I Suck at updates lately!

Well it's been busy over here for sure! Got all moved in to Our schweet new diggs, and we are for sure happy here. Roomies are great, and Kyle and I seem to be getting along just fine so far. Getting used to living together. It's different but good. I just bought a road bike over the weekend too with my Christmas money (thanks aunt Mary / uncle Steve / Nana!), and I am thrilled to have a bike again. Mom is going to send me my shoes and pedals and I'll have to look for a helmet, but it means I can definitely start ridin out here! Join a group or something, and go to some morning rides. I've gotta check into some local Tri teams too....didn't find much before I left the states but there's gotta be something with all the groups I see out!

Anyway, we threw a house warming get together over the weekend too and had some friends over. That was a good time. I was running around a lot, jut busy. Between trying to entertain and wrangle the people (not that many), and then organize to look at this road bike (in the pouring rain I might add) it was a little crazy. Had a blast tho. Next time we'll do it differently I think. The "bring food /BYOB" thing doesn't always seem to work out. We had a ton of snacks and drinks there, but couldn't afford to feed everyone substantial food, so we said to just bring whatever you wanted to eat. Worked out ok in the end by next time it's probably easier for us to just buy it all and then have people contribute. Ah well, live and learn :-)

OH, big new today too: we have finally found a car!! Kyle has been scouring TradeMe for cars for weeks, askin questions and doing research, talking to people....been busy! So grateful for it. He's been paying to rent cars too just to drive around to look at cars! The one weekend it was really nice to have when we were moving, that's for sure. He's learned his way around really well too better than me now. Well his radius is at least a lot bigger. Very excited to have something our own! It'll make things easier for sure.

We got a 1993 Toyota Sceptor, 7 seater wagon. Maroon Red in color, brand new engine, new stereo, leather seats, sun roof, etc. Awesome! We wanted a wagon so that we can travel on weekends and be able to sleep in he back if we just feel like going off randomly. No worries about accommodations then. :-). Cheaper! Very excited. Sounds like the sellers are really awesome too, Kyle met them today when I was at work, and we may have some new friends! They sound cool, and really really nice. Good deal! So the search is Over. At least on that front.

So a bike and car in the span of 3 days! Now, if only the next phase of good luck would be a jib coming through for Kyle. REALLY hoping this Blue Barn company hires him. Sounds like he'd get along with them really well. We'll see.

On the work front, work is good but busy. I feel overloaded, though I'm not. I have a full quota now though which honestly I don't think j have had before. Hard to keep up. Having trouble getting through these shots wig the snake in any kind if quick manor as well. Just time consuming really. And it takes some planning and figuring out as I go often to get things to move correctly. Ah well. I love some of the shots (the snake ones) even if hey are hard. Really do like working with him, whether it's frustrating or not. If I pull off a couple of these well, they will definitely be some substantial shots on my reel! I have about 44 seconds of straight animation, back to back on the show in one section, which is really cool! A musical number too, so that should be interesting. Can't say I've done much of that before! :). Otherwise things are good. I've decided that I'm going to try not to work much over time like I was before kyle came, and it's working for me. Well, in a personal life sense anyways. I'm not getting as much work done as I could, but I am still working over my required 90 hrs every two weeks. Seems to be about 100 in two weeks about. Just a lot of work, and I feel like I'm still slow at it. I duno, I want things to loom good, and they just seem to take me longer so far. I can't rush through them. I'll get faster people keep telling me, and I'm sure j will

I did kind of screw myself last week, not being as productive as I should have been. It's hard coming off of a long break AND working with your friends. Everyone wants to catch up and socialize after being away. Which is GREAT, but not at work ;). I'm just now starting to get back into a groove. Sucks that it took me a little while. Oh well. it will get done eventually.

Alright well, enough for now, should get to bed soon. Hoping it doesn't rain AGAIN in the morning so I can go run we've had some insane rain and wind the past week or so. Kinda cool, but no good for working out. :)

G'night

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Auckland, NZ

Moving!

Well I am behind! It's finally long awaited moving day, and I can't wait! Ready to go. We start in a couple hours. :). So excited!

Things have been good here but busy. Getting back into the swing of things at work is hard after 2 weeks off! Glad to be back though. Next week is when the fun starts: my most complex Savio shot, 237 frames, gets into primary. Not to mention the 7 other characters with him. It'll g
Be ok tho, just have to be good about my pre-planning. Constraints and IKs and all that jazz. We'll see how it goes!

Wow so much to catch up on! I just installed this mobile blogger app on my new touch, so this should be much easier to keep up now. Not to Mention we will finally have stable Internet at home! He wireless at work doesn't work in our room anymore, so aside from email (which I can access on my work station) I've been a tad out of the loop. FINALLY I'll have regular access tho! :) Not to mention a desk large enough that Kyle and I can probably both use at the same time. Haha.

Ann good things.

Ok, actual updates after the move. WAHOOOOO!!!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Scanlan st to Marston st

Happy New Year!

Talk about ringing in the New Year the right way!  I wanted to do something... ANYTHING... to get us out of this house for the New Year... even though all of our flatmates were out of town.  I just thought it would be nice not to be stuck at home.  So I went online to BookaBach.co.nz and started looking for little vacation houses to rent for 1 or 2 nights.  Luckily, one of the first ones I found, out in Piha, had an opening!  Its a bed and breakfast called the Piha Exquisite, and I was able to work with one of the guys that runs the place, Aaron, to find ourselves a room.  We were going to be in one room, but a big group of people (Korean we think?) came and had taken all of the rooms in the main house, but one.  So we ended up with that one... but the room is attached to a SEPARATE bach, which we also got to take over!  So its like, we had our own private kitchen, private bedroom / bathroom, living room, and deck all to ourselves!  Not all of it was furnished, but thats alright.  We ended up spending most of our time over in the main house anyway.  We rented a car, and thankfully Kyle drove over to Piha (talk about some narrow roads out there!  Hes a lot more confident than I am, though I will be learning soon when we buy a car).

This was one of the craziest, LARGEST homes I have ever seen.  Well, ever been staying in at least.  I mean the place was just nuts.  And the view was to die for.  RIGHT over Piha staring at Lion Rock.  We felt like celebrities for a night!  There was a pool table, and all of the walls slid open to these MASSIVE decks that you could go out and sit on.  Could not have asked for more. 

 Kyle, enjoying the view

 Attempting to prepare our dinner on the malfunctioned grill to the Left..

 That WHOLE glass wall on the R side opens up..

 This is the view out the back of the house.

 Literally facing Lion Rock.

 Our room!  Again, with a view of the beach

 This was the separate private kitchen / bathroom down in the bach that we had to ourselves

 Other side of the bach.  Those stairs go up to our room, and then through our room, you get into the main house. 

 That big house there at the top of the photo?  Yea, thats where we stayed!!

There were a couple little flubs when making dinner, which was the only down side.  We had gotten steaks to grill for dinner, but the grill didn't really work, so we ended up having to finish them off in a pan, couldnt get our tomato sauce open cause there was no can opener... ah well.  In the end we ended up with steak and pasta for dinner either way.  We JUST barely caught the sunset too with our dinner.  It was so sweet, we sat out, the two of us, on this little table with our dinner and wine, right on this MASSIVE deck watching the sunset over the beach.  Perfect.  :-)

 Beautiful!

Later on we hung out with the two guys that run the place, who was SUPER friendly, and really young.  Seriously, these guys were like, mid-20's and running a B&B whose RENT alone cost them like, $6,000 a month.  Insanity.  And they were great.  Both of them were like, half Swiss, half Kiwi.  Funny combo :)

So right before midnight, the guys suited up with guitars, and led a few of us (me and Kyle, and another couple of a Russian guy and his Kiwi girlfriend), down to the beach to countdown to the new year.  It was DARK as hell too!  No lights out at Piha!  Haha.  So we headed down by the light of the "torch" (flashlight) on the one guy's phone.  It was stellar.  Standing down under the stars on the beach at midnight.  :-)  SO cool.  They played some nice music for us too!  And heres the crazy part... there was a HUGE fire going on at the top of the ridge down from our house!!!!!  No worries, it was pretty far down from where we were, but I mean a RAGING fire!  The alarms were going off and all that.  Luckily it didn't spread, and the firemen were able to get it out pretty quickly.  We felt terrible thinking it was someone's house.  Turns out, some people lit off fireworks at one of the scenic outlooks along the road, and one misfired out into the bushes, lighting them on fire.  Fortunately, nothing was damaged but the brush, but man it was crazy to watch! 

So, Happy 2011 everyone!  We were some of the first in the world to see the New Year come in.  Cool!!!!  Then, off to bed with us.  Wanted to get up and explore the beaches the next morning. 

We got to hike down to Kitekite falls the next morning, after a stellar breakfast made by the B&B guys with REGULAR DRIP COFFEE (which made Kyle very very happy since Espresso is the caffeinated drink of choice over here).  The falls were awesome, bigger than I thought too!  So we took lots of photos there, and then headed back over to Piha Beach to climb Lion Rock. 

Awesome!!!!

Onward up Lion Rock:

 pretty sweet panoramic that came out of Piha!

 Top of Lion Rock!  Well, at least as high as you can get :-)

 Awesome Maori Statue hanging out up at the top, looking out over the land.

Ahhh Piha.

Then, we headed out to a new beach called Karekare, just further down the road.  That was pretty epic.  Now THAT beach could have been in the Lord of the Rings for sure (no, it wasn't).  haha.  And you can fish for green lipped mussels there too!!!!!!!  Just in the sand!  We saw a nice Asian couple searching for them and decided to join them for a little bit.  We found out you don't need a license or anything, all you need is to not take more than 50 per person home at any one time.  I will be returning to collect some :-D.  Especially if we have guests come to visit!!!  (Mom!)

 Karekare

Pretty sweet!

We will be back for sure, even though the drive is a bit treacherous!  hahahahaha.  :-P

Happy 2011 everyone!