Motorcycles in Kiwi-land

So yeah, I'm looking at motorcycles.  I get so used to folks following me on instant messengers, twitter, and Facebook that I forget I don't talk to everybody all the time.

This whole thought process started one Friday night at the Wellington Main Station during yet another outage.  They are upgrading the old system with a planned completion date of June 2010.  So I predict between now and then that the failure rate will increase from 1-2 per month to at least 1 per week.  Then I saw that commuter bikes go for about $1500 NZD.  My train pass is more than $100 per month... Also when ever we have a need to be in two places at once, the single car is a bit of a hindrance.  So for nearly identical dosh, I could be riding a motorcycle.

The next boost in this process was a visit from my father-in-law, Don, who has been an avid biker for many years.  One of the more fun things we did while he was here was visit bike shops and shop around.  Apparently we have some pretty remarkable motorcycles in NZ.  A lot you wouldn't see in the US.

Thus encouraged by wisdom and thrift I set out to see what it takes to get a bike license.  Well, as it turns out, it takes a heckufalot.  I think someone with some seriously intense safety issues got a hold of the motorcycle licensing system.  In the same country that will let non-english speaking yuppy college kids go on 7-day hikes over volcanos you must go through 3 stages of motorcycle licensing and devote at least 1 year to qualifying.  You will be required to sit through expensive instructor led practical training, secure three different certificates, take three different written exams, and three different practical exams (where they ride behind you and observe).  I have now determined that while NZ may be a very dangerous place to tramp... it might be the safest place on Earth to learn to ride a motorcycle.

This last weekend, I went to take the first required handling course.  I wasn't completely clear that the class was also an official test--a test on 7 different basic skills.  Now the last time I was on a motorcycle was probably about 1994 and I only really practiced in a parking lot.  I was a bit surprised to have master 7 test techniques in one 6 hour class.  You have to complete this course *before* you get your learner's permit.  I did pass thankfully.  Next I have to go take a short written test and officially get my learner's permit for motorcycles.  I have to drive on that license for 6 months.  After this I have to get another certificate (another instructor led class), take another written test, and go through a practical test.  Then I can get a Restricted license!  Not even a Full license.  The Full license requires another course, another written test and two practical exams!

Technically, all I need is a Restricted license to be a commuter.  But dang...  If all goes well, I'll have the Learner Permit this week.  Then I can stop taking the train.  This lets me be more flexible to watch Gabe (saving daycare costs), commute for roughly the same cost, and add the utility of a second vehicle.

I need to hit 100k/h on the motorway, so I need a 250cc bike (the max a Learner/Restricted license allows).  The most economical I've seen have been the Suzuki GN250's and GZ250's.  Yamaha also has some good bikes in this price range.  Once I get one of these picked out, I'll post pictures.

Drive safely, y'all!

NZ couple win Lumberjack competition while 6 months pregnant

Here's a nice kiwi woman for ya...

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/5758768/nz-couple-chop-down-lumberjack-opposition/

A New Zealand couple have cleaned up at the 50th Lumberjack World Championships at Hayward, Wisconsin.

On Monday (NZ time) Jason Wynyard, 34, of Auckland, won five events, was second in two others, and easily captured his 11th consecutive all-around championship, the New York Times reported.

He and his wife, Karmyn -- who won two events despite being six months pregnant -- combined to win the jack and jill double buck (two-person sawing).

There were 114 professional competitors this year watched by 4500 spectators.

Jason Wynyard -- the only full-time competitor in the field -- was "built like an NFL defensive end with a buzz cut," the New York Times reported. "He speaks softly and carries a metal box of axes that hack through 30cm of aspen in little more than 15 seconds, and sheaths of 180cm-long saw blades that cut through 50cm pine logs in about 10sec.

Together, he and Karmyn won $US6175 ($NZ9511).

"What the Lumberjack World Championships lack in prize money it makes up for in prestige," the newspaper reported.

The Wynyards compete mostly in New Zealand and Australia, and used to chase summer to North America, competing every weekend for three months.

But the circuit has shrunk in recent years, and they now only go for the world championships and the Timbersports series, sponsored by a chainsaw maker.

"I had big hopes," Jason Wynyard said of when he started his career in the mid-1990s. "I thought maybe it's going to really take off and be something big.

"It's a great spectator sport. But it hasn't really taken off. It's gone the other way, which is too bad."

The competition saws cost $US1500 to $US1800 each, and most serious competitors own several.

Axes can cost $US500 each, and competitors may own 20.

***

Kiwi's... our pregnant women can kick your ass!

Yum Cha: A Kiwi Experience?

    What is Yum Cha you might ask.  Kiwi’s here will know, but I don’t think Americans will immediately understand it.  I think it is similar to Dim Sum, but since I never experienced that in the US, I don’t really know.
    So… Yum Cha might be a strangely Kiwi-Chinese experience.  This is how it goes.  You walk in to a something that looks like a cheap Chinese food restaurant.  You will be greeted by an Asian person who typically speaks about 2 words of English.  These words are “Yes” and “No”.  You are directed via smiles and gestures to sit down.  You’re given tea, a set of chop sticks, a blank bill, and a small empty plate.
    Now the fun begins.  An Asian woman will come to your table with a tray of 6-10 plates and ask you (with gestures and badly accented phrases) if you want one of these items she has.  You really only get to say “No” as anything other than an emphatic and clear “No” will get one of these plates on your table.  She will then make a tick mark on your bill.  More Asian women will follow with perhaps a dozen trays of fairly random bits.
    The small plate you just ordered will usually have 3 large bite sized portions of food on it.  Perhaps a pork bun, or 3 spring rolls, or something similar.  However many things are unrecognizable.  But don’t ask about them as you may end up with 4 plates of them by accident!
    The first time I experienced one of these places I quickly adapted to the concept, but in my attempt to order water and a fork I inadvertently got 5 more plates of food.
    I have now accidentally ended up eating Yum Cha twice now.  It is not immediately obvious that any particular Chinese restaurant is serving it first off.  Second is the obvious language barrier.  But I also think they owners use these two factors to their best advantage! “Oh, stupid American… give him 5 plates!”
    Luckily I happen to be fairly non-particular about what I’m eating.  But I am sensitive in the pocket book.  Usually Yum Cha is a great deal for 3 people (as most plates have 3 “portions”), it is much less so for one person.  You can expect to pay $20 NSD for a Yum Cha meal.  While weird, it is pretty tasty.

The Best Vacation

     I think this vacation might have been the best I have ever had.  I don’t have any way to measure all the wonderful vacations I’ve experienced before and I can’t be 100% sure that other great vacation might not be better, but these last few weeks with my mom, Chandler, and Sabrina have been cherished.
     I had not physically seen my two oldest kiddos for a whole year.  I last saw them in June 2008.  They had their birthdays in October.  We did not get to spend Christmas together.  Spring Break passed us by.  But with a similar effort necessary to capture a hurdling comet, we took a chance opportunity to fly them here to Wellington.
     I’ve posted some pictures and one small story about an excursion.  I will probably post more.  But what I will remember most is the days and days of endless giggling between all three of the kids.  Gabe, Chandler, and Sabrina spent hours just laughing and playing together.  All day they could just goof.  No matter what we actually did as “An Activity” for the day, they always played.
     I have come to realize that no sound is more loved than the assortment of clunks, giggles and snorts of 3 kids tumbling about.
     I had to take our visitors to the airport yesterday.  I am so happy to have this short time with them.  It still hurts to see them go.  One of those things I can not change.  Missouri just is not close to New Zealand.
     I find myself wishing I could explain it all to them.  To tell them that there will always be plenty of space in my life for them--that I would love nothing more than to have them stay.  But I don’t want them to feel like they have to choose and I know that children love both parents with all their hearts.  I know they wonder why I can’t just live next door to them.  But that is a very long explanation full of adult complexities.  Sometimes I wish someone could explain it to me too.  Not because I don’t understand it, I just don’t know exactly how to express it.
     Our lives are a baffling mix of self-determination and fate.  No parent can give everything that a child wants to them.  I am humbled by the realization that what we fail to give them probably shapes them more significantly than what we do give them.  I will always do everything I can for them.  I hope they don’t judge me too harshly on what I couldn’t give them.  This mix of fate and decision has moved us very far apart.  But I love them just the same.
     They are probably just arriving home about now.  Hope they had a safe and easy journey.  I hope the rest of the summer is magical for them—in the same way that I remember the long slow days of summer.  I will call and write often.  We will make everything ready for them to come again soon.
    Thanks, Mom, for bringing them to us! I know it’s hard to navigate all those airports with kids.  I can not really tell you how grateful I am for it. Thanks to Tom too for putting up with you being gone for month!  Gabe, Amy and I can not wait to see you all again.  Take care and talk to you soon!

Cape Palliser

Okay folks... stick with me here.  On the very most southern tip of the North Island is Cape Palliser which is little more than lighthouse and a set up steps.  But on the plus side it is one of the permanent seal colonies on the island.  These are bachelor colonies so there's no female seals to fight over and no pups to protect.  These seals are lazy, fat, and sleepy.

The drive out to the cape is about 2.5 hours from my house.  The most challenging bit is the hop over the Rimutaka's.  This zig-zaggy pass over the mountains is always sure to induce at least one car-sick casualty.  If  you were to compare the distance from my house to the cape you might be beguiled by the mere 60 mile journey.  But the slow mountain pass and general lack of direct routes to anything make short distances still take a good while.

At one point we had to drive over an area signed as "Active Slip Area" where the road had obviously washed out.  The road on the right side disappeared in to the rocky surf and the road on the left was a steep wall of gravel and silt.  Nothing about it was confidence inspiring.

I got a few pictures of the lighthouse, stairs and the seals.  I didn't stop to take pictures of the road--although on retrospect I should have.

The point is quite isolated.  This sensation is increasingly becoming part of my image of New Zealand.  It is very easy to round a few bends and then feel like you're at the end of the world--and I guess you sort of are.  I just forget that I live here.  A big surprise was that my oldest son, Chandler, who had a tendency to not be a joiner, decided to climb the steps with me and Gabe.  I actually wasn't going to tackle the steps but I went along.  My legs are still complaining about this decision.  However, the view was pretty awesome.

Obligatory Essay on turning 39

So I’m 39… If you’re doing the math that means I was born in 1970.  If you’re astrologically interested, I was born at 12:47 AM in the south-eastern part of Nebraska.  If you live outside the US and are not exactly sure where this is, picture a map of the USA and put your finger right in the centre of it.  You’re probably within 100 miles (220 km) or so.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m writing in British-style (centre rather than center).  I am writing from New Zealand after all so I figure I might as well be appropriate to where I am rather than from where I was born.  While it is very obvious to those that check up on me regularly, I’ve been in New Zealand for over a year now so being here is nothing new.  But for whatever reason I feel the urge to capture these thoughts on 39 years in a more holistic way.  It starts just after midnight in early summer in Nebraska and has wound its way to early winter in New Zealand in just under 4 decades.  A physical distance of some 10,000 miles, I suppose it may be as far as one can travel from Nebraska and still be on land and on the planet.  I assure you this was entirely un-intentional.

What I have determined in 39 years is that you just never know what’s going to happen next.  Sometimes good, sometimes bad; you just don’t know.  For me so far the good has outweighed the bad.  I still am excited by what may yet happen each day.  There are still yet many unpleasant challenges.  There will be more, but I am still eager for the fight.

When I was a young boy I thought about being an adult.  About the time I could do the math, I projected to the year 2000.  That seemed a magical year at the time.  I would be 30 and I would see a new century.  I imagined myself in a suit and tie on the streets of some city like New York.  As a kid I just never imagined that at 30 I might be in the same place I was at 10.  I lived in Nebraska until I was 27 when I moved to Kansas City.  I stayed in KC until I was 37 when I moved to New Zealand.

I shall declare the day I moved out of my parent’s house at 19 as the day I became an “adult”.  But I don’t think I knew a thing about maturity until perhaps as late as my divorce at 31.  Between 19 and 31 I learned about love, women, children, and finances—almost in that order!

After 31 I began to discover something of feeling old.  Only enough to give me an idea about what being old someday may be like.  But it was also about this time I really felt like I knew who I was and how to actively live out who I was.  I think for me, at least, losing something precious (my kiddos) taught me something of what was valuable.  I learned how to live things you couldn’t change and didn’t like.  But I also learned not to stand for things I didn’t like and I *could* change.  Life is too short and often too complicated to waste time living with things you don’t have to.

So 39… not quite 40… now what?  I look ahead to 2030 and 2040 and even 2050.  Maybe even farther, who knows?  Strangely I have less of an idea of what life will be like at 60 than I ever pictured for 30.  I could talk to you about plans and retirement and kids out of college, but I can’t really picture what life is like.  The idea of me at 60 (or 80) still “online” and joining my buddies in the latest network game sounds hilarious and it’s probably true.  I only hope I can keep up with the hardware.  I hope I can still see trees from my windows and walk through mist covered hills.  I hope the ocean is not too far away for a visit.  I hope all my kiddos are doing very well as doctors, artists, and scientists.  I hope Amy is near by and walking with me.  While I’m at all this hoping, I hope all of you are with me too happy in your lives and enjoying this journey of discovery.  I have only recently discovered that there is no quota of good that can be exhausted.  If you are blessed with miracles, this does not mean that other miracles were diverted.  If you were spared, it does not me others were sacrificed.  We can all receive an endless supply of miracles.

That’s about all I think I can ramble on today.  I’m doing fine.  I hope you are too.

Kids in NZ 2009

It's winter! Sabrina is wading at the beach on Oriental Bay.

Pictures I have from June/July when we had our visitors!