chase the light

Woo Hoo, Fiji!!!!!! We stayed in Nadi, pronounced Nandi, the first two nights. It’s a crazy little city with lots of sellers begging you into their shops. The hotel, the Tanoa, was nice enough, but the city was pretty sketchy. None the less, it turned out to be an interesting shopping experience. The swami temple at the edge of town is definitely the most interesting landmark in the city. I’ll spare you the ugliness of Nadi here, but within 30 secs. of sitting down outside a tourist shop, I was offered drugs and told about where to get some cheap cheap women. Um, no thanks, I’ve seen Midnight Express.

Ok, really the Louis Vuitton Cup, then the America’s Cup. We had a six hour layover in Auckland on the way to Fiji. So we checked our luggage and stored our carry-on’s at the airport. The long ass cab ride to Auckland harbor made me glad Weta wasn’t based here. We’re in Auckland, and the Cup is kinda a big deal even though I know practically nothing about it, so why not? Stars and Stripes is sponsored by Viagra. The boat must perform well with a stiff wind. Ugh, the cab ride back to the airport was at rush hour. Zoiks. On to Fiji tonight.

[ZORBING VIDEO LINK – 01:45 – 320×240 – 5.51mb]
Volcano’s, farm animals, and Zorbing? In one day?! No way! I’ve died and gone to heaven. Our second day on holiday begins with a bang. A helicopter flight out to White Island volcano, then a farm, and last but not least, Zorbing. Zorbing is a beautiful thing.

Jill and I arrived in Rotorua this morning after a total scramble to get out of Wellington. In the next month, We’ll be on a plane 13 times, a helicopter, boats, cars, kayaks, trains, buses, vans, taxis, a gondola, a ferry, a quadbike, and even a camel. More on that in the full blown vacation report. Anytime you see a sign like this it usually means you’re in the middle of absolutely nowhere. In a way we are, and it’ll sum up the whole journey. According to the sign L.A. is 6488 miles away and San Francisco is 6502. So San Francisco is only 14 miles from L.A.? …said the dumb guy.

[TWO TOWERS WRAP PARTY GALLERY]

The “golden ticket” to the exclusive Weta Digital Wrap party. No, you can’t go with me.

New Zealand’s funny in that you can do almost anything that you want too. Except genetically modify food. Want to tie a rubberband to your feet and jump off a bridge? Sure. Want to land a helicopter in a live volcano? Sure. Want your own fireworks show? Sure. Hurt yourself while doing any of those. Oh well. Your stupid. Sorry. A couple people from Weta threw a goodbye party on the beach and lit up the sky with some fireworks. And not with ground bloom flowers and piccolo petes. We’re talking loose your eyeball in an accident kinda fireworks.

Two days left in Wellington, and I’m completely packed and ready to go. As a bit of last minute sight seeing I finally ride the funicular by my house. Before you start a Google search. funicular: noun Date: 1911 : a cable railway ascending a mountain; especially : one in which an ascending car counterbalances a descending car. Exactly. What Merriam Webster said.

Last day at Weta, so it’s time for the crew photo. They really should have taken this 4 or 5 months ago when we weren’t all fat and pale. Visual effects make you ugly.

As the last week on Lord Of The Rings came upon us, we all found ourselves going to our favorite places to eat one last time. The combination of that and clear weather is always a good reason to go to the Chocolate Fish. On rainy days you go to the Chocolate Frog. The sister stores have slightly different menus, but only one is on the water.

[ISLANDER DANCING VIDEO LINK – 30secs – 192×144 – 566.3k]

The production company thought we deserved a little entertainment after all the hard work we’ve been putting in. Not sure why they thought Cook Island dancers were what we needed, but ok. It’s just not right watching Polynesian dancers on a motion capture stage with really bright halogen lamps illuminating every corner of the building. Where’s the sand, the tiki torches, and the giant pig cooked in the ground?

[ICE SKATING VIDEO LINK – 29secs – 192×144 – 559.5kb]

The city of Wellington set up this ice skating rink during spring break. Spring Break? It still feels like winter out there. They wanted to see the feasibility of a more permanent rink that might be built in the city. The first day the rink never opened because of a mechanical problem. No ice = mechanical problem. A group of us were supposed to meet after dinner and have a skate. Since it wasn’t open, everybody just got sloshed at the nearby restaurants. Eventually they got everything figured out and they played a lot of 90’s pop as you can see here. Which adds to the comedy of Wellington Kiwis who can’t ice skate. Our one day off and we can’t go skating. Bitch.

One of the biggest things that is lacking in Wellington is Mexican food. Since 90% of the imported workers at Weta are from California, they all have the same opinion about mexican food in New Zealand. It’s pretty much non-existent and when you do find it, it sucks. So instead of the usual Weta catering on Friday night, some Yanks got together and created a Mexican Fiesta for the lot. Not to shabby, and I got to act like it was all for my birthday. Which is today. They also had a birthday pinata for me… um, yeah. Lopsie tried to explain to the Kiwi’s how this pinata thing works. They just stared and found it funny at first. Then a kiwi got up to give it a shot… um, it’s behind you… See, the Kiwi’s just aren’t grasping it. Let’s see an American… Ahhh… there we go! Lance beats the little donkey into submission but doesn’t tame it. Another kiwi not quite getting it as the donkey taunts him. “I do what with this stick?” Upon closer inspection we found out the donkey wasn’t made of paper mache but of cardboard and cellophane tape. New Zealand can’t even make a proper pinata. Ya know how hard it is to break into a cardboard and cellophane tape donkey? Really friggin’ hard. Seriously, about an hour and 10 minutes later, and having roughly 40 people beat on the thing, its back finally broke. Just a handful of chocolate trickled out. Ay yi yi. It might as well been the blackbox of an airplane we were beating on. Eventually Tim, a lookalike for a singer of a Haysi Fantaysee tribute band, killed off the donkey with a blow to the back. And so ended my birthday, er, Mexikiwi day.

Oh yeah, same to you Cow. Stick your tongue out at me, why I’ll make you into… oh I dunno. On a beautiful day I decided to go for another short drive up to the wind turbine to take a look at the city. After being in Wellington for a few months, you get used to seeing cows and sheep all over the place. No biggie, but as soon as you find yourself on the same side of the fence with them you realize just how big cows are. They’re also hard to “read”. Take a horse, you can pretty much tell when they’re agitated, they let you know. Ears go back, they show their teeth, etc… But with cows, you can’t really tell. They kinda just stare at you. Then this one stuck it’s tongue out at me and that was enough of a sign for me that I better leave it alone. Cows are cool though.

This morning about 6:00am it started hailing like mad. Yes that’s hail, not snow. I’m talking massive bruising hail. Damn, that’s a lot of hail. Here’s a bunch of pictures people sent out at work. I guess the groundhog saw his shadow. Brrrrr… Of course by lunchtime most of it had melted and throwing hailballs was not out of the question. I destroyed my second car today. I went to pick George up for lunch and pulled into the parking lot. As I flipped a U-turn we heard some metal scrape. Well, the car kept going so we went to lunch and I dropped him off and went to the other building. I got about half way there when the car crapped out. Long story short I broke a pipe or hose of from underneath and it drained the radiator and fried the engine. Nice. Why is there a pipe that is that vital to the car located soemplace that it can be scraped off. I’ll blame the Australians for this one on their poor design. In the photo of George throwing the hailball, on the left side of the picture you can see the metal thing I hit. Who put that there?

[CARTERTON DAFFODIL CARNIVAL PHOTO GALLERY]
[CARTERTON VIDEO LINK – 04:20m – 160×120 – 3.37mb]

George, Sarah, Jill and I woke up way to early on an extremely blustery Sunday to ride a train to look at some flowers. Every year the New Zealand Cancer Society has a steam train that travels from Wellington to the Carterton Daffodil Carnival. For a few more dollars you can pick a bunch of daffodils from the Middlerun Fields with all the proceeds going to the charity. Steam trains are one of the most amazing things ever. Kinda like a huge version of your teapot, but big enough to pull hundreds of thousands of pounds. That’s a big teapot. My teapot can’t do that, although it does have a little whistle.

[WIND TURBINE VIDEO LINK – 30secs – 320×240 – 1.11mb]
Wellington’s one and only wind turbine. Long movie file to to the right to pick up the vibe. With real life turbine sounds and whistling wind. They really could use more of these turbines like in Northern California. You could power the whole Wellington area with 5000 of these. Free power after the initial costs. One can power 70 homes. Not sure where you’d put them all, but ya know… George and I had heard about the wind turbine but didn’t know exactly where it was. So at lunch we started driving up and up and up the hill until we found the entrance. Exciting stuff, I know. Contain yourself.

[CASTLEPOINT PHOTO GALLERY]

Castlepoint and its lighthouse on the Wairarapa Coast, east of Masterton. I had been reading a bit about this place and George said it was nice, so Jill and I did the extended Sunday drive through lots of rural farmland on our way to Castlepoint. On the way there was a huge pot sale going on. So of course we bought some huge pot and went on our way. Captain Cook named it Castle Point because he thought it looked like an old medieval stronghold. The light was lit for the first time on January 12th 1913. In 1922 a visitor to the lighthouse found the keeper dead. He had fallen from the tower when fixing the telephone wire. Which of course created the obligatory ghost story. In 1954 the light was converted from oil illumination to electricity from a diesel generator, before being connected to the country’s main power supply in 1961. In 1988 the light was automated and the keepers withdrawn. The light is now monitored by computer from Wellington. The tower is 75 feet tall, flashes three times every thirty seconds, and can be seen for 30 miles. …a little pdf file told me all that. Spin out your car on the beach, hike, surf, kayak, and fish. A chasethelight approved photo hot spot. They even have horse races on the beach in March.

Waiting for the sunset at Pukerua beach. The sunset was cool, and my camera has this little bubble level on it that looks really cool when the sun shines through it. I’m not sure it was worth the half hour drive to find that out. I could have been home watching the free porn I get on cable. Sure it’s dubbed swedish softcore, but it’s free. That’s my 3rd car since being in New Zealand. They took the more luxurious loaner car back and gave me another Holden. This one will last probably two weeks before I break something.

This is tragic story of a little camera that could. The previous evening I went out to the coast to shoot those boulders. Well, it was really nice out, but I was about half an hour late, so I decided to try again tonight. Early in the day I told Jill to grab her camera (our hero) and to take a short break about dusk and we’ll go out and shoot some photos.

The interislander ferry was heading to the south island, the waves were crashing on the rocks, etc. The little camera was doing what it loved, taking pictures. All in all it was a beautiful evening, but it was starting to get pretty cold… It started to get darker so I switched over to doing some time exposures. It turned a very James Cameron blue outside. It was at this time that I shot what would be the last known photo of comrade s40. One more photo with a plane flying by, and I’m done. Perched up on the rock above the crashing waves, Jill’s on the phone with her parents. So I climb up there and sat down to get the last view of the sunset, and all is good.

Then tragedy strikes our little hero. In a flash there’s a noise, then a bounce, then nothing. I look over and say, “What was that?” Out of the dark, in a sad quiet voice I hear… “it was my camera…” I bolt to stand up, because camera gear is apparantly more important than my own safety, and just as I put my foot down I slip and find myself in the middle of a cliff dive into Cook’s Strait. Ahhhh! In that 1/2 a sec. of time all I can think of is I’m only about 2000 miles from Anarctica and I’m about to go swimming. Crash! Face first right into the surf below. $@#%! Here comes a wave! Underwater again, but as the crash subsides I discover I’m only in about 3 feet of water. After getting my balance and realizing I’m ok, I figure, oh what the hell, I’m wet, I’m already down here, I might as well start looking for the camera. Nothin’. It’s gone. After all the uneasy laughing subsided, I now have to go back to work, completely soaked, no change of clothes, it’s freezing out, and I still have a few hours of work. Turns out I was so completely soaked it didn’t even look like I was wet. My jeans looked new and my shirt was dark grey now. All said, one lost camera, a nasty gash on my right hand, and a large bruise on my right calf. Cool, photography is dangerous. So, there’s the little guy below. The last photo of our little hero. He tumbled off into the dark, never to be seen again. His future was bright but at least he didn’t suffer. My cameras were safe on shore and lived to show you about it.

There’s this pile of boulders by the airport. It was obviously built by the ancient druids for time keeping… oh wait, wrong country. Anyway, boulders, stacked, near work, cool reverse sunset, no celtic origins. I predict rain tonight.