We interrupt the regularly scheduled post on New Zealand for this important announcement: I BOUGHT AN AIRPLANE! And before any of you complain about all-caps, I think I’m entitled to shout about this. After all, I bought an airplane! It’s mine. I get to fly it. I get to climb into the cockpit, taxi down the runway, and take off into the air. And, as Jono would say, be held up by nothing but physics. Provided, of course, that for now the nice man next to me is actually in charge…for now.
Click on the picture for more photos.
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I left Nelson to visit Abel Tasman National Park, and walk one of the Great Walks (walking seems to be something of a national pasttime in New Zealand). I will say only two things about this. First, in 3.5 days I walked more than 65 kilometers (more than 40 miles). My feet hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt by the end of it (actually, by about halfway through it). Second, go see the pictures.
Fresh off the airplane, or as fresh as anyone is when newly disembarked from 18 hours in transit, I arrived in downtown Nelson. So you ask: of all the places to land and start a New Zealand trip, why Nelson? Well, there are all the usual answers. Nelson is the sunniest city in New Zealand. It’s a major center for outdoor sports, especially mountain biking. It’s a short drive to the Golden Bay and all that has to offer. Nelson is a pleasant small city with a beautiful and enjoyable downtown. And none of these are why I started there.
So, I’m way behind. As in, I’ve been back from New Zealand for fully a month, and I still haven’t published any of my photos or told any of my stories. To explain: after very little time, I gave up the idea of writing posts while in New Zealand, as I was rather enjoying being (mostly) off-line and out-of-touch. Besides, the photos needed a lot of TLC before I was ready to release them to the Internet.
I’m now more than halfway through post-processing the photos. I have all the source materials to hand. It is now time to resume the narrative. Read the rest of this entry »
Alright, so I’m now in New Zealand, and by popular demand, I will be posting regularly. For those unaware of what’s happened, I had a two-month hole in my life (between Humanized and grad school), and I decided to fill 6 entire weeks of it with New Zealand. I plan to write once per day, though they may come in fits and spurts (as this group, from day -4 to day 0, will come out tonight and tomorrow). Unless there’s something really worth writing, I’ll keep this posts short and to the point (and with visual aids).
My trip actually begain with a brief visit to my friends in San Francisco, so I will start with a brief account of that. And that begins with…
As I discovered when I visited him, this gently glowing stain-glassed window is what my friend Aza sees when he wakes up now. He and Atul share an apartment in Pacific Heights (*gasp!*). According to Jono, this apartment is, in fact, the Lyra’s Jordan College. Good description. It comes pre-furnished with antiques. Up to and including the Victorian bathtub. Good grief!
The first thing I promised to do with this weblog was bring people up-to-date with what has been going on in my life, and what I’m doing next. This is the summary version, glossing over such minor details as consulting trips to Sweden and a vacation in New Zealand. Broadly speaking, I started a company 3 years ago, and now I’m leaving it for grad school. And the question all of you* are waiting for:
“If you wanted to build this company, why are you leaving? And if you wanted to do something else, why did you start it in the first place?”
Read the rest of this entry »
To friends and family reading this as it is published, greetings and welcome to my personal weblog. I finally caved and decided I should do something like this when I started attempting to write an email that explained, in detail, exactly what’s happened in my life over the past couple months. Which required me to explain what happened to me over the last year. Which led me to explain how I even got into the business I am now leaving behind. And generally my “letter to friends and family” became “the story of my life since high school”.
So, here it is, my new personal blog. This first post is a short one, explaining the title of this blog, where it comes from, what it means, and why I chose it. Read the rest of this entry »