WFH

That's WFH (working from home) for those who don't know the vernacular.

We are permitted to wfh at my job. And I haven't really taken advantage of that very much before. But I'm starting to now. I've begun to see how glorious it is to skip the commute into work and the random interruptions of my concentration. And then there's the magic of having my cat nearby, either on my lap, on her special pillow next to my computer, or occasionally, on my keyboard. On the downside, I miss working in a group. And we've got a pretty great group at my work. Also, there's some coworkers who don't really work when they are wfh, so they give it a bad reputation. I'll be going in tomorrow, I need to have some discussions with folks that just won't cut it via IM.

I recently found out that I (probably) am going to India in February. I'm really excited to go there. It's been the place I've wanted to travel to for quite a while. The unfortunate thing is that after going to New Zealand, I don' t have much vacation to use. But I'm going to try my darndest to get at least a week off, after working there for two weeks.

Some updates for those who are wondering:
I'm no longer doing calorie restriction. We went to Houston and it was impossible to maintain while I was there. Then I never picked it back up again.

I still love my Roomba, though she hasn't gotten as much attention as she did when she was new to me.

My Favorite Pictures from New Zealand

Waitomo Caves, Waikato, NZ
This was one of the highlights of this adventure. We had a group of 8 friends traveling around the North Island, and on one of our last days we spent about 6 hours or so cruising through this cave on a private tour. It was amazing. There were glowworms that looked like stars when it was dark. (Their poop glows to catch bugs. Ingenious!)

At the end of it was a sump. This was where the water complete went under the rock for a couple meters and you had to just trust that there would be a room after swimming through this tunnel. Very scary. (I didn't do it.)

---

Wellington, NZ
This mustache party was in honor of our friend, Lance. Lance and Erika moved to Wellington for the year. They will thankfully be moving back home soon. They've been missed.

We were out wandering about and we saw these adhesive mustaches and thought "Why not have a mustache party?" And so it was.

---

Ferry between Picton and Wellington through Cook Strait and the Marlborough Sounds
This is an example of how scenic it is here. This was taken from the ferry on my way down to the South Island while traveling on my own.

---

Kaikoura, NZ (East Coast of S. Island)
We went on a three or four hour hike that went around the coast of this peninsula and cut across. It was breath taking beauty every where you look, and I spotted this different cloud formation.

The best part of this sunny day was we had finally headed to the East Coast after traveling along the West Coast for days in the rain. This sunny day was a delight.

On a different note, have you guys checked out the geotagged photos - yahoo map mashup? It's a little slow, but you can go anywhere and if you're patient enough, see some really cool pictures taken exactly there. You may find it here: http://flickr.com/map/

0 Days and No More Counting

In a few short hours I leave for New Zealand. I'm really looking forward to the adventure, differences in culture and general way of live.

Lucky for me, I'm already packed and I'm basically blowing time until I need to leave for the airport.

My trip will begin in Wellington where I'll be for a couple days and then I head across Cook Straight via ferry to the Picton and Nelson areas. I'll be here on my own until the 16th at which point I fly to Queenstown to catch up with the crew (Erika, Lance, Davey). We're going out to Milford Sound and then back to Queenstown to catch up with Jeff. With the group of five, we'll make our way up the west side of the southern island and take the ferry back to Wellington. Here we'll catch up with more friends who are arriving (Cindy and Joe) on the 21st and 23rd.

From this point we'll be heading through the north island arriving in Auckland by the 29th, at which point most of us come back to the states.

I'm going to miss my honeypot.

This past weekend was fun! The third annual Berkeley Juggling & Unicycle Festival happened here in Berkeley. There were tons of people around and lots of activities. We also had a bunch of people staying with us. I think all in all everything went pretty smoothly and was a lot of fun.

And the Bull is Born.

A while ago a friend of mine suggested using Picasa. I downloaded it and played with it a little bit and moved on. But I never solved the problem of a good tool to manage my digital pictures. Now, many months later, I'm using Picasa. The more I use it the more I like it. It's actually a really useful program. My favorite feature about it is that it will 'monitor' particular folders and automatically add any new pictures from those folders into your photo storage spot. It's useful when there are two people shooting pictures and storing them in different places, like my honeypot and me. To those of you out there who don't have a good way of looking at your digital images, go check out Picasa.

This weekend was pretty fun and mellow. I went to a friend's baby shower, had a poker night with lots of Sherry, figured out the list of activities I want to do in New Zealand, finally fixed my super slow desktop computer, and got lots of other errands done too.
(New Zealand is 16 days and counting!)