In L.A. things are done in style and the rental company we got the car from had its Head Quarters in the Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills; even though we felt like a fish out of the water, we wondered how it will be to spend a night in a place like that and we decided to do it some day... guess what... we spent that very same evening, not at the Hilton, but at the Sheraton, courtesy of Air New Zealand: 2 king size beds, huge TV and room service made our last night in L.A. a bit more comfortable... [View Full Entry]

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Street Fighting Man (sorta) So here it is. I told you I get creative sometimes and I got creative today. First, a brief backstory though. Back in the winter of 2007-08 there was a select group of individuals who spent more hours playing darts than most varsity athletes spend at practice. We considered applying for varsity status but since we had no girls (sad) we figured we'd run into problems with Title 9 so we accepted club status, although we never actually told anyone besides me. Anyways, I was the overzealous everything of the club and I set up a [View Full Entry]

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Hey again, Trying to update the blog again before we start our campervan adventure around the south island of nz. Spent a week in Rarotonga which was absolute bliss and v relaxin apart from our underwater camera leaking and breaking meaning that the pics we took were limited. Bummer! Anyway, Rarotonga is a small islalnd approx 20 miles radius. Our hostel was right smakc bang on the beach which was great. . .fully equipped with beach hammocks and tree swings. The first day we were knackered becuase of the time difference so we spent the day relaxin on the beach and [View Full Entry]

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Taking Offsets One of the things I’m really interested in doing is taking the offsets from as many boats as I can. The offsets let me have a way of comparing different boats without having the boats next to each other. In effect it lets me turn the hull into a bunch of numbers. With these numbers I hope to create digital models of the canoes (working on an ama right now), allowing me to put two canoes from different parts of the world next to each other. I also hope that in the future I may be able to [View Full Entry]

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Good Day I had a great paddle today. When I showed up they already had two boats in the water and brought down a third. Unfortunately we only had 13 paddlers so we had to leave a boat on shore and, as you may guess, I was the lucky extra who didn’t get a boat. I was eerily not upset about it though, I actually laughed about it. Just the other day I had been talking to Richie about not getting seats ever and when Fletcher said I was going to be left he looked at me and we had [View Full Entry]

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Lost New Friend Returns So some of you may recall from a post way back that when I arrived at Tiare village I meet a German girl, Christina, who was working at the dentist office. A few weeks into the stay she decided to move off Rarotonga to work at the dentist shop in Aitutaki. Before she left we were supposed to catch up on a Sunday and head down to Muri beach. Unfortunately with no cell phone we missed each other. She left the following Monday so I didn’t get to meet her. I was very sad about this [View Full Entry]

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At 1.30am I finally dragged myself out of bed and did the final bits of packing while Matt carried on laying in bed. Our pick up was due to come at 2.20am and at 2.05am Matt decided to get up and have a shower. That meant unpacking the shower gel and shampoo which were already locked up in my rucksack. I wasn’t impressed. Luckily the taxi was late as it gave Matt time to get ready. We were just beginning to debate about what to do if it didn’t turn up when it came down the drive. We were sad to [View Full Entry]

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We woke up at 8am which felt like a real lie in. It was a novelty being in self servicing accommodation for a change so we didn’t have to get out to make way for the cleaners for once. We had planned to Skype our parents today but the internet signal wasn’t great from our accommodation. Eventually we had to walk around into the complex next door that we’d bought the internet from as the signal there was stronger. It was a very expensive, very posh resort, and I thought that at any moment we’d be thrown out, but we managed [View Full Entry]

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Island Craft So I though I’d say a bit about Island Craft, the place that I’ve been doing a lot of my work. Island Craft is owned by Fletcher Melvin and it’s been a family business for three generations, I think. I know they’ve got a small shop in the airport and their main commercial store is in Avarua. I feel like there may be another store somewhere but I can’t remember. I also know they’ve got their main shop and offices on the back road behind the Avarua shop. To get there head toward Vonnia’s Warehouse, go past it [View Full Entry]

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It is windy here. Very very windy. Dave (from the airport) tells me 40-50 knots. Maybe that’s not so bad if you’re on the Gulf of Mexico about now, but I think the rest of you can appreciate it. It’s really made me realize how much the wind effects biking. When I’m going into town with the wind I fly. When I’m heading back I might be able to go faster jogging my bike. I’m guessing that a significant part of the resistance in biking is from the wind (probably even more so if you had a better bike) so [View Full Entry]

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