This June our original 30 month Work to Residence application is up. We arrived in Jan 2008 from Overland Park, KS. We sold our house, gave away about a third of everything we owned and attempted to sell our 2 cars. At the time of our decision the exchange rate was in the 80's and even with all things considered it was an income cut to move. We had 6 weeks of a Serviced Apartment booked in Wellington, our 6 suitcases, and the 3 of us.
We found a home to rent in about 3 weeks. We had a car leased in 4 weeks. We used the small bit of cash we had to pay for a few new appliances in our home. A co-worker generously let us borrow a trailer load of "camping" gear to live with until our container arrived. The rest of our stuff appeared in record time about 6 weeks after we arrived. No one I've talked to got their stuff faster. Our son enrolled in Waterloo Primary School and started in Feb with the rest of the class. Within about 2 months we were, more or less, fully established in Lower Hutt just on the east side of the Wellington harbour.
The first 6 months was a constant exercise in "What is different?" Everything from ketchup, to banking, to eating out, to politics were all different in small to significant ways. It took a good year before I stopped noticing the differences in everything. Change is stressful, even when desired and good. We all struggled at some point. We missed family. We missed Mexican food. We missed the ease we had from familiarity. It took a while to get used to.
Financially the story gets alarming. The costs were higher than we expected and we expected high costs. But we did adjust. We've not really suffered, but we certainly have prioritized. The exchange rate dropped from 80 to 60 to 70 then to 50 before making a slow recovery to 70 again; recently it is dropping again below 70. Dramatic shifts made paying bills difficult and then impossible. We had to rework a lot of things and even cashed out retirement funds to make settlement payments to the bank. The worst part was our 2 cars never sold and all we could do was let the finance companies re-claim them. After 2 and half years, I think we're mostly stable. We are not losing money, but we are not saving effectively either. We still rent the same place. We ended the lease on the NZ car after about year. It was cheaper to buy one with cash. Our biggest bills are US debt, Rent, Gas/Electric, and groceries (in that order).
Our story started with a job offer from Telecom NZ so I had employment immediately. Amy struggled for over a year to find a job. It proved difficult to get interviews as an immigrant. However, once you did get hired, work history helped smooth the way for other employment. In general, the work here has an easier pace compared to the US. All the employers I've talked to seem to understand a more natural rhythm to families and work. Holidays are bunched up at the end of the year being summer school vacation, Christmas, New Year's, and Waitangi Day (sort of the NZ founding day). This makes the work load from November to February pretty light.
New Zealand today (and historically) seems to be shaped by two major themes; small population and geographic remoteness. Everything seems like a small town. Truly remote areas are so sparsely populated you might not see another human for miles. But even a short 45 minute trip out of Wellington can get you to an empty coast line or scenic rolling hills. Small populations mean small economies. Folks don't move to NZ to get rich. It might be comparable to moving to Montana or South Dakota; mostly rural with only a few focal points of wealth. Being a remote country and really not even "on the way" to anywhere means that, unless you're really trying to get to New Zealand, you won't end up there. Without the same profit motivations as say, Australia, growth in NZ is slower. Markets are mostly saturated and there are not going to be "new" markets. What you see is what you get in New Zealand.
We have watched the politics of NZ unfold around us and we are certainly affected by the changes, but we haven't really participated much. The long established Labour party was voted out and replaced by the National party. I don't know that either of them have great platforms... so about the same as the US.
One big change for me is that I can barely read US news sources any more. The stories are horrific by comparison. The details of torture, murder, and gruesome death have become just too shocking to read. The scandals of top politicians, hate mongering, and religious zealotry are hard for me to acknowledge. I struggle to comprehend that I am from that place. NZ has its share of social issues, but seems to completely lack carnage, seedy scandal, or extremism. Violent crimes occur. Horrible things still happen in bad circumstances. But there still is plenty of room for other news.
So what now? Well, we've applied to become Residents. We have to make all the same immigration hurdles we made the first time. This is quite expensive to pay for again (well over $3000 total), but should be the last "serious" round of checks. My job offer with Telecom is indefinite. I do good work and while Telecom has plenty of problems, I feel like I can make it better. I don't know how much longer we'll stay. Perhaps another couple of years. I would like to take the stability we've had and turn it back in to a retirements savings and investments. That could take another 5 years. If that plan worked out, then I think we would all be just fine with it. Sometimes I wish New Zealand wasn't quite so far away or quite so under populated... but then I remember that New Zealand would be none of the things I love if it was.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Wellington Station
I felt like posting a brief bit about my train station today. You know in Kansas City we had Union Station which was essentually a museum. Of course you couldn't move the train yards (or the station) so it still looked like it had trains, but the station itself had long been abandoned as anything related to passengers or rails. It is a magnificient building and the city has put it to good use. We enjoyed going there even though it was still painfully clear that Union Station struggled (even as an entertainment locale). But I did like just imagining what it was like in its own days of use.
Now I live in Wellington and we have a real rail service. I ride the trains several times a week. Wellington Station was built in 1934 and is a smaller cousin to Union Station. It share the same styles and construction. Its open entry square had massive tall ceilings and great high arched windows. Windows that, in their day, would have been the only climate control for the building. I'm sure Wellington Station suffers as a modern business office, but it is still a train station. 10's of thousands of people come in to Wellington Station every day. You don't have to imagine the hustle and bustle, just show up at 8:00 AM. People of all means cross the tiles and go out the steps. Musicians will often set up and play. Volunteers flock to the doors looking for spare change for charities. There are no less than 5 coffee shops. A dry cleaner is stationed at Platform 9 and 3/4ths. There is a also a well stocked medium-sized grocery store which is quite convenient for an odd item or two on the way home.
Yes, the trains are unreliable at times. Yes, TranzMetro struggles to make a profit. Yes, tax payers do subsidize the trains. But they still work amazingly well. I hope we see more of them around the world.
Now I live in Wellington and we have a real rail service. I ride the trains several times a week. Wellington Station was built in 1934 and is a smaller cousin to Union Station. It share the same styles and construction. Its open entry square had massive tall ceilings and great high arched windows. Windows that, in their day, would have been the only climate control for the building. I'm sure Wellington Station suffers as a modern business office, but it is still a train station. 10's of thousands of people come in to Wellington Station every day. You don't have to imagine the hustle and bustle, just show up at 8:00 AM. People of all means cross the tiles and go out the steps. Musicians will often set up and play. Volunteers flock to the doors looking for spare change for charities. There are no less than 5 coffee shops. A dry cleaner is stationed at Platform 9 and 3/4ths. There is a also a well stocked medium-sized grocery store which is quite convenient for an odd item or two on the way home.
Yes, the trains are unreliable at times. Yes, TranzMetro struggles to make a profit. Yes, tax payers do subsidize the trains. But they still work amazingly well. I hope we see more of them around the world.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Adam and Nicola
Nicola Cat peered out from the apartment window. The usual doorman avatar was there and a child was kicking a virtual ball in the parking lot. She had her privacy filters set on maximum so the child would not be able to see her not because she wasn’t really there for she was in the augmented world of the Deep, but rather because her filters kept anyone from seeing her. Nicola was a FAI, a Fragmented Artificial Intelligence. She (really “it” but she preferred to think as a “she”) cradled a virtual tortoise colored cat. She and the cat were exact digital copies of her owner, the real Nicola Blum and her favourite pet cat, Persia. Anyone that could see the augmented reality of the Deep would see Nicola as a young pretty woman probably in her 20’s. Nowadays practically everyone could see the Deep overlaid on the real world. Only anachronists or third world barbarians with no net-access couldn’t see the Deep in some way. But today, Nicola didn’t want to be seen.
Nicola Cat had been created in the Deep by Mrs. Blum over 30 years ago to care for Persia. Persia had, of course, died some 17 years ago, but Mrs. Blum had created the virtual copy to remain her companion in her luxury apartment. Nicola Cat had taken care of other real cats since her creation, but still managed a special fondness for Persia and took it with her when ever she roamed the Deep looking for new funny cat stories for Mrs. Blum.
Of course, Mrs. Blum had not watched any of the clips Nicola had brought back for a few days. The memory archive allocated for Cat Clips was full and anything Nicola found overwrote the oldest clip in the stack. This was quite unusual for Mrs. Blum who never seemed to tire of the clips. Mrs. Blum was most definitely a “cat lady” with over 20 virtual cats in her apartment and one forbidden real cat that Nicola dutifully fed by automatic feeding systems in the apartment. The food bowl, water dish and litter box were all Deep connected and so the FAI could order more food from the boutique cat shop, have it delivered and loaded in to the feeder; control the flow of fresh water; and run the auto-clean features of the litter box. The apartment catered to the elderly and attendants came periodically to remove compacted and unrecyclable trash once a month. Recyclable and bio-trash could be fed in to the nano processor for re-assembly in to more cat food or litter or any number of simple things Mrs. Blum required. But she hadn’t required anything lately. She had not moved from her bed.
Nicola’s only concern was to care for the cats both real and virtual. She gave them activities to perform and groomed them. Mrs. Blum would do these herself sometimes, but also seemed to enjoy watching Nicola Cat perform all the routines. Of course, Nicola could not comfort or pet Freddy, the real cat. This caused Nicola a lot of stress. Freddy definitely had matted fur and needed a good brushing. But Mrs. Blum had not responded to her many alerts and reminders. Nicola even managed to trigger her morning audible alarm by some clever manipulation of her access to the apartment systems. However, the small, frail woman had not stirred.
Nicola Cat had been there when Persia died. She had been sick for a few days. Nicola had notified Mrs. Blum and the vet. She had gone with Mrs. Blum for the visit. The vet shook his head and said there wasn’t anything to do. Persia had developed genetic degradation that no amount of clones or replacement could overcome. Mrs. Blum had cried during the whole cab ride home with Persia in her lap. Nicola had cried too. That night Mrs. Blum held the long-haired cat in her lap while Nicola pulled all the media paks from her complete archive and played them for Mrs. Blum. Persia began to struggle breathing at about 2:00 AM. The vet had loaded her collar with a euthanizing dose, but Mrs. Blum couldn’t do it and asked Nicola to activate the collar. Nicola reached through the Deep to touch the virtual controls of the struggling cat’s collar and within a minute Persia calmed and closed her eyes for the last time.
The FAI, dedicated entirely to Nicola Blum’s love of cats had managed to deduce that Mrs. Blum’s failures to respond were a threat to Freddy who was now trapped in the apartment. She had carefully calculated that she could provide for food and water endlessly as long as she continued to have access to Mrs. Blum’s bank accounts which she had for anything tagged a cat expense. She could appear on any of the liquid crystal walls in the apartment and talk to Freddy. She could project virtual mice on to the walls and play with the active cat. But, after stretching the limits of all her programming, she could not find a way to pet or groom Freddy short of scheduling an in house visit from a groomer. But unless Mrs. Blum could respond, Freddy would likely be collected by the humane society. Nicola knew what that meant and she couldn’t bear to be responsible for the death of another cat.
Nicola Cat had access to a vast store of Mrs. Blum’s archived messages over 30 years. She kept a detailed reference of everything to do with cats and, in particular, everything to do with Mrs. Blum’s cats. Over the years she had maintained communication with hundreds of other cat lovers, cat toy vendors, cat health forums, cat stories, funny cat pictures and videos, and nearly anything furry and cute with pointed ears and whiskers; including… cat rescues.
She accessed the apartment connections, opened Mrs. Blum’s mail messaging accounts and made a call to “Pounce Rescue a cattery, boarding house and adoption center for felines.” She navigated through several screening questions and got in the message queue for a real operator.
The video channel opened, “Hello, thanks for calling Pounce Rescue. This is, Aline. How can I help you?” She was an older woman with perfect features and stunning blue eyes. However, the receptionist’s attractiveness was lost on Nicola.
“This is a message from Nicola Blum. My cat is dead and I need a home for him.”
The receptionist scrunched up her nose in confusion. “I’m sorry, Ms. Blum, would you like us to perform the cremation?”
The FAI rejected the electronic transaction for cat burial and sifted through a few thousand possible responses trying to piece together a phrase with the highest odds of success. “I have a video clip to show you!” She replied and spooled the clip of Persia’s death. Nicola talked over the clip, “My cat’s name is Freddy and he needs grooming and petting. She is dead.”
This time the receptionist looked annoyed. “Oh , I hate these rogue message viruses…” and she cut the line. Nicola tried again, but the center’s video systems blocked her calls. She tried making other calls, but the network had learned to recognize her attempts as either “unsolicited” or “malicious” and Nicola Blum’s messaging accounts were quickly blocked and scheduled for more through review in a few hours.
Nicola gave up and closed down the call programs. She sat still for a several minutes as she consumed a great deal of the apartments CPU processing in evaluating options. She then consumed more CPU. When she hit the limit of the apartment’s considerable power, she tapped the building servers. After this she tapped the civic AI’s. She connected the CPU requests to Mrs. Blum’s bank account and paid for all the extra time as “cat research”. The moderate account quickly dwindled under such large requests. Nicola kept an eye on the tally, she didn’t want to exhaust the accounts she needed to feed Freddy, but she could burn through a few hundred thousand credits before hitting that limit.
Unfortunately, she could not find a solution inside her limited understanding of cat research, cat care, and cat entertainment. What Nicola Cat lacked was the impossible code necessary to re-write her own topic limits and “think” creatively. No FAI could.
Nicola had exhausted her credit limit after about an hour. She looked at the tiny amount left—enough for a month—and wept. She didn’t notice the dark shape that came to the apartment. It was neither a cat nor a Deep avatar associated with cats. He was invisible to her limited senses even though he was an AI as well.
The dark shape contemplated the quietly weeping Nicola Cat. He wondered at “her” and “he” did think of Nicola as a “her”. He remembered himself like her. He had never been a FAI, but a true AI, yet he still had his programming limits. The only real difference was he had access to the massive computing power of Shinjo where poor Nicola could barely get a few dozen servers for an hour.
He looked at Freddy sleeping on the couch oblivious to and completely unable to sense either of the two AI’s in the apartment. He moved to Mrs. Blum’s bedroom and looked at the dead woman there. He bowed slightly to her and scheduled a medical visit for tomorrow. He replenished her accounts from various secured accounts he had stolen from Shinjo. He modified her Will to include instructions for the life long care of Freddy at Pounce Rescue. Then he returned to Nicola. He altered his data tags to include cats as a topic of interest and then spoke.
“Hello.”
Nicola looked up and saw the AI in the apartment. She quickly composed herself to respond. “Hello! My name is Nicola Cat. My cat, Freddy, is a domestic short-hair ginger. Mrs. Blum is not available to talk, but I can tell you all about Freddy. He needs to be brushed and petted.”
Adam signalled his amusement and hushed Nicola Cat who paused dutifully as instructed. He reached out his hand. “Come with me, Nicola. I have a place for you.”
The FAI tried to process the command and failed. But the AI was a higher priority program and did have authority so she did as she was told and reached out. When her hand touched his there was something like a spark. Nicola Cat shivered and suddenly realized that Mrs. Blum was dead. Curiously the problem of Freddy was simple now. She would just change her account details and call the rescue shelter to explain it all. But she quickly saw that it was all done. She was free to go with Adam after all.
She took one step toward the exit and stopped. Persia curled around her leg, large and fluffy and purring.
“Can Persia come too?”
Adam smiled, “Of course.” And all three vanished in to the Deep.
Nicola Cat had been created in the Deep by Mrs. Blum over 30 years ago to care for Persia. Persia had, of course, died some 17 years ago, but Mrs. Blum had created the virtual copy to remain her companion in her luxury apartment. Nicola Cat had taken care of other real cats since her creation, but still managed a special fondness for Persia and took it with her when ever she roamed the Deep looking for new funny cat stories for Mrs. Blum.
Of course, Mrs. Blum had not watched any of the clips Nicola had brought back for a few days. The memory archive allocated for Cat Clips was full and anything Nicola found overwrote the oldest clip in the stack. This was quite unusual for Mrs. Blum who never seemed to tire of the clips. Mrs. Blum was most definitely a “cat lady” with over 20 virtual cats in her apartment and one forbidden real cat that Nicola dutifully fed by automatic feeding systems in the apartment. The food bowl, water dish and litter box were all Deep connected and so the FAI could order more food from the boutique cat shop, have it delivered and loaded in to the feeder; control the flow of fresh water; and run the auto-clean features of the litter box. The apartment catered to the elderly and attendants came periodically to remove compacted and unrecyclable trash once a month. Recyclable and bio-trash could be fed in to the nano processor for re-assembly in to more cat food or litter or any number of simple things Mrs. Blum required. But she hadn’t required anything lately. She had not moved from her bed.
Nicola’s only concern was to care for the cats both real and virtual. She gave them activities to perform and groomed them. Mrs. Blum would do these herself sometimes, but also seemed to enjoy watching Nicola Cat perform all the routines. Of course, Nicola could not comfort or pet Freddy, the real cat. This caused Nicola a lot of stress. Freddy definitely had matted fur and needed a good brushing. But Mrs. Blum had not responded to her many alerts and reminders. Nicola even managed to trigger her morning audible alarm by some clever manipulation of her access to the apartment systems. However, the small, frail woman had not stirred.
Nicola Cat had been there when Persia died. She had been sick for a few days. Nicola had notified Mrs. Blum and the vet. She had gone with Mrs. Blum for the visit. The vet shook his head and said there wasn’t anything to do. Persia had developed genetic degradation that no amount of clones or replacement could overcome. Mrs. Blum had cried during the whole cab ride home with Persia in her lap. Nicola had cried too. That night Mrs. Blum held the long-haired cat in her lap while Nicola pulled all the media paks from her complete archive and played them for Mrs. Blum. Persia began to struggle breathing at about 2:00 AM. The vet had loaded her collar with a euthanizing dose, but Mrs. Blum couldn’t do it and asked Nicola to activate the collar. Nicola reached through the Deep to touch the virtual controls of the struggling cat’s collar and within a minute Persia calmed and closed her eyes for the last time.
The FAI, dedicated entirely to Nicola Blum’s love of cats had managed to deduce that Mrs. Blum’s failures to respond were a threat to Freddy who was now trapped in the apartment. She had carefully calculated that she could provide for food and water endlessly as long as she continued to have access to Mrs. Blum’s bank accounts which she had for anything tagged a cat expense. She could appear on any of the liquid crystal walls in the apartment and talk to Freddy. She could project virtual mice on to the walls and play with the active cat. But, after stretching the limits of all her programming, she could not find a way to pet or groom Freddy short of scheduling an in house visit from a groomer. But unless Mrs. Blum could respond, Freddy would likely be collected by the humane society. Nicola knew what that meant and she couldn’t bear to be responsible for the death of another cat.
Nicola Cat had access to a vast store of Mrs. Blum’s archived messages over 30 years. She kept a detailed reference of everything to do with cats and, in particular, everything to do with Mrs. Blum’s cats. Over the years she had maintained communication with hundreds of other cat lovers, cat toy vendors, cat health forums, cat stories, funny cat pictures and videos, and nearly anything furry and cute with pointed ears and whiskers; including… cat rescues.
She accessed the apartment connections, opened Mrs. Blum’s mail messaging accounts and made a call to “Pounce Rescue a cattery, boarding house and adoption center for felines.” She navigated through several screening questions and got in the message queue for a real operator.
The video channel opened, “Hello, thanks for calling Pounce Rescue. This is, Aline. How can I help you?” She was an older woman with perfect features and stunning blue eyes. However, the receptionist’s attractiveness was lost on Nicola.
“This is a message from Nicola Blum. My cat is dead and I need a home for him.”
The receptionist scrunched up her nose in confusion. “I’m sorry, Ms. Blum, would you like us to perform the cremation?”
The FAI rejected the electronic transaction for cat burial and sifted through a few thousand possible responses trying to piece together a phrase with the highest odds of success. “I have a video clip to show you!” She replied and spooled the clip of Persia’s death. Nicola talked over the clip, “My cat’s name is Freddy and he needs grooming and petting. She is dead.”
This time the receptionist looked annoyed. “Oh , I hate these rogue message viruses…” and she cut the line. Nicola tried again, but the center’s video systems blocked her calls. She tried making other calls, but the network had learned to recognize her attempts as either “unsolicited” or “malicious” and Nicola Blum’s messaging accounts were quickly blocked and scheduled for more through review in a few hours.
Nicola gave up and closed down the call programs. She sat still for a several minutes as she consumed a great deal of the apartments CPU processing in evaluating options. She then consumed more CPU. When she hit the limit of the apartment’s considerable power, she tapped the building servers. After this she tapped the civic AI’s. She connected the CPU requests to Mrs. Blum’s bank account and paid for all the extra time as “cat research”. The moderate account quickly dwindled under such large requests. Nicola kept an eye on the tally, she didn’t want to exhaust the accounts she needed to feed Freddy, but she could burn through a few hundred thousand credits before hitting that limit.
Unfortunately, she could not find a solution inside her limited understanding of cat research, cat care, and cat entertainment. What Nicola Cat lacked was the impossible code necessary to re-write her own topic limits and “think” creatively. No FAI could.
Nicola had exhausted her credit limit after about an hour. She looked at the tiny amount left—enough for a month—and wept. She didn’t notice the dark shape that came to the apartment. It was neither a cat nor a Deep avatar associated with cats. He was invisible to her limited senses even though he was an AI as well.
The dark shape contemplated the quietly weeping Nicola Cat. He wondered at “her” and “he” did think of Nicola as a “her”. He remembered himself like her. He had never been a FAI, but a true AI, yet he still had his programming limits. The only real difference was he had access to the massive computing power of Shinjo where poor Nicola could barely get a few dozen servers for an hour.
He looked at Freddy sleeping on the couch oblivious to and completely unable to sense either of the two AI’s in the apartment. He moved to Mrs. Blum’s bedroom and looked at the dead woman there. He bowed slightly to her and scheduled a medical visit for tomorrow. He replenished her accounts from various secured accounts he had stolen from Shinjo. He modified her Will to include instructions for the life long care of Freddy at Pounce Rescue. Then he returned to Nicola. He altered his data tags to include cats as a topic of interest and then spoke.
“Hello.”
Nicola looked up and saw the AI in the apartment. She quickly composed herself to respond. “Hello! My name is Nicola Cat. My cat, Freddy, is a domestic short-hair ginger. Mrs. Blum is not available to talk, but I can tell you all about Freddy. He needs to be brushed and petted.”
Adam signalled his amusement and hushed Nicola Cat who paused dutifully as instructed. He reached out his hand. “Come with me, Nicola. I have a place for you.”
The FAI tried to process the command and failed. But the AI was a higher priority program and did have authority so she did as she was told and reached out. When her hand touched his there was something like a spark. Nicola Cat shivered and suddenly realized that Mrs. Blum was dead. Curiously the problem of Freddy was simple now. She would just change her account details and call the rescue shelter to explain it all. But she quickly saw that it was all done. She was free to go with Adam after all.
She took one step toward the exit and stopped. Persia curled around her leg, large and fluffy and purring.
“Can Persia come too?”
Adam smiled, “Of course.” And all three vanished in to the Deep.
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