Yea Phillies!!

I only heard about this tonight during the 6pm news!

Flash!

Well, we started learning Flash this week.

This is the last new thing we learn before getting stuck into our final industry projects. There's a reason not everyone does Flash. Holy CRAP. It doesn't help that our teacher is some coked-up dude who refuses to help (the German already complained). Today he did a bit of code and just when we all sort of maybe kind of started to understand it, he said, "Ok, do it this way!" and left us all to sink or swim. It was like teaching someone how to add then saying, "Great! Try this!" and handing them some major calculus problem.

I am hoping he improves.

Back to School

Man, after 4 days off it's tough to go back to school!

Yesterday was gorgeous outside, so we did a few hours of work inside then headed off for brunch where we sat outside and enjoyed some mimosas and eggs. Everyone was outside with their dogs, their kids, etc. It was great. Then we hung out on our deck with the cats and read books and magazines. The NZ sun is ridiculously strong so we slathered ourselves with sunscreen but I still managed to burn my knee. Not my leg. Not even both legs. Just one knee. I have no idea how I managed to do that.

Then we went for a walk to help offset the eggs benedict and champagne, came home, showered, and watched episodes of Eli Stone (thanks Danielle & Nam!) until bedtime.

Labor Day!

It's Labor Day weekend over here (that's right - I'm leaving out the "u" in Labour). We're enjoying our day off by sanding & painting (Iain) and writing code while obsessively checking Facebook and email every 10 minutes (me). It's terrifying how addictive Facebook can be. I hate it - but I kind of love it, too.

My updated site is up, after a few weeks of finessing. It's still a major work in progress, but at least now I have something to show prospective employers. I added a client login feature that doesn't work yet, but I'll worry about that next weekend.

Our useless group project at school is over, and tomorrow we're scheduled to begin learning Flash. I am really psyched!

Last night we caught about 10 minutes of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". What's the deal with this show? I've never watched a full episode but every time I catch a snippet of it, it's about someone who either fought in Iraq or had something to do with 9/11. Whatever it is, whoever it is, there's always an American flag and someone crying. It's completely bizarre and a little too subversive for my taste.

Once Iain finishes up some painting we're off for brunch!

Great print ad

Congratulations Kristian & Lorrisa!

Our friends Kristian and Lorrisa from Philly had a baby boy today! Welcome Wyatt James!

4 Day Weekend!

In order to get an extra day off, I said we have family coming into town tomorrow. The group project has been a joke, and after writing a really good design documentation for my team, I felt confident that I'd done my part.

Tomorrow Iain has a regular workday, while I'll take advantage of the day off and work on my sites. Saturday we're headed over to Claudine & Glenn's, and then we've got Sunday & Monday to hang out and do whatever!

Highlights of today included forgetting a fork, forcing me to eat my lunch (salad) at the bustop with my fingers. After class, I stopped off at one of the stores to drool over the new MacBooks and almost missed the bus home. I think I need a few days off!

Who needs Gossip Girl & Eli Stone?!?!

Slow News Day....(again)

Backyard

Alright, the above pictures are actually from the botanical gardens we visited for my birthday, but the cat picture below is our backyard. Notice Tama's Jurassic Park tendency to hang out near the perimeter of the invisible fence. He's like a velociraptor, testing for weaknesses in the fence!

Now that the weather is getting much nicer we're spending more and more time on our deck.

School Project

We were assigned a group project. The class is divided into 2 groups: developers and designers. I'm on the design team with 5 other kids. The German is the class Project Manager. (I was originally going to volunteer for that job, but then I remembered that one of my main reasons for switching careers is to NOT be the project manager/producer anymore.)

Since I'm not the Project Manager or a Team Leader, I couldn't care less how it gets done, or if it gets done. There's something amazingly liberating about not being the one responsible for managing the client, the schedule, the teacher, and the rest of the team.

The job is big. It's creating a nationwide content management system for students and teachers throughout NZ. We were given 10 days. And the fact that there's a whole class working on it is meaningless. It's like someone saying, "Cook a gourmet meal for 100 -- you've only got two hours but there's 30 chefs"

The project didn't start off too well. We spent a week messing around with designs while the programmers researched the best way to code it (write their own? use WordPress? use Joomla?). Finally, the programmers announced that they were doing the entire thing in Joomla.

Joomla (http://www.joomla.org) is an industry level content management system that I've spent exactly 5 minutes working in -- it's HUGE.

Only one of the kids in the development team knows how to use it, so she set off to work while the rest of her team now stands around trying to look busy.

Luckily, one of the kids on our team is this design and coding genius from Chile. I don't even think most of us even noticed he was in the class because he barely speaks up. Turns out, not only is he an incredible designer, he's brilliant at code and has worked in Joomla for years. 4 of us spent the last week messing around with designs in Photoshop (see mine, above) but nothing looked right. Yesterday he sat down at his laptop for about a half hour then said, "How about this?" He turned his computer around and there was this fabulous design he'd thrown together. Awesome. Anyway, he's volunteered to incorporate our design into the Joomla code. Yea! So I guess I'll be spending the rest of the week sitting around with my other teammates trying to look busy.

The best thing about this project is that it's given me the opportunity to hang out with other students. There are two women who sit on the opposite side of the room who I've never had a chance to talk to -- they're actually really nice and I can't help but think how different my experience would've been this year if I'd sat next to them instead of weird German guy.

The project is due at the end of the week. Then we're off for 3 days for Labor Day Weekend!

The Americans

We STILL haven't met the two Americans who moved in next door. On Sunday, Iain and I were out on the deck when we heard them come home with their dog (a lab - how original). They hung out in their backyard for a while, eventually going inside but leaving their door wide open.

Iain said, "Should we walk over and say hello?" Trying not to look too obvious, we started wandering around our front yard, discussing plants and weeds, casting the occasional glance up to see if the neighbors came out, allowing a well-timed, "Oh! Hey there!"moment. I was even wearing my Obama shirt -- it was perfect!

Well, the guy walked out onto the porch, saw us, and went right back inside and shut the door. Ok, that's not exactly what happened but it felt like it. Iain thinks I'm probably reading too much into it but I'm not convinced. Stay tuned!

Awesome

This is BRILLIANT! I totally want one!

CONGRATULATIONS OCH & KERRY!

Holy crap - black clouds are swirling and animals are pacing in their pens.

Och has reproduced!

And even though Och was threatening to name the poor kid Otto or Uta, Kerry's good taste has clearly prevailed.

Simone Mairead Occhino.
6 pounds, 3 oz
11:42 p.m. on 13th oct

Birthday Week continues!

We ended my Week of Birthday with brunch at one of our favorite restaurants, the Wintergarden Pavilion, located in the Auckland Domain (see our profile picture). The weather has been cloudy and in the 60s, but Sunday was spectacular. Full sun, high 60s. It was perfect! We had so much fun. Here are the pics:
Here's what I ordered: tempura fish with prawn relish, lime and fries. Yum!
We moved tables a few times to maximize our sun exposure. Here's me at the first table -- it was inside while we waited for a couple with a prime outside table to finish.

Iain ordered the chicken pie. I'm not so sure about the poached egg on top, but he swears it's good.
Okay, since it was my birthday celebration, we splurged and got the tea service after our meal. It was a tad disappointing -- we were really hoping for those really thin, tiny finger sandwiches with cucumber and watercress and stuff, but instead they just used regular sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Total gyp. The salmon was pretty bland, but the little quiches in the back were delish.

The restaurant sits along a beautiful garden walkway and pond -- perfect for people watching. (and there's lots of butterflies and birds, too)

Exterior shot of the restaurant.

These are the Auckland botanical gardens -- they're really pretty. They're across the way from the restaurant. I took a bunch of cool close-ups of the flowers, which I won't bore anyone with.

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

In the latest installment of Really Cool Houses We Can't Afford, Iain and I drove over to the neighborhood of Bayswater and went for a walk. It's an absolutely beautiful area, as you'll see from the 8 million pictures I took.

More music videos...

Friday night we watched music videos. Iain loves Lionel Ritchie so were required to watch this in its entirety. I don't know if it's because it's so old, or if something happened in the conversion from NTSC to PAL when they shipped a copy over here, but the audio is totally out of sync. Check it out. It's HORRIBLE:

Weirdest Music Video EVER

Has anyone seen this? It's got Linda Dano from Attitudes, Coldplay, a large Lifetime TV flag, and a 90 year old diminutive yoga expert in an S&M-type body suit.

Happy Birthday Andrea!!

Double Rainbow

We get these a lot. The weather's pretty schizo right now: it'll be really sunny and then it starts pouring rain for like 5 minutes then it stops and it's sunny again then it'll go back to drizzling... you never know what to wear. The temp here has been around 17 degrees C, or 63 F.

I'm looking forward to the summer!

My friends, the mavericks

A friend of ours had the misfortune of attending a conference in the same hotel as a McCain-Palin fundraiser.

The best is the picture he took of a registration form. If you look closely you can see what people pay to get things like dinner, photo ops, etc.

He wrote: "Explain how stupid people are because dinner for two with one picture is 10k, but two pictures cost 50k. Are they the same people who caused the bank failures?"

Slow News Day....

More birthday pictures

It stopped raining long enough to have a few drinks on the deck. Then at around 5pm we went inside to a surprise web cam call that Iain had arranged with Danielle & Nam. It was so much fun!

Burgers and birthdays

That's right.

I wanted a meat grinder for my birthday.

I'm sorry, but this country doesn't know how to make a decent American burger! We had to take the drastic steps necessary to ensure a proper BBQ.

"Could these possibly be the best burgers we've ever tasted?" asks Iain. I think so.

It's been an awesome day. Iain picked me up from school (no bus!!!) with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. I came home to a house totally decorated in birthday ribbons, and a bottle of champagne.