So flew up to Auckland on the 05:50 flight. Which was quite early… hmmmm. Anyways, checked into the Hilton (as you do) and went to the TUANZ (telecoms) conference for most of the day. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

It kinda reinforced what I’m beginning to think… If your business can get good information out of your contacts with the public, then that has to be one of the most important parts of the business… without good feedback good decisions can’t be made (easily). And I kinda wonder if I want to get into the Business Analyst area of things..

Hmm, that all seemed a little serious for a moment. Excuse me while I snort some coke ;) (joking joking)

Right, where was I – yes, flew up to Auckland – conference was a precursor to the annual awards. Last year we were up for Contact Centre of the year, this year Andrew went for Contact Centre Manager of the year (for contact centres with less than 50 seats)

So L->R me, David, Martine and Andrew went to the dinner (along with 600 others). It wasn’t quite as drunken affair as last time… we were slightly on our best behaviour (ish) as we were sitting at pretty much the top table..

To cut a long story short… Andrew won.

I took two videos at the dinner.. first one(7 megs) and the second one(7 megs). Of the two, the second one is the funnier one by far..

Good times though. We were all pretty stoked with the win. The trophy was by far and away the heaviest trophy I’ve ever encountered. You really needed 2 hands to lift the thing.. Would be quite interested to know how much it weighed.

I must admit.. it was incredibly satisfactory (in a smug kinda way – sorry – it happens occasionally)… The dinner you see was sponsored by quite a few companies, including recruitment companies.. including the company Madison that I used to work for in ChCh – who placed me into the M.E.D. Anyway, I guess I didn’t always feel incredibly appreciated in there, so it was quite nice to go over and say hello and see some surprised – but happy – faces. Amazing how things can change in a year really.

Took the Friday and Monday off – so details to come soon of my trip around Northlands. It was really excellent fun though, very different to Canterbury that’s for sure!

Two great things happened today – glynn got back from Ireland (yay) and my friend Emma Bartlete (and Ailish) and two of their friends (Vanessa and Siobhan) were visiting ChCh.

As you can see from the pic, ChCh was also gearing up for the first lions vs All Blacks test match. It’s just so great having friends from home visiting. Looks like Emma has had a fun time around NZ.. Only wish I’d been able to hang out some more – but on Thursday I headed off to Auckland…

Watch The Corporation if you get the chance.

So yesterday it was off to the ‘Heights Of Winter’ – a 12 hour orienteering event. It a rogaine you’re given a map with lots of checkpoints dotted all over it each of which has a score (10,20,30 ->100 points) associated with it. Checkpoints which are further away / more awkward / require good navigation – are worth more points.

So L->R Me, Franklin, Andy and Kirsty

headed off to do the best we could! I must admit, I was beginning to wonder after about the first 10 minutes when we were struggling up this matagauri infested steep slope…

..whether I had the staying distance. Well, not really, I’m a masochist at heart, but I will be picking thorns out of my hands for weeks. Matagauri is the fairly innocuous looking grey shrubs in that picture. It’s a very tough, very spikey bush. And a lot of the course (I thought ;) was covered in the stuff. Still, more of an incentive to move quickly and get to the top.

Or something.

Still, it was lots of fun cruising around the course. You can see our initial plan on this map (dark blue thin line – only as far as 52 as we were going to see how we were doing!)), and also the route we took (sky-blue line)

As you can see, we looped back through the start. If you were seriously competing in the event that would be suicide.. but I felt a gazillion (or two) times better after getting serious quantities of bread + soup into me.

There were some nice views along the way though

And at the end we all got a hearty meal! which always tastes so great after hiking for 12 hours.

They had these ‘funky gizmotrons‘ (technical term) for keeping track of which points you’d visited. Each team had a sort of magnetic (I guess) penny-sized object, and at each checkpoint held some sort of RF? writer up to it,?! no idea, but it encoded the time at which you’d visited the checkpoint. It was all very quick and very clever. So at the end of the event, after you’d handed back in the gizmotron, there was an instant readout of each of the points you’d visited (and the times you’d got there). I really thought it was super clever. This particular system designed by a local guy… I believe there are similar systems – but it would be great for adventure racing teams etc.. real potential there.

So yes, thanks (though I wasn’t saying it at the time ;) hehe, to Andy and Kirsty for the invite…

So a few other interesting things (if you’ve made it this far!)

Store Wars is a really funny little flash animation. All about fruit ‘n veg wars between Organic Foods and Evil Supermarket Clones (he’s more chemical than potato now Luke ;) Chewbacca is a cauliflower… honestly.. it’s really funny!!

On a mostly sadder note – very odd (and not suitable for mum…) is postsecret.blogspot.com. People send in postcards to an address with a secret on them. And he puts the cards on the internet. Mostly quite sad though.

On a far happier note – organised the wine + glasses for my mulled wine party on Friday week. Co-incidently (not) the day my friend Lorcan arrives from Ireland. It’s going to be an excellent party (I hope). Also – on Wednesday an college friend – Emma Bartlete) is going to be in town.. twill be fun to catch up over a pint or two. And then on Thursday morning fly up to Auckland for a work function – same as last year. Got quite hammered on really excellent wine (and accompanying food). Though I think it’ll be tamer this year. And then taking a couple of days off and heading up to Northlands to explore that part of the country. Only major area I’ve not visited of NZ yet (other than Dunedin). Though there’s still so much to see and do.

At the weekend Mhairi and I managed to get off to Rotorua, to do a little bit of climbing, and we also to see The Motorcycle Diaries about Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara travelling about with his friend Alberto Granado – which made him the man he became. Good film.

On the way we made my first trip to a driving range.

Got a bucket of 100 golf balls and off we went.. I was pleasantly surprised every time the ball flew nicely.. which it did a bit actually. I think Mhairi was surprised. I don’t think it’ll ever be a game I get into – but it is something I could do from time to time – on a nice hot summers day (with no wind!!)

In fact,on Tuesday, Danny – the brother of Dean (one the members of Mhairis adventure racing team) and I went out for a round of golf.

155 strokes later I was finished on the 18th hole! Definitely happy with my first attempt.

And then Wed back down to ChCh. Flew out from Auckland.. I stupidly didn’t check if it was possible to fly into Whakatane… it is.. and only costs $5 more. Would have saved a nice 8 hour driving round trip for mb (thanks so much for the lift!)

It was great being up on the N.Island, really had a great time, and it was lovely to be warm again – and to see the sun! ChCh has been quite cold of late.

Came back to a very nice surprise though – and this (to me) is a classic example of how different NZ is. I came back to quite a few bills – and a letter from the IRD (inland revenue department). My heart sank. Until I opened the letter. They – the tax department – had written to me (without any prompting) telling me that they wanted to cut me a cheque for $440 .. if that was ok with me… Today I called up – and their totally automated telephone system (one of those ones you can talk to) took me through the process – and a cheque is on the way. Whole process of calling up -> hanging up took about 1 minute. Maybe I’m missing something.. but does it happen in other countries where the tax department writes you a letter to tell you that they owe you money – and make it so simple that it takes 1 minute to get the cash?!

I know, another pro-nz rave.. but there you go. I’m a resident now, have to be true to the cause.