kiaora! the first 100 hours.

Kiaora bro.
After 23hours and 01 second of traveling, crossing the 180th meridian and completely skipping March 03, 2009, I arrived in Wellington, New Zealand, my new home.
I was missing 1 bag, but it was brought to room 501 of the Duxton not 3 hours later.Marilyn from weta was there to greet with me with a weta digital sign and helped me to my Hyundai Tucson rental car. I got a luxury car b/c the snowboards and mtn bike wouldn't fit in any other car Budget will let you hire.
Marilyn the sweet lady housing coordinator took me to the office so i could see it before she took me and some other new guys to lunch. I went fully authentic with fish and chips and a soda called L&P, whose tagline is "World Famous in New Zealand." Curious, i weighed myself; came in at 82kilo.

I told her that I was living with the Cheat and she promptly drove me there so I could see what it was like. Great place. Very new and so European/fresh. I move in next week.
This is a :44 sec tour of my house. hang on : (oh, and please notice the stoic Cheat in the living room chair, just posing....stoicly)


So, yeah, its sweet. Probably the nicest place i have lived. and the rent is comparable to LA prices.
So, after lunch i was released to go sleep at the hotel, but i was way too stoked to do that, so i went a driving, on the left hand side mind you, up a steep road to the top of a hill.
Then i decided to go for a lil' jog to get blood flowin' in my legs again. I jogged to the sea.
Then i jogged to the mountain top, which curiously enough had a war memorial for all the kiwis and turks that lost their lives on D-day. NZ had the most per capita soldiers there.
I kept r-u-n-n-i-n-g...this time up this 1/2 meter wide trekking path to the top of the next hill. There i discovered a bunker that looks out over the airport and Miramar. I love that houses dot the green hills.
Climbing around a bit on that allowed me to get lay of the land. The arrow is my office, the x Tom, Cheat, Mander and Barnacle's office and the * is home. That is evan's bay, where i saw some dolphin's playing a few days after this hike. I am replacing Mikey W. as animation coordinator on James Cameron's Avatar. Mike was kind enough to drive me around and give me a tour of all of Weta - we went to weta cave, the stage where gollum was born and then even by PJ's house.
And mikey did it all for the low price of 1 milk shake. which has this weird thickener in it and the flavoring is a squirt of some sort of flavor. more like freezer burned vanilla ice cream with icee flavoring squirted in. gllullg and eeeeww.

Saturday was swimming in a lap pool and watching the maori boys cannonball off the pier. That night Cheat and i hosted their Oscar Movie Night. Zantar's episode 51 placed won high marks along with Cheat's whit.
Sunday consisted of church and wrestling with the Cherians. The 5 boys look sweet in this picture, but they were a handful. And after they pummeled me, Bishop Cherian gave me a calling of YSA coordinator. Anyway, this movie I am working on looks sweet in 3D (and 2D) and this country is sweet as.

Ramble On!

We've hijacked Jarom's blog to post our final goodbye as he makes the trek to Middle-earth.

Isn't it PRECIOUSSSSSS?!

Be sure to leave leave your own goodbye on the comment page!!!

WE LOVE YOU JAROM!

Unemployment keeps gettin' Better

Barely a whole day after i got back from snowboarding in Utah, the lovely Katie and the 7+ Sids surprise me with a late birthday gift - Hanggliding! Gorsh, I love adrenaline - stoic pose.

We had to cancel twice before b/c of wind direction, but when we called this day, Fred the Flight Instructor peered through his binoculars to the top of the 3500 ft mountain and told us to come on out. Katie and I grabbed Atom and were in Sylmar a short 35min later. We hopped in the full size '88 Chevy van that had 330,000 miles with 3 paragliders filling the back seat. 80 yr old retired glider 'Rome handled the curvy dirt roads with ease all the while sharing opinions of birth control water fountains, government regulation of who bares children and burying mexican family members in the nearby hills.
The top of the peak was cold; Katie put on every piece of clothing she had just to stay alive...and to avoid any paparazzi.
She flew first and without any hesitation ran herself off a cliff (really, I think I was more nervous than she was).

Adam and I then went down the mountain to fetch katie and reload 2 gliders onto the van rack. Unfortunately, Atom had to go see if he would get the opportunity to create a bone structure for a T-rex, but luckily the Q had just arrived in LA 3.6 minutes before Team Glide closed the van doors and headed up for round two. It was my time to fly!
I got teamed up with Andy and the Q with Fred (teh old timer who flew with Katie). Gliders are 2nd only to a fighter jet, they can hold up to 4Gs and -2Gs, which is slightly less than Naomi Watts experienced in King Kong's battle versus the T Rex. Q and I were stoked in anticipation of what was surely to be one of the greatest flights for the Crusaders.

Instructor Andy allowed me to help set up the glider poles, kite and run the safety check with him. The Q and Fred were ready first and off the cliff they went. And immediately soared upward and banked.

I could not wait any longer. To be like a bird, to be free of the earth and to taste the freedom of the skies for but a moment. To move in 3D space!



You can see in the video where he lets me take control of the glider. I steered up until we had to prepare to land. We caught a thermal, soared back over the top of the take-off point and then cruised back along the ridge of the mountain about a dozen times. I piloted turns, dives and even a stall that made my stomach a bit queasy. Its all rather simple to get the hang of it, the real trick is just moving your entire body to one side of the glider (meaning you get a slight core workout). It was a great 15 minute flight, though it could have been longer, but it started to rain on us and we lost all upward thermals. When you start to descend at 1200ft per minute (which is difficult to tell while in the glider, except for the constant beeping of the fancy shmancy computer. Normal descent is about 200ft per minute on a good day). I was a bit sad, but to be honest, it was a great flight and the rain was coming down so hard I couldn't see anymore. Andy got pretty nervous being in the clouds and the color of them, so he pulled the bar close to his chest and we soared toward the landing strip.
A most exhilirating ride. Thanks Rock and thanks Sids for the chance to soar to the heights of Icarus.

Bacon - Man's Best Friend

it must be a uberawesome product when you have to give instructions on how to eat something as simple as a chocolate bar :
Breathe…engage your five senses, close your eyes and inhale deeply. Be in the present moment, notice the color of the chocolate, the glossy shine. Rub your thumb over the chocolate bar to release the aromas of smoked applewood bacon flirting with deep milk chocolate. Snap off just a tiny piece and place it in your mouth, let the lust of salt and sweet coat your tongue.

tip on how to eat it : Let the chocolate melt in your mouth and then chew on the tiny bits of salty bacon.

Crepe Nazi

What do Hitler's party, soup and NOW crepes all have in common?

Nazis.

8 weeks ago I had a minor surgery that didn't allow me to eat for 24 hours before. I drank a lot of sodium phosphate as well, which emptied me out and made me even hungrier. So, after a 10am surgery Wednesday morning I was given the green light to go munch.

I love crepes. I had dessert ones in AT&G back in the 4th grade and loved them so much i demanded my mom get us a crepe maker for our house. We made crepes frequently with this special crepe maker. My love hasn't died for them since, I mean I made crepes for katie on valentine's day last year.

Well, since V-day is a lot like surgery, i naturally had a hankering for some sweet sweet crepe's. Katie drove us over to little Korea town to Crepe's To Go at 2217 Sawtelle Blvd. I give you the address so that you can personally go there and experience this Seinfeld-esque experience for yourself. And what an experience.

We approached the tiny shop in a wall, no wider than 12ft across, and since no one appeared to be behind the counter, we looked at the business hours.

With hours on Monday that read "Around. depends", we should have been tipped off to the further lunacy of this place, but nevertheless we looked at the display window so we could place our order.
From meats to all veggie to dessert, i was stoked to pick at a few oh-so-good crepes to my liking. katie, being the fine conosseuier of food that she is, didnt see anything that she liked and started to concoct whole new crepes in her head. I brought her attention to the cheap blue tape scrolled across the glass and the fact that this place looked like they didn't mess around. This sign directly above the door confirmed it :
[IRNORANCE and STUPIDITY is a crime. We hate CRIMINALS and don't hide our hate and contempt for THEM. Thank You].
Then this sign!
[Never Enter with NO decision BUT with curiosity (except for small kids and IDIOTS). We don't welcome those who react to only signs and laughing here like one of them with silly face.]

We finalized rehearsing our orders to each other and stepped through the smaller than normal door.
"what yu want?" came a heavily accented asian voice from somewhere behind the counter and mass of laminated warning signs. "Oh, well, i would like