Journal of New Zealand Uploaded
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I recently pulled all my journal entries I wrote while in New Zealand off of Facebook and put them in PDF form. They are complete with pictures, stories of adventure, danger, love and heartbreak. Be warned the file size is fairly large. Soon I will try to convert everything to HTML and make a page out of it. You can find the journal here
Ubuntu Linux Inspiron 1720 Fixes
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There are a few last things I wanted to get to work with my laptop, mainly the webcam and microphone. I would go into detail on how I got them to work with Ubuntu but I found this great page : To install Ubuntu-7.04 on Dell Inspiron 1520 Which is for the 1520, but should work for 1720 as well. Good luck everyone.
TSST corp Linux Problems
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My installation of Ubuntu went pretty smoothly besides the Nvidia drivers and one other problem: my TSSTcorp TS L632d ATA dvdr + rw drive was not recognized by linux. In fact it was straight invisible. Hwinfo showed nothing. Dmesg | grep cdrom showed even less. I started to think that I might have a serious bug to work out. However, the fix was simple. I was doing some searches through google and linuxquestions.org when I cam across a post about the live cd not booting. It was for people who have SATA harddrives, which I thought had nothing to do with the dvd drive but the described effects were the same. The fix is to simply run “modprobe piix” in order to install the correct module. When I did, the audio cd popped up on my desktop immediately. Who would have thought? In order to make the fix permanent, I edited the “/etc/initramfs-tools/modules” file to include piix at the end. Then I ran “update-initramfs -u” to update the config, restarted and everything is working perfectly. I hope anyone who is having this same problem runs accross this post. Cheers.
To The Woman that Cleaned my Teeth
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To the woman who cleaned my teeth. Dear Ms Chen, I know I havent been to the dentist in nearly a year. I know I was late for my last appointment and made a big fuss out of it. I know that I didnt make much of an effort to brush my teeth this morning, and I know maybe I deserved a little punishment. But for gods sake, did you have to rip chunks of flesh off my gums like that? Listen, well all know dentists choose thier profession because they have a certain… sadistic streak. No matter what they say, challenge, job stability, carreer options, we all know the truth. You like to inflict pain on people. Its a known fact, so at least most dentists make an effort to make it seem like they aren’t hurting you on purpose. You made no such effort. The second you pulled out your shiney metal pick of doom (why is this going in my mouth torture device) I knew I was into serious trouble. Usually, dentists try and scrape the plack off the teeth. I dont remember you even touching my teeth, just jabbing and scraping at my poor tender gums. I do remember, you calmly informing me that maybe I should floss more often, for my gums are bleeding a bit. No shit lady! What the hell do you expect them to do when you poke at them with metal spikes and knives? Of course they’re going to bleed! And the way you were ravaging them, I could feel the blood trickling down my througt. Not to mention the chunks of red tissue that I both watched travel down the sucky tube and dot your medical gloves. Jesus Christ lady! You belong in a teenage horror fick, not a dentist office. I could tell when you were finally finished that you were satisfied. Your body language was tell all. Your facial muscles relaxed into a cool smile, your shoulders moved back slightly and your legs lossened up. I thought I even heard a slight sigh. I bet you were even hoping that I was going to cry. I bet you really would have gotten off on that one. Well I would like you to know you will get no more pleasure out of me. On Wednesday I start classes and Souther Oregon University, hundreds of miles away. I’ll be damned if Im gunna make a 5 hour drive just to subject myself to that kind of torture again. Fuck you. Im getting a new dentist, and I hope you and your teeth rot in hell.
LAter
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See ya'll next time! Im away!
Chillaxin'
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Well I havent Checked in for a while, but I thought I'd post a quick update on my life. Patricia and I are still travelling together, we did end up getting free accomodation at Cacktus Jacks in return for 2 hours of work a day (it always ended up just being about 1) so that was sweet. That was 4 days ago. Now we are taking a small vacation on vacation to the Coromandel, which some of you miay remember as being the first place I went to after leaving the big city and the first place I rode my bike. Its really nice, we are taking everything slow, enjoying eachothers company while thinking of what to do next. Theres just so many possibilities!
Goodbye to the vines, and my final revenge!
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So what have I been up to? Patricia and I finished 3 weeks of worek in the vineyards, while staying in Leeways again. It was a little dull. We didnt do much but work, but Dylan and some of the other germans from last time were still there so I had some friends to reminice with.
Dylan, Patricia Christopher the Chilean and I went to the beach on our last work day. Christopher was a kite surfer, WHICH IS AWESOME, and he brought his gear with him. I helped him set the thing up. He practiced flying the kite on the beach before getting on the water so see if it was safe… the wind was so strong it knocked him on his ass and drug him 10 feet along the rocky beach! What a laugh! So it was deemed unsafe so we sat on the beach and drank beer instead. Once we got cold, and a little tipsy, we decied to drive back. The ride started with a 4WD ascent of a muddy hill in a 2WD sudan, and it only got better from there. I had one more beer to drink in the car and I have to say it was one of the best rides of my life. High on Alchohol and life, but mostly life, watching rows upon rows of vines pass at 80mph knowing that I may never work with them again after becoming so intimate with the vine over so many months. I had one of those rare moments of pure ecsasy - a spark in my brain triggered by copious amounts of pleasure catapaulted me into a deam like trance and I could do nothing but smile and stare out of the window like a man possesed, with the dry air blowing in my face, stining my eyes and drowning out all sounds. When Dylan spoke to my I was incable of answering, my body was incapacitated while my brain was exploding, it felt as if a thousand lighting storms were raging in my head at once, each a different color and feeling and bringing a different moment of pleasure in itself. As I looked out the window at the passing rows, I had a vision of the limitless possibilities of life, and each of these possible paths occupied its own row of vines, lines that started at the four of us in the car and stretching out paralell into infinity between walls of green blue and brown.
When the reverie passed the car was pulling into Montana Winery. Christopher was going to work the night shift. The beer had done its job and we all had to piss, so as Chris went to his job Dylan, Patricia and I went into the winery to empty our swollen bladders. On our way to the loo we passed enourmous shining silver vats. They were as tall as a 2 story building and their circumferences were about 15 feet. The whole building reeked of fermenting grape juice. I noticed that the vats had small spouts on them, presumably so the wine makers could taste the progress of their wine. I decided to take advantage of this mechanism - I ran back to the car and emptied a 2 liter Pepsi, then brought it inside and filler 'er up with a much better liquid! The three of us roared off in the car, and passed the bottle between us all the way back to Leeway's.
On the 12th Patricia and I met up with Julia the German, drove to Picton and hopped on the ferry to head back to Wellington and the North Island. We spent three pretty unenventful days plodding around Wellington, with the exception being Saturday night, when we dressed up and walked arm and arm down to the esplande, and watched from a bench (ourselves to poor to drink) the grand spectacle of Wellington's insane night life and high society.
The next morning we jumped on a bus headed for the famed Rotorua, and here we are, at Cactus Jacks where I stayed for 3 weeks nearly 6 months ago. We got a job as cleaners at the place so we dont have to pay for accomodation, which is a lifesaver because niether of us have any money!
More Lord of the Rings and stuff.
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Today I went jet boating and conoeing on the dart river for free cause my rafting buddy/teacher fletch works for the company that runs it. Just goes to show you in pays to have friends in the tourism industry!
It was so amazing! The jet boats can go up to 70mph in water only 3 inches deep! And man, it was FAST! We went up the dart river, which passes through a place caleed the Paradise Trust where a lot of the LOTR movies were filmed. As you will see the in the pictures, there is another movie being filmed there now, Narnia! but Narnia sucks. Anyhoo, it truely is paradise. There was no place I would rather be!
After the jet boat ride we hopped in canoes and went back down the river in those. On the way we went up a side stream a few hundred meters and paddled through a really narrow crack in the rocks that was formed over hundreds of years by water. It was more beautiful than the oldest cathedral in Rome!
Here is a video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqopbiKbkAs
Quest complete! Queenstown baby!
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5 months and 1700km (1056 miles) later, I've finally arrived in Queenstown! How can I describe my excitement…
Arms flailing, lots of yelling, laughing, crying, jumping up and down, leg cramps, cant believe it, am I really here?
In the last 3 days I rode over 250km because I was so anxious to finally get here. And now that I've arrived, I cant say I've ever felt better. This place is gorgeous, full of tourists and a mind blowing amount of activities to empty your wallet. I'm staying with Fletch and Stacey, 2 friends I worked with on the river last year. I also met up with a buddy, Josh, who I met my first day in New Zealand but havent seen since. Blast from the past, mang!
So yea, my biking days are over, for now. Can't say I'm very dissapointed! Its about time really, but sheeet, did I ride one hellavu distance. Now everything is going to be cruzy, just work, and travel by car. I'm going to feel spoiled!
For those of you curious when I'm coming back, its looking like the beggining of may. Thats when the rafting season starts back home and I'd like to get an early start and make some good american cash!
And for you Lord of the Rings fans, here in queenstown a lot of filming was done. I've uploaded some pictures of Mordor and Rohan that I took today while on a 5 hour hike. I felt like I was in middle earth the whole time!
So close yet so far!
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So for the second time in a week, I am holed up in a backpacker because of bad weather! Now I am at lake Tekapo, if I could ride every day from tomorrow on, I would arrive in Queenstown in exactly a week. Somehow I don't think thats going to happen!
Of course I cant complain, life is still great and this lake is amazing! Its got a turquoise blue color that Ive never seen before. There is snow everywhere surrounding me, Im so glad to be out of the plains! No more straight, flat roads with nothing to see but sheep and nothing to do but pedal and count fence posts! This is the promised land!