So I was right on Thursday when I said I thought I’d just felt an Earthquake.. I had. Just a wee one, had a bigger one when I was in San Francisco which was 4. something. I think.

Life this week has been.. jinxed I think. Bike decided to die on tuesday cycling into work .. The bloke wot works in the bike shoppe said it might need replacing ($120) I said not to bother if that was the case!! – in the end it was $25.. does all add up though.

And today there’s the new potential consultant working in the office.. which is, frankly – good for them and bad for me.. I’m still trying to sort out new computer / any old work, but it is taking time, hopefully I still have my current job for another week or two, that would see me right for a month or so! Why the Kiwis don’t want to give me a well paid easy job I can’t understand (they have a fairly (un) healthy work ethic over here….

Squash is going well.. had another league match, and won again, so that was nice!

Oh, just incase anyone is interested, there are some pretty cool videos from moveon.org here

After getting back from work – Glynn and I headed off to the West Coast.. to Greymouth – the weather was supposed to be pretty nasty for the weekend, but still wanted to head out of town.

The drive up through Arthurs pass was pretty spectacular – the bit that freaked us out (besides Glynns’ first Road Kill – Possum we reckon) was the Train-Bridge..

We crossed this at about 11pm – pretty dark, and it was just a little worrying.. as the trains are kinda big (but I guess they move pretty slowly) – just had visions of being 1/2 way across and having to get speedily into reverse :)

The hostel we were staying in I would be glad to recommend – twas the ‘Global Village BBH’ … the place was covered in souvenirs from different trips the owner had taken – mostly through Africa and Asia. Really nicely done though.

Pretty funny coincidence – was sitting down playing scrabble with Glynn (by the way Qi is a bloody useful little word.. meaning ‘An Individuals life force’ ) – but heard a laugh I recognised.. it was Jorg – who we had met in Waitomo just after Christmas.. his Bike needed repairs (a new chain) so he was working in the hostel.

How he came to be working in the hostel is an even better story.. Jorg has been motorbiking all around the world – well some of it anyway. Well Australia at least ;) and while he was there chilling out by a beach or something, the owner of the hostel was passing – saw the bike – thought ‘here’s a pretty interesting traveller’ – and left his hostel/business card on the bike – saying ‘do drop in’. A year? later – Jorg arrives in the hostel. Pretty cool. (esp. when you need to get your bike fixed up and to earn a little cash when you don’t have the working visa….)

So yeah – next day it was off to the pancake rocks .. they were pretty cool, the only thing was that it wasn’t high tide and stormy, so the blow holes that are here weren’t visible.

After that it was off to ‘The Longest Swing Bridge in New Zealand’

There’s actually someone taking an Arial Runway back across – $25.. for 30 secs.

This was the complete and utter non-highlight of the weekend. I would not suggest going, it was set at the site of the 19somethingorother earthquake.. and there was supposed to be a walk around pointing out various sites.. but it was very badly laid out. Most unimpressed.

We saw this sign:

So decided to head and see it. We think we did.. there certainly was a big tree (or two) but again, it wasn’t obvious.. Ahh well, the drive to and from the gorge was excellent – very scenic altogether – te be sure te be sure.

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Then today – Sunday – headed home early ish as it was raining kinda hard….

Not really looking forward to this week (in work) have Dire Forebodings about looming unemployment.. the Director is coming down on Friday – and she would only do that to interview the new consultant. And new consultant != Patrick :) hehee, ahh well… am 1/2 thinking of heading off hitching to Queenstown or something, esp if no other work comes through.. could be an adventure.

Just to confirm.. I’m not actually redundant yet ;) Could be a day – a week – a month .. who knows – but hopefully I will have found new work by then. But as I was told today in an e-mail.. unemployment aint so bad as long as you have the return ticket or the money to buy one ;)

Harumph, just when you think everything is going nicely according to plan, it suddenly changes!

So.. I got onto this real contacts site, and have been able to start looking for jobs again…. Cool you say (as did I), and I was going do this while happily engaged in work so that I would be able to hop straight from one job to another. Cool you say (as did I). However.. I was informed today (just thought I felt an earthquake) that my position is being made redundant.. and that they are getting a full time consultant in instead – and can’t afford both.

Personally I reckon they’re making a huge mistake :D No, but seriously folks it is manic in work at the moment, so while they do need a new consultant who can do some of the reference checks and interviews… they will still need extra hands to actually do all the Admin. I reckon anyway. So that’s interesting. But hopefully something new will turn up soon.

So.. Monday played my first inter-club squash match.. it’s all very informal and fun. Still haven’t got used to calling Lets.. will eventually I guess. Unfortunately the results of the games didn’t count towards the competition (we won 3:1 – and no – I wasn’t the 1 ;) Good fun, looking forward to the next match.

Got utterly thrashed by Thor today. That’s a link to the company he founded out of his final year project. Kinda cool – the product – not the getting thrashed bit ;)

Other than that.. Mum is back in Ireland – and managed to get a spot on Pat Kenny promoting her Uganda thing, it’s on this morning after 10am… hopefully she’ll get some sponsorship out of it. Matt knows the lady who used to Present the 9 o clock news who was going in to meet Pat Kenny… so got her to put in a good word. Will put a link up to the realaudio file if they ever make one.

Finally Happy Birthday mum :)