Christmas Time

Ultra Quick Holiday Recap
Christmas Eve: Dinner cooked by Scooter and Shep (I know, I was shocked too). Followed by Christmas Movies.

Christmas Day: Went to the beach (very kiwi) and rode around baxis just for fun. Attempted and failed to have a BBQ

Boxing Day: Went to local wine country and rode bikes between vinyards. Good times.

Past weekend: Went hiking and stayed in a hut in the mountains. Still sore.

New Years Plans: Working (baxi) planning on stopping by civic square party.

In other news:

No longer worked for ministry of justice, contract over. Hoping to get work as substitute teachers aid for preschool.

Working on writing. Currently working on a story/novella. It is about a seventeen year old boy who works in an Italian restaurant. Loosely based on my own experiences working in a restaurant at sixteen. Was supposed to be under 7500 words. Looking to be closer to 20,000. Oops. Details to come.

Slowly reading 'Paradise Lost' by John Milton. Whew. It's ambitious. Finding it mildly disconcerting that the characters I admire most right now are the fallen angels (Satan and his crew).

Struggling to not be totally lazy now that I have free times. Feels like an uphill battle.

I have a few topics that I want to blog about. I have some more free time now so there should be a few posts in the next week.


Joey

After hours and really really big invertibrates.

So I've been doing the 8-5 thing for the first time in my life. It's not so bad mostly because I don't really do anything at my job. In fact I was told to move offices 2.5 weeks ago and I just never did it (no one has said anything yet).

The biggest downside is really, the time it takes up. I'm here, in New Zealand and I only have so much time. Lately I felt I had been falling into a rut during weekdays. Just working and going home. So I'm going to try to refocus my efforts on making the most of these days. Yesterday I had a very nice one.

After work I met Henry and Ben at the Te Papa National Museum, one of the true treasures of Wellington and the entire country. I had already been there a number of times, but was coming back for a new exhibition, one of the most exciting in the museums history. Recently New Zealand fisherman caught the largest Colossal Squid , yet discovered in tact. It was an amazing find and luckily the fisherman new it was something worth saving and froze it. A year or so later it has just been put on public display in the museum, the only colossal squid (the worlds largest invertebrate) in the world on museum display. It one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I saw a giant squid (different) in London once, which was great, but nothing like this. It is the most foreign looking animal I have ever seen and is more likely to evoke imagines of movie aliens than anything else. I won't fully describe it here but check out the link they, are truly amazing.

After that, since the day was gorgeous (you can't beat a good day in Wellington) Henry and I were going to go Mt. Biking, but my knee wasn't feeling up to it. Instead we went down to the water and worked on some stuff (he worked on his camp application, I worked through some edits on a story) and talked. At 8 it was starting to get chilly (though still not dark yet) so we moved on to one of the many Wellington Cafes. This one is called Midnight Espresso. While there we did a little more work but mostly got caught up in talking about a business that we are considering opening when we are back stateside. Were aren't sure if we are going to go for it, but we love talking about it and as time goes on it is seeming more likely, not less.

All and all a really nice evening. I should have more of those.


Joey

Christmas...

here is a bit weird.  It's like, summer.  To be fair summer here isn't that different from winter in Arizona, but still, its weird.  It just doesn't really feel like Christmas time.  I think the Christmas imagery is just way less pervasive here.  I can't believe Christmas is on Thursday, its just, I don't know, weird.  Christmas BBQ's are quite popular.  Whatever.  I think Pjay and I are going to go Mt. biking for Christmas.  

People seem way more excited about the fact that it is summer, which is fair.  Apparently summer here is amazing.  There is a saying, "you can't beat Wellington on a good day".  Most of those are in the summer I guess so I suppose things will be tough to beat.  There is like 30 free outdoor concert during January alone so we're pretty pumped about that.  

We just spent the last 3 hours watching UofA play BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl on Ben's laptop.  We tried to find a bar that would get it.  Unfortunatly the Australasia ESPN feed was only playing NFL football.  Still we made some chicken wings, drank beer, and watched football.  It's good to get back to ones roots.

Joey

Kissing

So I was just reading that a friend of mine claims she has kissed 10 boys. It got me thinking; in my adult life of 5.5 years (everyone knows when you turn 18 your record is wiped clean) how many girls have I kissed?

I clearly had to set some criteria as to what constituted a legit 'kiss'. Here is what I came up with:

-First of all it had to be at least 5 seconds. Anything less than that is just a bit of silliness. (note: in the end any that were over 5 seconds ended up being generally much longer, other than one that was about 5-10 minutes the rest were all firmly in 30 minutes + range). 

-It could not be part of a game or in any other way obligatory.

I also decided that I wanted to examine some statistics other than just quantity

So I decided to ask these questions:

What was their nationality?
What was their race?
What was their age relative to mine? (based on school year if they were students)
Was that only time we kissed?(time meaning that 24 hour period beginning with the first kiss)
Were they an Ultimate Player: For non ultimate players this one takes a bit of explaining. Ultimate players have a well earned reputation of getting involved with other players, a lot. There are two reasons for this I think. The first is that ultimate communities are tight nit and often times players don't really get outside them much which isn't always a good thing. The second is that by and large ultimate players as a group are: educated, like minded, socially outgoing, and athletic (therefore often attractive) people. The women I meet through ultimate are simply more likely to be someone I'd be attracted to.
Did I regret it at any point?
The was actually one last catagory as well, but this remains a wholesome blog so I will leave it out.


So being a bit of a geek I put it all on an excel spreadsheet and here are the results, many were surprising to me.


Number of girls: 14

I thought this would be higher, for some reason I was expecting more like 20. I'm pleased with the lower number, that's just a little over a couple girls a year. That seems rather choosy to me.

Nationality:

USA 10
Czech Republic 1
Mexico 1
New Zealand 1
The Netherlands 1

Race:
European non-latina 11
Latina 1
Indian 1
Hawaiian Pacific 1

Age Relative to mine:
Same 6
Younger 6
Older 2

Avg difference = 0 

Note: this may seem strange, there is one data point which is pulling up the average. If you call it an error (and I mean that purely in the mathematical sense) and eliminate it then the average would be a half a year younger.

Number of girls I only kissed the one time: 5

Number of Ultimate players: 7

Number that I regretted at some point: 4

Using the filter function I tried to see if any interesting results jumped out (I know, I'm being a bad scientist, bad statistician, and below average excel user here. I'm sorry).

Anyway I found that it was significantly more likely I regretted it if it only happened once, no big surprise there.

I found the absolute age difference (doesn't matter if younger or older, just how far away from my age) was higher (2.4) for single occurrences than for multiple occurrences (1.3). 

However those can mostly be chalked up to coincidence do to the small amount of data.  Then again,  I suppose I have no one to blame for that but myself.

XOXOXOXOXO

Joey

Three Good Things

I went to Christchurch this past weekend for the co-ed ultimate championships (not that impressive actually, there are only 10 teams in the country). My team got 4th, which was better than I expected, I actually played very well and the weekend did a lot to redeem some lukewarm feelings I had towards my experience with the team.

Henry is picking up the car we bought. A 1995 Honda Oddysey. It is a great deal. The guy bought it from a dealership 6 months ago for 5500 NZD. We are getting it for 2020 NZD. He has to leave the country tomorrow. I officially drive a rugby mom car.

I have a coffee date (I think it's a date) tonight with a girl named Dana. She is older than me but I don't know by how much, don't especially care though. I met her this weekend. She's pretty. And nice. That is most of what I can say at this point. Unfortunatly she lives in Auckland. So it goes.

Surviving the Game

Note: The title of this post is stolen from the film of the same name; an adventure film starring Ice-T in which he plays a bum taken to the forrest and hunted for sport by wealthy businessmen. This post has nothing to do with that somewhat below average film

While in Wellington biking has clearly remained a big part of my life. It has basically taken on three forms; work (baxi), recreation (mt. biking), and last but not least transportation. Up until now my single speed mountain bike is my sole form of transportation (that may change soon, we are trying to buy a car). I am a full-time commuter, I go to my 8-5 job everyday on my bike parking it in the garage with the one other bike in a building that serves hundreds. Sometimes I ride in a change of clothes, but often I just wear my work clothes. The morning are cool and the ride is almost completely downhill so I never work up a sweat. Coming back is a another story, with the long days it is still warm at 5pm and I have to go up some steep hill for a single speed.









It isn't just work though, it's everything: grocery shopping (those hills become twice as hard with 20 pounds of groceries on your back), going to practice, going anywhere really. Because of this I have spent a lot of time on my bike, a great deal of which has been in the CBD of Wellington; an area of tight one way streets, lots of traffic, and pedestrians with less regard for street lights than any I have seen. In such a city, when riding you have two choices. Option A: be patient and act as a as a car, waiting you 'turn' and maybe sometimes scooting ahead of stopped traffic. Option B: See how fast you can get where you are going with dying.


Okay, perhaps it isn't as binary as that, but nonetheless I find myself increasingly drifting towards option B. Here the thing, riding your bike it traffic during rush hour plodding along is not fun, but riding your bike really fast during rush hour is really really fun. It is hard for it not to become a game; can I make that light, squeeze in that gap, pass the other guy. I leave the office, attach my single earbud to my right ear (only one ear bud, I need to be able to hear, safety first you know) on my ipod, go to some upbeat pop music (Peter Gabriel good, Britney bettter, Ace of Bass, there it is) and just go. When I am able to combine good timing with some luck and everything just falls into place, its such a great feeling. It is intoxicating, passing by and through this whole world, leaving it behind you. When I pass a bunch of cars on my bike it feels like winning as the underdog and I love being the underdog. The only problem is that this game don't have no Game Genie, giving you unlimited free lives. No this is more like when you were at the arcade and mom only gave you one god damn quarter and when you put it in you knew that this had to be the best Donkey Kong game of your life because there wasn't going to be another if you died.

If I had to predict the way I thought I was most likely to die in the next five years, riding my bike wouldn't be a bad bet. Not that that I think it is likely but people do die doing this, even ostensibly more safer riders then myself. In fact in my job at the corner's office I have input data about two bike deaths; one person got 'doored' (parked car opened a door in their path) and another moved into the path of a passing car on a country road.



However I wouldn't want you to think that I just race down the road being careless and endagering myself. I consider what I do safe. There are a lot of factors contributing to safety beyond just how aggressive you are. I do a lot of things that are more safe then other cyclists or drivers. First and foremost when I am riding throught the city I am completely focused on it. Not only am not doing other things (talking on my phone, adjusting the music, eating, et cetera) I am also not thinking about anything else. I am completely engaged in the task at hand. Most people look passively in front of them, and maybe to the side if they are changing lanes. I am constantly scanning around seeing what is in front of me , behind me, where there are cars and people. I am making predictions as to what is going to happen next in this space. When I drive I think in terms most of the space directly in front of me. On a bike I see the big picture, how it all interacts.

So as long as I remember to keep vigilant, watch out passing on the left before a turn, avoid sidewalks as much as I can (though they are so tempting), and don't push it too far I think I can make this quarter last a while. Then again, I suppose that is what everyone thinks.

Joey

FAQ

So as many of you know I have been working as a 'pilot' for baxi, a bike taxi company. People talk to me constantly throughout the night; some are interested in a ride, some just want to talk, others are jerks. So I have compiled a list of frequently asked questions I get and my usual responses.

Q: How much does it cost?
A: Depends where you're going. Usually 5-20$.

Q: Can I have a free ride?
A: No

Q: Please?
A: No.

Q: How far do you go?
A: Oriental Bay, Basin Reserve, Train Station, Bottom of Aro Valley and anywhere in between.

Q: How about Lower Hutt? (a suburb man miles away. This question inevitably cracks people up. Feel free to replace Lower Hutt with any place very far away or very high up. The hilarity is just as strong).
A: I'll do it for 1000$ (or more)

Q: How many can you take?
A: Only 2

Q: How about 3?
A: No

Q: What if she sits on my lap?
A: No

Q: What it I gave you an extra 5 dollars?
A: No

Q:C'mon
A: No. Sorry.

Q: How long have you guys been doing this?
A: About a month and a half.

Q: You must keep pretty fit doing this, eh?
A: Ya, I do okay.

Q: Can I touch your thigh (calf, butt, et cetera)?
A: Sure.

Q: How much to Porirua?
A: 1500$ Up Front.

Q: Do you get paid hourly?
A: Nope, I just hire out the bike and whatever I make on top of that is mine to keep.

Q: Do you pay taxes?
A: Umm, sure.

Q: What are you doing later?
A: (Depends on who is asking)

Q: Where are you from
A: The States, Arizona.

Q: Can I get a free ride, just to up there, please?
A: Sorry but like my Grandpa always says, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Q: Are you absolutely knackered (tired)?
A: No, I'm fine. (This transitions from the truth to a lie as the night goes on).

Q: How much money do you make in a night.
A: Oh it depends on the tips. (Real answer: 100$-150%$ dollars most friday, saturday nights)

Q: Do you like this job?
A:Ya, it's sweet as.