Time for a Change

My life has changed so the old title no longer seems to fit. I am on my first weekend of Empty Nest. My life and priorities change from here and I will natter on about it bit more often here.

First fun, in true un-pc style having uber hot girl sex all over various pieces of lounge furniture, TMI, but you know you just gotta do it.

Another observation; I put a fresh toilet roll on yesterday and the same roll is still there today, HUGE change.

Pride Weekend

I've done a full post on Pride weekend over here. Here is another picture from the night, and a bit of street art.



Yosemite

Yes I know, I've been back a week and only now blogging, extreme tiredness and dead laptop are my excuses. I have now again uploaded all the photo's, this time to my external, and with the aid of a borrowed laptop can finally attempt to write.

I'm bypassing Pride weekend as I'm writing that one for Gaynz, if bloody buggery Wordpress ever decides to play nicely, so now it's Yosemite. We headed out there on the Monday after the mayhem and partying of Pride. NZAlien loaned us one of those GPS thingies to direct us. We started of by calling it Gertrude, but by day two she was referred to as "the yelling lady", and we figured out how to shut her up.

We drove from San Francisco to Mariposa that day with no great drama other than popping eyeballs in a mall car park. It had been quite cold in SF but an hour inland it was searingly hot, so when we stopped for food we also changed clothes, much to the amusement of those in the cars around us. We managed to get what was probably the last motel room in town and promptly jumped in the pool until the room was ready. Tuesday we were up early and off to Yosemite, a good move as the place ended up getting crowded. When we left in the afternoon we got stuck in a traffic jam trying to get out of the park and it took 1.5 hours to get out.

As we started to get closer to the park the scenery started to get spectacular and the river was like Huka Falls on steroids. Once in the park the first sight was the little tunnel to drive through.

Then the many spectacular sights started to appear. The photo's just don't do justice to immense size of the granite rock faces, they are breathtaking.

I totally lost track of how many waterfalls there are and how many we saw.

We of course had hopes of seeing bears, and NZAlien had seen some on her visit. Oso is one well travelled bear but doesn't look to keen at the prospect of meeting others.

We saw lots of these, both here and in other places on our journey.

You can imagine my glee at seeing a large group of these on the first trail, all in matching outfits.



We spent several hours walking up one of the trails and along the way got to see one face of the Dome. People climb this. They must be mad.

This of course is just a wee sample of our days hiking, a day of stunning scenery. We then drove 4 hours down a remote road to the coast again with a different type of vast scenery.

I was driving at this point, weird, very weird. We spent that night at a place called Pismo Beach which had it's own unique scenery, but that story is for another day as it's bed time for me now.

San Francisco Day Three

It's been three busy and exciting days, and starting off with that deja vu feeling of having Saturday all over again was very cool as well.


I landed just after 10am on Saturday and got through customs quickly than out to the lovely NZAlien waiting to pick me up. We went home briefly for coffee then out to see a few sights. First up the classic icon of Golden Gate Bridge. 

I can see why NZAlien says trying to run over the bridge is a pain, it was clogged with tourists.

We then went to the Embarcadero for a wee wander and a yummy lunch of seafood and bubbles plus a stroll through the market stalls where I did the little dance of pleasure at the size of the crabs. I was then taken to the equivalent of the Warehouse, a place called Costco. Sensory overload on so many levels, the amount of stock to purchase, and people watching. I did manage to make my first purchase, a bottle of Veuve Cliquot.

Sunday was a massive shopping mission to a large outlet mall in Gilroy, where I finally got off the starting block, and purchased vast amounts of running gear, and a few other items. We then went to Santa Cruz and had more seafood then a walk on the boardwalk amongst the masses. These are a couple of the locals I saw on the pier, one of them was laughing loudly.

This also amused.

And as it's summer I couldn't, to quote Lou Reed, watch football on tv, but baseball was on.

We went on the roller coaster, it was a wooden one which makes it even more special.

Today I have just been exploring the Mission, which is the area I am staying in. Firstly I went to NZAliens favourite sports store and stocked up on running shoes, then the rest of the day I have been wandering aimlessly just looking at life and drinking bad coffee. Had a kiwi moment when I saw Pohutukawa trees in bloom on one of the streets.

I do love being in a new country and all the new experiences that involves, however the public toilets are one I need to master. My Mother taught me to pee without sitting down in a public toilet, but the ones here tend to flush on their own accord, a bit alarming, and messy. Also crossing the road on an intersection with no lights, I feel a bit like one of those sideshow clowns with my head swiveling in every direction. 

Tomorrow is another wander and explore day so will head for the Castro and get me a bit of gayness.....and hopefully a decent coffee!

Advanced Silence

Yeah yeah, I know - I have been very lax at writing, but I still haven't found my writing mojo. I have however found my download mojo now that I have an external drive, so I have been catching up on lots of movies and the odd tv series. Lip Service is one I recommend everyone to watch, very cool, very hot.

I have also been back in full training mode, more so this last two weeks as I'm doing the "must lose some kilos before I go on holiday so I can eat it all back on again" programme. I've reached a pleasing level with my running and am now running 10k just as a warm up, and am sticking to moderate weights work outs. So, on that note, here's a wee pic for you Little Drummer Boy.



Only four more sleeps till San Francisco, so I promise I'll write more when there as NZalien has kindly said I can play on her iPad. Swoon. Au revoir.

Silence

I don't know why I've been so silent of late, I just seem to have lost my writing my mojo, but regaining my cooking one. Even winding up the feminists over at The Stroppery is failing to amuse me, though, big HUGE ha ha ha -  I see that  blog has now been made "invite only." One assumes that since they now only want to talk amongst themselves, they just can't handle opinions that differ from theirs. No loss.

I had a very relaxing trip to Christchurch over Easter and to be honest I spent most of the time alseep. It seems the body just needed to stop, and visiting the boys was the best place to do it. It was very odd seeing the city, the way buildings just weren't there. Also driving through areas of damage and then coming across vast areas untouched. Christchurch has always been my happy sunny holiday city and that feeling was still there for me. I admire the resilience and fortitude of everyone, they are determined to save their city and I thank them for that. One photo only; it shows the effect of shake and liquefaction.

Work has settled down after the busyness of the first quarter, and I have now realised that next month is my two year anniversary. Where did that time go? I'm also quietly pondering the "where to from here" question. The debate of work life balance vs corporate ladder climbing in the pursuit of more revenue. Will let that one simmer over the next six months.

I've been running as usual, lifting weights and working on the press up obsession. I can now do four full extension ones at the start of each set. I got to use this new skill on Saturday, and no, I'm not going to elaborate further on that statement.

San Francisco is now under six weeks away, so in preparation for that one of my teeth has had a big chunk fall off! Whimper. Hopefully only a small quick patch up will fix it. I am starting to get excited about the trip now and making a few more plans. Nzalien is being a star with planning things to do and places to go. She has suggested going here, I may be lost for days. The final weekend is Pride which will mean much dancing and basking in gayness. Much, much fun to be had, especially as someone very special will be in town at the same time. The girls will go out and play.

So that is a brief catch up in the scintillating life of moi. Number one daughter is doing fine, and the child has got a full time job and starts in ten days. It's with another firm two blocks up the road. Hopefully that means she will achieve her aim of moving out and never talking to me again. Time will tell.


Just Ask

I have recently joined youtube as I found that my favourite mashup producer has started uploading some of his mashups and remixes. I wanted him to upload my favourite tune so I asked, then two days later there it was. I of course am chuffed.

Press Ups

I have become slightly obsessed with doing press ups of late. Work has been interfering with regular gym sessions and as I have been told they are a perfect all over body work out I am doing as many as I can. At the moment I am at this level,

I am aiming for this,



Children

Well Partners really. On Friday I accidentally became a pawn in some power struggle game playing between some of the Partners, all over a shelf. I put an extra shelf, as requested, into a junior Partners office while he was out at a meeting. I also informed him that shelves were effectively a unit of currency, and as he had the economy of several European countries in his office plus half of Kairanga forest, it may be time to shred some paper instead. Said Partner also assured me he would deal with any possible repurcussions that may occur, as the shelf was above height restriction.

A couple of hours later I was called to his office. On my way there I had an amusing chatter in the lift with the librarian about a wind whistle in the library (his domain, his issue) so was smiling when I walked into the Partners office. He was not amused and let me have it, as he thought I was smiling and laughing at him. I then saw that the shelf was back on the floor. I explained that I had put the shelf up as asked, and also told of which Partners has questioned me while doing it. I had left that conversation sporting the universal "not my issue" symbol of thumb pressed to forehead.

Later that day I had to go to the same Partners office to swap his docking station and do geek things, and he apologised unbidden for being so rude in the morning. I accepted. On Monday when I was again in his office he apologised once more. I then did say I had felt like a pawn in some childish game, to which he gleefully said he'd play childish anytime.

I have now seen that yet another Partner has decided to play in this game as well and has gone around and put red stickers on any item that exceeds the height restriction. This includes lolly jars, trophys, pictures, water bottles, any item above the line. I love my job. Really I do.

Blank

That is the status of my brain at the moment. I've not been blogging as I've been tired. I've had a world record mucous production cold, and just been generally tired with life so have been hibernating. This involves watching many foreign language movies and reading books, you know, those things printed on paper.

I am looking forward to Easter and going to Christchurch to see all the boys, I'm not looking forward to seeing Christchurch though. Once I'm back from that I know I will then start getting all squirmy about going to San Francisco. I fear I may not want to leave there.

As this dullest of dull blog post shows, the brain really just can't be bothered at the moment, so a couple of pictures instead. One because I like pie charts, and the other just to prove I can touch my toes.