Looks like Rod is travelling shortly too.

I'm off to TechReady2 in the US (a big MSFT internal conference) to present on Windows Workflow Foundation. Leaving Friday. Spending a few extra days there... may go skiing if the weather is great and I'm not feeling too poor!

Anyway, I was about to fill in my Iteinerary into Outlook- which is a royal PITA and started my usual bleet about how airlines should send me vCal entries for all my flights and shit. Then I remembered that my friendly travel agent (Toby Mann @ Edinburgh Way FLight Center in Dunedin who is FANTASTIC) had sent me some details about this thing called ViewTrip. It turns out that Rod was thinking exactly the same thing at the same time....

ViewTrip talks directly to Galileo which is a big trave agent booking system and contans all your itinerary information along with the ability to d/l to your calendar. Marvelous!

See a sample here it includes rental cars and hotels and all that crap.... VERY cool!

From the FAQ:

11.  What information is transferred from the ViewTrip itinerary to my electronic calendar?

Confirmed air segments will transfer as appointments into your calendar. Car and Hotel segments will transfer as events into your calendar. These appointments and events can be opened for further reservation segment details.

I needed a good pad to stay at in Christchurch last week and found a place called Livingspace. It looks like it’s designed primarily as long term student accommodation but they leave some of the studio rooms available for general hotel type use. It’s really central in Lichfield St. It’s actually built in an old building that used to be the flat of a friend of mine in Christchurch. Brought back some crazy memories of weekend Chch benders.

Has the cheapest hotel broadband I have ever seen. Cost me $2.68 for two nights worth of my usual work. Had CNN. No Gym but they assured me one is coming.

Hope we’ll see more of these sorts of places cropping up. At $85 per night it was perfect for my needs.

Been spending a decent chunk of time doing gym cardio recently and I’ve come to a conclusion for cardio equipment manufacturers.

Where you have a machine with variable resistance, say 0 to 20, the default when you jump on the machine should be 10, not 0. Seem to be so many people at the gym who think that doing 120rpm for 20mins at level 0 on the stationary bike constitutes a workout.

I stayed in Richmond Sat and Sun night before presenting at the Nelson .NET Users Group today. I stayed at the Destiny Motel and it did a pretty good job of meeting my essential home away from home requirements. It had CNN, Broadband and…. 50m down the road BJs Gym. I got a couple of sessions in, Upper body on Sunday (which kicked ass) and Lower Body this morning (which was a bit average- wasn’t feeling all that on game). But anyway. BJs was a great wee gym. Good free weights and machines. Cardio room was OK- gear was a bit old and all tended to be pro-sumer grade stuff which 100kg+ers like me tend to feel like they’re gonna break.

The staff @ BJs were really friendly, other gym bunnies were pleasant. I even met another whitewater kayaker (Rieds Farm T Shirt gave it away) who I was sure I recognised but I think it was recognition from a canoe polo tournament rather than slalom.

Anyway. If you’re staying or living in Richmond it’s a convenient gym. Off to Bodyworks in Wellington tomorrow.

*This post was written a while ago... just posting it now.

So I’m travelling from Picton to Wellington at the moment. Schedules meant that the best option was to sail on the MV Santa Regina with Bluebridge. I can’t remember if I ever blogged about my ‘Freaks and Geeks’ HNL-YVR Redeye with Air Canada, the one where all the cabin crew were 60+ and they ran out of seatbelt extenders (due to too many fat Americn passengers), but anyway, this is the maritime equivalent! No that’s a bit harsh but it is certainly arguable that cheap air travel has altered the average demographic of the ferries. It’s actually not that bad a boat and the Disney movies, Modern Day Cinderella and Freaky Friday with the hot wee chick off Mean Girls, help to pass the time.

The boat is full of passengers of the fury kind and they make the whole boat stink- they parked a whole load of stock trailers straight under the dining room… I guess most of the fury critters are headed for North Island farms (god knows why we interisland bloody livestock) although I think some will also be destined for Aro Valley and West Auckland and at least one looks set to get straight off the ferry and take himself and his blanket to Cuba Mall.

Anyway. What a bitchy post. It’s actually not at all bad. The schedule time was really convenient. It was well priced and it’s comfortable enough- great to see some competition on the route. I’ll be sure to consider the Bluebridge when I head back to the Coast for some boating later this year.

It's funny how you really only start to vlue something if you might lose it. So it is with the Awesome Gorge section of the Kaituna River. OP Energy want to build YATLHS (Yet Another Tiny Little Hydro Scheme) on it. It's not in the guide book and from experience the first place people are going to look for some indiction that it's actually run is in Google. So.It is run. Herewith my section notes in the style of Graham Charles' great New Zealand Whitewater book.

Class: III
Level: As per the Okere Falls section
Gauge: Gates on Lake Rotoiti outflow
Length: About 2km
Gradient: Not Sure
Time: 25mins
Put In: Continue on from Kaituna Play Hole or Putn below Trout Pool Falls
Take Out: Sharp Left Hand Bend. Orange Spray Paint on River Right. Take out River Right. DO NOT MISS THIS TAKE OUT!
Shuttle: Walk back over farm tracks- see hot tip.
Character: A bit oike what would happen if they trippled the flow, halved the width and added 100m high gorge walls to a theme park water ride. A mixture of meandering bends and continuous roller coaste ride class III whitewater. Awesome Scenery and character- hence the name.
Hot Tip: Take a seak kayak ortage trolley to wheel your boats back along the portage.

The Aweome Gorge section of the Kaituna  is one of the most unique pieces of whitewater that I've paddled in New Zealand. It is wilderness paddling little more than 30 minutes from Rotorua. It is like a rollercoaster ride through lush native bush and a deep and narrow gorge. It's not difficult wite water, but, gie that Gnarly Gorge (a place you really don't want to go) is just around the corner from the take out you DO NOT wnt to go swimming in Awesome Gorge.

It starts out from the Trout Pool falls as a meandering arm stram and then slowly picks up pace through a few class one riffle rapids. Then the river backs off again before slowly pickng up pace as the gorge begins to narrow. The gorge narrows, the corners becme tighter and everything starts to push along and then suddenly the gorge tightens righ up and you're into a section of about 300m of continuous Class III white water. There are no real eddies to speak of and it's a great place to take paddling tourists without giving them too mch background. By the bottom their eyes are just wide open.

Once you exit the fast paced section you will roud a couple of corners before the rar of Awesome Gorge falls beckons. This is a drop of about 3 meter that is very similar in nature to the top drop of the Powerhouse rapid. Run it just off river left with a big boof.

A couple more corners and you are at the take out. Look for the bright orange paint. You do not want to miss this take ou.

So I'm in WLG today doing a mixure of work and meetings. Currently squatting in a Pay and Display Carpark sitting on CafeNet. What a fantastic service!

DPF has a post about a US campus atheist group that is offering porn in exchange for trading in bibles.

Bit of a giggle.

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/archives/012655.html

OK. So I had something really important shipped SEA to DUD recently. Shipped out by DHL, took no time to get from the US to AKL but then took a bloody age to get from AKL to DUD. Reasn being was that DHL send things for Dunedin to Christchurch first and then on to Dunedin by road.

The reason is pretty obvious. They probably have their own air service AKL-CHC and then they use a 3rd party for the rest of the journey. This has hapened to me several times before.

Frankly this PISSES ME OFF.

It would be faster for me to terminate the DHL service in Auckland and send my normal Domestic and International Express company, TNT, around to pick it up and overnight it down to me.

So.If you are shipping to DUD, avoid DHL. I've had pretty good results from TNT and also UPS.

Oh, and one other thing. DHL don't do Saturday delivery in DUD. So your essential shipment that cost over $100 to send (for a DVD) spends the weekend sitting in their store room- kinda makes a mockery of all of their super expeditious logistics up o that point really.

According to MS Tech Evangelist Extrordanaire- Mr Nathan Mercer.....

Exchange 12 is going to be x64 only.

I personally think that this decision...

COMPLETELY SUCKS ASS!

There are just too many SMEs with existing hardware that they'll want to upgrade. As such I am prepared to bet Bob Clarksons Left Nut that they'll change this policy.

All around good bastard Ocker and MS Enterprise Server guru Angus Logan has decided to drink the kool-aid.

He's off to be a Tech Specialist with MSFT.

Well done bud!

Rod Drury wants a new Knob.

One of my mates @ e-Media had a knob like that.
It was certainly big... and it flashed when you turned it.

I have a different Knob. Mine's got buttons and all sorts. Quite nice really.