Wine, Food and Music

We attended the Devonport Food and Wine Festival this weekend. There were probably around 20 vineyards with tents and a number of people serving food. There was also a demonstration tent where you could see cooking demos and there were two stages for music. The musical highlight was an Abba cover band.

From Devonport we took the ferry to the city for the Skycity Music Under the Stars. This was a free concert (good thing since we blew a bunch of money at the Devonport fest!) held at the Auckland Domain. The paper said there were over 100,000 people at the concert. The Auckland symphony performed throughout the show. They also had the Auckland Choir perform a number of songs. Starlight Express is coming to town so the lead lady from the show did a number. My Fair Lady is also coming so the lead guy did a couple numbers from that show. There was also a laser light show done to one song. The finally was the 1812 Overture complete with fireworks, laser light show and cannons. It was very similar to the Des Moines 4th of July Capital concert but about 3 times as big.

John made it out sailing today. He answered an add for a someone looking for crew for a boat out of the marina by our house. It ended up being him and the guy that owned the boat. They participated in a race and came in 2nd out of 8.

While John was sailing I went for a bike ride and also worked on painting the hallway. I painted the trim on all 10 doors in the hallway. This weeks project will be to paint the 10 doors and get them hung back up.

John is off to Christchurch for work for a couple days this week as well.

Sorry, no exciting pictures this week

Unfortunately, the weekend was spent car shopping. We looked at cars at dealerships and with private parties (ended up with an elderly Indian couple that wanted us to stay for tea). We ended up buying a 1996 Honda CRV that John will use as a work car and we will use for weekend get-a-ways.

In addition to car shopping we stained the back deck. The deck came out looking much better. All in all, not a very exciting weekend but we got some stuff accomplished so we can play next weekend!

John is also off to Hamilton (about 1 1/2 hours south of Auckland) for work tomorrow. He travels somewhere about every week with the sales guy he works with to talk with customers and to give presentations on the security products he works with.

Heat and Fires

Have you seen the video on Sam the koala that the firefighter gave water to in Australia?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10556455

Also, Auckland hit an ALL TIME record high today of 32.4 Celsius (90 Fahrenheit).

Australian Bush Fires

Not sure if it has been making the news much in the US, but the top news around here has been the Australian bush fires in Victoria. This is in south Australia and is where Melbourne is. Fires were fueled by very high winds and there are 180 dead so far. They expect the numbers to go higher as they are able to put out the fires. The news here said that one town is sealed of for forensic research as they think arson was involved. Over 900,000 acres have burnt so far and the fires have been going since Feb 7th.

It has been very dry here as well. We went a good three weeks without rain. It finally rained yesterday, and some today, so hopefully things will green up a little. Everyone is complaining about how hot and humid it is. But, it is no comparison to a 90 degree day in Iowa or a humid day in August! It has only been running about 80 degrees with 80% humidity. Everyone is talking about buying air conditioners!

Celebration Time!

Lisa here. I have been studying on and off for her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification for the last couple months. I finally took the test today and PASSED! To qualify to take the test, you have to submit 4500 documented project hours/work and 35 hours of training to the Project Management Institute (PMI). If they accept the documents that were submitted, you are qualified to take a 200 question, 4 hour test. The test is not as hard as becoming an accountant or something like that, but it is no walk in the park either. It is mostly situational, what would you do if type questions. Employment opportunities often ask for a PMP qualification. So, this just kind of puts me one step ahead of the competition. And, I get to put some initials after my name at work.

Long weekends go fast

After a very busy 4 day work week that had both Lisa and I traveling to Wellington, a three day weekend...
Friday evening we went to a concert at a vinyard about an hour north. Caught a chartered bus there. Had three NZ groups that were really good and very popular. We had not heard any of the songs before, but apparently everyone else in the audience knew all of them ;-)
While there we met a few nice people. One couple told us about a swimming hole and waterfall that is about an hour south of town, so we decided to check it out on Saturday. Perfect break for a hot day.
From there we headed to the west coast. Setup camp and caught the sunset.
Sunday we drove around some rural gravel roads to check out the scenery before heading home.

Our first house guests

We have had our first house guests. If you recall, we met a couple of guys biking from Holland when we were up around the Kauri forest a couple weeks ago. We told them to stop by when they were going through Auckland. Eric (left) and Martin (right) arrived Monday afternoon and stayed with us for two nights. While here, they sorted out their trip to the South Island and picked up a car. Eric has been traveling the world since Dec, 2007. He biked across the US by himself and traveled across China and Vietnam with Martin (his twin brother). We are storing their bikes in our garage while they visit the South Island so we will see them again in March. They keep a blog if you are interested in having a look - http://ericsl.aroundtheglobe.nl/ It is in Dutch, but if you put it through Google translator you get the gist of things. At least have a look at the great pictures.

John and I have also been very busy with work. I flew to Wellington for the day on Monday to meet with the team I am working with for my project. My entire team is in Wellington so I will probably be making frequent trips that direction. John also left for Wellington this morning and will be back tomorrow. He is meeting with clients and wineing and dining. I have seen the sun come up twice this week due to runs to the airport.

I have also had some interesting happenings on the job front. The company I was contracting through went into bankruptcy last week. This has created a lot of uncertainty for myself and the company I am working for. The arrangement is that I have a contract with Agility (the recruitment company) and Agility then contracts me out to Eagle (the company I am working with). Eagle pays Agility for my wages plus extra for commissions (which is how Agility makes money). Agility is then supposed to turn around and pay me my portion for wages--- which won't happen since they went bankrupt. To make things even more complicated, I have signed a contract with Agility, but Eagle never signed their contract for my services with Agility. At this point, I don't know if I will get paid for my work prior to the receivership. Eagle is trying to work it out to pay me directly and has their legal people involved. At this point it is a wait and see thing and hope someone sends me a paycheck at some point.

Friday is another public holiday here. It is Waitangi Day which is a celebration for the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. In short, this is the agreement between the British and the Maori signed in 1840 that they will stop fighting and share the land. John and I have tickets to attend an outdoor concert at a vineyard for the day. More on that later!