jfin is here…

Went up to LA yesterday. Two days of training in a hotel right next to the airport .. not particularly exciting.

Managed to get away from the hotel on Tuesday night. Went down to Manhattan and Hermosa Beach with workmates .. a very entertaining and rather late evening. :)

Home again now. Netflix delivered three movies, so I’m watching Walk The Line. If you haven’t seen it, you should .. a good flick. It’s made a Johnny Cash fan out of me. His life was a bit messed up, but the music is great. I’m stuck in Folsom Prison, and time keeps draggin’ on…

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6805063692754011230

… is beach volleyball after work at Santa Cruz. Two-on-two is definitely good exercise.

Even better when followed up by checking out the sunset from Cowells (apparently a great learners surf break), and a quick bite at I Heart Pizza with Arthur and Kris.

Much, much better than the 8 hours spent sitting at the desk prior to escaping. Even the driving (with MxPx cranking) was fun. I can definitely say that I am a far bigger fan of Santa Cruz on a quiet weeknight than the busy Saturday afternoon just been.

Now I need to go have a beer in the shower. Ahhh bliss.

Listening to : The Fray - How To Save A Life

1) Skype is cool. Spent Friday night testing it out with Mike, and then talking to Mum and Dad for a while. Video feature is actually pretty good, especially with a laptop … lets you give a good tour of a house. :)

2) Water can flow uphill, and David is taller than me sometimes. Went to the Mystery Spot… trippy. Apparently it can all be explained though.

3) Santa Cruz beach is not what I had imagined. At all. Still kinda cool though… in that crowded theme-park kind of a way. Kinda different to one of the more popular beaches in New Zealand though. And very different to others.

4) Death can be sudden and unexpected.  We saw a guy who had just collapsed on the sand and it didn’t look like the lifeguards were having any success in resuscitating… put a bit of a damper on things.  Eek, that’s a bit sombre.

I came across links to this news article twice during my travels through the blogosphere today (Kiwiblog - some interesting comments there, and Sir Humphreys). Relevant to me, given that I’m a Kiwi who has just moved to America.

This is the first I’ve really heard of a noticable ‘anti-Americanism’ trend in New Zealand. Sure, there is a general discomfort held by many with the approach taken to the war in Iraq and the foreign policy of the American government, but I believe it’s a definite stretch to call it ‘anti-Americanism’.

What got to me the most was this:

Douglas Sparks, who came to New Zealand to oversee the Anglican Church’s Wellington Cathedral, suddenly packed his bags two years ago and vowed to never bring his family back. Mr. Sparks said he was the target of anti-US graffiti and his children were taunted by classmates who said they hoped US soldiers in Iraq would be killed.

Targetted by grafitti? Children being taunted by classmates? I find it incredibly sad that this is the experience of any person who might live in Godzone. That’s not a reflection of the tolerant, understanding and peaceful environment that I grew up in.

While the article doesn’t provide much information to support its point, it does refer to statistics reported by the Pew Research Center. I can’t find the exact report that contains these stats, but there is some interesting reading over at the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

Browsing through their most recent report, I realised again why international relations (especially diplomacy) must be handled in such a precise and correct manner. Somehow, the diverse and conflicting viewpoints and opinions of individuals and groups (political, religious, racial, cultural, geographical, etc) have to be agreed (or disagreed) and merged into a single message - and then communicated in such a way that it is interpreted in the manner intended by the recipient.

I’ve tried to write more, but the subject is just huge. All I can really end up concluding is that generalisation is dangerous, as are sensationalist headlines stating that the people of one nation have ‘turned sour’ to the people of another nation. So many shades of grey. Amazing anything gets achieved anywhere, given the rather complex nature of us human beings.

I can say without a doubt that I’ve met some top quality ‘Americans’ in the three months I’ve been living here, and hope to meet many more…

From ‘Knowing God’:

What matters supremely, therefore, [is not] the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it - the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.

This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort - the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates - in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.

Wow.

Listening to : Lifehouse - Everything

I may have missed out on U2 but I won’t miss out on this.

Dave Matthews Band … playing September 9 at the Shoreline in Mountainview.

Four tickets. :)
Bring it on!!!

Left home at 7pm on Friday, fought traffic, dropped in to REI to pickup some bits and pieces I needed, then kept driving. Up the Sacramento Valley, through Redding, and eventually made it to Bunny Flat trailhead on Mount Shasta at 1.30am. Got geared up, loaded the pack, and started walking at 2am.

Clear skies and half-moon made for a light night, didn’t need the headtorch. Started in the trees but quickly got up above the bushline. Decided to follow the right-hand ridge up, rather than taking the usual Avalanche Gulch route down in the gully.

Met up with Yoav (the person I’d been chasing up the ridge.. you can see him ahead on the ridge in the photo above) at about sunrise. We decided to climb together .. me and my heavy pack slowed him down a bit, but he was patient. :) Amazing sunrise and views as it got lighter. Made it to the top of the ridge at about 11am, where I decided I was too tired to push it right up to the summit.

Strapped on the board and dropped into the chute down into Avalanche Gulch. Real sketchy, the shady-face hadn’t seen enough sun and was a very solid / icy hardpack. Lost it very near the top - couldn’t get an edge to hold - and slid a long way, but God must’ve kicked the family angel into action again because after picking up a lot of speed managed to self-arrest with the iceaxe. Slowly glissaded down into the gully and rode the spring-slush out to the car park. Looked jealously up at the skiers dropping in off the left-hand ridge, enjoying their nice spring turns.

Drove down the access road, found a campsite, and setup camp. Slept for 3 hours, woke up, cooked and ate dinner, back into the sleeping bag, and slept for 12 hours. Spent Sunday chlling at the campsite (finished off “Enders Game”, good book), and then slowly driving back south. Stopped off at Shasta Dam, Lake Shasta, and various other places along the way.

Made it home after about 700 miles round-trip, and now sitting in front of the TV with a beer watching Topgun. Excellent. :) All pictures are here.

Found this poster amusing.

Oh, and this one.

“In English, the word ‘like’ can be a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, particle, conjunction, hedge, interjection, and quotative.’

A common problem? A virus?

Original source here.

Spent lunchtime strolling around downtown. Feels nice and small.. kinda intimate. Odd not having all the suits on their lunch break, I guess that’s because they’re all based at campuses out of the city. Definitely a bit of a grunge / alternative theme going on in the fashion side of things.

Lots of cool old buildings. Walked up the waterfront, through Pikes Place Market, and then back through the streets.

Travelling with work sometimes sucks because you never get to see a place. But it’s impressive how much you can manage to look at in an hour.

Didn’t take many other photos, but they’re here. Check out the rental car I had. :)

Boarding the plane back to San Jose now, time to shut it on down.