It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged. With work and what not I just haven’t had the time to sit back, relax, and ponder the meaning of life as often as when we first arrived in Wellington. This post, however, will touch on some of those finer things, meanings of life, etc, as every New Year blog does in some way or another. That’s not how I’m going to start out – you’ll have to keep reading to get to the good stuff.
Queenstown
About a week and a half ago, Amy, Harsh, Brad, and I set out on an adventure that none of us will forget anytime soon. Our destination was Queenstown, New Zealand. Queenstown is a small town in the center of the South island, situated on a lake between huge mountains. The views were absolutely breathtaking! It’s a very touristy town, with little to nothing in Queenstown not tied to tourism.
We left Sunday night, first having a few drinks at Infusion, and then catching the 12:30am ferry across the Marlborough sounds to Picton. The ferry was a good 3 hours long, during which we mostly slept. The ferry smelled kinda bad, but it was a very smooth ride. From Picton we made the drive to Christchurch (~5hrs) and then on to Queenstown (~4.5hrs). One thing that I was told about New Zealand that became very apparent on this trip was the driving is never boring. The scenery changes every 30 minutes, and you’re always within an hour or so drive of the Ocean. Not too far on the drive out of Picton is where they filmed the show Zena, and watching the sunrise over the beach was gorgeous! Harsh and Brad did all of the driving for the trip, which was nice since I’ve never driven on the left side of the road. When we finally arrived in Queenstown we headed out for some dinner and beers, and then crashed at our hotel for the night. Just to show how popular Queenstown is – the hotels were filled to 100% capacity, and most charged higher rates for the Christmas / New Years period. That evening, after 20+ hours of no “real” sleep and no “real” food, I was pressured into buying a ticket to go Bungy jumping. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wanted to go bungy jumping. But I wanted to have some time to look at the combo packages, and other deals that they had before purchasing tickets, and I didn’t want to buy the ticket without really thinking about it. Nope. Amy wanted to buy them at that time, so as usually she threw logic out the window and BAM we had some tickets to jump on Friday. Just Fucking Great. We also wanted to go Skydiving, so we purchased tickets to do that too. Turns out you have to be under 90kg to go Skydiving, and Harsh is ~102kg. Luckily they let us all get a refund since they didn’t tell us about the weight limit before buying the tickets, but it was a let down that we weren’t going to skydive too. The four of us decided to do a boat ride through the canyons instead, called “The Shotover Jet” named after the Shotover River through which the jet goes. (Note – we could have saved money by purchasing the tickets at the same time as the bungy tickets, but instead we had to pay $60 more for booking separately.)
The boat ride was really cool, however we found out we got on the wrong boat. We went on the Kuarawa Jet instead of the Shotover jet, and later were able to get our money refunded (long story, but the short version is I’m ZachMagical, and a MCS-PIMP). We also did the Luge, which can only be described as a one-man bobsled on concrete. It was pretty cool, and only later did I connect the dots and realize that the Luge is what Andy Camann wanted me to do when he said “Do the LUGE!” Sorry Andy. The Luge is at the top of a mountain, which you take a gondola to get to. Wow! More breathtaking views! I have photos at the end for anyone who wants to see what we were seeing every freaking day.
I know, I know, you want to hear about the bungy jumping. Amy and I were the only two from our group who wanted to Bungy, the others had done it before. We decided that if we were going to do it we might as well do the Nevis, which is 134 meter fall. Yup. That’s like a quarter of a mile. 8-9 seconds of freefall. What the hell was I thinking. No, what the hell was ANYONE thinking. Why would you want to jump off a cliff with a rope tied to your feet? I mean, that’s just stupid! Well instead of jumping off a cliff, we decided to jump out of a tin can held up between two cliffs, into a canyon, and risk death while doing it. We arrived at the bungy place and got all harnessed up before taking a small gondola across to the bungy platform. The platform was about the size of an average family living room, with 12-15 people in it setting ready to jump. You had to sit down in this funky chair before the jump so they could tie your feet together, and then you had to wobble over to the edge of the platform and jump off. I didn’t jump when they did the count down for me, I froze. Then, looking like an idiot, I told them to count again. Then I jumped. Well, not really jumped (remember, I’m frozen solid in fear) but fell in a rather ungraceful-not-by-the-books bungy jump. I don’t remember the fall, but it wasn’t jerky when it pulled back up. After the second bounce I released my legs so I flipped upright, and then I sat there thinking about how stupid that was. I mean really, who in their right mind jumps off a cliff?
After Queenstown we drove up the other coast to get back to Picton. The drive from Queenstown to Greymouth was stunning, and aside from Harsh’s erratic driving, I would do it again in an instant. We spent the night in Greymouth, and then drove to Nelson and chillaxed on the beach, and then on to Picton for the ferry ride home.
Overall it was a short trip, only five or six days, two of which were almost 100% driving. If any of you end up in New Zealand, be it visiting me or just because it’s a cool country, go to Queenstown! You will be amazed by the natural beauty, none of which can be captured properly on a camera.
Note – Photos and videos will come later. I can’t upload them at work, but I figured I’d at least get this posted until that happens.
Now on to the New Years stuff.
Like most, I’ve been thinking about where my life is and where I want it to go in the next year or so. I’ve always had an answer to that question, but now I really don’t. I like what I do, and I want to continue working in technology, but I’m not sure about other things. I miss my friends and family, and want to spend more time with them. What’s going to happen in the next year? I don’t know. Move back to Madison, get an apartment and a job, in another year or so build a house. I guess anything is possible, but I’m thinking about what I need to do for me personally, and for my professionally. I might start taking flight lessons again, or maybe look into going to school at ERAU or something. Maybe I’ll join the Navy and server Obama as the Commander of the Joint Chiefs. Ok that last part is not going to happen, but if it did that would be way cool.
Alright I’ve wasted enough of your time. Hope all is well in the World.
-Zach
Friday, January 16, 2009
Saturday, December 13, 2008
ZachMagic in Full Swing!
Hello All,
It's been a long time since I last updated this, however you can be happy that the update isn't one of such lame proportions that my own mother is going to put it up as a candidate for "the 7 Lamest Blogs Ever" circa Andy Camann style (Link: http://www.acamann.com).
I've been employed for a whole three weeks now, and let me tell ya - employment never felt so good! So it's not the VMWare Systems Admin job I dreamed about during those long months of seemingly endless searching, but it's a job none the less. I've been working on Project Server and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) a lot during these three weeks, and I must say I do enjoy a lot of the new features that WSS 3.0 has and wish I could have been at Suby long enough to implement them. At almost three full weeks of work behind me I have started talking out loud to people. Perhaps it was inevitable, but none the less I beat my Suby non-talking spree by at least a month. I'm not talking to more than four or five people, but at least now I seem much less awkward (though still awkward, as that never does go away). I'm also doing a lot of work for other people, since my job hasn't 100% kicked in yet. Yesterday we had the SharePoint server go down, and I immediately thought to myself "Yeasssss! For the first time ever I don't have to fix this!". Of course after thinking that and emailing it off to several people, I volunteered to help out. I kinda miss that "Everything in the server room depends on you so if something goes down you have to be the man to fix it" responsibility that I had ever since Jeff left Suby, but at the same time it's good not to have that pressure every day of the week.
I've been thinking a lot about the West Wing lately, in part due to Obama's glorious victory, and in part due to me finding someone at Transpower (TP) who also believes the The West Wing (or "Wing" as it's never actually been referred to) is one of the best dramas ever made. It makes me wish I was back home, drinking mini bottles of rum while watching Leo McGeary succumb to his alcoholism and start drinking Jonny Walker Blue whiskey (or "Johnny Blue Sky" as nobody would ever say). The West Wing is one of those shows you can watch over and over and never get sick of it. It's something I could watch every day of the week, every week of the year, every year of my life, and not get sick of it. I know other people have similar shows or movies, such as The Big Lebowski, which is actually pretty darn good, but it's no West Wing.
Amy and I are looking for a new apartment here in Wellington. We were told on Monday that we had to be out within a month as they're pretty sure there's an offer on the table. We're searching high and low, in the city and out, and hopefully we'll find something soon. I'm trying to stay in the downtown area as I'm really god damn sick of walking everywhere. We'll see what happens, but one can be hopeful!
I missed getting to see my family for the Thanksgiving! Oh man did I ever miss eating turkey and stuffing and all that fattening delicious food! I also missed the shopping the next day, so rest assured next year I will be up at 1am to go to BestBuy with Courtney and Ek. It sucks that I'm not going to get to see everyone for Christmas too... this will be my first Christmas without my family! I suppose it was bound to happen at some time, but why so soon? Maybe I'll jump a flight back when Amy's not looking. :D
We are going to go to the South Island for New Years to travel a bit with some friends. That should be a lot of fun, but it may be really crowded too! We have to book everything in advance or we won't have a place to stay, so we're working out those details now. I'll be thinking of you all, and I'll talk PLENTY of photos for you to enjoy once we're back in Wellington. At that point we should be in our new apartment, the one I haven't found yet. We may go Bungy jumping, which I know terrifies my parents (and Amy's too). I don't know what to say about that, it kinda terrifies me too. I haven't thought much about it lately, since after I did a lot of researching on it last weekend I had a dream about it that wasn't pleasant. Nothing horrible happened, but it was like High School all over again (everything was horrible!).
Oh yeah! Perhaps the most important thing EVER... I may have convinced Amy to at least consider buy a house within the next few years. My plans are as soon as we get back I'll look into buying or building, and if she wants to live in it she can, but now it appears she may be down for it. So that's really good! I'm mainly happy that she's no longer "I don't want a house, I never want a house, if you buy a house I'll move to France", we'll work on convincing her 100% in the next few months...
Alright, well I don't you all to get hooked on lengthy updates, so I'm going to cut this off now. Congrats to my Aunt Joy, who caved in and joined facebook this week! Also a quick shout out to Andy Camann, who had an interview with Teach for America on Wednesday. Andy - we all hope you don't get shivved (as the students will learn how to say when they spend time in the big house).
It's been a long time since I last updated this, however you can be happy that the update isn't one of such lame proportions that my own mother is going to put it up as a candidate for "the 7 Lamest Blogs Ever" circa Andy Camann style (Link: http://www.acamann.com).
I've been employed for a whole three weeks now, and let me tell ya - employment never felt so good! So it's not the VMWare Systems Admin job I dreamed about during those long months of seemingly endless searching, but it's a job none the less. I've been working on Project Server and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) a lot during these three weeks, and I must say I do enjoy a lot of the new features that WSS 3.0 has and wish I could have been at Suby long enough to implement them. At almost three full weeks of work behind me I have started talking out loud to people. Perhaps it was inevitable, but none the less I beat my Suby non-talking spree by at least a month. I'm not talking to more than four or five people, but at least now I seem much less awkward (though still awkward, as that never does go away). I'm also doing a lot of work for other people, since my job hasn't 100% kicked in yet. Yesterday we had the SharePoint server go down, and I immediately thought to myself "Yeasssss! For the first time ever I don't have to fix this!". Of course after thinking that and emailing it off to several people, I volunteered to help out. I kinda miss that "Everything in the server room depends on you so if something goes down you have to be the man to fix it" responsibility that I had ever since Jeff left Suby, but at the same time it's good not to have that pressure every day of the week.
I've been thinking a lot about the West Wing lately, in part due to Obama's glorious victory, and in part due to me finding someone at Transpower (TP) who also believes the The West Wing (or "Wing" as it's never actually been referred to) is one of the best dramas ever made. It makes me wish I was back home, drinking mini bottles of rum while watching Leo McGeary succumb to his alcoholism and start drinking Jonny Walker Blue whiskey (or "Johnny Blue Sky" as nobody would ever say). The West Wing is one of those shows you can watch over and over and never get sick of it. It's something I could watch every day of the week, every week of the year, every year of my life, and not get sick of it. I know other people have similar shows or movies, such as The Big Lebowski, which is actually pretty darn good, but it's no West Wing.
Amy and I are looking for a new apartment here in Wellington. We were told on Monday that we had to be out within a month as they're pretty sure there's an offer on the table. We're searching high and low, in the city and out, and hopefully we'll find something soon. I'm trying to stay in the downtown area as I'm really god damn sick of walking everywhere. We'll see what happens, but one can be hopeful!
I missed getting to see my family for the Thanksgiving! Oh man did I ever miss eating turkey and stuffing and all that fattening delicious food! I also missed the shopping the next day, so rest assured next year I will be up at 1am to go to BestBuy with Courtney and Ek. It sucks that I'm not going to get to see everyone for Christmas too... this will be my first Christmas without my family! I suppose it was bound to happen at some time, but why so soon? Maybe I'll jump a flight back when Amy's not looking. :D
We are going to go to the South Island for New Years to travel a bit with some friends. That should be a lot of fun, but it may be really crowded too! We have to book everything in advance or we won't have a place to stay, so we're working out those details now. I'll be thinking of you all, and I'll talk PLENTY of photos for you to enjoy once we're back in Wellington. At that point we should be in our new apartment, the one I haven't found yet. We may go Bungy jumping, which I know terrifies my parents (and Amy's too). I don't know what to say about that, it kinda terrifies me too. I haven't thought much about it lately, since after I did a lot of researching on it last weekend I had a dream about it that wasn't pleasant. Nothing horrible happened, but it was like High School all over again (everything was horrible!).
Oh yeah! Perhaps the most important thing EVER... I may have convinced Amy to at least consider buy a house within the next few years. My plans are as soon as we get back I'll look into buying or building, and if she wants to live in it she can, but now it appears she may be down for it. So that's really good! I'm mainly happy that she's no longer "I don't want a house, I never want a house, if you buy a house I'll move to France", we'll work on convincing her 100% in the next few months...
Alright, well I don't you all to get hooked on lengthy updates, so I'm going to cut this off now. Congrats to my Aunt Joy, who caved in and joined facebook this week! Also a quick shout out to Andy Camann, who had an interview with Teach for America on Wednesday. Andy - we all hope you don't get shivved (as the students will learn how to say when they spend time in the big house).
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Bus
There's a long running joke in my family about public transportation, or more specifically public buses. Part of the joke is that mom enjoys taking the bus, the other part of the joke is the fact that they're buses. While there really isn't anything funny per se about buses, apparently we're not the only one's who think they're funny (not in a good way). There's a TV show called "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", and in a recent episode they featured a short bus segment where one of the characters has to ride the bus because her car blew up. For some reason the video isn't working right and has a green bar at the bottom of the screen, but you still get the gist of the it even with the green bar there.
Mom - this video is for you. :)
Mom - this video is for you. :)
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
So after I called TCL yesterday I returned a call from one of the recruiters I've been talking to. He told me that another company (Transpower) wanted to offer me a contract position as a Project Server Support Analyst. It's a 6 month contract, and it pays over double what TCL pays. So why am I not extremely happy about this? It's not the job I want to do. In fact, in my opinion, it's not even a job that needs to be done! But that's just my thinking, and I'm sure I'll get over it (or be miserable for 6 months). I told them yes, and sometime in the next week I'll get the actual contract to sign. I'm not 100% sure what the role is, but as soon as I know and can explain it easily I will do so on here.
I apologize for yesterdays post. I was a bit angry due to TCL stringing me along for the last 4 weeks and not having anything for me, and I overreacted.
I apologize for yesterdays post. I was a bit angry due to TCL stringing me along for the last 4 weeks and not having anything for me, and I overreacted.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Global Market Meltdown
Well fuck me.
I called TCL today, they're the company I've been waiting on an offer letter from for 4 weeks now. The offer letter is in the works (and has been for the entire 4 weeks), however they implemented a HIRING FREEZE, so the approval process is taking forever. Apparently the CEO is the last person to sign off on the offer / contract, and he hasn't done so yet. So where does that leave me? Fucked.
To top that off I have a recruiter who wants to offer me a position - a position I do not want at all. But at this point I'm broke and need some form of employment, so do I say fuck it and do the contract role, or do I wait for the job I want?
Ah the dilemmas...
I'll post more once I hear from the recruiter (we've been trading voicemails this morning). Hope all is well in the world...
I called TCL today, they're the company I've been waiting on an offer letter from for 4 weeks now. The offer letter is in the works (and has been for the entire 4 weeks), however they implemented a HIRING FREEZE, so the approval process is taking forever. Apparently the CEO is the last person to sign off on the offer / contract, and he hasn't done so yet. So where does that leave me? Fucked.
To top that off I have a recruiter who wants to offer me a position - a position I do not want at all. But at this point I'm broke and need some form of employment, so do I say fuck it and do the contract role, or do I wait for the job I want?
Ah the dilemmas...
I'll post more once I hear from the recruiter (we've been trading voicemails this morning). Hope all is well in the world...
Sunday, November 2, 2008
It's been a while now...
I don't really have any updates...
But I do have pictures from Hawai'i that I never put up. Enjoy!
PHOTOS
But I do have pictures from Hawai'i that I never put up. Enjoy!
PHOTOS
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Not-So-Quiet on the J-O-B Front
I got a call last Wednesday from the guys at TelstraClear saying that they wanted to bring me in again to speak to another Service Desk Team Leader about a position on their team (instead of the two teams I applied for). I said I would love to, and the next morning there I was having a cup of coffee with two people from TelstraClear (TCL for short). I met with them for a little over an hour, talking about my experience in IT, my life back home, why I was in New Zealand, and a lot of random stuff about the USA and New Zealand, etc. The meeting wasn't really an interview, they had received "glowing" references from Jeff and John (thanks guys!) and had the results from my previous interview at TCL a week earlier, and mainly just wanted to meet me and see what kind of guy I am. Suffice to say I passed with flying colors, and got an email on Monday (not a Holiday like I thought) saying they wanted to offer me the position as soon as they put the paperwork thru. I had to fill out an official application form and copy my passport / visa and drop it off at TCL before they could put all the paperwork in. Since it was a monday, and since I'm unemployed, I hadn't shaved since the Wednesday before. Let's just say I looked rather homeless and was hoping with all hopes that when Craig (the manager) said "drop it off at reception" there would be NOBODY around (except of course the receptionist). I got off the elevator on floor 13 at TCL, walked up to the receptionist, dropped of the papers, turned around....
And played the waiting game. It was 4:58pm and everyone who works normal hours was trying to leave the building. About five minutes later the elevator FINALLY came, and the doors started to open. I breathed a breath of relief as the elevator was my escape - I could leave and nobody would have to see how pathetically homeless my five-day-beard looked. And off the elevator steps Craig - my possibly future boss. Oh well. I'm sure he didn't care, he was very happy I dropped everything off and was going to put the paperwork in, so I don't think my scrubby looks lost me the job I have yet to get (yet). The paperwork takes a week or two to go thru, so we set a tentative start date (pending final offer, acceptance, etc.) of Nov. 10th 2008.
The two guys I met with and if things go well would be working with were very cool guys. They wanted to make sure I was think-skinned as the other guys in the department joke around a lot and would be making fun of my Americanism from day one. I responded to this by saying my former-lunch-bunch and I could go days only quoting Arrested Development, Always Sunny, the Office, and Scrubs, and that every other sentence out of our (read: my) mouths is "That's what she said." They found that to be a good thing (yeah, wtf were they thinking), so that could be disasterously wonderful.
The other news out of New Zealand is Amy has yet another job. This time at a brand new, never before opened, bar - as the Head Bartender. Yeah. Amy, with her two-weeks of Bar / Wine Store experience got a job as the Head Bartender at a new bar. I suppose less-experienced people have been in more important positions (Sarah Palin), but still shocking none the less. I have no doubt she'll do great, as her drinking experience outweighs Palin's entire political experience, and she's a people-person so she'll do great with all the customers. That's actually why they hired her, she did really well in the interview and they told her that she seemed like a people-person and had a lot of people-skills and that was what they were looking for. Right now she's going to be working both jobs until she decides which is the best and until I get a job, but I imagine in the next month or so she might cut it down to only one.
Anyways, we're all doing well here. I have more pictures of the gardens and such on facebook - LINK
Hope everyone is doing well elsewhere!
And played the waiting game. It was 4:58pm and everyone who works normal hours was trying to leave the building. About five minutes later the elevator FINALLY came, and the doors started to open. I breathed a breath of relief as the elevator was my escape - I could leave and nobody would have to see how pathetically homeless my five-day-beard looked. And off the elevator steps Craig - my possibly future boss. Oh well. I'm sure he didn't care, he was very happy I dropped everything off and was going to put the paperwork in, so I don't think my scrubby looks lost me the job I have yet to get (yet). The paperwork takes a week or two to go thru, so we set a tentative start date (pending final offer, acceptance, etc.) of Nov. 10th 2008.
The two guys I met with and if things go well would be working with were very cool guys. They wanted to make sure I was think-skinned as the other guys in the department joke around a lot and would be making fun of my Americanism from day one. I responded to this by saying my former-lunch-bunch and I could go days only quoting Arrested Development, Always Sunny, the Office, and Scrubs, and that every other sentence out of our (read: my) mouths is "That's what she said." They found that to be a good thing (yeah, wtf were they thinking), so that could be disasterously wonderful.
The other news out of New Zealand is Amy has yet another job. This time at a brand new, never before opened, bar - as the Head Bartender. Yeah. Amy, with her two-weeks of Bar / Wine Store experience got a job as the Head Bartender at a new bar. I suppose less-experienced people have been in more important positions (Sarah Palin), but still shocking none the less. I have no doubt she'll do great, as her drinking experience outweighs Palin's entire political experience, and she's a people-person so she'll do great with all the customers. That's actually why they hired her, she did really well in the interview and they told her that she seemed like a people-person and had a lot of people-skills and that was what they were looking for. Right now she's going to be working both jobs until she decides which is the best and until I get a job, but I imagine in the next month or so she might cut it down to only one.
Anyways, we're all doing well here. I have more pictures of the gardens and such on facebook - LINK
Hope everyone is doing well elsewhere!
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