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).

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. :)

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.

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...

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

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!

Blog Action Day: Poverty

I have a lot to update everyone on in regards to our kiwi experience. Today I will not be doing that as there is something much more important to discuss. No, this is not another news story about someone giving their life for another person. Today I am participating in something bigger than I can imagine. Today I am blogging for Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty.

There’s a website I found a month or so ago in preparation for this blog called Global Rich List. At the time I was working at SVA so I ran my salary through and found out that I was in the top 5% of the richest people in the WORLD. The website gives some statistics that I’d like to share:

• Three billion people live on less than $2/day

• 1.3 Billion live on less than $1/day

Think about that for a minute. According to Wikipedia the approximate population of the world is 6.5 billion people. That means that roughly 2/3 people on the planet live on less than $2 per day!
Poverty isn’t about a lack of money. Lacking money these people can’t pay for healthcare or an education. They live their lives day in and day out trying to make money and get themselves and their families a better chance at life. Lacking money means that they usually lack goods and services such as soap, clean water, drinking water, etc.

I’m not going to pretend to know much about poverty – I don’t. Part of the reason I wanted to participate in the blog action day was to help spread awareness and change the conversation for the day. Yes – our economy is in crisis. Yes – elections are coming up. But aren’t there bigger things in the world? Sometimes we don’t think about the little guy. We don’t think about the person half way around the world who doesn’t have access to things we all take for granted – clean water, a doctor, and an education.

My Aunt Joyann, my mother’s sister, is currently volunteering at a school in Thailand. She’s a volunteer teacher for a year and is not getting paid to help the kids. Every day she wakes up and helps teach kids who have NOTHING, not even books on the shelves in their classrooms. I can’t think of a single person I know who’s really gone out and done what she’s doing for others and I’m very proud of her for that. She’s blogging about her experiences, and I try to make it part of my every day routine to check her blog and see what it’s like to live completely immersed in another culture, and in a place completely stricken by poverty. It’s easy to forget about these people, and even easier to do nothing about the poverty stricken people of the world. My aunt wakes up every day and HELPS. Joyann – I’m so proud of you and what you’re doing! I can only imagine what could happen if there were twice as many people like you as there are.

Together WE can change the world! I was talking to Amy yesterday about the “donating just a dollar a day can feed this child for a year” commercials we’re all so keen to. Why don’t more people do that? It’s easy and it’s not expensive at all.
I’m asking everyone who reads my blog to do something for the poor and poverty stricken people of the world. Please – donate money, donate canned foods, do ANYTHING. This problem isn’t going away anytime soon, and we only have ourselves to blame for it sticking around. Tomorrow when Amy and I are grocery shopping and the cashier asks if we want to donate $5 with our food purchase I’m going to say yes. Sure $5 might not seem like a lot, but if we all do it – if EVERYONE does it, we can feed a village. We can buy books for a school in Africa. We can end poverty during my lifetime; we just have to start NOW.

Turn up the heat!

I decided this morning to turn up the heat on my job search. I spent the last hour or so finding and applying for more IT jobs in Wellington, about 8 or so in total. The thing I did differently this time was I avoided recruiting agencies, and I personalized the cover letter for each position. Maybe this will work, maybe it won't, but at least I can say I'm trying to get something done. I have an interview today that should go well. The recruiter who set me up on it let me know exactly what they're looking for so I can tune my "Zach-Magic" to those areas.





Last night I went for a short walk and was looking up at the stars. I've never looked up at the night sky from the southern hemisphere before, but I wanted to give it a go. Wow! The southern cross is BEAUTIFUL (I think that's what I was seeing). I also looked a bit at the moon and started pondering some things. There's a lot of people in the world and in America who don't venture outside their borders. They're afraid of change, and they're happy not knowing what else is out there. I got to thinking about the stars in this sense, in that in the USA we have a set of stars that we can see that people down here can't, and in the southern hemisphere there's another set of stars that people in the USA can't see. Although the stars themselves are huge, when we look at them in the sky they're very small. And that's what is different in the world - the little things. In that same sense we can see the moon in the USA, and we can see the moon in New Zealand. The moon is huge compared to these stars when looked at from earth. So the big things are the same in the world - we're all human, and the little things are different - our languages, our food, etc. I might have more on this later as I continue to ponder the big picture in life. There was a quote I heard last night on criminal minds that also got me thinking about these things and about life in general. It goes a little something like this... "We all die. The goal ins't to live forever, it's to create something that will." Think about that, and think about the world and how big and small it is at the same time.

Hope all is well,

Zach

Last Week and the Week Ahead

During the last week I've had many interviews with recruiting agencies. The vast majority of IT positions in New Zealand are hiring through these agencies, and they each specialize in different areas (government, large enterprise, medium enterprise, consulting firms, etc.). From these interviews I've gotten a good response about my skills, and learned where I need to focus my learning and my future IT certifications. Sadly I have yet to get a job, and have had only one interview with an actual company.

That interview was yesterday, with our Internet Provider "TelstraClear". The interview went OK, however I'm a lot less confident after having the interview. I'm not sure why, but it made me really think about what kinds of IT job I could get and how prepared I am to have another IT job. I have a lot of thinking to do about where I am in my career and where I see my career going. Many of you would be quick to point out that I'm young and have my whole life to figure that out, but alas I am going to be stubborn and do it my way. :) I do welcome all of your input in the matter, and always listen to your suggestions.

Another thing that hit me hard yesterday was after the interview I got an email about another job that a recruiter had emailed to me. I was very excited about the position as it seemed to be a perfect fit (if there is such a thing) and in my opinion I was perfect for it. Much to my disbelief, the manager of that position told the recruiter that they thought I was too "senior" for the role, or that it was below me. It hit me hard because here I was thinking I wasn't good enough for any of the roles I was applying for and then the next second I'm too good. I wish things were easier, but I know that they never are.

The economy has me a little worried lately, as I'm sure it has everyone worried. Because of the time difference in New Zealand when I wake up and eat my breakfast while watching the news the stock markets are closing. Yesterday I sat as the dow was down 800 points, thinking "how can people go to work knowing that everything is going downhill so fast?" I regret not voting absentee, and I do realize how important every vote is. At the same time I don't know who would be better in this time of uncertainty. I know what I believe, and I know who stands with me on 99% of the issues, but the issue that matters most is the economy and I don't know if either candidate will be good for it. I joke when I tell people that I'm from the USA that with the current state of the economy I got out at the right time. I don't think that's true at all. The way things are shaping up around the world there is no way to "get out" or avoid the economic downfall. Its made me think a lot about the great depression, and how America said that we wouldn't let that happen again. Look at Iceland! We're in the year 2008 and Iceland's economy got so bad in a week that it's currency dropped 30%! Iceland is an industrialized nation, they have a GDP, they export, they do stuff! How did this happen? If it can happen to iceland why can't it happen to us? Why can't it happen to the world? The way things are shaping up and crashing down it's only a matter of time before the entire world is in crisis. There was an article on CNN about a 25 year old lady who lost all of her retirement in stocks in the last few weeks and was devastated. What about the retirees who have lost EVERYTHING in the last few weeks? What about the 42 year old man with a wife and 3 kids who just lost the college savings for his oldest child? Are these things we've all taken for granted over the last century, or are these things we deserve as "Americans"? I don't know what's going to happen with the economy - nobody does. We can hope that it turns around. Maybe this is the economic "Katrina". We saw the warnings and we watched the first blow go by. Now we're here a few days later going "maybe we should step in and do something". Perhaps because of what's happening now and what may happen in the next months or years we'll be weathered for the storm. Perhaps this is good in the long run, after all who doesn't want to say the soundbite "the dow will bounce back". All I know it's hard to be motivated to find a job when you know there are less and less jobs, and the job I find may not last long.

I have another interview tomorrow at a company here in town that I'm hoping goes well. I don't know if I want the job, but I want my confidence restored and a good showing at an interview should do that.

I have more to say, much much more, but I don't want these posts to get too long. Let me know what you guys think about anything I discuss in these. I'm curious how the economy is affecting other people and how the elections are shaping up at home.

I hope everyone is well today/tonight, and I miss you all.

-Zach

New Zealand PSA

Ok - I found the really morbid New Zealand public service announcement ads. Watch them below...

http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/advertising/speed/same-cop.mpg
http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/advertising/fatigue/fatigue-drifting.mpg
http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/advertising/drink-driving/mate.mpg

I'm still searching for the one where the dude throws a kid into a bookshelf (yeah - CRAZY morbid!), when I find it I'll post it.

Hope everyone is well (and not drinking/driving, speeding, sleeping)

EDIT: Found it! http://www.hadenough.org.nz/Resources/Media/ALC_045_203_LARGE.wmv
I also found a news article about this ad and other ads that are not allowed to be shown before 8:30pm because of their violent nature.

She's on fire

There's a great pseudo-song on Grand Theft Auto 3 called "She's on fire" that for some reason I have stuck in my head right now. The really sad part of this is that the song is only two or three lines long, so when it's repeating over and over and over it's like a car tumbling down the side of a cliff just rolling over and over and over. Maybe that's a little too intense, but it is what it is.

Speaking of intense - New Zealand has some pretty f'ed up public service announcement ads on TV. I have to search for them on YouTube or something because everyone HAS to see them. They're good ads with good intent (i.e. don't drink and drive, don't speed, etc.) but they all end up with someone dieing. One that we saw last night was a guy drinking at a party and he threw a kid into an entertainment center killing him. They're about a minute long and just freaky. I'm going to find some tomorrow for ya'll.


By now you're all going "What is he talking about? I want to know about New Zealand, not the crazy stuff that goes on in your head, mate!" So - New Zealand.

Amy worked @ the wine store two nights ago and liked it. She's waiting to hear back from them and the French restaurant to see when she's working. I had an interview today and I have another one tomorrow. Hopefully something will pan out. The one I had today was with yet another recruitment agency, which is great because I'm getting really comfortable talking with them. The lady commented at the end that after talking with me that she learned a lot more about my position @ SVA and thought I was capable of a lot of different roles and was really impressed by my 2-3 years experience crammed full of good things. What can I say, I put on a tie and the Zach-magic just starts coming out my pores.

It's crazy how bad the economy is affecting EVERYTHING. When I started looking @ jobs a month or two ago there were 3,000+ IT jobs for hire in New Zealand, and now there's less than 1,500. The NZ elections are coming up in November too, so people are waiting to see what they're going to do about the economy like us.

This keyboard SUCKS. I'm in a shady internet cafe and this keyboard does NOT want to type things at all. Tomorrow we get our internet installed so I can do more blogging then without all these issues.

Hope everyone is doing well, and we'll get to responding to facebook mssgs, and week or so old emails tomorrow!

-Zach

And the hunt begins...

Before I tell you more about our time in New Zealand, I’d like to tell everyone about a news story last week. On the day Amy and I left Auckland, a man was fatally stabbed to death on the street. This occurred about an hour after we left our hotel, less than 2 blocks from where we were staying. The man was leaving his office building when he saw a woman getting attacked. She called for his help – she did not know him and he did not know her. He rushed to her assistance and started to chase the attacker. The attacker turned around and stabbed the man before fleeing. The man, fatally wounded, was able to dial 11, the first two digits of the emergency number 111, before collapsing on the street. Some construction workers saw him collapse, and were able to call 111 and spot the man fleeing and eventually identify him for police. There were several days worth of stories about this man, this “good samaritan” who by intervening saved this woman’s life. The woman spent a few days in the hospital; however the man who saved her died on the street before ambulances arrived. The reason I wanted to share this story with everyone is not because it shows how dangerous New Zealand is as it really isn’t dangerous at all, but because it shows how selfless most New Zealanders are. Had this happened in the United States would someone had jumped in as quickly, and stopped the woman from being assaulted? Here in New Zealand the FIRST person who was asked for help responded. The FIRST person who saw the man collapse responded. And the FIRST person who saw another man fleeing responded. This story in the news touched me. It shows what we all should do but rarely do. The man died saving others, and left behind his wife and three children. Was that his intent? No. His intent was to do what was right no matter what the cost may be for him. To that, I tip my hat to you and all those like you in world.

Now, as for our adventures in Wellington...
Monday we sent out our resumes. I applied for approx. 20 IT jobs, and got a lot of responses. Amy applied for a few random jobs – a wine shop, a bar, a sandwich shop, etc, and got a few responses. Tuesday I had to go into town to have an interview with a recruitment agency called Kelly Services. Kelly Services is the agency I’ve been working with for a few weeks now, they just wanted to meet me in person and discuss the job market, etc. So I went in and was told that they didn’t have jack and blah blah blah blah. There’s an election here in 6 weeks, and nobody knows who is going to get elected. If it’s this one dude then everyone in the government loses their jobs, and if it’s the other then they hire 300,000 more people. So the current state of the job market is: “Wait 6 weeks and see what happens.” Yuck. Between that and Wall Street’s shortcomings, nobody wants to hire anyone permanently.
But wait... I’m not looking for a permanent job, I’m looking for a CONTRACT job. *evil laughter* Since nobody wants to hire people only to then fire them if things turn really bad, they’re looking to contract people! Woo-hoo! Wednesday I had two more interviews at recruitment agencies (Candle ICT and IDPE IT Recruitment Specialists). The first one, Candle ICT, went phenomenally well. The guy loved me. I was workin my Zach-Magic again, and he was eating it out of my palm. He’s going to shortlist me for a job as a Systems Analyst (what I want to do) that he has to turn in today. I should get a call from them today or tomorrow to schedule an interview with the company. The second agency wasn’t taking too well to the Zach-Magic-spoon-feeding that we’re all so keen to. They outnumbered me two to one, so I was caught off-guard and couldn’t understand his accent too well. They were going to pass my resume on to a company that had already interviewed a few people, so hopefully they haven’t found anyone worthwhile yet and call me for an interview.
Amy called a French restaurant and spoke with the owner about getting a job as a hostess. She had a quick interview there yesterday (in French apparently) and is going to have a trail-by-french-fire night there this evening to see if she fits. She followed that interview up with one at a wine shop, where she was pretty much given the job (she has to have a “trial” night to see if she likes it and then the job is hers). After that interview she had yet another one, this time at a sandwich shop. She has a trial morning there on Friday. She’s excited about the wine shop and the restaurant, but they’re both full time and both evenings (4/5 – 11pm) and she doesn’t want to work opposite shifts from me. The sandwich place she’s not too excited about, but it pays 50 cents more an hour than the wine shop, and the hours are from 5-11am. She’s going to try them out and see what she likes over the next few days.
We’re going to head into town today to use some internet. I have to check my email and see if anyone got back to me about any other jobs. I also have to check the sony style store’s website, as yesterday they told me they’d be advertising a position on there. It may not be a job in IT, but it’s a job that includes a Sony discount and who doesn’t love that?
We’ll try and get more pics up of Wellington soon. Hope everyone is doing well.

Happy (late) Birthday Grandma Pancaro! I miss you guys!



P.S. - Here's a link to a news artcile about the man who was stabbed. They have since arrested the attacker and found the knife used. LINK

They Call Me the Jackal

Amy and I each have two interviews today so we're short on time today.

Hope all is well, we'll update you more later today (hopefully).

Zach

Forgot the link to the photos...

These are pictures of our place, as well as the views of Wellington and the harbor from the botanical gardens that are a 3 minute walk from our apartment.

Link

I’m sorry Madison, I’m in love with a new city and her name is...

Wellington!

We still don’t have internet outside of internet cafes downtown, so my posts and communications are going to be a little light until we get that figured out. To start where we left off – the villa-louis comment was uncalled for. Upon venturing outside of our hotel room, I found a plaque that said the Shepherd’s Arms Hotel and Tavern is one of the oldest in Wellington. It first opened in 1880 as a tavern where the shepherds would come to relax at night. At that time it was on the far edge of town, but the city has expanded so much it’s now in the middle of the greater Wellington area – far away from any shepherds. None of that is super important on our “learning to be a kiwi” topic, but its good history and what not.

Friday morning we ventured off into town and found a nice internet cafe. Awaiting us were email responses to inquiries about flats and apartments around town that we were going to look at. We looked at over a dozen or so places online and emailed or called them to see if they were open to couples. Apparently there are a lot of landlords in Wellington (maybe in New Zealand overall) so work into their leases that none of the rooms can be rented to men. What the fuck?! Well that shot down half of the options, so we walked around town and looked at 4 places in person. None of them were super nice, but they were liveable.

Wellington is a city that’s in a valley on a bay. All of the suburbs are on the hills, and each suburb is a separate hill. Now I’m not talking little Wisconsin hills, these are like building suburbs in the Himalayas. When I say “we walked around town” I mean we hiked up and down Mt. Everest. It was hell. We went back to the hotel debating between two places – one flat in Hataitai (a short bus ride out of the main city) that was a single bedroom, shared kitchen / living / bath, and one in Kelburn that was a room in an apartment with 3 girls.

Saturday’s newspaper contains all the classifieds for the week. When we woke up it was not at our door so we waited. After an hour or so I got impatient, walked downstairs to the front desk, and stole a copy out of the bag sitting on a bench. We circled several places and began calling them. I wanted to start with the ones in the suburb next to our hotel, assuming that would be the easiest. Turns out it was not. The climb up makes Mt. Everest look like a bunny hill. The first place on the hill was a dump, so we continued on. Wellington is known for being windy. It’s like nature’s wind tunnel. The winds just whip through the gap between the north and south island and take babies out of their mother’s hands. So the hike further up to second place was damn windy, and I’m surprised we made it. It’s also cold. I think it was 12 degrees Celsius that morning – you do the math, and then factor in hurricane strength winds. The second place was even worse, BUT it was owned by a management company. So we talked to the lady, and had her show us a place downtown so we got a free ride down the mountain. We were kinda curious about the place downtown, but mainly wanted the free ride. It worked out great.

Once downtown I was ready to give up and pick one of the two favourites from last night. Amy wanted to keep going, so we agreed to rent a car. An hour or so later we had a car and were driving up another mountain. When we got to the place we both walked in and fell in love. It was a furnished studio apartment in Kelburn, with a new modern kitchen / living area, and modern bedroom area. The apartment is actually the basement of someone’s house. They weren’t using it so they fixed it all up and started renting it out. At first they landlords wanted to wait until Sunday to give it to us as they had promised to show it to another couple the next day, but as they talked to us and I worked my Zach-Magic (copyrighted / trademarked / restricted / classified) they decided “Well, if you guys want it it’s yours.” We said yes. I’ll link to some pictures of it at the bottom of this post if anyone is interested.

Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and drove up the mountain to our new home. The place is right next to the Wellington botanical gardens, which I’ll end up walking through to get to work if I work downtown. We went to the grocery store and bought some stuff, and then just relaxed for the evening. We did go on a quick jaunt through the gardens, and let me tell you – they are B-E-A-Utiful! Class-A job Wellington, you did well.

Today we’re going to head into town and go to an internet cafe to apply for some jobs online. We don’t have internet yet in the apartment – that’s also on our list of things to do.

I wish you all were here with us – I miss all my friends and family. I hope everything is going well in the greater Madison area, Kailua, Apple Valley, the greater Phucket area, Idaho, Arizona, Texas, Washington state, Bahrain, Belleville (it’s pretty far away – admit it J), and anywhere else not in the quad-hemisphere area.

-Zach

Auckland Days 2 and 3

Orientation at the International Exchange Program was interesting. It was like we were back in high school at a combined meeting of the Spanish club and German club. It even had that “I’m obsessed with another language” smell to it. The orientation went by slowly. It took almost 3 hours for them to go over some basic New Zealand culture and words / phrases, followed by a brief walkthrough of the entire country, and then 10 minutes of how to set up your bank account and how to apply for your Inland Revenue Department Number (SSN). They could have spent more time on the latter, but alas we were able to figure most of it out. We then picked up our new cell phones (yay!) and walked to the bank and the auto association (where you apply for your IRD#). Since we had all of that taken care of we had to decide on how and when to go to Wellington. Our hotel stay was over the next day unless we wanted to extend it, so we decided to book a few tickets to Wellington and leave the next day (Thursday).

I woke up Thursday morning to see that the hostel reservation I had made the night before was cancelled. Apparently nobody in Wellington has space. It took almost an hour to find another hotel that had any availability for 3 consecutive days. We checked out of our hotel around 1pm and had them hold our bags while we continued exploring the CBD area. We got bored after 2 hours and decided to just go to the airport super early and chilax there. Upon arrival at the airport we ran into the biggest freakin weight-nazi EVER. The guy checking our bags weighed each one and when one (big red) was over 25 kg he made me take some stuff out of it. I put the stuff in my backpack, and then he goes “now that one’s too heavy” and made me weigh my carryon! WTF bro?!? Sure enough, my carryon was over 7 kg, so then I had to take stuff out of it and mix it across all of our bags until everything was under 25 / 7 kg. It was a pain in the ass. We didn’t trash anything, or lose any weight overall, so I’m not 100% sure what his deal was. Whatever. We arrived in Wellington and got checked into our Hotel. The hotel is very interesting – it’s older and has a very colonial feel to it. It’s kinda like staying in a slightly more modern villa-louis. If you don’t know what that is you’re much better off.

Today we have no internet (that I know of). I’m hoping we can find some nearby at a cafe or something, but I’m sure we will. We’ve got at least one flat to look at tonight, so at some point we’ll have to find some internet access to get the address and phone number for that.

Hope all is well in the world,

Zach

The IceBar and Pictures

I totally forgot to mention the ice bar we went to last night.  While I was reading some of these handy Auckland touristy guides, I found a bar made completely of ice.  The room was ice, the couches were ice, even the glasses you drank out of were ice!  It was really freaking cool!  And cold.  You had to wear gloves and a huge parka to go into the bar and they kicked you out after 25 minutes because of the cold.  It was nice, a good experience.  Sadly no photos were allowed in the bar, but they would take you picture with their camera and sell it to you for a gazillion dollars.  We had them take some photos but the camera wasn't working right the whole time and none of them turned out.  Oh well.

Here's some photos of Auckland.  I'll try get more with Amy and me both in them.

CLICKY FOR PHOTOS

The First Full Day in a FFC

We did it!  We survived a full day of living amongst Kiwis.  I don’t think we’re any closer to being a kiwi, but I definitely have a new perspective on things.

The kiwis are quite possibly the most polite, friendly, and helpful people I’ve ever met.  When we got to our hotel on Tuesday just about every person in the lobby offered to help us as we were obviously carrying a lot of shit (3 suitcases, 2 backpacks, a briefcase, and a purse).  It wasn’t the standard “Welcome to our hotel, I’m here to be forced to serve you” it was more of a “Gooday Mate, Could I help you with that?  No, are you sure?  Well if you’d like some help just let me know.  Cherrieo!”  I’m not doing their kindness justice right now; you really can’t describe it in words.  Another example was yesterday Amy and I went down to the front desk to inquire about a few things, and on our way to the elevator there was a man about 25 feet ahead of us who just got on to an elevator.  The elevator had plenty of time to close its doors and start heading up to the floor of its choice, and the man (a kiwi) held the door open button, said “Hello” and asked us which floor we were headed to and pushed the button.  When he got off the elevator he told us to have a wonderful evening.  Would that happen in the USA?  Maybe.  But in kiwiland this sort of thing runs in the blood.  Everyone everywhere has been friendly.  It’s like nothing I have ever seen before.  I don’t think anyone could have a bad day here, because if they left their house and walked down the street they would be cheered up instantaneously.

We walked around a lot yesterday, exploring the city and getting our bearings on the Auckland Central Business District (CBD).  It’s not too different from any other downtown areas in larger cities, except of course for the Sky City tower – the largest freestanding building in the southern hemisphere.  For some reason I’m mildly obsessed with this structure, and have been taking a lot of pictures of it.  It looks cool – very cool.

When I looked online before coming here, I was planning on spending a fortune on a cell phone / minutes.  The pre-pay plans are minimum $.89 cents per minute (~.80 cents US).  Amy and I went to a vodaphone store yesterday afternoon and talked to a saleslady, who hooked us up with a 12-month contract plan for $39.99 / month where we get 200 minutes to other vodaphone phones, 2000 texts, 20 min to any NZ number, and unlimited calling / texting to our “bestmate” (similar to fav-five but a fav-one).  On top of that we each got $90 off a phone.  I don’t know why anyone would do the pre-pay plan – it’s literally 100 times as expensive!  Obviously it didn’t take long for Amy and me to realize that not doing this was stupid, so we filled out some forms and walked out of the store.  We get to pick up our new phones today – Yay!  If anyone wants my number let me know.  I get free incoming calls.

Today we have to go to an orientation at the International Exchange Program headquarters here in Auckland.  This is where we find out how to sign up for a bank account and get the New Zealand equivalent of a SSN.  I’m sure there’s other stuff they tell you too, such as don’t take candy from a stranger and other things like that.

Hope all is quiet on the eastern front and the northern hemisphere,

Zach

P.S. – FFC stands for “Fuckin’ Foreign Country”.  It’s a saying my father coined when we moved to Hawaii.  So far it’s only been used to describe how much more awesome New Zealand is than the US.

New Zealand at last!

9 hours on a flight can be a damn long time – especially when someone (we’ll call him “Andy”) tells you that you’re going to get your own personal video thing to watch your choice of movies, and that doesn’t happen.  Thanks.  Apparently the plane we were on is on the list to be retrofitted with the personal video things, so the entire flight we had an advertisement on the back of the seat in front of us saying “Watch whatever you want – personal video player coming soon!”  It would have been nice if they took those off so it wasn’t mocking us for 9 hours straight.

We arrived in Auckland, got thru customs, and then took an express airport bus shuttle downtown.  It dropped us off in front of where we were supposed to stay (a cheap hostel), so we then had to walk .5 km to our hotel.  Turns about three blocks of that were straight uphill, and I was pulling two suitcases.  My hands hurt pretty bad from pulling the 100+ lbs of weight, and when we got to the hotel I couldn’t really sign my name on the bill.

We relaxed, checked the internet, made a few calls telling people we were alive, and then set out to get some dinner.  We walked about two blocks away and found a nice little place that had falafel and kebabs and burgers, and each had a rice dinner plate with salad / yoghurt, and beef / falafel.  It was delicious.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel, turned on the TV and fell asleep.  I was out by 8:30, I have no clue how late Amy was up.

Let me tell ya – it is beautiful here!  The flight in was gorgeous, and I can’t wait to start exploring.  It’s a bit chilly here at night.  Amy and I both had to wear our jackets on our walk to dinner – I guess we were spoiled by the nice Hawaiian heat.

Today we don’t have anything planned yet.  I want to check out downtown a bit, and try and get a cell phone and some other stuff taken care of.  We’ve only got a few days in Auckland and a lot to do.

So far so good – our New Zealand adventure has only hit the tip of the iceberg though.  I’ll try and update the blog more often now that we’re here, I know I haven’t been doing the best jobs thus far.  Hope all is well around the world!

Three weeks and two days in Hawaii

Amy and I spent a good deal of time in Hawaii before coming out to New Zealand.  I wish I had blogged or written about it while I was there, but it’s better late than never.

It was great to see my parents again – I miss them a lot when I’m away.  The last time I saw them was Christmas, so it had been a good 8-9 months without seeing them.  Courtney had seen them when they were in Montreal, but I didn’t have the vacation time so I didn’t get to go.  I didn’t do the math, but I believe that the 8-9 months was the longest period of time I’ve ever been away from my parents.  My dad had finished remodelling their kitchen right before we arrived and let me tell you it looks GREAT.  It took them 6 or 8 weeks to do it completely because in Hawaii nothing is done the same twice.  Apparently they had a lot of issues with things not being done to code and what not that made it a huge challenge to complete.  The kitchen needed remodelling too – it was falling apart and some of the cabinets were not even usable before.  It’s a small kitchen (everything in Hawaii is small), so having parts of the space being unusable wasn’t practical.  When I got there my dad enlisted my help in replacing the screen door.  The condo association had passed something a year or so ago saying that all the screen doors had to be replaced with security doors (all metal screen doors).  Since we don’t have a truck and renting one on less than a week or so notice is impossible the plan was to drive to Hawaii Hardware (~1 mile away), buy a door, and walk home with it.  Yuck.  Well we ended up driving home with the door about ¾ of the way out of the car.  Of course I was forced to sit in back with the door holding on for dear life.  The install of the door took us about 3-4 hours.  We ran into a few snags along the way with the trim and removing the old door, but in the end we got it done and it looks pretty darn good.

My dad, Amy and I visited the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC) to learn about the various peoples of Polynesia.  The PCC has seven different “islands” that you get to visit to learn about a specific culture – Hawaii, Samoa, Aotearoa, Fiji, ETC ETC.  The one I really wanted to see was Aotearoa, as that’s the Maori word for what we call “New Zealand”.  According to the pamphlet we got, the PCC is considered one of the best cultural theme parks in the world.  We learned a lot about the various cultures from the islands, and contributed towards the employees getting an education.  The way the PCC works is they employ students from the neighboring university (they’re both owned / managed by the same church) and their work goes towards their tuition.  It also allows them to share their culture with people who don’t know much about it – which is worth something on its own.

We did a few hikes with the family during the time in Hawaii, which is always one of my favourite things about visiting.  The last hike we did was hiking above two valleys.  According to the book we were using as a guide (horrible guide!), the hike was 5 miles round trip.  We’re pretty sure it was more like 8 or 9.  When we started getting high up in the mountains (2 hours in) it started pouring.  It was cold, hard rain, and it was EVERYWHERE.  We ended up putting our cell phones in a beef-jerky bag so they wouldn’t get wet, which was a good idea because when we made it back to the bottom there wasn’t a single spot of dryness on any of us.

We only went to the beach three times, and one of those was just a walk around the neighbourhood.  The second time we were at the beach was the day before we left.  Apparently 9 days after a full-moon the jellyfish hit the shores of Hawaii.  Well, the day we were there was day 7 post-full-moon, and there were 50 or so jellyfish on the beach – mostly dead.  There weren’t very big – no bigger than an inch or two around, but the stingers were pretty long (2-3 feet).

Courtney arrived a few days before we left.  She was in Hawaii for two reasons – to say goodbye to Amy and me, and to search for a spot for her wedding.  She had a lot of trouble getting out to Hawaii, as her plane in Denver was delayed and then she missed the connecting flight in Los Angeles.  In the end she made it though, which was good.

The other thing we did worthy of mentioning was go to the Bodies Exhibit.  The Bodies Exhibit is where they have a bunch of human bodies that have been dried out and then filled with silicon or something so they look alive, so you can see how all the bones and muscles and such work together.  It created a huge stir because the bodies are all from the Chinese penal system and people were concerned about some of them being torture victims or executed prisoners.  It was very cool to see, and I would recommend it to others when it reaches a city near you (if it does).

We left Hawaii yesterday, and I had to say good-bye to my parents and sister once again.  I love and miss them all a lot, and wish that we had more time together.  I also miss all of my friends from Madison.  Amy and I found a nice bar in Kailua that you all would have loved.

This time difference may be the death of me.

Here I am, sitting at home alone at 6:30 PM Hawaii time (4:30 pm New Zealand time, 11:30 PM Madison time), and I have no one to call and tell my big news. Less than 15 minutes ago I got an email back from a recruiter who I've been corresponding with in New Zealand, who said "I am working on something that you would be ideal for." Yup. I may have a job lined up or at least partially in the works before I even get to New Zealand.... and I have NO ONE to tell. The only person I felt safe calling was Andy, because being jobless there was no reason he would still be awake. Surprisingly he was sober when he answered, but his phone died. Twice. It was redonkeyuless.

Anyways, I tend to get excited over things that end up being nothing, but in case this becomes something big - WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO! I'm high as a kite right now... if only someone were here to partake in celebratory drinking with me.

Get a freakin job you bum!

Yeah yeah, so I haven't updated the blog in awhile.  Gimme a break, will ya!

This week marks the halfway point of our vacation, and the "Oh, shit!" point for me to get in gear!  Yesterday I called a recruiter in New Zealand, and sent her my resume (CV) and cover letter today.  I'm hoping *crosses fingers* that I'll get a response from her soon, I'll even take a "Thanks for your CV, I'll let you know closer to when you're in town if I find anything."

There's still a lot to do before we go to New Zealand - here's a small list of what we have to get done:

-Book hotel in Auckland

-Find transportation from Auckland to Wellington

-Figure out when to leave Auckland for Wellington

-Find a place to live in Wellington

-Find a job!  Seriously, find a job Zach!

There's more to do, but that's what I came up with in 20 seconds, without causing myself to freak out.

I'll post more when I know more about our New Zealand adventures.

Farewell to Madison, Hello Hawaii!

Amy and I left Madison at the begining of this week to head up to Minnesota, and eventually down and over to Hawaii. We had a great last weekend in Madison - one I'll never forget. I'm going to miss everyone - a lot. Andy and I had a great man-date series last week, where we went to Whitewater to see Megan before I left and then we went to see Tropic Thunder the next day. Wow. Tropic Thunder is very politically incorrect, but hillarious!

We drove up to Minnesota and went to the State Fair with Courtney and Ek. That was my second time going to the state fair and I recommend it to anyone who likes fried fatty food. It's safe to say that the state fair is by far the leading cause of obesity in America. There is more fried food and more food on a stick at that state fair, then in the rest of the world. There's so much waste produced there they have to haul the trash away throughout the day, they can't do it all after hours at night!

Wednesday we flew out of Minneapolis to go to Hawaii. We had to spend the night in Seattle, which was nice. When we landed I started to think about all my family out in that neck of the woods - my Grandmother, Uncle, Aunt, and maybe a few others. I would have loved to see my Aunt Joy (my mom's sister), but she left last Sunday for Thailand, where she's going to spend a year abroad teaching and doing other things.

The last leg of the trip took us from Seattle to Hawaii. There were free Mai Tai's on the airplane, which rocked. Nothing says "Good Morning" like a nice dose of booze. The flight was long (5 1/2 hours), but it's always worth it. Now I'm here in Hawaii, with my folks and my Amy.

Last Day and Unemployement

Work at SVA finished better than I thought. I got the most of what I needed done done, and then rest isn't my problem anymore. It's hard leaving that first real job, especially when people have been very nice to you. At the same time, it's easy leaving SVA. It balances that battle out nicely.

Unemployment. I have no clue why this word has such a negative connotation! I've been unemployed for a week and a half now, and I feel great. I'm sure at some point a job will be necessary, but damn it feels good to be free.

There's more to come later on this New Zealand thing - but when you're pressed for time (believe me, I am) you have to spend as much as possible on the right track.

The Countdown

Its Tuesday. I have 4 days left at SVA, and about 100 days of work that needs to be done. Luckily they hired a replacement for me, who started one week ago today. He's good, he knows his shit, but it's made my work load go up about 10 fold. It's kinda ironic how that happens - a new hire is supposed to take work off your back, and instead puts more on your plate.

The freaking out began today. I had a dentist appointment, after which I realized "I have 4 days left of work." Fuck. I have a TON left to do before I can leave SVA, and even MORE before I can leave for New Zealand. I have to find a job, find an apartment, find a car, find find find FIND EVERYTHING! The freaking out is getting very intense. I need to start getting stuff into gear, but there's not much I can do. It's like my engine is reved but the race isn't starting for another week or two.

Alrighty, back to searching for a flat.

I quit.

Three weeks ago today I gave my boss my notice that my last day at my job is on August 4th, 2008. The plan was to give them 4 weeks notice, then have 3 weeks off here in Madison, 3 weeks off in Hawaii, and then on to New Zealand.

I'm getting ahead of myself here - I still haven't told you why I'm moving to New Zealand. That all starts a little over a year ago...

The day was July 3rd, 2007. Turning 20 was a big thing for me. That was the first birthday where I was really alone. My parents moved to Hawaii before my 18th Birthday, but I still had friends in town, and I ended up going out to Hawaii for my Birthday. My 19th Birthday I still had a lot of old friends from High School, so that was nice. But on my 20th Birthday I was alone. Not really, I had more friends than I give myself credit for, but it still felt lonely. My parents were gone, I was single for the first time in 4 years, and I didn't talk to any of my friends from my childhood (<18). Somewhere in the 6 months before that day I got this idea into my head that drinking would open up new social opportunities for me. I had my friend Jesus get me a fake ID from one of his friends, and thus my drinking career began. July 3rd was my fake ID's birthday, just two days before my real birthday. I concocted this idea that celebrating my birthday on his birthday would allow me to celebrate as I imagined one who drank would celebrate - go out to various bars, get free drinks, and black out never to remember the night. That didn't happen. I went to Jolly Bob's with my friends Kurt, Christine and Justin. Justin wasn't drinking because he had mono, and Kurt and Christine didn't drink too much. We went out around 8, and I was going to meet some of my other friends there around 9. Storms came rolling in and Ryan was delayed - he lives halfway across the state in Belleville. He still made it out, but was a little late (10pm). Kurt, Christine and Justin left at 9, so I sat at the bar alone and drank. When Ryan arrived I had a few more drinks, and then Jesus and Co showed up around 11:30. Jesus and Co were my normal drinking buddies. When they got there they decided to play a game called "It's my friend's birthday - you should say hi." Now comes the part I haven't told Amy yet (you'll meet Amy later - be patient.) Jesus's friend from Chicago - we'll call him Bob because I don't remember his name) - would go up to groups of people in the bar and introduce me. Bob was using me as bait to pick up chicks in a Madison bar. Well, after several rounds of fishing and a few bites, I spotted a few a young lady across the bar who was very cute. Now interested in this fishing game (but still not good at it) I sent Bob out to fish for me. Bob went up to the young lady and her friend and told them to say hi to me because it was my birthday. He then told me to go up to them and say hi, which is how I met my girlfriend Amy.

That's not the full story of how I met her, but it's the beginning. Since that first day of meeting Amy and ever since I started dating her I knew that there was one thing and one thing only she wanted to do - Travel. That's not a bad thing, in fact it's very cool. It's not at all what I had in mind for my life. I was destined to work a corporate job for the next 40 years, buy a house, get married, have a few kids, and die after living a normal boring life. That will probably spur another blog about "Goals" but for now we'll continue with this. After 2 1/2 months Amy moved to Martinique to teach English for 7 months. A month and a half later I was down visiting her, and we got to really talking about our long-term plans. She came home for the Christmas and asked me "Where can we go next?" It wasn't a, "I'm going here and you should come with me" question, but more of a "I really do want to be with you but I want to travel too. Where can we go together?" We discussed South Korea, which I was very open to. There's a certain stigma associated with South Korea that causes most people to think that we would be living in a little shanty down with a militant dictator telling us what we can and can't do, that I'm hoping to end right now. When we discussed South Korea we were discussing Seoul - the second largest metropolitan area in THE WORLD (over twice the population than the New York City metropolis). That being said we ended up not going to South Korea, and instead deciding on New Zealand.

We started the whole process a month and a half ago. We filled out forms applying a BUNAC work-in-New-Zealand program, and sent them in. We got accepted to the program, and then had to apply to get our work Visas. I started making phone calls, figuring out plane tickets, etc, and before I knew it I had spent $5,000 on tickets for Amy and I to get from Madison to Hawaii to New Zealand. The last week has been very exciting for me as things are starting to come together. We got our work Visas back and I'm now in touch with serveral people at the New Zealand Internation Exchange Program. We've begun flat-hunting (apartment hunting) in Wellington, and have found several viable flats. Now all that remains is finishing up my last two weeks here at SVA.

My boss asked me to stay an extra week at SVA, thus making my 4 weeks notice 5. I've been at this company for over two years, and have met some of the best friend's I've ever known through SVA. Over the last 8 months the majority of those friends have left, and now it's just Craig and I. Had someone told me a year ago that I'd be quitting my job and moving half way around the world I would have called them crazy. It still hasn't quite hit me yet. I'm not the kind of person to do this. I like knowing what's comming for me, and I like having a plan. Amy's been nothing but good to me, and I love her more than I thought possible. There's a Bon Jovi song that has a line "As drunk on love as you can get..." and I definately put myself in that category. I quit my job and I'm moving 6,000 miles for a girl. I didn't do that for my parents - what does that say about me?