Work and Play

Work and Play

The relative times in the post are a little out of whack, hehe...

Winterfest. Winterfest was a fun week. We saw the town almost double in population, with lots of parties and events all over the small centre. I volunteered to work as a sound engineer at the festival, but due to work and hockey commitments I ended up only being to work on one day, which I was lucky enough to be the Comedy Debate, with Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords) and several other funny funny guys! I got to see the whole show, and even had a good handshake and picture with Rhys afterwards!
There were a lot of bands playing in the parks and streets, as well as a Mardi Gras parade, which was interesting, but surprisingly scaled down and tame, compared to New Orleans.

Hockey. Last weekend a small regiment of the team travelled to Gore to play in the Erewohn Cup, the longest running sporting cup in the history of the South Island, to compete as the Queenstown Rangers. We came second, although had we not taken the occasion so ‘lightly’, we probably could have come first. It was a fun weekend though. We stayed overnight in Gore Motor Park, in these heatless, bathroom less shacks, where we froze our balls off, after spending all night in the trashiest Karaoke bar in the world! We stumbled upon the Gore Regional Karaoke Finals on the night we were there, and there were all these mullet-wearing “Bogans”, with a couple of teeth if they were lucky, singing Billy Idol and Abba! Bizarre.
This is after Kevin got hit pretty hard against the boards, and had to get an ambulance to drive onto the ice to take him to the hospital. luckily, no fractures, just some bruising and sprains.This is a funny ad for DB beer I saw in Gore. I think it really sums the town up well...

Stampede. We have officially suffered our first loss now, against Christchurch, in Christchurch, although we won the first out of the two back-to-back games played that weekend. Last weekend we played hard against Dunedin, in Dunedin and won both games, the second with a substantially large margin too! This coming weekend we play the Auckland Admirals, in Auckland, which will conclude our away games for the season. Our final two games are at the end of august, playing Christchurch (our closest rivals), at home. And then of course, the one-game final, which the team with the most points gets to host.
Last weekend I also went pond skating for the first time. There was a little pond outside this farm, between Queenstown and Arrowtown, that a few us went skating on. We got a puck and a net out, but the ice was pretty thin and brittle around the edges so the puck kept going under water. Ouch. But it was amazing fun skating on something not man-made.

I also got some local publicity through the regional newspaper here. Hehe. Turns out they’ve never met a Greek hockey player before, which is crazy. Anyway, this sports journalist came and interviewed me, and wrote an article in the sports section about me, which is available online at http://www.odt.co.nz/print/64053
Mountain. I haven’t had a chance to get up to the mountain much the last couple weeks, between working and playing hockey, but I did get a few good runs in one day last week. I got a ride up to Remarks with Bert, in his hummer! Hehe, one of my teammates manages one of the bars in town, and got a hummer with his logos printed on the side as a promotional car / going up the hill car! The snow was a little crusty cuz it hadn’t snowed in a while, but the park runs were still sweet. Nothing overly-interesting really, just a fun day in the park stomping some 360s and big airs. Think I’m going to start trying some backside 3s and 180s next time…
My rails and boxes are really coming along too! I'm getting the hang of ollying on now, and pulling some really stylish frontside boardslides and nose/tail presses! Boooooya
Apart from all the good park stuff, Mike and I have been doing some night skiing, and hiking up to the powder runs, separately obviously. Night skiing is awesome! the pistes are all floodlit, and the snow has been really nice and soft for it. It can get a little tricky off-piste where there is little or no light, but just adds to the rush of hitting an awesome meter-high jump and going flying, completely by accident!
Hiking has been good too, albeit absolutely exhausting! the hikes are pretty intense, with some pretty tricky bits, where you think, "Damn, two meters behind me is death, but a few meters ahead is the most awesome powder run..." tricky trying to prioritize there!
This is where I got stuck in the deepest powder, whilst also sliding down the mountainside.
And this is the first time I ever climbed on ice. My board was my pick-axe.

But this is what it looks like once you get through all the hairy stuff. worth it? yeah...


Bungy Jumping. So far I’ve done three jumps, and the Ledge Sky Swing. Jumping at the Kawarau Bridge is fun, the scenery is beautiful, the jump is high, and the adrenaline goes for a while. The canyon you’re jumping into is really picturesque, and once in a while you’ll get river rafters going by, right under the jump deck.


The ledge is fun in a pretty different way. It’s a smaller jump, but you’ve got a running start, it overlooks all of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu, you can jump at night, and you’re wearing a harness as opposed to leg-cuffs, which means more jump diversity. So basically you can do triple front flips out of a protruding wooden hut off the side of a green mountain while watching the rugby in town and your buddy wakeboard in the lake! Plus, the first split second of airtime is really creepy, as you feel like you’re jumping into thin air, until the bungy catches, and you swing down so low you can almost touch the rocks on the hillside. And while all this is happening, the people coming up the hill in the Gondola are watching and taking pictures, only about 10 meters away!
The ledge also has the sky swing, which is basically a huge swing, on static ropes as opposed to bungy, that swings you down almost at a tangent with the hillside, and out over the city lights. It’s a crazy experience because you actually have to release yourself, after being suspended out above the rocky hillside.
My jumps so far were pretty standard dives off, but today I tried an ‘elevator’ off the bridge. You stand backwards, facing the jump controller, and jump straight down like a pencil, but the hitch is you have to look the controller in the eye the whole way down, and if you want to throw a little style by adding theatrical elements to it that’s a bonus rush. So I did a ‘Die Hard” elevator jump, which means I heald my hands out in the shape of a gun, tried to aim and shoot the controller as I plummeted down, while shouting bang, bang, bang at each shot. HA! It was fucking awesome!

Last week I showed up for work at the Ledge, and they needed to test out a new bungy cord, so of course I offered myself up on a platter to be their guinea pig, and did three jumps just off the bat. Better than coffee to wake you up in the morning!
The job itself rules too, but no time to explain!

And this is our amazing instrument collection at home. Electronic and acoustic!

So that's about it for now.


Make sure drop me some comment, or email me some notes / gossip.

Love

The Chemist of Jesus x x