Update-nano

I'm currently working for the Ministry of Education doing data entry. Not too sure how long I'll be there for, it could for maybe 2 weeks or more. Nothing too sure just yet.

I've been to the zoo which was a lot of fun, and Mike came back down to Wellington from Auckland for a night en route to Nelson. Good on him.

Posted some photos on my Picasa album from the Zoo, and here's a video from S'n'M that Sebbe filmed.



Random.

Enjoy!

S'n M

S'n M is what I decided to call this road trip after Sebbe and Mike who were with me. It was heaps of fun!

On their arrival, a friend of mine who works for Weta Digital help me pick them up from the airport and then we went to where he works and showed us the massive Nasgul and Wraith that Peter Jackson had installed there. Pretty bad ass.

Once we got to the hostel, checked them in, and then my mission began: Operation Piss Up!

The title says it all I would think. Yeah, won't go into too much detail, but I completed my mission!

The following day we just hung out in Wellington and showed them around and did the real touristy stuff.

On Monday we got on the ferry and went down to the south island. This trip to the south island was excellent! I didn't have to do all the driving! So I could finally sit back and enjoy the scenery! Woohoo!

We went to Nelson - Franz Josef - Wanaka - Queenstown - Manapouri - Milford Sound - Catlins - Dunedin - Christchurch.

This is more or less the same route that I did with the German girl I met in Nelson, but then I did it in the summer whereas it's winter here now, so everything looked a tad bit different, if not better!

I was meant to do a sky dive in Queenstown, but the weather was just crap, so I had to cancel it, mega boohoo!!!

The only way I can really sum up the trip is with the word awesomeness!


What's happening now? Start working again and prepare myself for the Disturbed concert in September! And guess who else is going to be playing P.O.D. Yes, Herk (my brother) I am going to see P.O.D. live :D

Mega fast!

New Photo's under S'n'M

You should be able to find them! See'ya!

Longer blog will be posted ASAP!

Awesomeness + Badosch = Today

I went to the Botanical Gardens the other day with some people from my hostel and it was very nice! Super chill and amazing weather. Got some nice shots, and had some good carrot cake. However, was sooooo (if I wanted to use all the appropriate o's you'd need another 2 days to read it out) sweet! I didn't work today because yesterday was my last day on assignment at the construction site, so I decided to take the day off and think things through. As usual, that didn't happen, instead, something much much cooler happened. I thought I'd find a spot outside to do some thinking, and I was asking some people around the hostel where to go, and one of the managers told me to go to Owhiro Bay and check out the seal colony there. And with the weather being so amazing, I thought that'd be a really good idea. So, I just took what I had with me, a dead iPod, almost empty phone, book, 2x apples, water, Bombay mix, camera, and 1x 2GB memory. I was ready to go. I thought I go to the internet cafe and charge up my iPod and write some in my blog before I left, I waited outside of the cafe for a couple of minutes thinking they would open soon, but they didn't. I checked out another one, but it was a bit more expensive, and thought to hell with it, I don't need my iPod. I call the bus service and asked them how to get to Owhiro Bay, they give some directions, and I follow them. Like, a hour before the times they gave me. But whatever, it was a great day. I jump on the first bus and jump off where I have to and find out that the next bus isn't for another hour. I ask a local for some directions and he just tells me to follow a road straight along, so I follow it. I walked for maybe 30 minutes when I stumbled across something pretty awesome: a wrought iron art gallery. It was freakin' amazing! I met one of the owners who showed me the indoors or one of their studios, and it was just collection of random stuff, and I mean random! Just check out the photos. It's a must see if you have time. The coolest thing about that room was that the ceiling was covered with old vinyl records - so cool! And the iron art was pretty bad ass too! After spending about 20-30 minutes there taking photos and appreciating the art, I make my way towards the beach, I get there about 20 minutes later. It was so frikkin' nice to see the sea again in a small town environment, and to celebrate, I bought some ice cream (in the sun, I could wear a t-shirt and shorts) :D

I then find the beach and start walking towards the colony, and the beach was so beautiful. As is everything here in NZ. After walking for maybe 10 minutes, I see a rock sticking out of the water and tell myself that I had to climb it, so I did and I got the feeling I got when I first arrived to NZ again, it was amazing. Better than the feeling of love in my opinion. Yeah man, speechless.

I climb down and start making my way again, and I see a hardcore 4x4 LandRover with it's roof down and all black coming up behind me. Two people are in it, about my age, and I start to think "I want to ride in that bad ass!" I hesitate, but then I lift up my thumb. They stop and look at each while driving past, but brake 5 meters ahead of me. My spirit is as high as a kite this point. It was photography student with her friend who were out on a mission to take some photos for her course. Awesome, someone to get some info about my camera. I didn't ask her everything, just white balance questions, and I got my answer: light gray.

We got over a hill and then we saw HEAPS of seals, and I mean HEEEAAAAPS!!! There must of been at least 50-60 of them there on the rocks. And boy did it smell like CRAP! But the cuteness of the seals made up for it.

After hanging out with them we drove a bit further down the beach to a little bay where she gets into a wet suit and jumps in the water. Theme: looking sporty. It was random. After that was all done, we drove a bit further along the beach towards the seal colony, but it was ages away. So we just turned around and headed back into town. And guess what, I got to drive the Land Rover! It was amazing! Now I REALLY want one! The stuff he drove through was pretty intense, something TM (haven't seen that for a while, eh?) wouldn't of have handled, that's for damn sure!

We exchanged phone numbers and emails and hopefully I'll be meeting them again some time, cause they were some cool as people!

Hate to hurry off the blog like this, I'm going to meet a friend for pool and didn't want leave this blog for another day.

Here are some photos for you to enjoy! Unsorted

Dilema

I'm currently in a sticky predicament with my jobs. Nothing bad has happened, but something could happen. What I'm referring to is that I've been offered jobs with the office temp agency and they pay better, but I'm more or less a permanent laborer on the construction site that I'm currently on. I like the foreman there, but I hate the pay:work ratio involved, it's a freaking joke! I've already left the site once for the other job, and I felt like crap having to bend the truth to the foreman as to my absence. I didn't tell I what I was doing, until he asked me, and I didn't tell him it was with a completely different company either. As most of you know, my moral/ethical compass is very strong at times and I hate being a dick, but as I see, I'm a backpacker, so I can put a magnet under the compass and make it point in my North. I don't know. I was thinking about approaching the foreman and explaining the situation, because I think he understands, but at the same time, would be a real drag if he told me to burn in hell and then makes my company fire me...not cool.

Besides that small predicament, the following has happened. I've watched Batman: The Dark Knight twice, one day after another; partied; taken some photos; and finally accepted the fact that I hate women (No! I'm not going gay!). It's just too long to explain, it's just that I finally believe in what Chris kept on telling me when I was in Sweden: Women's nature is like a rotwiler's, it CANNOT be trusted. Blah!

Ok, gonna bounce now, talk to you later!

Mellard = Sick in French Part 2

As I last had mentioned, I went up to Paihia to visit the Big C and see what was new. What can I say? Paihia was pretty dead, but it was really nice to be back. It felt like I had come back home in some odd sense. Can't really explain it, but you might understand, eh? Didn't really do much while I was there except for go out on the piss every night with Cam and just chat (read: hang out and drink beer). Super nice. Also, got to help him out with a pick-up with his water taxi, just like old times :D

I just remembered I told him I'd sent him some photos that I took a while back...and I forgot - DAMN!!! Oh well, I'll sort that out later. Now I feel like crap.

I digress. The last night out was really nice because it was Jam Night at the BeachHouse which is usually a lot of fun. Random people come down and play some tunes with instruments provided and some of the people there could really Jam man, hard too. It was a good way to end my little side trip.

The next morning, I woke up early and got ready to hitch hike down to Wellington. I knew it was going to be a long day, but my hopes were high and I was ill prepared (ie, I didn't have any i-am-stuck-in-whops food). Awesome. I got a ride from my boss to an ideal place to get picked up from, or so she thought. After waiting about 15 minutes, and feeling like I was going no where, I picked up my gear and make a walk up the hill with my sign out by my side. Once I reached up to the top of the hill, I saw a car pulling out of a side street and I gave a big smile and held up my sign to him. He waved me on! It made my day that much brighter considering that it was starting to rain. The guy had just moved back from Europe where he had been a stock broker and rugby player, quite an interesting story. He could only take me as far as Kawakawa, which isn't too far away, but every kilometer counts, right? After waiting for about 3-5 minutes another car picks me up, sweet!

Before I continue, I have to go back a little to the start of my morning. When I was making my sign, I had decided to write only South on one side and Welly on the other in hope that people would pick me up quicker and not think "I'm not going to Wellington, good luck pal." Well, I scored, big time. I jump in the car, he asks where I'm heading, and before I get to answer, he sees the back of my sign and says that I'm a lucky bastard. I asked him why, and he said because he was heading to Wellington. You have no idea how relieved I was when I heard this - I could of kissed the guy.

And was this guy a character or what?! We had to get some gas and empty the car of trash in good old Whangaz (Whangarei). I helped him out and then he started to look for all 3 of his phones, he only found 2 of them. He thought that he had left it at home, but was pretty sure that it had been in his car. We start calling it, but we couldn't hear anything. After some thinking, we start calling again, but in a different location - the trash can. "RING RING!!!" Score! We got it. We start heading down the road again and did this guy talk, man was he talkative. He told me heaps of random stories and asked me a bunch of questions. He also warned me that he had to do some shopping along the way in Auckland. We were going to pick up a body kit for his car (Sky Line), a fridge for his engine, a queen sized bed his mom had bought but forgot to mention, and some toy cars. It was going to be a long day - all part of the adventure!

First stop: picking up the fridge. It looked like a grill up front, but apparently you use it to cool your motor down even more, I think.

Second stop: Queen size bed. I was wondering how we were going to pull this off without having to kick me out of the car, but the guy said it would be sweet. We would just have to strap the bed to the roof. Awesome! We get there, and meet the sellers and they are some of the nicest people I've ever met. Happy little family with two kids, and one bad ass fire truck that they had pimped out! They colored it black and white like zebra...just look at the photo ;D


They had installed a bunch of speakers and they're currently looking for sponsorship to have a Playstation or Xbox installed too. This isn't for they're own pleasure, they use it for charity events and just drive kids around, really cool! Anyway, when I was done slobbering over this beast, we checked out the bed that we were meant to pick up, and I was told that it would be taken apart, but when I saw it, I almost shat myself. It was a complete queen size bed minus the mattress. I all of a sudden thought I would have to find another ride. But the owners quickly said that they left in tact so the buyer could see how to put it back together again. After dissembling it, and strapping it to the roof and placing some pieces in the car, it was all good to go!

Third Stop: Toy cars. We were looking for a small Asian shop, but instead came to a real car dealer run by a not so very nice woman, but yeah, not going to waste time on her. No real story here, except that the toy cars were for his dead son. He put cars on his tomb every month I think it was, and these are some that he had found pretty cool, so he bought them.

Fourth Stop: Skyline Body Kit. I knew this was going to be big, but not entirely sure of how big. Well, it was massive. We strapped it to the roof and put some in the car. The front fend was first put on top of the car so it looked like we were the frikkin Flintstones with a massive rib on the roof! Awesome!

This was the end result:



I don't remember what time we left there, most likely 15.30ish. The drive down was about 10 or so hours. Yippy. It was a nice drive down, jamming with his stereo system and MASSIVE sub he had rigged into his car. I bought him drinks during the ride and some food. And then he bought me food too in exchange for using my rope to strap the stuff to the roof. During the trip, we passed through the desert road which had snow in it which made the ride a bit more exciting. Nothing happened, and I trusted his driving - no other choice.



And I climbed up an airplane that had been closed off and was the main airplane for Cookie Time cookies.


So, I was on top of the main fuse lodge. Yes, dad, it was dangerous, that's why I was careful with my every movement. Couldn't really get a good photo of me on top of it...so...blah. Yeah.

We finally arrived to Wellington at 03 in the morning, and I was completely shattered. I wanted to check into Rosemere backpackers, but I knew that they were closed, so I had MSGF help me out with that one. He snuck me into Nomads, and I slept on a bed that was free :D I then had to sneak out again before 10 and they had to clean the room.

_____________________


That was my trip down! Since then, I've been working with the construction temp agency and it's a killer of job. Heavy lifting and just all around hard out. I lift everything correctly, straight back, using my legs, but I have a small pain in the right side of my back. I'm going to try to get a massage for it and see if it helps. I'm also trying to get some more work through my other temp agency this is mainly office work, but they keep on telling me that they don't have any work, which is BS cause a friend of mine who also works through them gets heaps of offers all the time. So lame. Meh.

Besides the work side of life, I'm doing okay. I really miss MSGF, we had some good times together. I'm making some friends at Rosemere right now, which is good, and I still know some people down at Nomads, so I'm not completely alone. One thing I do miss is the Swedish summer and hanging out at the park. I'll get to do that in a while though I guess, eh? It all depends on what's going to be happening with everything. We'll see.

Ok guys, that's it, I'll talk to you later, have a good one till then! Check out the albums, there may be new photos that I haven't posted or mentioned!

En Route

I'm writing a massive blog right now, taking some time...sorry! Should be done very soon!

New folder in the my photos! FART 08! And some in Random, and me...ok, gotta bounce guys!