Where's BH?

Welcome to Volume 1 of Where's BH. Some of my loyal readers may have received this via email, but for the rest of you, here you go.

Sorry I haven't been the best at emailing. Things have been a bit busy as you can imagine. I flew to Wellington last Wed, arriving exactly a week ago today (that's Friday for me). A couple quick notes of thanks:

Extra special thanks to Karen and Jenny who totally saved me on my last night and helped me do the final packing scramble.
Extra special thanks to William who helped me out with holding my vehicle until Vin can go pick it up.
Extra special thanks to Dougie and Jenny for storing my Burning Man stuff.
Extra special thanks to Carol and K3 for driving me to the airport and to everyone who made it out to my farewell party and my last day festivities.

The farewell party the Saturday before was great. Got to catch up with lots of folks I hadn't seen in some time. We did a picnic that afternoon at Crissy Field (thanks to karen for helping me organize!) and then met for drinks at Zeitgeist that night.

Had a wonderful send off with dear friends - we met at El Torito for my final taste of Mexican food (as there's no Spanish influence down here and the "Mexican food" is inedible) and then a smaller subset came to the airport. Good times with the flying monkey, a bottle of champagne and a baggage trolley ride right up to security. (yeah, you probably had to be there)

Flight was uneventful - just the way I like them. I knew a colleague (Richard) was meeting me at the airport. Turns out my boss (Hamish) also met me. Those two drove me to my temporary accomodation, dropped my bags and then took me out for drinks where I met a couple other colleagues.

Saturday night I met up with Victoria whom I had met in Perth. She's an American who married a Kiwi. Funniest part - she played rugby at Penn State while I was playing at Marquette which means we played against each other at some point, just never got to know each other. She, her husband and step son picked me up on Saturday evening and we watched the All Blacks match at their mate's place. It was nice to get out and meet some folks. The All Blacks slaughtered England which is always nice to see.

Sunday I hit the farmers market outside Te Papa museum. Nice produce and it's "cheap". Allow me to explain - the "cheap" version of veggies is still ridiculously expensive. I've been rather surprised just how costly (or as they say here - dear) things like food and coffee and the like are. Crazy.

Started work on Monday. Everyone I'm working with seems nice and friendly. I put together a presentation for a client that went out today. We have several projects with them, but I may be leading the one around their SAP installation. Talk about diving in head first!

Met up with Todd last night for dinner - a friend of a friend who moved here in March. It was nice to get someone else's perspective on things and to hang with someone who understands your references.

Other than the above, I've been hunting for a flat. It's a bit tricky as a lot of the houses here are old and don't have heating or insulation which means they can be damp and cold. Winter is actually a great time to flat hunt because you know what you are getting into. Kiwis seem very big on living with each other - 7 people in a 5 bedroom flat, etc. It's a bit tough because I outgrew that living with 7 other people thing a long time ago. Had found a perfect flat with two flatmates - we had a couple glasses of wine, watched The Amazing Race, bantered, etc. Imagine my surprise to get the email they gave it to a friend of a friend even though "they both thought I would be a great fit." Guess blood is thicker than water. I have to believe that somehow it's all for the best in the end, but it's hard. So, the hunt continues. My temporary housing is over on the 4th of July (a week from today) so feeling a bit stressed about it. It will all work out in the end I suppose.

Victoria and I got tickets to the All Blacks/South Africa match on the 5th of July. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! I'm like a kid in a candy shop over here. Victoria rang yesterday to say we now have plans with her husband's sister beforehand and they are doing things on the 4th that I am welcome to join them for as well.

One of the partners is having a cocktail party at his house tomorrow for the management team. Should be nice. Going out for drinks is a very big thing here. We have two rounds of drinks at work this afternoon (apparently I have to make a speech at one of them).

I went on a hash run on Wednesday night with the Wellington Ladies group. W.E.N.D.Y was awesome and hooked me up with a ride to get me there. It was a fun group and nice to have a night off from flat hunting.

The view from our office is amazing. I took a couple photos yesterday which I will send when I download them from my camera. It's really interesting to be able to predict the weather by watching the water - if it's choppy in the bay, it means it's a "Nor-wester" which is actually somewhat warm. If the bay is calm, it's a southerly which means it's bringing cold antarctic air and the temp drops sharply. The weather has been really interesting - can be gorgeous one minute and the next it's gray, you can't see the water and it's hailing. Very similar to living in the mountains.

All the people I have met have been super friendly. I think I'm going to enjoy this new adventure. I have a few random moments of being stressed, but then I just remind myself that this has been my dream and I'm actually living it! Not to mention I have the opportunity to completely reinvent myself here where no one knows me, there are no preconceived notions about who/what I am, etc. A few deep breaths and I'm all good.

Well, that's enough for Volume 1.

This update was brought to you by the letter W and the number 1.

Packing Hell

I know I've been MIA for quite some time. Life is hectic. It's fantastic, but hectic. Spent the past two weekends in Lake Tahoe for a faire. It was loads of fun and hung out with some good people.

Three of us - Brian, Jeremy and I stayed a couple extra days to play. There's nothing like camping in the mountains buy a gorgeous lake with wonderful people to make life okay. Of course, deciding at 10:30pm to start shooting a bb gun at targets (coke cans, water bottles, etc) that we set up at various distances and kept moving doesn't hurt either. Nor does realizing the next day that we had some left over eggs and those on top of the bear box make a great target. Nor does realizing the shoes I was going to throw away could also be set up on the bear box and eggs put in them as targets. Good times folks, good times. I haven't shot since I was in college if not before. It was great to be back at it, even with a bb gun and I held my own. The boys were impressed - I even kicked their asses a few rounds.

And now I am back in the real world and on the final countdown. I move on Wednesday to New Zealand. That means I have the rest of this week to pack, sell stuff, donate stuff, sort out 9 years of a life I've built out here, have a farewell party, try and see the people I need to, etc.

Why didn't the house elves pack for me when I was away?

This moment of good stress was brought to you by the letters N and Z and the number 18.