Righto, so April is split into two bits cos it was a bit ridiculous. Apparently I signed up to a bunch of things and then a couple of other things happened and before I knew it I was stupid busy.
Firstly due to a variety of reason I was left as the only electrical engineer working for Klohn for a few weeks. I really was looking forward to the challenge and then I got all this work and then I didn't want the challenge anymore. It got to the point where I just had no idea where to start because I had so much to do. It was pretty shit and I don't think I managed my time very well. Somehow I still managed to get all my deliverables done and then we hired three new electrical engineers. It was pretty interesting to have 3 new people start within about 3 weeks of each other. They all seem like pretty good guys though so its nice to have a bit of a team.
Then poor old boss got real crook. It was apparent that he wasn't gonna make it so in the space of a few days I was making a fairly unplanned trip back to NZ. It was terrible timing at work but there wasn't really much I could do. Work was pretty nice to give me three days bereavement leave and I took the rest without pay. I was morbidly looking forward to it really. I hadn't been home in about a year and a half and it was going to be nice to be back with the whole family. Mum and Dad were in Mayanmar at the time so it wasn't real good timing for them either.
So I booked a flight on Friday and Flew out on Sunday! Jan was nice enough to give me a ride to the airport and I checked in and got on the plane no worries. Then I felt like an idiot because the one time I decide not to take my plane adapter thing for my headphones the plane is an old crappy one and it needs one. Lesson learned. The flight was pretty long and uncomfortable but at least it was direct from Vancouver to Auckland.
I got off the plane and got my quota at duty free before heading straight to the rental car place which was pretty hilarious. I was tripping out at all the kiwi accents everywhere. Then the lady that served me at the rental car place was a big ole pacific islander with a hard core bro accent. I was having so much trouble trying to keep a straight face! Then the big challenge: Getting off a 14 hour plane trip with a couple of hours sleep and switching over to drive on the left hand side of the road. I got to the edge of the car park and got totally confused. I hit the windscreen wipers and had no idea which side of the road to pull onto. Then I looked at the dash board and it had a handy sticker saying "KEEP LEFT". Thanks rental car! After that it was actually pretty easy. I seemed to relax back into that side of the road and I think I actually still prefer it over the right. seems much more natural to control the steering wheel with my right hand to have my left free to change gears.
Then I had a mare trying to get in touch with people. It was like being on my own overseas again but I was in my own goddamn country! It was about 7 or 8 in the morning so I went to McDicks for some breakfast and free wifi. Stupid internet kept dropping out and I finally got in touch with Gaz. I was supposed to go and hang out with Nut for the night as Hayden was flying in the next day. But because everything was so rushed I hadn't really organised anything with him. Gaz told me he lived in the same area so as I had been sitting in McDs for about 4 hours at this point and I was pretty grumpy I decided to get out for a drive. I figured I would go and kill some time at one tree hill and then head over to the North Shore to steal more internet to get in touch with Nut.
One tree hill was nice. I sat on the back of the car and played guitar for a while (and apparently got burned by the sun! Crazy NZ Sun! Or maybe it was the awesome Canadian winter tan I had going on). I also wandered up to the monument to kill some more time. After I was suitably less grumpy I headed over to the North Shore to find another McDonalds to get in touch with Nut. I found one and sat outside to leach some more Wifi. Bloody Nut was being completely non-responsive to all forms of communication so I got hayden to ring him. I was so lucky Hayden was answering his phone and helping otherwise I would have been screwed. Finally Nut got in touch and gave me an address so I stuck it in my phone and headed over. It wasn't very far away but when I got there the address didn't seem to exist. He had told me it was 29B but it was a dead end road and only seemed to go up to 24. I was so confused (keep in mind I was pretty tired and my grumpyness was coming back). I ended going up the driveway of 24 and talking to the dude inside. He said the street definitely didn't have a 29B! I was pretty pissed off. I ended up having to back to McDs (I was getting pretty sick of the place by now). Again, Nut was completely un-responsive and I had to get poor gaz to call him again. He went out to check his letter box and found out he had made a mistake. I told Gaz to tell him to go and wait on the road for me and I went round to find him a few houses away from where I was the first time. Gaaaaaaaaaah.
But we went and had a beer and it was OK. We had a pie snack, played games, drank rum, ate fish and chips and talked shit for a while. I crashed about 11pm or so so we hit the hay. Good times.
The next day Nut had to work so I had to get out of the house. I went to kill more time at McDicks (pretty much pure hate for that place by now) before haydens flight got in. After a couple of hours I headed over to get him. No worries finding my wee bro and from then on it was all good. We decided a beer was the first order so we tried to get google to give us some directions. We ended up getting pretty lost looking for what we suspected was an brewery, not a bar. There was roadworks up one of the streets we were supposed to go down and google kept sending us in circles. But it was OK cos we had a laugh about it and had plenty to yarn about. We ended up cutting our losses and heading back to the North Shore to meet up with Nutty again. We found a sweet wee pub on the beach and had a couple of brews, before having dins with Nut. Whilst beers were being drunk poor old boss nodded off. It was a bit sad, but at least I was in the right place and would be able to attend the funeral before heading back to Canada.
We headed down to the Tron that night to stay with Simon and Anna. From then on it was yarning and drinking ahoy. Gaz and I polished off a bottle of Jack on the first night and finished another 3 bottles over the course of the following few days. It was so good to see everyone again.
The funeral was sad but great. Simons Eulogy was incredible. Est and Liz read an awesome poem called close the gate and Gaz and I sung I love you because by Jim Reeves. That night we went back to Simon and Annas with a bunch of people and played piano/guitar and sang the night away. Sad but fantastic.
The rest of the time consisted of a couple of runs around the lake behind Simons place, and drinking more. Dad bought a GPS device so we did a bit of geo caching which was fun. Gotta do that a bit more. Apparently I inherited a writing desk too so thats cool I guess!
On Tuesday we headed back to Auckland for the night. We looked for something to do and found a play to go to. It was kinda cool but a bit "art house" for most of us. There was unnecessary full nudity and a very graphic gay sex scene. And of course everyone had aids. It was kinda cool though and had some funny bits in it. You gotta see different shit sometimes to appreciate what you like.
Then on Wednesday it was back to the Couv. It was a bit sad actually. I realised after travelling in Europe and the states and living in Vancouver that Auckland is pretty cool. You just have to get over the whole "bloody jaffa" thing. 1. its warmer than Vancouver. 2. Its got mountains close by. 3. Its in NZ. Its a little smaller but thats probably OK.
So we all went to the airport and split in different directions. Hayden back to Blenheim at 6pm, me to Vancouver at 8pm and Mum and Dad to Singapore at 11pm. Crazy shit.
Flight back was good and as soon as I got home I hopped in my car to go to the supermarket. It hadn't been 20 hours from when I was on the other side of the road and I slipped straight back into driving on the right. Really weird.
