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).