25¢ Words

Heading off again

I’m departing for Tennessee tomorrow morning. Quite ready to get the kayak varnished and in the water! Stories from the New Zealand trip have been delayed as I’ve been consumed with photos (see the collection so far).

I apparently surpassed the capacity of iPhoto with the number of shots I brought home, so I switched over to Aperture. It took me a couple of days to get up to speed with the program (it’s much deeper in both curation and editing options) but I’ve come to really enjoy it. Have also ventured toward a rabbit hole with HDR photos (just before leaving I installed the CHDK firmware on my camera to allow RAW capture and automatic bracketing of exposure), but haven’t produced anything satisfactory yet.

Home…

…happy, at odds with the clock. Just starting to process photos. Planning to post trip highlights over the coming week.

New Zealand Itinerary

For those keeping score at home, here’s the plan (dates are local, hence the apparent asymmetry in travel time).

• 8/5-8/7: Fly from Austin to LA to Auckland to Christchurch
• 8/7-8/8: Christchurch
  • ride the gondola up Mount Cavendish and walk back down
• 8/9-16: Wellington
  • 8/9: travel from Christchurch to Wellington by train and ferry
  • 8/10-16: WWOOF farmstay in Petone — half-days working, half-days exploring
• 8/17-8/26: South Island (with car)
  • 8/17: Picton
  • 8/18: Christchurch
  • 8/19-8/20: Dunedin
    • Otago Peninsula wildlife tour
  • 8/21-8/24: Te Anau
    • Milford Sound nature cruise
    • Kepler Track day hike
    • Doubtful Sound wilderness cruise
  • 8/25: Wanaka
  • 8/26: Fox Glacier
    • Fox Glacier heli-hike
  • 8/27: Christchurch
    • via TranzAlpine train from Greymouth
• 8/28: Fly from Christchurch to Melbourne
• 8/28-8/31: Melbourne
  • symphony, art, aquarium, cricket match
• 8/31: Fly from Melbourne to Auckland to LA to Phoenix to Austin

Many more things I’d like to do, with more time…

Joining and Naming

The boat is now joined, reinforced, bulkheaded. It is architecturally complete. And it has a name (suggested by my dad, in fine How I Met My Wife fashion).

I’ll let the epoxy cure while I’m in New Zealand, then return to varnish the boat and complete my quiver of paddles.

Summer, Winter, Fall

My plans for the next few months have come into focus. I’ll spend the first half of July finishing up the boat and the second half putting it to use. I’ll return to Austin in time to catch up with friends before they move away, then spend the bulk of August in New Zealand. After which I suppose I’ll call the sabbatical complete and move on to the next big thing.

Kara is accompanying me to New Zealand. We’ll spend a week on a farm stay, two weeks touring the south island, and tack on a long weekend in Melbourne. Aside from a few days in Wellington we’ll leave the north island untouched, as it would be more enticing during a warmer season.

Mini-Vacation

My experiments with magnets and glue have been successful. I have a couple of days’ worth of fiberglass reinforcements in store, then it’s time to join the deck and the hull.

I’m off for a mini-vacation in Georgia — a visit with friends in Atlanta followed by a trip to the International Disc Golf Center.