John's been published

John has been published in the magazine Reseller News. It is a technical magazine focused on resellers of software and hardware. Someone interviewed him for the article/advertisement and wrote it up.

We changed to Daylight Savings on Sunday so we are getting an hour more daylight after work. Only one day into Daylight Savings and I am loving it!

The weather has been 'unsettled' for the last few days. We have had a couple spells of torrential rains. All the trees are in full bloom and asparagus is everywhere. I actually got my bike out for the first time in 4 months on Sunday.

On Sunday I went to a clothes swap party. There were around 12 girls that brought stuff they no longer wanted and you swapped for stuff that you liked. I came home with much better stuff then I went with!

We are counting down the days until our visitors get here from the US..... only 1 month to go! We are on the final push to get things done around the house before they arrive.

Kerikeri

One thing you will quickly notice in NZ is that there are a lot of towns with Mauri names and they like to repeat words when forming a name- Kerikeri, Matamata, Meremere...... The slogan for Kerikeri is 'It's so nice they named it twice". Kerikeri is in the Bay of Islands area. The town is becoming known for its art and food. The area is also known for being one of the early European settlement areas.

The picture with the buildings includes the Stone Store and Mission House. The stone house is the oldest stone building in NZ. The Mission House is oldest still standing wooden structure in NZ. Both are from the 1830's--- which should remind you that NZ is a young country for European settlements.

The waterfall picture is at Rainbow Falls. The house picture is a Mauri meeting house on the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, which is where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. The Treaty of Waitangi is the agreement signed between the British Crown and the Mauri.

From Wikipedia - "The Treaty established a British governor in New Zealand, recognised Māori ownership of their lands and other properties, and gave Māori the rights of British subjects. However the English and Māori language versions of the Treaty differ significantly, and so there is no consensus as to exactly what was agreed. From the British point of view, the Treaty gave Britain sovereignty over New Zealand, and gave the Governor the right to run the country; Māori seem to have had a range of understandings, many of which conflicted with the British understanding. After the initial signing at Waitangi, copies of the Treaty were taken around New Zealand and over the following months many other chiefs signed." The Treaty of Waitangi is generally considered the founding document of New Zealand as a nation.

There is still much debate around the true meaning of the Treaty. The Mauri have filed many claims against the Crown for breach of the contract and have received significant sums of money to compensate for the breaches. There are still claims and reviews going on today.

Set Your Tivo

John Key, the New Zealand Prime Minister (kind of like the US President)will be on Letterman Thursday night, US time. We don't get the show here until Monday. Key is also the tourism minister, in addition to the Prime Minister, and is trying to attract more people to New Zealand. He is supposed to be giving the Top 10 for the night. Someone will have to give us a preview on how it goes.

Last room is painted!

We have hit a major milestone this week and have painted the last room in our plans to redo the house this year. We finished painting the lounge (what a living room is called here) this week. We are also getting new carpet put down in the lounge. I think we are going to get some carpet that has some sort of corn oil component in it and is made in the US. Just doing our part to support the US economy :) The only room left to redo this fall will be the main bathroom and we will end up hiring that done.

On Saturday we went out to watch the All Blacks. They played poorly and lost for the 3rd time in a row to the South African Springbooks by a couple points. The All Blacks almost pulled out a win in the last minute, but it was a case of waiting until much to late in the game to get their act together.

On Sunday, we went to the Auckland Home Show. The Auckland Home Show is basically like the Des Moines Home Show- you get all the vacuum salesman, home and garden construction, and miscellaneous house stuff. One interesting part was the row of homes, which was a couple streets of trailerable baches. If you buy your plot of land, you can trailer in a small bach and hook up the utilities. They pretty much look like a small mobile home. Which buy the way, we have never seen a mobile home park in NZ. Some of the baches were pretty cool with walls that would open up like garage doors to get the outdoor living feeling.

I am also starting to help with the 2010 PMI New Zealand conference planning. The conference will be held in Wellington next August. The project managers reading this blog need to plan to attend the PMI conference here next year instead of Des Moines or New York City!

This coming weekend we are going north to Kerikeri, which is a small town in the Bay of Islands. We will be spending a few days there with a group of friends coming in early November and we are going up to make the arrangements. Hopefully there will be good weather and I will have some good pictures to post next week.

Picture Update

It is getting back around to weekend travel time again. It has been a beautiful week in NZ. There was not a cloud in the sky all weekend. We spent Saturday working around the house. On Sunday we headed north to Waipu Caves. This is a large cavern with stalactites and stalagmites and glow worms. Glow worms are insect larvae that are on the ceiling of caves or dark and wet areas around NZ. In the Waipu caves, the glow worms look like thousands of tiny stars.

Following are links to pictures from the last few weeks.

Iowa visit- Some of the 'surprise' pictures are blurry but you get the idea.....
http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/IowaTrip2009_08_22?authkey=Gv1sRgCOn9mcjhg9HFvQE#

Las Vegas-http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/LasVegas2009_08_29?authkey=Gv1sRgCKehzeqoxee-ngE#

Back home again

John and I arrived back in Auckland at 5:00 am Sunday morning. It was a quick trip back to the US but we were happy to see all our friends and family. We had a great time in Clear Lake. We also had a picnic with John's family and I went to Cedar Rapids to see my family. On Thursday I flew out to Las Vegas to meet up with John. It was HOT- at midnight is was still 95. We just walked the strip, stopped in a couple of the must see hotels and did a little shopping. We had a pleasant flight back to NZ on Air New Zealand. The only problem with Air NZ is that they are to efficient- I missed out on the ends of my movies both going and coming because they flew to fast.

So, what was it like to be back in the US? We noticed a few more empty buildings in DSM and some areas weren't as tidy as what they might have been. We heard a little about Obama and health care reform but not as much as we thought we might.

We decided we really missed the NZ system of no tipping, especially in Vegas. I also noticed that I ended up with a wallet full of change that amounted to about US $1.25. A wallet full of change in NZ would be at least $10 due to all the $1 and $2 coins. I also decided I like the NZ system of rounding to the nearest dime so they don't have to deal with pennies.

On the other side, I really enjoyed having shopping options. In NZ, you might have 3 stores to choose from and each store carries pretty much the same thing. In the US, you have 10 stores to chose from and each one has distinct items. And also Super Target..... we need one in NZ.

September 1 was the first day of Spring here. I asked around and nobody seemed to know why Sept 1 was the first day of Spring and not Sept 21. The first day of Winter in NZ corresponds to the first day of Summer in the US. Maybe one of the NZ people that follow this blog can answer this question.