I still have the big post stewing...the 20th reunion/Cali/back to the grind thing. But I can't do it tonight. So instead some light entertainment.

In my continuing summation of all cool things Kiwi I have two more innovations to present. Neither Earth-shattering in import, but it is the Royales with Cheese of life that really set the tone.

Pants.
There is only one length of pants for men, in most cases. 34 inches. That's it. First clothing store I walked into I asked what length the pants were as they just posted a waist size. The girl looked at me as if I had asked for a filet (fill-a). Which is also unavailable here, but you can get a fillet (fill-ut), if you can overcome your fear of the French to actually pronounce it that way. So the girl had no clue what I was talking about in a major mall clothing retailer. I finally got another employee in another store to discuss it. She explains that it makes stocking much easier and items can be bought in bulk. When I mentioned that all the pants in her store were 2 inches too long for me she smiled and pointed out that I had it easy since any tailor or mother could hem them up, but try adding 2 inches to a pair of jeans. Which explains why all the men here wear stubbies (shorts). Personally, I'd live out of stubbies if work would grok it, so a big thumbs up to the 34 inch autocracy!

Garbage bags.
Kiwis have an issue about littering, in towns at least and certainly much worse the closer you get to the student sector. Not that Alaskans have any room to talk, but the Kiwis are otherwise considerably Greener than the average American, so it stands out a bit. But they have adopted very sensible lifestyle changes to help reduce their footprint. I have mentioned the toilets, the electric switches, the refusal to heat anything. The grocery stores charge five cents per plastic bag, which has made a very visible difference in the months it has been in place. The way they handle garbage bags is a clever novelty in my book (perhaps there are municipalities Stateside using this system, but I have never seen them).
Only official Dunedin City Council garbage bags will be picked up during collection. These bags must be purchased for a nominal fee ($1-4 each depending on the size and retailer). There is no other charge for trash pick-up. This gives you a very strong vested interest in minimizing your waste, recycling all you can, and thus keeping your costs down. If you put out a lot of waste, you pay for it in advance. Clever, elegant, and functional.


Finally, my favorite Kiwi band tonight. Displacing (barely) Little Bushman which produced some great antarctic Jam music at Refuel Saturday night are the Bads, two folks with some serious alt-country chops. It doesn't hurt that they played Chicks Hotel which is quickly becoming one of my favorite venues outside of the Discovery Saloon in Nome. Actually, it is about the same size as the Discovery, is filled with thrift store couches and armchairs, and the majority of the people there are present to HEAR music, so sit on the floor or furniture and pay attention. The only thing it has up on the Discovery is a full bar and a projected screen playing old films on top of the bands.
Back to the Bads. All acoustic show, good story songs, and a solid jangly base. Good stuff. Here is the only video I could find, which has them playing electric and with a much poppier tune than their style tonight. But it gives the idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKhSkMC06M0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthebads.com%2Fvideos.html&feature=player_embedded#t=242

Another, a bit closer to the show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dECX3iQJ5Sg&feature=related

Tomorrow night I'm off to hear an 8 piece funk outfit out of Christchurch, and if that bores there is a very, very, very weird noise outfit (Made for Chickens by Robots) playing Chicks. More later.

Windy day in paradise. Climbed to Flagstaff (highest point in the area, I think) and attempted unsuccessfully to fly a kite. A Professor, an entrepreneur, and a nurse historian walk onto a hill....


Keep noticing odd things down alleyways here in Dunedin. Like New Orleans, most should never see the light of day nor be posted on a public blog. Here are a few exceptions:


Note the caption in the balloon.


Meanwhile, General Franco is still dead. Even more amazingly, Kenai is still alive. Pushing 16.

Back to the States to see the family and a week of reunions. Kids from the ward, old friends, extended clan. 20th High School. I've been thinking for two weeks about what to say about this, and nothing choate has formed. In the end, it has all been said many times and more effectively than I could hope to summon. As we age and the navel gazing becomes more of a necessity than a luxury, thoughts of how we experience reunions of all sorts and the emotions around them become irresistible bits of self-analysis. Sunday's Doonesbury dealt with just this topic:

So I leave the analysis to the professionals. Instead, a story that keeps coming to mind every time I consider the reunion and all the old friends present.

A couple of years back I was in DC for a conference of some sort. The conference was adequately dull for me to justify wandering off onto the Mall and into the Library of Congress. The Library is a complex of three old buildings connected by an incredible system of underground tunnels, reading rooms, vaults, and so on. The public is only allowed into the foyer and the viewing gallery, only those who are Readers (certified and screened) are allowed into the stacks and the other facilities. Needless to say, my certifications were not sufficient.

The foyer has numerous halls running away from the reception area, with doors along each side. As is my wont, I started walking down trying any door not marked with some aggressively censorious note. If it doesn't say don't, then I can. After a bit of wandering and a few sheepish grins to harried bureaucrats in their airless offices, I found a maintenance stairwell going up and down from the floor I was on (I love stairs that go both up and down). Shutting the door behind, I set off.

Upstairs the stairwell ended in a maintenance cubby obviously used for breaks and drinking, judging by the half-stashed whisky bottle and the games of tic-tac-toe scrawled on the wall in marking pencil. The door at the top was open and opened into a dusty attic with windows looking out upon the Mall. After a bit of exploration I sat on one of the window ledges, cracked it open, and smoked a jay while the tourists flowed past below and oblivious. The day was gorgeous.

Fortified and newly intent, I headed back down and past the ground floor into the catacombs. Once I was in the tunnels no one questioned my right to be there, which is a really useful trick. In most bureaucratic organizations, once you are past the outer gate inertia leads everyone to assume that you are where you are supposed to be. A friend once set up cones and used rented equipment to tear up all the pavement in front of a store that had ripped him off protected by the same concept; if you are wearing the orange vest and have a jackhammer, you clearly know what you are doing. He then packed up and left.

So I spent the rest of the day wandering the tunnels, careful not to pass outside of the security ring but otherwise thoroughly enjoying the experience from the actual stacks and reading room down to the Reader's break rooms full of strange academics. At 5 pm I walked out with a group of them and went back to my hotel.

Near as I care to tell, I am fortunate to have a cadre of friends discovered the same way. Opening unmarked doors, talking to the troubled and strange, being in awe rather than terror of the deeply unusual. Many of the people I have met truly live this way, where I only dip my toe and consider myself baptized. The reunions demonstrated what number have learned to love the chaos of our lives, and how many it simply irritates.

So to crib from Mickey Rourke and Charles B: "to all my frieeeends". The artists and the drones. The damaged and the healers. Joyous and bleak. Brilliant and ashen. I love you all greatly, and with my family (whom I am lucky enough to be friends with as well) you have made my life a continuing pleasure.

Even when you irritate the hell out of me.

Since many of my crew were far too stubborn to actually attend the reunion itself, we organized a little gathering the night before at Poplar Street (cousin Josh's great bar). Far too many people to post pics of, but just a smattering;

Travis Herbert and Erica Dillon, both artists in the true sense of the word.

Bob White and Chris Roberts, whom I had not seen in 18 years, it will not be so long again.

Greg Alt, my brother in arms.

Veering back to a different reunion, the McLanes gathered for a feed.

My twin nephews, just turning 16. Can't wait to get to play weird uncle with them. I had fantastic teachers (all props to Gary and Craig).

The newest addition, and the twins youngest brother Miles. Check out the eyes. This boy has p0wer. At least over my father.

Maybe a bit over me as well.

Right, off to bed. Just found out that Karen is so anxious to see me that she showed up at the airport 24 hours early. Air New Zealand put her on a flight anyway (I am beginning to love that airline) and we will see if she can get in from Auckland on standby. If so, I had best get some sleep. Girl wears me out.

Some shots of the Cloud Forest of Leith where we travelled this weekend. Just north of Dunedin, trailhead accessible by one of the endless number of unlabelled back roads in this place that lead somewhere gorgeous.

Kyle ponders his place in it all....



Sam and Weibke.

Only place I have ever hiked that had trees wired for telephony.

A few sights around campus:

The local taggers are hard at work, but these show a bit more imagination. Three different dino stencils in the above amendment to a "No Graffiti Please" sign. Below is a local homage to either Roald Dahl, Gene Wilder, or perhaps both.

Finally this bad boy has dominated the northwest corner of campus for the last week or so. Kind of Mad Max meets Chuck E. Cheese. This is art I would buy.

This country reminds me of Alaska in many ways, but most thoroughly in the wealth of small treasures to be found everywhere you travel.

I have a few posts backed up here as I have been working out some communication issues and travelling like a post-affair congressman.

Qantas.

For my second trip back to the States in a month Qantas was offering a deal out of Christchurch which I jumped on. The flights themselves were comfortable, with nice staff, generous amenities, plenty of room, and on-time. The logistics, on the other hand, left a bit to be desired.

Arriving in Christchurch for my outbound leg I discovered to my dismay that the airline Qantas had booked me upon for the leg to Auckland had no one there. Literally. The entire end of the terminal was abandoned except for an old guy with a suspicious resemblance to Scruffy from Futurama pushing a broom. After some asking around I found that no-one would, in fact, be in. They cancelled and rerouted my flights without telling me. Getting Qantas on the line, they seemed surprised that I had not gleaned this through osmotic data gathering of some sort and implied that it was my fault that I had missed the rescheduled flight two hours earlier. After a discussion of this point, the young lady on the phone rebooked me at which juncture I asked for an upgrade for my trouble. She said she would try.

Needless to say when I was preparing to leave Auckland nothing had been done, not even a request for an upgrade or a note to me to tell me what had happened. As a matter of fact, Qantas holds the record in my experience of least likely to reply to customer issues of any big airline. When I called to ask the status, a young man spoke to me, went to discuss this with the young lady in question, and came back to tell me that I had basically made up the part of the conversation regarding the upgrade. I submitted a question online regarding this shortly after, and nobody has bothered to reply. So be it. When I arrived in the States I looked at the new itinerary and realized that my returning flights had been made unworkable by Qantas' changes as well. Another hour on the phone to work that out. No apologies, no upgrades, just my lost time.

So as I said, nice flight, but the customer service is shit. Air New Zealand keeps my dollars.

While waiting for my 747 to leave Auckland, I did notice a few things on the briefing cards. First, a nice view on the bottom here of how Qantas apparently sees their relations with their customers:

Lastly, the list of prohibited electronic items. It shows a Furby. Do you remember Furbies? I barely do. As I recall they made some vocalizations and the eyes and mouth moved creepily. Why this would be banned, and in what way Furbies merit specific mention is beyond me. Is there something about Aussies and Furbies that is not mentioned to outsiders? Should I be frightened of kids with nasal accents clutching vegemite-stained animatronic toys in public places? Not to mention that you cannot use pocket calculators during the ascent or descent. No math for you, have some passenger pellets instead.

Plus, the All Blacks thumped the Wallabies last night. So chew on that, Qantas.