Milford Track Highlights

Finally, the third week of our trip was a "luxury hike" through Fiordland National Park, with some of the best scenery of my life. "Luxury hike" means that each day, we'd hike around 10 miles to a lodge where we'd have hot showers, delicious meals, and a comfy bed, as opposed to the independent hikers who made do with packing their own ramen, pots, and sleeping gear.

Favorite pics and video:

Waterfalls on every side.

My current desktop.

Fording a creek.

Mountain lilies backdropped by a valley.

Top of MacKinnon Pass - the best view of my life so far.

Mackay Falls.

Waterfalls surrounding our trail. See a video.

Notable foods:
Salmon rillete
Rack of lamb
Chocolate lava cake

All albums:
Day 1 - Glade House
Day 2 - Pomplona Lodge
Day 3 - MacKinnon Pass
Day 4 - Mitre Peak
Day 5 - Milford Sound

New Zealand (non-Milford Track) Highlights

The second week of our vacation was spent in New Zealand, a country that we've both been wanting to visit for a long time. For me, the appeal lies in two primary things:

1) The entire country is described as a huge national park, filled with mountains, rivers, and lakes - my favorite natural setting.

2) It's where they filmed "The Lord of the Rings", some of my favorite movies of all time.

So, we decided to take an LOTR tour in addition to driving around drinking in the scenery, as well as doing a microlight flight and checking out some entertaining venues.

Since the Facebook import of these blogs doesn't correctly import the embedded video, here's a list of favorite links to photos and videos to check out:

If you're a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, check out the album for the tour. I put in links to the screen captures from the movie at each film site we visited.

Video of Abel Tasman National Park from a microlight flight 1000 feet up.

Shally "drinking" from a waterfall near Franz Josef Glacier.

From Wanaka's Puzzling World: Fun with perspective.

Definitely check out this video, giving you an idea of how they used camera tricks in Lord of the Rings to fool the eye into seeing different sizes.

One of my favorite scenic shots. This is what I felt like for most of the trip - very, very small.

Watching people bungee jump at the birthplace of bungee near Queenstown.

The clear waters of Lake Wakatipu.

Scenic shot of the Remarkables mountain range.

Notable food items:
Braised lamb shoulder
Excellent butter and cheese due to happy cows grazing on fresh grass all the time.

All photo albums:
Wellington
Franz Josef Glacier
Wanaka
Arrowtown
Queenstown

Australia Highlights

Sydney

All Sydney pictures - with captions and stories

The best way I could describe Sydney is "a more modern, cleaner, warmer San Francisco." You have the bay/harbor, an iconic bridge, wharf, and a very diverse ethnic makeup. Since they speak English and use the dollar, we did not feel very much culture shock at all - it was a comfortable adjustment.

Links to random highlights and pictures. Since we wrote so much in the captions for the pictures, won't really need to re-write everything here. If you only check out a few pics:

The ferry to Manly Beach and Taronga Zoo is the best and most economical way ($5.50 one way) to get the best view of the skyline.

The Taronga Zoo is an awesome place to check out the diverse and unique Australian wildlife, as well as plenty of other interesting animals from around the globe, backdropped by the gorgeous view of the skyline. In particular, we got a kick out of:

• The firefox
• Kangaroos and wallabies
• Emu - incidentally, the kangaroo and emu are both on the Australian logo
• The free-flight bird show is entertaining with trained owls and other birds flying right above your head to get to the trainer, all with the best view in the background
• Of course, the koala

We were fortunate to be in Sydney at the time of the International Food Festival, similar to San Francisco's "Dine About Town", a month where restaurants have cheaper tasting menus, there are different exhibits about different countries' cuisine, etc. During our 3 days, we experienced the Night Noodle Market in Hyde Park, which was a great atmosphere with locals hanging out with food and wine during great weather.

The beaches in Sydney are world-renowned destinations for surfers, and are great places to just hang out. We went to Manly Beach on the ferry, getting great pictures on the boat and then watched the surfers try to navigate the waves.

Walking through the Botanic Gardens next to the Sydney Opera House is pleasant, feels like many urban parks like Central Park in Manhattan. I like this picture.

Notable foods:

Fish and chips at the famous Doyle's seafood restaurant.

The gozleme (a Turkish quesadilla) from the Night Noodle Market.

We had yogurt mixed with different fruits most days for breakfast. In particular, passionfruit seems more widely available across the Pacific.

The braised pork belly with horseradish mustard at Azuma's izakaya. Definitely one of the top 3 foods we had all vacation.

The tiger pie, a popular hangover food from Harry's Cafe de Wheels - meat pie topped with mashed potatoes, mushy peas, and gravy.

The kangaroo and emu pizza from the Australian Hotel. Kangaroo is really tasty.

Finally, this guy was playing the didgeridoo (traditional aboriginal instrument) accompanied by a techno drum beat - surprisingly cathy:

Final thoughts:

3 days is about right for visiting Sydney. If you're from California, the "international-ness" of the city is not nearly as unique as the guidebooks make it sound. Definitely visit the zoo, the beach, and take a ferry.

Cairns / Great Barrier Reef

All Cairns/Great Barrier Reef pictures

It was kind of neat that on the same trip, we were able to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef and also visit glaciers in New Zealand - two natural formations that are slowly disappearing/dying out due to global warming. We haven't gotten our pictures developed from our underwater camera yet

A few thoughts

After finally getting the hang of snorkeling, I was able to enjoy vistas like this and this. Coral and fish of all different colors, sizes, shapes. I wasn't able to spot a Nemo clownfish (Shally did) but I did see a whole bunch of Dorys. We only saw one turtle from the boat, none from the water.

It was definitely worth spending one night on a boat anchored off the Reef rather than taking a boat out from the city twice in two days for snorkeling - the boat rides out can lead to a considerable amount of seasickness.

Catch up on Lost in 8:15

Happy New Year everyone! Just got back from a vacation visiting friends and my brother in Las Vegas and LA, will have some highlights up soon as well as some 2007 reflections once I get the change to go back through my journals.

In the meantime, Lost is returning at the end of this month (albeit for only 8 eps due to the writer's strike). To get caught back up, you can go to wikipedia and read up in detail on what happened, or you can watch this cleverly edited video:



Who are the Others? Who was on the freighter? Who gets off the island? How many questions can really be answered in 8 episodes? We'll see soon...

On napping and 24

Useful sleep info

As I've gotten to know more people, I've come to realize that I've been blessed with a pretty good "sleep biology." I fall asleep easily, I'm not overly sensitive to noise, I'm not such a deep sleeper that I miss alarms, and I can sleep most anywhere. I generally avoid naps, however, unless I happen to be in the car or a moving vehicle of some sort (I sometimes snatch a 20 minute nap on the train ride back from work).

According to the MetroNaps website (which supplies special corporate sleeping pods for our tech support people working at odd hours and weekends), there are a few interesting facts and tips with regard to naps and sleeping:

- your body's natural rhythm will dip between 6-8 hrs after waking, which can be counteracted with a 20 minute power nap. For most engineers, this would correspond to around the 2-4 pm timeframe... which I guess is when food coma hits post-lunch
- to avoid grogginess, nap less than 30 minutes, or 1.5-2 hrs to make sure you don't interrupt a sleep cycle
- to avoid jetlag flying east, sleep on the plane, arrive in the morning, eat a substantial healthy breakfast, and stay up all day
- to avoid jetlag flying west, avoid sleep on the plane, arrive in the evening, eat dinner, and go to sleep early

Springtime TV in jeopardy

On a completely different note, the writers' strike in Hollywood has postponed "24" indefinitely and Lost only has scripts for around 8 episodes ready. Will the absence of serialized dramas lead to a ton more reality shows on TV? I guess I'll just stick to the NBA. The Warriors can't lose every game this season. The Celtics look awesome, and the Spurs haven't gotten off to their usual slow start. Side note, not playing fantasy hoops means that I'm not reading box scores daily for the first time in 7-8 years. It's actually kinda freeing.

For the folks who are bracing for 24 withdrawal (although with last season's craptacular plotline, there probably aren't too many), here's an amusingly hilarious spoof from collegehumor.com - "24" set in the year 1994:



The early 90's era references I could spot:
- Kiefer's long hair grunge-style
- pager/pay phone
- huge wireless phone
- dot matrix printer
- lycos
- floppy disks
- AOL/hourly internet
- Nancy Kerrigan
- modem
- dropped internet from the phone pickup
- VHS
- film photography
- Windows 3.1 system clock
- Prodigy
- geocities

Underdog story

The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit. - Proverbs 15:4

You've got remarkable, world-class talent hidden inside. You've even paid your own way to take lessons from the world masters, and they thought you weren't bad. But years of people bullying you when you were younger, and an unfortunately timed accident a few years ago derailed your dreams of doing what you thought you were created to do... and now you're stuck selling cell phones while wrestling to muster up the confidence to give your dream one more shot.

Then you see an opportunity - an open audition for your country's popular televised talent show. You're scared witless... but something compels you to pay the registration fee and show up to your audition in front of 2000 people, a national audience, a worldwide internet audience, and 3 of the most well-known talent scouts in the world.

This is the story of Paul Potts.




As the winner of this year's "Britain's Got Talent" competition, I think this exemplifies the Biblical principle of how an encouraging word can give someone the confidence to proceed (the judge's feedback), contrasted against how discouraging words can crush (the bullying from earlier in life). Watching the first video, you can clearly tell that the judges have low expectations of Paul - I'm guessing Simon was having William Hung flashbacks. What I love though, is how over the course of the performance, you see their faces change from "critic mode" to stunned to just simply enjoying the moment. Moments like that in life are few and far between.

Makes me wonder... how many great talents have been squelched because of people who belittled them, such as parents or others? And who are the people in my life that I can help blossom through an encouraging word or two?

I'll admit, I think of myself as a crusty old fart, but this story made me well up... once. Watch it... it can put a little spring in your step for a while.

Ever wanted to have blood coming out of your ears and eyes?

Watch this video.

It's one of those that gets better with every viewing.

Rhythm and basketball

I'm a big fan of layered drum beats and rhythms. I'm also a basketball diehard. So just for fun, here's a couple of videos that combine the two:

Nike's groundbreaking TV commercial that had everyone talking


An extended version of the commercial above


"Stomp Out Loud"



The layered mix of rhythm, with different people "playing" different beats, reminds me of this innovative Beck video from SNL:

The future of photography and social networking?

This video is a demo of one of the cooler technologies I've seen all year. I know George, Alex, and all the other photographers ought to be all over this:

Weekly musings

This week's links and thoughts...

How to be the perfect boyfriend/girlfriend

Videos of the week, courtesy of Alex. While funny (in a British humor kind of way), there's actually a decent amount of truth in these about the ways men and women are and relate to each other.

VideoJug: How To Be The Perfect Boyfriend

Favorite points: It's important to seem interested no matter how confused you are, because girls value communication above everything... Deodorant is for after the shower, not instead of it.


VideoJug: How To Be The Perfect Girlfriend

Favorite points: Men like grunting, fighting, and measuring things... Men like explaining things.

Radio

While my music tastes have evolved mostly into rock and folk with a strong focus on a "band" sound and strong songwriting, there are occasional times where I just want to listen to some of the amusing, brainless pop/hip-hop/R&B music from back in the '90s during junior high and high school when I first started listening to music. Now that Movin' 99.7 has reformatted itself from an oldies station to "modern" pop/hip-hop/R&B current and classic stuff, I'll occasionally tune in to catch stuff from C&C Music Factory, Diddy, MC Hammer, and classic Madonna and Michael and Janet Jackson. Check it out to be transported back in time.

Look, I'm still young-ish!

Last week I joined Facebook, which, for those not in the know, is a social networking site akin to Friendster, except, well, successful. It's made significant inroads into impacting the modern high school and college culture - being able to leave messages for people, post profiles, and neat features like being able to post photo albums and then tag the photos with your friends' names so they can click on their own name and see the photos where they show up in albums other than their own. I rarely check it, but it's a nice vehicle outside blogger to keep tabs on what's going on with the high schoolers.

Kindred spirit

I've read with some interest the story and politics of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, due to the flood of national media coverage as well as Danny's unabashed fandom. I like a lot of what he has to say, but one thing that is definitely a point in his favor? While other candidates play baseball or football, Obama plays blacktop hoops. The article mentions that one reason he sees the court as a sanctuary of sorts is because the game is a great equalizer - you may be teamed with a powerful Congressman and a blue collar construction worker, but during the game it's all about winning and taking on whoever's got next. The article's description of his game: "Barack Obama is a wily player of pickup basketball, the version of the game with unspoken rules, no referee and lots of elbows. He has been playing since adolescence, on cracked-asphalt playgrounds and at exclusive health clubs, developing a quick offensive style, a left-handed jump shot and relationships that have extended into the political arena."

Best. Commercial. Ever.

This? Looks like so much fun:



EDIT ADD: Danny chimed in to add these clips of grownups doing kid games:





Also, Mike P discovered that the folks at Google Maps (Double True!) have a sense of humor: here.

Weekend recap and other recent thoughts

A bunch of us bid farewell to Esther this past weekend, who's heading down to LA to getready for the wedding and marriage to Dr. Andy. Had a nice time reminiscing about various memories from the last couple of years. I was already missing Andy from my primary weekly community (even though his frequent visits the last few months mitigated that some), and now it'll be even more apparent that they're not around anymore. I'm still excited to see how God shapes their new life together in SoCal.

Also, I'll be spending a week with them (and Mike P) in Tokyo in about a week and a half. Looking forward to getting a glimpse of a new culture! I have an awful lot of background reading to do before then (hello, Wikipedia!) so I have some idea of what to look at. Can't rely just on the Simpsons for my education:


Remarkable happening: I ran my streak in Bang! games of dying first to 6 straight, complete with the unlikely hat trick of dying first 3 times in 2 games on Sunday (I got resurrected by a special card and promptly died again). Man, I stink.

Saturday night, Shally and I were generously given some tickets by Phoebe to a neighborhood concert at 1st Presbyterian Church in downtown San Jose, called "Downtown Sounds: Faith With a Beat." We got to hear some piano-based Gospel, some rap/hip-hop, and Stanfurd's a capella group Testimony. The latter was actually quite good - they took some well-known CCM songs such as "Shackles" by Mary Mary, "Liquid" by Jars, and even "The Papaya Song" and jazzed them up with the vocal arrangements and harmonies (including a beatbox rhythm performed by a girl - usually I've seen guys do the beatboxing). I actually ended up picking up their album - yes, yes, I gave money to Stanfurd. No big deal, right? S and I then hit up Cluck U's (University Chicken) afterward for a late night hot wing dinner. Tasty.

Speaking of Stanfurd, saw this written on ESPN this morning... harsh, but kinda funny:

Stanford upset No. 3 UCLA 75-68 last night in a victory that saw Cardinal fans rush out of the stands after the final buzzer as though Carrie Fisher suddenly appeared at midcourt in her Princess Leia costume. Then there was a lot of awkward nerd jumping and high-fiving. And then I presume the excited few who didn't succumb to asthma attacks or have their frail bodies trampled headed off to storm a comic book shop en masse.

Star Wars fan? Must-read article here on how some of the events in Episodes 4-6 need to be reinterpreted based on what we now know from the prequels. For example, the writer asserts that R2-D2 and Chewbacca are the Rebellion's top field agents and real "stars".

Significance

I'm not a particularly emotional person... I rarely tear up and I don't think I've full-on cried since over 5 years ago. But I think there was something about watching the end of Andre Agassi's tennis career in the following video that got to me and me choke up just a little bit (note that I still didn't cry!):



Back in high school when I was still playing tennis, Agassi was known as the "rebel punk" player, who eventually grew up into perhaps the most well-respected elder statesmen of his generation. He's won Grand Slam titles, he's dated Brooke Shields, and he's had a kid with Steffi Graf, perhaps the preeminent women's player of our time as well.

What I think gets me about this video is seeing the way one man's lifelong dedication and effort in perfecting his craft was appreciated by every fan who knew that they were seeing a once-in-a-lifetime individual. He grew up on stage, with everyone watching, and received a lengthy salute as a reward.

I think there's something inside every person who desires to know that they mean something to people. Most people want to be significant. Not everyone will get a standing ovation from thousands of people... but we ought to be able to make some kind of difference.

Robocop vs...

I'll have original content soon, I promise! But courtesy of Andrew W, I wanted to draw your attention to these surprisingly well-made fan movies depicting mano a mano clashes between favored fictional super characters, which has been discussed on my blog before. These videos show good old Robocop taking on the Terminator and Neo (from the Matrix):

After these messages...

Will be back (hopefully) shortly with a personal update, but until then, check out some links:

Electric car out-drag races Porsche and Ferrari


"Oops I Did It Again" - in classical music form (courtesy of Andrew N):


People don't take vacations anymore
Check out the articles The Rise of Shrinking-Vacation Syndrome and Please Don’t Make Me Go on Vacation for some interesting facts about how Americans are taking less and less vacation time. For example, a Gallup survey showed that 43% of Americans surveyed had no summer vacation plans, and a separate one showed 60% who were not taking a vacation in the next 6 months. Very few people ever take 2 weeks off at a time, and 1 in 5 people do work on vacation - a number that is steadily rising due to the proliferation of laptops, Blackberrys, and cell phones.

To try and do my part to reverse this no-vacation American trend, I'll be heading to Hawaii for the first time in November (Oahu). Oughta be fun.

Interesting movies

Fun flicks from around the web:

The Muppet Matrix
Yay for 3d animation!


Inhuman Korean archery
These archers shoot:
- an apple at 70 meters
- an egg at 70 meters
- a soybean at 30 meters
- an arrow into another arrow



Ready for Lost Season 3?
Here's a baffling and surprising clip about some of the mythos surrounding the Dharma Foundation, pieced together from the various multimedia Lost sites out there (first found at this site):



Finally, here's a fun clip of a guy getting jiggy wit' it on DDR.

Movie Mistakes

Ever found yourself watching a movie, then doing a double-take and wondering, "Did I just see that?" You may have seen a mistake, like the ones collected in this video:

Nostalgia

My generation, which had its formative years growing up in America in the 80s and 90s mostly, is reaching the collective age where we have the most disposable income (since we're working jobs and may or may not have house payments and kids' college funds to save up for).

Because of this, it seems like the entertainment industry is doing a lot of flashbacks in order to inspire nostalgia in the folks spending the most money - us. Comic books coming to the movie screen, video games being updated with new graphics but keeping the same gameplay (like the Mario Bros compilation, for example), and the Transformers movie coming out next summer... everything seems to be aimed at helping us get in touch with our inner child again.

On a related note, I came across this video from the classic NES game Contra. Contra was probably my favorite game growing up (up up down down left right left right b a start!), and my greatest gaming accomplishment was to get from the first level to the last level on 1 life. The key is to get the spreader weapon with rapid fire on the first level, which just demolishes everything. Well, this guy utilizes this strategy and some impeccable timing to beat the entire game in less than 12 minutes - it's pretty impressive to watch:

Random links

Interesting news, posts, and movies from around the web...

- Superman showdown - ever wonder what would happen if Superman had to take on a Jedi, a Sith, the Death Star, the X-men, Galactus, Gandalf, or Harry Potter? Check out this article for some of the breakdown. We do know that Batman has taken Superman down before with Kryptonite-laced boxing gloves...

- Kong vs. 3 T-Rex's - View the entire wildly entertaining fight scene between King Kong and 3 tyrannosaurs from the movie "Kong". As one of the comments put it, "When did Kong take lessons from Steven Seagal?" You can see him using some aikido-style moves, utilizing the momentum of his opponents to throw them into each other.

- Transformers: The Movie teaser trailer - I have some grave misgivings about this live-action movie, but the fact that Spielberg is attached to the project gives me some hope. The trailer is kind of fun too.

- I'm suffering a little bit from NBA withdrawal... hm, just realized that I haven't commented on the league since before the end of the Finals! The Heat are a worthy champion, and Dallas just choked... but they'll stay among the elite level for the next few seasons. Dwyane Wade is one of the more entertaining players in the league to watch, but I wonder if his body is going to start breaking down before he turns 30 (in 6 years) due to the pounding he takes from his style of play.

Warriors may be in the running for Al Harrington or Richard Jefferson after trading Derek Fisher for essentially cap space. Either one would provide some punch in the starting lineup (the Dunleavy-Murphy pairing sorely needs upgrading), but the real impetus for change would be Baron getting in shape and playing a full season.

The Pistons lost Big Ben to the Bulls, in a move which appears to make Chicago a team to reckon with over the next few seasons. this writer has an interesting take on the reasons behind the perhaps-exorbitant deal for the not-so-young-anymore Wallace - basically, that teams in the Eastern Conference have a 2-3 year window to win a championship before Lebron, DWade, and Dwight Howard begin dominating on an annual basis, so basically you need to push your chips all-in now. Interesting hypothesis.

Awe-inspiring basketball video: This is labeled a 720 degree dunk, but is probably closer to 540 - it's still jaw-dropping all the same.

- When is it not distasteful to praise someone with $9.25 billion in the bank? When he gives the other $37 billion of his fortune to charity. Kudos to Buffett and Gates. Hey, even if you hate Microsoft's business practices and software, you have to give appropriate due to the charity work that Gates and his wife are doing.

- Here's an interesting read on gender roles within the church. Any thoughts on whether his take is on or not?

- Finally, try this link to see how fast you can type! Clicking on the text area will bring up a portion of text for you to type. If you make mistakes, you need to correct them before the timer stops ticking and gives you your words/minute rate (note: they only want 1 space after periods, rather than the customary 2 spaces). After familiarizing myself with the interface, I tried it maybe 5-6 times and got top scores of: 160.67 wpm w/ 0 mistakes, 143.92 wpm w/ 0 mistakes, and 142.67 wpm w/ 1 mistake.

[geek] LOL! [/geek]

In lieu of thoughtful content, here are a few recent Youtube videos that made laugh out loud. It helps if you're familiar with Star Wars and Star Trek to get all the little in-jokes. Thanks to Andrew W for the SW link:


Favorite line: "What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?"


Favorite line: "Dope" (while flashing the Vulcan sign).