Of course

So the internet worked for just about 24 hours, then it stopped. When I got home from Moi's bachelor party, no internet.
They finally got it back on last night. They told me they had to reboot something and forgot to add my number. Incredible.

So hopefully tonight when I get home it will still be hooked up.

The Ms won last night (their 5th in 20 games) to snap a 7 game losing streak and celebrated like they won the World Series. I'm not sure if that's good that they still care or pathetic. Probably both.

finally a new update

Not a very exciting update, but I'll get one with pictures and the end of the New Zealand updates up relatively soon.

I finally have internet again at both work and home. It is a near miracle. Here are some emails that I sent (which are compeltely true and not exaggerated) that at last led to the phone company putting internet at my house (once they showed up the whole process took about 5 minutes):

"This is Aaron Masser again. I'm sure you're tired of having to deal with me, but I'm tired of not having internet still. What is going on? It is completely ridiculous that I have to call consistently for a month and usually the call rings until it times out without anyone answering. The second most frequent outcome is a busy signal. Several times I have called only to have the call picked up and immediately hung up. Then the phone is left off the hook and I get a busy signal.

When I have actually gotten through, while the person answering has almost always been friendly, I have never been actually helped. Each time I am able to get through, I am told that someone will get my internet installed "today" or "tomorrow" or "don't worry, the guy will call you today". I give my cell number but I do not receive the promised call. I have been called back a total of one time. That was last Thursday. The technician called me after I had to actually go down to ASTCA to get someone to talk to me. I was assured that anytime the next day (Friday) I just need to give him a call and he'd come right over. I called many many times on Friday but the technician's phone was never answered. I left multiple messages. No call back. I of course was unable to get through to the ASTCA office.

Today, (after an hour of trying) I finally got through to the office after trying the technician's phone and again having to leave a message. I was assured that the technician would call me right away on my cell phone. Of course there has been no call. Now I cannot get through to the office. My last two attempts rang maybe 40 times and timed out. What is going on here?

This is beyond unbelievably bad customer service. I have been waiting long enough.


733.2692 IS MY CELL PHONE NUMBER

PLEASE AT LEAST HAVE THE COURTESY TO GIVE ME AN UPDATE! (note, this section was in huge font in the email)"




"Update:

Well, after writing my last email, I was able to get through to the office. I explained that I still had not been contacted by anyone for an update as to when the internet would actually be installed. I was assured that I would be contacted right away by the technician.

I was suspect of anyone actually calling me back since I have been assured of calls back multiple times and it almost never actually occurs. I explained my suspicions that I was just being jerked around again and nobody was actually going to call me. I was assured that the technician would call me right away.

Well guess what? Nobody called me. It's now the next day. Still no call!

I know this is at least nominally a part of ASG, but even for ASG, this is over the line. Does somebody need a bribe or something? Is that what is going on?

I am through being jerked around. My next step is to contact ASTCA's director myself.


I'm going to start that procedure this afternoon if this situation is not resolved.

Aaron Masser."




"Just as a written record of what is going on, here's another update:

- I received no response by phone or email to my last two emails to ASTCA
- I still received no calls from ASTCA despite being again assured I would receive an update "right away" yesterday.
- I had been trying off and on all day to reach ASTCA by phone but was met with busy signals and failures to answer a ringing phone.
- About 1pm, I finally got through to ASTCA. This time I was told that they had been waiting for some wires to come in. This was the first time I had heard this particular excuse used through the past month of getting jerked around by ASTCA. Anyway, I was told that the wires had come in and everything would be ready for ASTCA to install my internet tomorrow. I was also informed that they can't do it today because the technician didn't come in today.
- I was told that I would be called on my cell phone 733.2692 tomorrow afternoon to let me know what is going on and presumably that they will come over right after that to install my internet.
- Due to the failure upon failure of ASTCA to actually do as they say, I insisted on pinning a time down by which I would be called back tomorrow. 1PM was the time promised.

- Despite this new excuse at this late date and the repeated failure of ASTCA to even have the slightest bit of respect to actually call me and keep me updated when they say they are going to, I will await the call that supposedly will tell me my internet can be installed right away tomorrow by 1pm.

- I am going to assume, based on past performance, that ASTCA will neither be ready (or more truthfully, willing) to install my internet tomorrow nor will I receive any call by 1pm. At that point I plan on writing the director a detailed description of this debacle and personally deliver it.

Still waiting and still getting jerked around,

Aaron Masser"



So since I don't have pictures yet, I'll wait on some other updates and get to what you are really waiting for me to talk about anyway (NOT): What I think about the M's.

John McLaren seems like a cool guy and someone that you want to succeed. But, after being picked to win the division this year, and with 1/4 of the season gone, the Mariners are in last place and have the worst record in the AL. That is pretty pathetic. Granted Ritchie and Vidro just flat out suck and that is Bavasi's fault, not McLaren's. Something needs to be done though.

- Fire Bavasi...and do it quick before he trades Jeff Clement for Barry Zito or something.
- Fire McLaren. Bill Plummer didn't turn it around either. This did lead to the Ms getting A-Rod, but I can't stand this every day losing anymore.
- Hire Bobby Valentine. I can't think of any other choice that would have any chance to turn this around this season. They do have the worst record, but not really a bad team and the Angels haven't distanced themselves as much as they could have. At least he'll be interesting.
- Trade someone like Jeremy Reed or the catcher Johnson in AAA for Griffey and get him to sign for a medium level (say $6M per) for 09 and 10. Put him in a LF/DH rotation.
- Trade Ritchie and Vidro for whatever you can get (with us paying the salary since we're stuck with it). If all we can get is nothing, fine cut em. Someone will give us a low level prospect for Sexson at least. Vidro, not so much probably. Usually, worst batter in the majors isn't someone you trade for.

If the M's want to hold off on trading Ritchie for another month or two, ok, I can understand that. But Vidro should be off the team today. Maybe they can call Vidro and Bavasi in at the same time and gun them together. Then they could offer McLaren the opportunity to stay on Valentine's staff if he wants.

Weave comes in this evening and is here for Moi's bachelor party weekend, so it might be until Monday til I get a real update on here, but it will be soon.

Hola,

Sorry for the long delay. I had a couple jury trials, I moved, and Shane came to visit during the last month. I'll get the rest of the New Zealand updates on here and what's been going on here as soon as possible. I don't have internet at my new place though, so it could be a little while until I'm online at home again.

nz4 (goats & donkeys)

We didn't do any bungy jumping. I'm not against ever doing it at all, but $165 seemed a lot for not being close to a must-do for me. I think for Naomi it is a must-don't.

A much more reasonably priced attraction included

GOATS


Lots of goats




and DONKEYS!



Yaks too!

These animals in this park above Queenstown have it pretty good. They're in a beautiful location and don't have to worry about food because people roll through in cars and hand feed them.

We hung out at with the goats for quite a while

They've filmed a few movies at this park. One of them involved a Korean prison. Here's Naomi's audition picture for the sequel.


They also filmed parts of the Lord of the Rings there. Apparently this tarn was used in the 2nd and 3rd ones a couple times.

They used several other parts of the park for LOTR filming as well.

They also had some cool alpacas




and a crazy red deer that was loose and was serious harasser. He just would not leave you alone. He loved attention, being pet, and food from your pellet can.



These huge other kind of The Hartford deer were a little bit scary. I walked up to them with some food, but the kept motioning with their huge racks to put the food on the ground. Once they got pretty close I thought that was probably the way to go.

And check it out Shane, they had buffalo too.





There are Lord of the Rings tours and activities everywhere. On our way out of town we drove past this:


It is LOTR dorks dressed up in partial costumes and getting pictures of their group taken on each persons' camera by their tour guide.


We headed to Wanaka next.

After a hard time finding a place to stay around there, we figured out that the map was wrong and there was a government campground nearby so that worked out.


We had dinner at the Mexican place Phil Murphy recommended. It is for sure better than Evi's taco hut.

There's a hike at the end of a long gravel road to the west of Wanaka to Rob Roy Glacier. If you're around this area, check it out. The hike is pretty short, maybe 1.5 hours up and you get to some pretty spectacular scenery.


It is too bad it wasn't clear when we were there.




There were lots of keas up there.


You have to drive through several dry fords on the way up there, so I was glad it didn't rain and strand us up with the sheep.



Next, we drove over to the west coast.


I was not really very impressed with this area of NZ. If you're in the country for less than a couple months, I think I'd leave it out. It is kind of out of the way compared to everything else you might want to see, and there really isn't that much to see. I'm sure the coast is beautiful, but you never see it. The road is almost always inland and there aren't really any towns or roads at all to the coast most of the way.


These were our only glimpses of the coast between Haast and north of Franz Josef (in a town that sounds kind of like Encharito).




Franz Josef Glacier was an exception.



The glacier comes all the way down to about 500 feet elevation.

A chunk broke off the glacier and washed down the river:





The plan was to backpack up the Copeland Track nearby up into the mountains and to a hut with a nearby hotspring. But, the weather was bad and the ranger told us that you have to ford the river when it rains the river becomes impassible. So we decided to maybe do some hiking in Abel Tasman Park or something and just get out of the bad weather as quickly as possible.

Hours and hours north of Franz Josef, you get some views of the coast, south of Hokitika. That area is kind of a big Willipa Bay like mudhole zone all the way up to Graymouth, which is at least as depressing as Aberdeen. They apparently refer to shopping carts as trundlers:

Then we headed inland to camp in a sandfly infested zone. Sandflies are little flys, maybe a couple times the size of gnats, but they bite and itch. They are to be avoided.
Next, we went to Nelson, in the north of the South Island.

Nelson is not a bad place. It is still a pretty small city (50k) but big for the South Island. It is right on the coast and has several nice beaches. It was mostly cool and cloudy while we were there so we only really walked around town.

NZ3

About 5 am I woke up and heard keas outside. They're big green alpine parrots that we'd heard a lot about. They're big, green, aggressive, and smart. So kind of like a regular parrot/camp robber/raven mix. The one I saw that morning was sitting right on the rail of the deck waiting for people to get going with their hiking gear and either get fed or steal things from them. He just looked at me when I walked by at about a foot away. They allegedly will unzip packs and steal food or shiny things like keys. I didn't have my camera then, but here's some more info.

The third day starts with the climb to McKinnon Pass. From the brochures and all the talk about this climb, you'd think this was going to be the final push up Everest. Maybe it was because I was prepared for a brutal climb, but it wasn't bad at all really. The weather was supposed to start out bad and then clear up later on in the day, so we started around 1015 and were second to last to leave the hut. We were kind of taking our time walking up so it would hopefully not be socked in at the pass.

The first little bit was like hiking through the Shire.

Then we started up the serious hill. Still not bad; nothing close to the ascents on the Tongariro.

At the top there's a monument to Clinton McKinnon. He used to guide people through the Milford Track back in the day. He also was the first whitey to find the route through to the Milford Sound. On top of the monument was a kea.


It had somewhat cleared up by the time we got to the top:


It was really cold up there though. We were at the top of a mountain pass, but that mountain pass was only about 3000 feet high, the latitude was 45 degrees (45 degrees north is hundreds of miles closer to the equator than Seattle) and it was the middle of summer. New Zealand is not a warm place. Luckily there was a warming hut up there where we thawed out and had lunch.


The way down was not too hard of a hike either and had more nice scenery:

more waterfalls:

it really was a beautiful hike

Drunk Eeyore even felt ok to come out. He had been pretty terrified of keas.


after we got back down below timberline, we were back in the shire:

This one waterfall went on right along the side of the trail for about a half mile. It was incredibly nice there, kind of like it was fake:





When we made it down to the bottom of the pass, we were at the last hut for the guided hikers. They spared some expense there to hook up the independent hikers with some hot water and instant coffee mix and tea.


It was warm again there; could have used that at the top.
From there a side trail to Southerlin Falls starts. According to New Zealand, this is the 5th highest falls in the world. I think they are adding up all 3 falls' elevation as one, regardless it is really high.



You can walk around the back of the falls and get behind it. This was highly recommended, so we hiked behind and checked it out. There's so much water gushing down on you and getting blown around that you can't really see through the falls. It is cool though. But, don't do it barefoot. Another guy hiking with us (Ottowa John) broke his foot slipping off rocks trying to get back there.
You definitely get soaking wet:



Once back to the main trail, it was about an hour to the last hut.




This is what the sleeping rooms of the huts look like:

The last day was 16 km of mostly flat hiking.

Even though it was easy hiking, my feet were pretty tired by this point and especially with having the pass day over, the day kind of dragged on. 16k is a long way to get through fast. Still, no shortage of nice views.


From another swingbridge:

The water was extremely clear in the rivers in this area:

Finally we made it near the end of the hike. One last look up the track:

Then around the corner you get your first glimpse of Milford Sound:

And we made it:

None of this hike is especially difficult in itself, but just the sheer length makes it feel like a big accomplishment when you're done. Then you catch a boat to take you back to the small village at Milford Sound.


There's another huge waterfall in the distance that falls right into Milford Sound:

and another one that you take the boat right by:

Milford Sound is pretty spectacular.

After a couple hour bus ride and a couple hour drive, it was back to Queenstown for a few days:


the view from our room:

There's a gondola in town that takes you up this mountain. At the top there's bungy jumping, paragliding, and alpine sliding. Here's Naomi flying down the track:

and the ride up the slide's chairlift:




Queenstown was the first place that we stayed for a few days. It'd be a great place to go for a long weekend to ski during the NZ winter from Samoa. The town's pretty compact, tons of restaurants and bars, and the ski areas are right there. In the summer if there is any sort of extreme sport that exists, you can probably do it there. Plus, there are two casinos. Naomi took them down both nights we were there.