What the Shit?!?

WHYWHYWHY though?

Any person who sets aside THAT much time to spend making themselves look like a cartoon on a daily basis clearly has mental health problems.

Next.

Snow season is now officially over in the South Island - a few of us hoofed it up to Methven last weekend for the last of Mt Hutt. GOOD decision. I was originally going to go up on Friday, ride Saturday and drive back after that but managed to wangle Sunday off in the end. Thank Fuck.

Shitty, shitty weather on Saturday closed the mountain, windy and rainy and generally fucking miserable, so instead we hung about town and got mashed up. Brown Pub to Blue Pub to bottle shop to hostel (fully putting my support behind Lee and the Big Tree Lodge) to oblivion. Incredibly, all that skanky rain cleared up overnight and became BLUEBIRD POWDER CLOSING DAY, it was fucking brilliant craic. Good bunch of people and beautiful conditions - as much as I am looking forward to summer my last few days this season have been immense!  TC, Heli with the Southern Lakes guys, Cardies and Mt Hutt are definitely my standout days and all came in the death throes of a weirdly Season Confused winter.

Next weekend I'm heading off up North for a week to meet my new... actually, what is she? What is your cousin's baby to you? I will have to google this. God, I love google. Yes, so, I'm off to meet Olivia, who was born in August and although I'm sure she won't have any good work stories yet I imagine she will be entertaining enough. Nawwwww, babies, etc

I am actually pretty excited about this trip, I haven't seen Katie and Mike who made this new person for a couple of years, and my cousin Sarah is flying in from Dubai to meet everyone so it's gonna be cool to have some family around. I'll take the opportunity to hang out with some buddies up in Aucks too, and see if I can bag me some freebies while I'm up. Auckland Bridge walk, anyone?

Other things of Note:

• I could do with a haircut.
• Hung out with Sid at the weekend, fuuuun.
• Sunburnt chin at Mt Slut. Seriously. I was proper careful to cream up my nose and cheeks, but who gets a burnt chin?
• Jens isn't a builder anymore - SITE is pretty much good to go!

Music I Keep Coming Back To

Some time around February, I lost my iPod for the third time, along with a really nice pair of Skullcandy headphones. And a bag. Thank you, Boiler Room Black Hole.

It is worth mentioning that I haven't actually lost 3 iPods, I've lost the same iPod 3 times. As it happens I am pretty good at losing things, but I don't normally get it back. This iPod just kept turning up like a bad penny. This time though, I lost it for good along with the 80gb of music that I've been hoarding on it.

Sometimes I wonder - if you took all of the stuff I've lost over the years and put it in one place, what would it look like?  Amongst (many) other things, there'd be at least 20 black cardigans in there, loads of crap I left on buses when I was at school (think hockey sticks, technology folders, things of that ilk), one Dakine mitten that I lost up the Remarks a few weeks ago that I would actually really like back, a Samsung phone that was quite decent for it's time, there'd be a collection of assorted house keys - probably for my parent's old house in Moneyrea mostly, and lots of random jigsaw pieces.

Anyway, except for a few shitty old hard drives with a mish mash collection of Stuff I Sought Out and Stuff I Just Got From Other People's Collections, I've had to pretty much start from scratch. This is severely disheartening.

When I started trying to figure out what I wanted back first, the things that came into my head were the albums that are as familiar as old friends. You know the ones that you can put on after a few months and still automatically cue up the opening bars of the next song in your head when the current one finishes?


Here are some of the first ones that spring to mind;

• Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf (gives me 2003 nostalgia big time)
• Justin Timberlake - Future/Sex/Love/Sounds (this is a good shower album - went to see this tour for my birthday with Jo)
• The XX - Islands
• Tapes 'n' Tapes - The Loon
• Chase & Status - No More Idols
• PJ Harvey - Stories From the City, Stories from the Sea (another 2003 one)
• Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (this just has some AMAZING tracks on it - Cherub Rock, Mayonaise, Today)
• Jurassic 5 LP (chiiiiiill)
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
• Fat Freddy's Drop - Based on a True Story
• Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
• Jetplane Landing - Once Like a Spark (gives me good Belfast vibes)
• Gomez - Bring it On
• Foo Fighters - The Colour the Shape (Joanna Savage gave me this for Xmas in 5th year at school. Listened to it on repeat for a looooooong time)
• Audioslave - Audioslave (more 2003 - it was a good year for me!!)
• Green Day - Dookie (always remember Karen Porter bringing this back from Canada along with a poster of the album cover which I eventually inherited)
• Roni Size/Reprazent - New Forms
• Fiona Apple - Tidal (late night Gin + screechalong session with Caitlin springs to mind)
• Björk - Homogenic
• Faith No More - especially Midlife Crisis

That list is by no means complete, and it probably isn't even a list of what I consider the "best" albums, but I think I'll probably be listening to all of those for a long time to come. It's definitely a random as mix of albums, but that sort of reflects the weird and varied range of musical stylings that I am a fan of. And I love them all like misfit children.

Other things of note:

• JO &JAMIE GOT ENGAGED!!!! So I'll be visiting home for the wedding next July.
• Bought a new snowboard and bindings this season, LOVE.
• Getting tattoed again on Wednesday, VERY excited.
• Still waiting for the chance to do the Heli I won in June, weather can get fucked.
• Sold CHR! Alex sorted me with a brilliant wee Legacy wagon. Yeeew.

Sorta Skipped Summer There a Bit...

Take heart knowing that I've been super absent from here because I've been keeping myself well occupied in the real world.

RWC season was amazing - with all of the South Island matches played in either Dunedin or Invercargill since CHC was no longer a viable option, we got real busy as the de facto hub of RWC activity down here. Queenstown was heaving with supporters, players, media and general revelry. I went down to Dunners for the Ireland v Italy match; we made a full weekend of it. Vicky was over from home and half of QT tripped it down for the craic.

In December, I went on my first tramp. Being completely under prepared and woefully hungover, a group of us took on the Routeburn track from the Divide to the Glenorchy end. It was truly stunning, an experience that I would recommend to anyone. We were lucky enough with the weather to see the breathtaking scenery over the Harris saddle at its blue-sky best after having pretty much waded our way up the key summit on our first day in what ranged from mizzle to torrential downpour. The whole weekend was just incredible, a real one off with a brilliant bunch of friends.

That got us all fired up for some more outdoorsy NZ stuff - in February Becky, Louise Stevens, Ed and I headed up to Abel Tasman to do a three day kayaking/camping trip. This is definitely around the top of my "Amazing Shit I Have Done in NZ" list - the coast up there is stunning, and paddling into the tidal lagoons like Shag Harbour, finding rocks to jump off and colonies of seals to pester was great fun. I'm definitely going to go back and walk the coastal track at some point - we did a little evening hike up to the Cleopatra Pools where the rocks, moss and waterfalls from a natural water slide. The whole track is full of gems like that - well keen to get back and do it all.

The last few months have been difficult in a way, as quite a lot of my close friends have left Queenstown. I know that this is the nature of the place, being a resort, but you are never really fully prepared for how fast these departures come around. This time I lost Becky, Ed, Craig, Mary, Vicky, Rich and there are a few more on the cards now too. Moving out of Cote du Lac was so hard but probably the only thing that made this easier - I really miss living with Maebh but if we had stayed in that house and had next door empty, I think I'd have been stuck on the fact that they were gone. I've now moved on to Maxwell Place with Jens and Laura, and I honestly feel really properly settled here. It's a good house with good people and a cat. I fully LOVE having a pet around again.

Apart from that, I'm trying crazy hard to save money - I'm doing May completely dry as it's shoulder season and nothing happens anyway. Also just about to pay the final installment of this year's ski pass - roll on early snow and a good winter!

Other things of note:

• I've been pretty inspired recently by two things to be more motivated. One by example and one through work training, of all places. 
• Thought I had it bad before? I was wrong. This was HARD. 
• Plan = 1 more year sponsored and then I'm going for it. RESIDENCE :)