Experiencing the wonders of socialized healthcare, first hand

Hello Everybody,

Exciting news, we are both fully employed. Gay got a job as a “chef de partie” @ a brand new café called “Café on Oxford” opening up in Richmond, which is the town right next to Nelson. She got a huge packet in the mail the other day which included all the legal stuff and an employee handbook and all that. She’s not nervous about the fact that it’s a brand new operation, that it’s going to be only 3 people in the kitchen, even that she hasn’t done restaurant work in a couple years. She is nervous because the handbook said she had to be showered everyday and that she has to be in @ 6am every morning. Both are going to be quite a challenge. Believe me.
As for myself, the ad agency job finally got the green light for a small project for which I’m needed and I start tomorrow. I’m a little hesitant because the job is only meant to last for about 3 weeks but they said they’d be “confident” that I’d be given more work. I’m skeptical but we’ll see what happens. Whatever it is, it’s going to be a lot better than bud rubbing. The other part of it is that Nelson is such a small city (I think only around 100,000 people, which includes the surrounding smaller cities) that finding a job doing what you like is a difficult undertaking in itself. So I’m considering myself lucky that I have this opportunity. The woman who owns the boarding house we’re staying in has a couple of sons our age and one of them does tech work similar to me. He wanted to live in Nelson but couldn’t find a job and ended up moving to Wellington. So there’s that.


My triumphant return to hockey…
The people of New Zealand are fanatical about sport. They love it. During the nightly news they spend a huge amount of time on sporting events. Coming from the US it’s funny to watch the rap-up because it’s not the usual sports you see during this time, but rather a series of weird, bizzaro-world sports. For example, there’s no football, but there is rugby (and LOTS of it). There’s no baseball but there is cricket. There’s no ice hockey but there is men’s field hockey. There’s no basketball but there is woman’s netball. There is however, soccer, although it’s mostly cast as a rather feminine sport by the NZ blokes.

People go crazy for rugby in particular. We’ve met at least one woman, probably in her 60’s, who loved rugby and could name every All Black and every member of the local Nelson Bays team. The past several weekends the All Blacks have been in the UK playing the “Six Nations Tournament” and I’ve met a couple people who get up at 3:00 in the morning and head to the pub in order to watch these games. It’s baffling to me.

So given the love of these bizarro games, I was fortunate to stumble upon a small but devoted and organized group who play roller hockey. I showed up last Tuesday night for their 3 on 3 games and fitted with some extra equipment. I was so excited to get playing that I completely forgot to stretch and by my last shift, my lower-back was “well buggered” as they say. The next morning I woke up in a great deal of pain and trying to walk around would only make my back muscles spasm. Not fun. So reluctantly I agreed to go to A&E (accidents and emergencies, our ER equivalent). For those of you who know my unabashed wimpyness to all things medical (especially needles) you’ll be happy to hear that I didn’t faint and most importantly I didn’t have to get a shot. I did, however, turn down the pain killers because, you know, I’m that kind of bloke. The stay ended up being covered by ACC which is basically the national healthcare and the anti-inflammatory I was prescribed was incredibly cheap.

Just want to say a big thank you to everyone who has been reading the blog and emailing me about how they enjoy it. Also want to say thank you to Yve, Julie and Allie for sending us a care package. It was a beautifully done card and Gay has already finished the candy.


Pictures…

This small set is of our new found friend dubbed “Little Miss Muffet” by Gay..The problem with befriending a cat is that they tend to bring you little presents, like mice. But she’s incredibly friendly and cute and its the first cat that's ever liked Gay.
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This next one is of a little walk around the Maitai hills which overlooks Nelson City. It also happens to be the geographical center of New Zealand.
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This is a day trip we took to Pupu Springs with our friends Jen and Tomo. It’s basically an area of the most clear spring water I’ve ever seen.
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Nelson continued...

Hi Everyone..
Things are still moving along well here in Nelson. Our illustrious bud rubbing careers came to an end on Monday and we've been enjoying our unemployed status since then. The position I interviewed for is looking pretty positive so far (knock wood, they actually say "touch wood" here) and they're taking some time to finalize issues on a project contract in which my skills are needed. So hopefully that'll start soon. In the meantime we've joined a gym and tomorrow I plan to rent a mountain bike for a couple hours and explore some of the surrounding trails. I've also been spending a lot of time trying to figure out how the hell you successfully connect a voice and/or video conversation with MSN Messenger (behind a non-uPNP router). So if anyone knows what settings need to be made to do it, I wouldn't mind a little hint..Thanks.

Guy Fawkes day
A very rare occurrence happened last weekend. Something that is seldom seen even when we were living in San Francisco. An over booked social calendar. That's right we were surprised ourselves, but last Saturday was Guy Fawkes day and we were invited to not one but two parties. For those of you who don't know what Guy Fawkes day, than please look it up becuase I don't know either. My guess from the ramblings of people that I've heard is that sometime in the 1800s a man named Guy tried to blow up the British Parliment. The government found out about the plot and stopped the attempt. This day celebrates the government intelligence. To kiwis it means a lot of fireworks, a bonfire and a good 'ol burning effigy of Guy Fawkes. For some reason the NZ youth go a little crazy with fireworks. They start shooting them off about 2 weeks before Guy Fawkes day and some of them like to shoot them off into people's houses. There were a couple of huge fires, caused by stray fireworks, in the days leading up to Saturday and there is a big movement going on to ban fireworks altogether. Gay and I went to a sushi rolling party and ended up missing a proper Guy Fawkes party complete with a bon fire and burning effigy which was put on by Roger our former vineyard manager. We had fun.

Pictures...
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