4:20 a.m.

Quite awhile since my last post. Life has been dominated by work and writing proposals. And a trip literally around the world. Maybe later…

Last weekend I brought in some boxes from the garage. Six of them in fact. They mark the culmination of a life-long culling of literal personal baggage. The winnowing process over one’s lifetime is interesting. Early on I kept everything from high school notes, letters, college notes, and all sorts of bits and bobs. Progressively as I moved hither-and-yon the burden became too heavy and the attachment too light, such that what was once indispensable became easily expendable. It was interesting to open up one of the boxes and see what was inside:

• some old writing assignments from 12th grade English class
• photo negatives
• “real” GI Joes, i.e. the 10-inch tall guys from the Adventure Team and not the wimpy little ones that came later – including 2 Talking Commanders (”I’ve got a tough assignment for you.” “This is going to be rough, can you handle it?”) – with and without Kung-fu grip
• Report cards – for my brother and sister (good grades guys!)
• Souvenirs and what-not from my first real overseas trip to Europe in 1998
• Videotapes – including one I made with Alex the Grey Parrot when I worked with him at Northwestern many years ago (hopefully still working)
• …

You get the picture. I keep them mostly to amuse myself at the odd time when I need to open them up again, such as now. I told my wife that I keep them for the long-term goal of amusing myself when I am old.

The objects become keys to open up locked portions of my brain that would otherwise remain shut. More and more I could accept the idea that we actually store everything that we experience in our brains. The difficulty comes in trying to access it. Does that make alcohol the mental equivalent of rust?

Three or four of the boxes contain LPs of various tastes. Not sure about the other boxes. My strategy at this stage involves taking everything out of the boxes and… putting it somewhere. Or perhaps tossing it out.

And so it goes.

Yesterday I finally capitulated to the growing pressure from family and friends (both of them) and joined the Facebook revolution. Having now placated said family and friends (and you two know who you are!), I now find myself under the unexpected further pressure to quickly garner as many Facebook friends as possible to avoid looking like an e-loser.

It should be an interesting process. Will it be similar to the traditional species-area relationships in ecology where you find that your first search efforts yield loads of new species, or friends in this case, and then over time you see a tailing off as the rate at which you add friends diminishes? At some point you will hit the asymptote and only occasionally discover new friends with the assistance of large amounts of financing from National Geographic.

Or maybe it is completely the opposite. Maybe the process of gathering friends is instead a positive feedback loop, whereby you start slowly at first but then quickly gain exponential momentum like some uncontrolled burn or nuclear reaction, owing to the n-to-the-n power promise of the Internet neighbourhood, such that when you’re done you’ve got as many friends as there are Internet users. Then again, you’d likely not keep up anyways, especially with the prolific increase in Russian internet users who regularly send me kind words about my blog. I just wish they’d learn a bit more English. It’s all rather broken and hard to follow, especially with all those embedded links…

Ultimately I hope that the process is fun and does not create yet another set of e-xpectations in terms of keeping up with e-veryone about e-verything when really I’d rather just spend time puttering in the garden instead of say, oh, writing a blog for instance.

Then again, I am now clued into my sister’s need for a new coffee maker and feel that much closer to her electronically if not spiritually. Even though we are literally oceans apart, I can now share in her quest through the veritable cornucopia that is undoubtedly the American coffee machine market (and we thought there were a lot species?) until she locates the mythical machine worthy enough to fill her Holy Grail with that perfect cup o’java.

Godspeed dear sister!

In these rather distressed and distressing times, it can be quite easy to slip unnoticed into negative states of mind. This can be particularly true when you also do the type of research that I do. Meaning “futures” research that tries to understand trends and drivers and where events are headed, how likely, etc. On some days, it can all look pretty dire.

To muddle through like most, I try to spend more time consciously focusing on the positives, including my experiences, usually in the comfort and security of my own head. This time I decided to share and came up with “Nine for ‘09.” Basically a list of 9 really great experiences in my life to date. Here they are, in no particular order (and certainly not in reverse like David Letterman’s Top 10):

1. Flying over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco in a single engine airplane with Michael, a good friend of my sister’s from the Bay Area

2. Wadlopen in the Waddenzee (you’ll have to Google that first term to figure it out!)

3. Working with Alex the African Grey Parrot and Irene Pepperberg as an undergrad at Northwestern

4. Skiing in the Alps with Anthony (Swiss), Gareth (Kiwi), and Ramona (Swiss too)

5. Mud sliding with my adopted Kiwi family: Angela, Louis, Daniel, and Christina

6. Peter Mayer CD hunt for Angela’s birthday (see #5)

7. Island hopping in the Bahamas looking for radar sites for the FAA’s new weather radar station to provide weather info for the Miami-San Juan flight path

8. Planting tree ferns in the front yard with Suus, Joris, and Roos

9. My wedding day – which truly was a perfect day.

I could go on, but limited myself to to just the nine.

How about yours?

As I said, this story deserves its own post complete with clever engelsland title.

Said title is a bilingual wordplay on the R.S.A., which is short for the Returned Services Administration.  The R.S.A. is New Zealand’s version of the Veterans Administration in the USA or the … whatever similar service they provide for veterans in the Netherlands. The final word is pronounced “ay-ta” and is Dutch for “to eat.” On to the story!

Most New Zealand towns of any reasonable size have a branch of the R.S.A. They have a really flash (upscale) R.S.A. at Waihi Beach. It sits on a hill overlooking the town and the ocean. The post 2 down from this one gives you a sense of what you would see if you eat (eten) at the R.S.A. in Waihi Beach.

We had never eaten (gegeten) at an R.S.A. but a friend advised us to try it. When we arrived, it was packed. As it happened, we had unwittingly chosen to spend the weekend at Waihi Beach with all the finalists of the Surf Lifesaver Clubs national rowing championships. After signing the guest book, we wandered to the bar for some drinks. Casting furtive glances at the happy hordes, we wandered further over to join what appeared to be the line for the restaurant.

The cashier was in a small, low cubicle further in front of us, a cafeteria-style serving area with overarching menu board was to our left, and to our right were tables, a patio/deck, and the fabulous view. Farther beyond the cashier were lots more tables. And of course, lots more happy guests.

We had no idea what to do.

Do we go get our food first? Are the people in line paying their bill? Waiting to be seated? Do we stand in line, oozing confidence that we really did know what was going on? Do we try to sit at a table and see if someone serves us?

In a most uncharacteristic move for a male of our species, I asked the couple in front of us what to do. The young man was, of course, a surf lifesaver competing in the finals tomorrow. They helpfully and cheerfully walked us through the full and proper R.S.A. protocol, which is as follows:

1) scan the menu board

2) mentally make your selections

3) upon reaching the cashier, provide your selections to her/him and pay up

4) take the pager(!) the cashier gives you

5) wander off to find a table of your choice (”Do you have a reservation? No? You’ll have to go to the bar or patio area because we’re booked out.”)

6) wander to an authorized area and select a table

7) stare expectantly and nervously at the pager

‘8) stare some more

9) finish your beer

10) engage in idle chitchat (”Wow, there are a lot people here tonight.” “Yes there are.”)

11) pick up the pager for a first inspection

12) water a bit of 7s rugby

13) pick up the pager for a second, more thorough inspection to determine that it indeed still works. After all, how long does it take to prepare garlic bread starters?

14) contemplate getting another beer

15) JUMP in your seat as the pager suddenly and violently begins vibrating and whistling at you

16) scramble to find the off button

17) realize that you cannot find the off button and mask your embarrassment by emulating all the other paged people and go back to the serving area

18) provide the pager number to the hostess and pick up your garlic bread

19) wander back to your table

20) savor the first taste of your dinner.

Having now achieved full qualifications in R.S.A. protocol, the rest of the evening went pretty well. We returned a second time to the serving area for our main course (2 x fish, steak, pasta) and side dishes. There are no prohibitions on how many/much sides you can have. The only limit is how much you dare load on to your plate. After suitable gorging, we returned a third and final time for desert (2 x apple/blueberry crumble, Mississippi mud cake, ice cream). Lekker!

21) Waddle slowly to the car for the car ride home.

All in all, a fantastic Kiwiana experience. We must pay a visit to our local R.S.A. at some point.

Oh yes, if you hear a bell, please observe a minute’s silence in rememberance for those who served.

I hope I spelled that last word correctly!

Today Suus and I… acknowledged our three-year anniversary. We did not officially celebrate, as Suus is too busy with her PhD and I am too busy with writing proposals for either of us to have much energy to do anything else. We plan on going to the movies on Friday though!

Life for us currently has a Groundhog Day flavor to it. The alarm goes off, we wake up, and pretty much repeat the PhD/work/come home late process until we go to bed. The alarm goes off… Fortunately I don’t look quite like Bill Murray yet.

There is really not much else to report, although I can write a good story about an experience with Joris and Roos from our trip to Waihi Beach almost two weeks ago. That story deserves its own post, complete with clever title.

A bit early this morning. 4:16 a.m. to be exact.

This past weekend we traveled to Waihi Beach about an hour northeast and spent the weekend with Joris (yore-is) and Roos (rose), Suus’s brother and wife. They are visting from the Netherlands for about 4 weeks. We spent Sunday at Orokawa Bay, which is one bay up (north) from Waihi Beach. Suus and I had been there several times before. It was unusually crowded. Must have been 20 people there. We coped.

Blizzards? Ice storms? Minus how much?

We’re thinking of you.

What better way to get back on the blogwagon than a post to celebrate the Steelers victory in Superbowl XLIII!!!

No matter how long I live here, it remains incongruous to watch football games in the middle of summer, and for me usually on Monday afternoons. Possibly less so when I watch the Superbowl because they usually play in warmer climes. It is also not just the weather (gorgeous) but we also did not get to watch all the slick ads. Instead we got endless highlights from: European soccer, motocross, X-games, USA basketball and some very clever ESPN ads that were entertaining the first two dozen times. They did show us The Boss at half-time and the post-game festivities though.

Never mind – what an uneven and improbable game! I certainly thought we had lost it after the long Fitzgerald touchdown, but then out comes the offense marching up the field in a drive capped by a perfect throw and catch. Absolutely wild. The Cardinals played extremely well and my hat would have been off to them if they had pulled it out in the end.

We will get to savor the victory for awhile and then before you know it, winter will be here and that means time for training camp (this is the Southern Hemisphere after all…). Not to worry though, as the Rugby Super 14 starts in a week or two to fill the gap. Now that I understand it better, I really enjoying watching the games. Much more fluid than American football, lots of manly terminology (rucks, mauls, scrums), and a lot fewer commercials. The local team is the Waikato Chiefs and perhaps we will get to a match this year. If you thought USA sports teams traveled a long way, the Super 14 has teams from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Fun Trivia:

In football, you score a touchdown by trying to get the ball to break the plane of the goal line.

In rugby, you score a try by touching the ball down on the ground behind the try line.

Is it any wonder the telephone plugs are also not the same?

No, not that kind of quickie.

Shame on all of you.

Just a quick entry because I feel like it. A main purpose for writing this blog – other than the usual narcissistic reasons – is release, as in release from all the other kinds of writing that I have to do that have an angle or purpose or agenda. No agenda here, other than perhaps to placate “M” who is hopefully keeping tabs on me. And maybe if I am not too tired I might have a go at figuring out the RSS feed such that my sister can link to it on her iGoogle page and see whenever I post.

I really want to do a post about our garden, complete with pics, because it is going gangbusters, but we currently experience technical difficulties with the photo upload module that makes sending pictures tedious. I will try over the weekend to get them loaded.

In the meantime it is indeed Wednesday evening, about 10:30 pm. My better half is away at a conference until Friday late, so I am bacheloring it this week. Today I flew down to Wellington for a meeting. I do that occassionally for work, i.e. fly down and back to Wellington for the day for meetings or workshops.  In fact, I will fly down to Wellington next week. And the week after that… All in the name of sustainability, of course.

Today our meeting finished a bit early and I caught an earlier flight back. That meant that I got back early enough to putter in the garden and enjoy the sensational weather. Warm but no too warm, very sunny, a hint of a breeze. Fantastic. I even managed to spray the TurfFix on the lawn as well. I am not generaly keen on anything non-organic (which TurfFix could actually be, need to check the label) but my philosophy is as follows regarding lawn care: if you’ve got a lawn, then you might as well do your utmost to make it a lush, springy green carpet of healthy grass and little to no weeds. So I distract my green consciousness and spray the dickens out of the unwanted aliens, trying at the same time not to spray my gangbuster garden. I also got a bit of weeding done along the driveway and trimmed the rose bushes. You really need to see the pictures.

Not much else to report. We are just 2 weeks + a bit away from the Christmas holidays. This year I am taking 3 weeks off over the holdays. We usually have 10 days – 2 weeks off but this year I am doing 3. Leave is much better here than in the USA. Employers must provide a minimum of 4 weeks holiday time to employees. I am very much looking forward to it.

I said this would be quick, and I meant it.

Last Wednesday the new Government took over in New Zealand. While the world celebrated the ascension of Barack Obama in the United States, welcoming a return to the left and hopefully the greater global fold, Kiwis were feeling grumpy. They dumped the three-term Labour Government coalition in favour of a right-leaning National-based government led by a multimillionaire and former currency trader (I think) named John Key.

My fellow Americans zigged, New Zealand zagged.

The National party fell a few seats short of a true majority – which would be a major feat in the MMP system used here. Instead they formed a comfortable 70 seat coalition that includes the Act Party, the Maori Party, and the Peter Dunne Party (which goes by the broader name of United Future. It’s not hard to be united when you’ve only got one MP in parliament).

The irony is not lost on some of us that Mr. Key used the spectre of a “5-headed monster” i.e. a 5-party Labour led coalition during the campaign. Apparently 5 parties is just 1 more above tolerable. Then again, you have to give Mr. Key credit as he deftly reduced the influence of the Act party (very right-wing) by forging an alliance with the Maori Party (more left-leaning), giving National the ability to sway in the political wind. The alliance represents a bit of gamble by the Maori Party leadership given the strong Labour party vote by Maori in the election. Then again, better the devil you know as the saying goes.

Similar to the United States, the mood here remains cautious and wary. It is not clear yet what the full effect of the global financial change will bring for New Zealand. Apparently the Treasury is now forecasting up to 10 years of budget deficits. Initial indications suggest that the “bland” NZ economy may take awhile to feel the backlash. The NZ Reserve Bank is following suit and slashing interest rates quickly in the hopes of keeping the embers of the once-hot NZ economy warm. The effectiveness of such a policy remains to be seen, as a good portion of NZ credit is (was) sourced overseas.

The new National-led government’s agenda seems to focus for the moment on review of government services. A factor in Labour’s loss likely stemmed from the increase in government size durinig their tenure. You typically get two views on this: either government became bloated under Labour’s watch and needs refocusing/reducing or Labour simply restored government services to reasonable levels after too drastic cuts by the previous National-led governments of the 1990’s. I suspect that the truth lies, as usual, somewhere in the middle.