about being the designated driver -- they're aimed at teenagers and 20-somethings. A bunch of guys are going out and they first do a game of sorts to determine who the driver will be, then the rest of the spot shows everyone drinking except the driver. They're actually funny because the guys in the spots genuinely appear to be drunk.

(side rant: I don't know why, but it's really difficult for actors to act drunk. It always comes off as really phony - the classic example being Tori Spelling on 'Beverly Hills 90210'. See also: the episode of 'Friends' where Monica turns 30. Yet Brian on 'Family Guy' nails it! I'm trying to think of more examples but I'm drawing a blank.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

My Mom turns 65 today and is off to Saratoga to party with my Dad for the weekend.

Reality Check

Well, unless NZ starts airing some new reality shows (and I do NOT mean Keeping Up With the Kardashians) we'll be nearing the end of stuff to watch. Maybe we'll start watching American Gladiators.

In fact, Iain skipped the season finalé of Rock of Love the other night. I watched it by myself, got bored, and practiced typing code instead. Though, I already knew the winner - I stumbled upon it by accident during a Google search on whether Bret's hair is real.

By the way, we watched season 1 of R.O.L., not season 2, so please don't reveal who wins season 2!

Advertising in NZ

They get away with a LOT more over here.
Look at this print ad:

Philly!

We found a Belgian place last night for dinner. It totally reminded us of Eulogy and Monk's but much nicer and just as delish. The beer was pretty pricey, though. Damned imports.... Here's a picture of my fries, beer, and grilled mussels.

They also had a TV in the corner playing great 80s videos like Stevie Nicks, Duran Duran, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

We will definitely be going back!

Tama caught a weta!

I was busy writing code* last night and heard a ruckus from the kitchen. Iain was upstairs. I went to check on it and there was Tama with a huge weta in his mouth.

For those of you unfamiliar with wetas, they're harmless but terrifying looking bugs that come in a variety of shapes and sizes. According to Iain, this was a small one. I'll take these any day over centipedes.

Rather than risk having half-eaten weta parts all over the house, I put a glass over it and got it back outside.



(*ok, I was actually reading 'Lost' articles on EW.com....)

Yawn

Well, we really have nothing interesting to report. Iain is working every day, I'm going to school, and on the weekend we had friends for dinner. I haven't been able to post on the blog because I've been working. A few updates:

• Iain bought bluff oysters which are without a doubt the BEST oysters on the planet. Holy MOLY. If you don't like oysters, you will if you have one of these.

• School is seriously kicking my ass -- it's a lot of work trying to keep up with the geeks. They love trying to one up the teacher and spend our breaks bantering about PCs versus Mac. I use my breaks to keep working, so they're distracting. When they do this, I want to yell at them to shut up, but I have to stifle the urge to jump in with my own pro-Mac comments.

I worked a lot this weekend testing my ability to create a simple webpage. I'm glad I did it, but I am FAR from thinking it's easy. It was pretty stressful last week but I'm really glad to be doing something again.

• The cats are adjusting well to the invisible fence, but it's not doing Iain and me any favors: every morning is like Christmas morning for the cats. At 5am they start meowing and leaping on and off the bed because they're so excited to go outside. We take their collars off at night and lock the cat door, but as time goes on we might just give them 24/7 access so we can actually get some sleep.

• We had a slight scare last week: it was supposed to be the season finalé of 'Rock of Love' but instead they showed a stupid highlights show. I was devastated. "They skipped it!!" I cried. After a brief convo with Danielle, I was assured that they do the highlights show before the finalé. Whew!

• OH!! The BEST news is that we found an AWESOME Italian restaurant in town. It was recommended to us by friends. It's called Gina's and it's incredible. Spending two years in South Philly, we never took for granted the abundance of great Italian food around us, but we also weren't prepared for how awful life is without it. We have great food in NZ but nothing beats Italian (in my opinion).

• Fall is officially here, which, from what I can gather, means that Auckland turns into Seattle from now through winter. It's gotten a lot colder (still not COLD, though), and it's supposed to rain all week. Excellent!

The Living Room

Here are pictures of our living room. We don't think the layout works -- it's boring. The thing is, we have to have the leather chair and sofa facing the TV, so if anyone has any design suggestions, let me know (besides "Buy all new stuff" which at this point I would love to do.) Like, what should we put behind the TV? Anything? Or leave the wall blank?
(we know we need to change the color of the coffee table)

Iain makes the paper...

In Fort Smith, Arkansas!

(his "article" is on the right)

http://www.swtimes.com/articles/2008/01/09/business/c-business01.txt.

First Day of School!

Today was my first day of school for web development - a one year course that teaches how to design and build websites.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. I was quite stressed about all of the important things about school: I lay awake at night, mentally planning what to wear on my first day. I wanted to look nice, but not too nice, but not too casual, but not over-dressed. Yes, I tried on a few outfits the day before. And I woke up with PLENTY of time to catch the bus, and checked and rechecked the schedule and route. Do I catch the bus on the right or left side of the road? Will the 8:17 get me there in time or should I take the 8:03? Should I take my laptop or is that too dorky? What if everyone else does? But worse, what if no one does?

The day began early, with I guess what you'd call a student assembly: we all gathered in one room and the teachers talked to us. They handed out swipe cards, temporary IDs, and jump drives around a stylish Natcoll neck thingy (I can't remember the name of those things but you can see the picture above). We did a traditional Maori greeting and a Maori guy came in and sang and recited a poem in Maori -- I had no idea what he was saying but he had a really mellow voice. If anyone remembers the PBS painter guy Bob Ross, that's what this guy was like.

There were three classes total starting today: my class, Computer Graphic Design and Digital Production Media. After that, we split up and attended our first real class.

Now I'm home, checking my email, saying hello the cats, while Iain is at the grocery store buying champagne to celebrate.

Here are my observations of Day #1:

1. Clearly, Computer Graphic Design is where all of the cool kids are. Everyone else: dorks. I found this out by approaching all of the normal looking people who looked over 30, hoping to GOD they'd be in my class and be really funny and we'd become friends and hang out and have drinks after school together and our husbands would meet and maybe they'd have cats.... No such luck.

2. As we sat in the student assembly, I kept looking around, checking out who's who. Most people were pretty non-descript and young. There were a few stand-outs like the 14 year old (I'm not kidding - he's a CHILD) with bad teeth who looked way too confident and irritating - he reminds me of some kid on TV (the kid from Mr. Belvedere?) but I can't think of it. There was the guy with long hair wearing a trench coat - not sure what his deal was. There was the chatty Asian chick who knew a bunch of people. Then there was a really loudmouthed guy who took out his black MacBook Pro to show off to everyone. The kid next to him actually did a quick intake of breath when he whipped it out (I'm still talking about his laptop). I think he was the only one who brought his computer - I was SO glad I'd left mine at home (esp. since mine is only an iBook G4...) Every dork I'd see I'd think, "Please don't let that guy be in my class."

3. All of those people (except for chatty Asian chick) are in my class.

4. There are 20 students in my class. 4 of them are women. I don't think I'll need to worry about what to wear to school every day. If I'd worn acid washed jeans and a sleeveless tshirt with that image of the burning twin towers with the crying bald eagle, I still would've looked cooler than 99% of my classmates.

5. There is one potentially normal looking woman in my class -- we exchanged a brief hello earlier in the day, and she tried to sit next to me in class but we have assigned seats. Damn.

6. 14 year old prodigy brat (F.Y.O.P.B.) with his long surfer hair and buck teeth nodded emphatically and laughed at everything the teacher said in this knowing , "Oh my god - I've been there!" way, like they're colleagues or something. I think FYOPB might be American. Great. Way to represent, jackass.

7. One of our teachers has a habit of walking around clenching and unclenching his fists in order to crack his knuckles. I'm not sure how much of that I'll be able to stand. Knuckle-cracking is pretty high on the pet peeve list (right after gum cracking and chronic sniffling).

Cattiness aside, I'm sure this is going to be a really challenging year. It seems like an excellent course - I'm pretty excited. And I might be the only one in my class who's been to a prom, but these kids will probably wipe the floor with me and my amateur webskillz.

I'm so glad the first day is over, though. The anticipation is the worst. Tonight, we celebrate! (but not too much -- it's a school night!)

Desperate times...

Tired of burning popcorn on the stove and not wanting to eat processed fatty microwave popcorn, we went out yesterday to buy a popcorn maker. Slate.com just had an article on their site about the best popcorn makers (this always happens with me and Slate -- a few months ago they had an article on air mattresses, just as we were considering buying a new one). Anyway, the article concludes that the old-fashioned Presto air popper from the 70s is still the best. Unfortunately, the 3 stores we went to didn't carry popcorn makers. Crepe makers, smoothie machines, hotdog cookers - no prob. Popcorn makers? Forget it, except for one store that had one model. Behold our new popcorn maker:

A new Blue emerges!

Blue is a whole new cat now that he's allowed outside. He climbs trees, he scratches furiously on tree trunks, and last night we saw something completely new. A neighborhood cat ventured into our backyard (not Neighborhood Kitty - we haven't seen him for a few weeks). Iain and I were sitting on the deck and we stood up to watch would happen, fully expecting Blue's usual well-meaning but stupid attempts at being friendly. Instead, Blue catches sight of the strange cat and TEARS after him, chasing him completely across the lawn until the cat bounded over the fence. It was AWESOME. Afterwards, he sauntered back to join us on the deck, all 18 pounds of pure bad-ass. In other news, Tama is still a wuss.

3:33am

I don't actually think our house (or Iain) is possessed like in the Amityville Horror, but there are a few freaky things in the house.

There are a lot of flies in here, and priests won't come near this place. Ok, yeah, we don't have screens, we don't know any priests, and Tama takes care of most of the flies. But check out these pictures: these are shelves in our big hall closet. Each shelf has a kid's name -- this might not be so weird but there's six shelves, and they're all large enough to house a small child. There is no way six kids lived in this house. Even though I was skeeved out, I had no problem putting the closet to use: towels and tools and books now cover each shelf. At some point we should probably paint over the names. Also, less visible but 10x freakier (doubtful it will even come out in the blog photo) is the date "19.12.92" that someone wrote on one of our walls (you can kind of make out the "19"). Even weirder are the random sounds coming from our attic. Stay tuned!

Wild Jungle Cats!

The invisible fence is installed and the cats are out! Blue got a small shock by venturing a bit too close, but after a quick hiss and dirty look he was fine.



See attached footage of Tama's very first tree climb. This must be how parents feel when their kid takes his first steps!

Romantic!

Here's a really cool picture of our friends Danielle and Nam. This picture was entered in a contest by their wedding photographer and won.
This one didn't win any prizes.

Tane Mahuta

Tane Mahuta isn't a line from "Nell". It's the largest kauri tree in NZ. It's sacred to the Maori and is on their land. Iain got a tear in his eye when he saw it, the same way I get weepy when I see the Mississippi. Oh wait...

The pictures don't do it justice but this tree is freaking HUGE. The tree fern on the right looks like a plant next to it. It's 169 feet tall (the tallest California redwood is 325) and really wide. It's beautiful.

Oh cool -- they just aired a promo for Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab show - it premiers next week!

I love tabloids

Russell

We drove from our hotel to the historic town of Russell, where we had very mediocre scones and jam at the Duke of Marlborough hotel. It was New Zealand's first licensed (booze) hotel and has a really funky, dated look.

Russell is a classic seaside town with lots of old trees, gorgeous homes, and neat little shops. Well, one of the shops was cool - the rest were overpriced "art" and local sculpture. It's a great place for people watching.

Most people take a ferry across the bay, but we drove around to further explore the area. It's so cool how there are still places that aren't totally built up and touristy -- we'd pass these tiny pristine bays and there'd just be homes near it. Of course, those homes are probably worth a mint, but there's something reassuring about a place that beautiful that's still mainly populated by locals, not hotels.