3rd Time's The Charm.

Well, I have returned to NZ, a place I seem to end up when I have lost focus with my life.  And then I get hungry again, find that spark, that passion, the why, the drive to do something bigger and more difficult than anything I've done before.

It's like leveling up in a game.

I find Wellington and the Hutt Valley pretty much like I left them.  Not too many changes, and whatever ones I do note are rather insignificant.  Some things will, and cannot ever change as well (like finding any nice Mexican food around these parts).  The things I wished to do when I got to this city are the same as the last time I was here: look out over the city from Mt. Vic, eat some steak 'n cheese pies, and I suppose seeing my friends as well....

Dug out of the archives: View from the aforementioned Mt. Vic.In the 3 years since I was last here, people have moved to the suburbs, babies have been born, and people have gotten older (like me).  But I'm done reflecting!  Now for what's on tap:Camping.  As much as I possibly can.  I may put together a close-by trip to celebrate my 30th birthday tomorrow night.  It could be me on the ocean, being buffeted by the winds.  I am definitely going Sunday night somewhere over the hills in the Wairarapa, and the South Island is in the mix.Speaking of turning 30, I almost forgot this one. (Full disclosure, I added this part last after I remembered!)  Turning 30 both terrifies me (somehow) and is no big deal.  I feel like I have no real reason to become more mature- I find I generally am an adult.  I feel like I have to start making more long-term choices though, ones that contradict my "wanting to see things, people and places" mentality.  But when I think about that, that doesn't make sense.  Why do I need to do anything?  I have no one except myself to sort out, but that will change one day.  Probably.  So turing 30 is funny to me.  I don't remember my 20th birthday at all, but my 21st I do.  And that seems ages ago.  I think of my oldest friends, and I am still close to them now.  But I also think back, and see a kid.  A kid that didn't know what the fuck was going on, and what he was doing.  I still don't.  But at least I recognize I know not much now....maybe I am slightly wiser!  I see the last decade as going by quickly, but think about everywhere I've gone, and people I've met, and think, "how could that all have happened in that time?"Working on a television show.  Seriously.  5 years ago, I came up with the idea for a show with Morgan Davie  about a German scientist who goes to the rural west coast on the South Island.  There, his sense of order, love of over-planning, and terse diction is at odds with the locals' laid back, pie eatin' ways.  Morgan is convinced this would be a good show.  I am convinced it would be a good show for New Zealand.  It wouldn't really be truly understood, or fit in the context of American society probably.  But who knows.  Writing it over the coming days is on my agenda....maybe we'll have something.Gatorball.  A game I have created with the aforementioned Morgan Davie, based upon the classic Calvin & Hobbes comic strip's Calvinball.  The game that can never be played the same way twice.  Rules change.  Bandit masks are worn.  What we've come up with is basically a cross between kick the can and capture the flag, with dodgeball added for another layer of tactics.  Then, just to make it interesting, before each game, additional rules or variants on the standard rules are drawn out of a hat, and are now part of the game.  They could be pretty normal changes, such as when a person makes it to the jail to get a person out, instead of one being released, all are released at one.  Other rules modifications include penalties for losing, dirty limericks, and water balloons.  I may have created something terribly great.Lots of lamb cookery.  Or just cookery in general.  I hadn't really felt I had been doing much good stuff (besides wings) since I left the farm job.  Something about the ingredients sucking.  But here, if things are available and grown in NZ, they are generally great quality.  Like the Chinese water spinach I found today.  Or the grass fed lamb necks I made into a tagine tonight.  I need to make some sort of bucket wine for the end of the Antipodean summer....as well as figure how to make my meat pies without crack, because they clearly add that to them here....The writing of the Dodge Dart novel.  The one where I sell it.  Yeah, it's fictional, don't worry (or maybe you hoped and prayed I don't know), but the opening line could be, "It was the best of cars, it was the worst of cars...."  But that'd really be my Mercedes if I was truthful.  How many non-race cars almost kill you? Yeah.Cricket.  Playing/watching/attending.  All would be fine by me.And finally how could I forget: The wedding of Ben Davie, The Tallest Ninja!  Now with more Iron Maiden tattoos!So, yeah.  Much to do before I leave.  Suggestions welcome.