Well, well, well, what a trip!

I'm back : ) Thanks to some parental "encouragement" and reminders of family who need a little closure on this New Zealand trip I have finally got back to wrapping up this blog. Thanks for the patience : ) Well if you haven't heard yet the trip was incredible. A once in a lifetime experience and possibly for some the first time they have really pushed themselves. And as Bill Watkins said "If you don't use your time down here and just go for it, put everything into it...it's just an indulgence." I would have to say that all week long almost everywhere I looked people were going for it, from the Executives on down. Sorry about the lack of pictures. I took a ton of em but this blogger was so excruciatingly slow uploading photo's I abandoned it for Kodak Photo Gallery.

Click here for pictures of the trip down to Queenstown

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=11w4xk5t.7pkhppc9&x=0&y=-xli318

Instead of doing a bunch of writing I added comments to the pictures from the trip down. Click on link above. Some general thoughts and anecdotes… The trip down took 22 hours. It didn't seem that bad though. The 747 was so old that I was trying to figure out what the old movie playing was...it was because the bulbs were old that the movie was so washed out. It was a new release. I also had a crying baby behind me. Thank goodness for the ear plugs Brendan gave me.

I sat next to the guy who invented this product called strike swipes. A cool product (not out yet), its a label that you can write on with a finger or stylus or whatever. Kind of like those boards we used as kids that you could scribble on and then pull the plastic sheet up and the scribble would disappear. Same concept but with a 3 inch wide by one inch high sticky label. You write on it with a pen (with the cover on it) and when you want to get rid of the writing you swipe your finger across it causing an air pocket to travel along it pulling the sheet from the backing and your writing is gone, voila! Completely reusable. He was traveling to meet a guy who sued him over patent infringement. They became partners instead. His application is to use it on sporting equipment such as golf clubs to see exactly where the ball is hitting your club (or bat or hockey stick etc.). His partner was thinking of people using them as labels. Both are good ideas.

I got about 4 hours of sleep. My ears do not like pressure changes. We made it to Queenstown safe and sound and pretty alert. The rest of the day was spent walking around and checking out the town, It was a really nice day and a lot of people had picnics going on the lake shore. Our hotel was across the street from the lake and just out of the main part of town. I quick 5 minute walk. It was really weird, not only do New Zealanders drive on the wrong side of the road they walk on the wrong side of the side walk. Yes there were a couple inadvertent chicken dances between myself and the locals s they were trying to figure out which side of the side walk this Yank was going to walk on. This Yank was thinking the same thing, hence the chicken dance : ) There was light, there was dark. The first day : ) And a blessing it was ….

Auckland

Landed in Auckland yesterday afternoon. I haven't yet figured out what I'm going to do yet. I'm looking through my travel guide for some ideas. I see there is a "Davinci Machines” exhibit at the Auckland museum. I’m planning on taking the ferry to Devinport and get some sun and go for a swim in the ocean. I’m also thinking of taking the ferry to Waiheke Island on Thursday. Here’s a couple pics from Auckland. The weather looks to be pretty nice.

Good on ya mate!

Well, I had a lot of info to post and my connection timed out here at the Starbucks in Queenstown. FRUSTRATING! So…. Now I type up my blogs in Word and copy paste arghhh! Anyway...

The race was fantastic. The weather was perfect. Seagate has spared no expense to make this event the incredible experience it is. It felt like a world-class event, really. Incredible. Helicopters buzzing around with everything filmed in high def, photographers and videographers everywhere. We started in 34th position and finished 24th. One of our team members lost our Kiwi (I’ll explain more later) and it cost us 15 tokens to get it back. We would have started in 7th position. It was a little frustrating but we worked through it. Everybody worked really hard and I’m really proud of all my team members. I think it would be safe to say that for some it may have been one of the most strenuous things they’ve ever done. Once I get more time I’ll collect my thoughts on each day and try to put together a journal of the highlights memories and pictures from each day.

Earlier today I did Nevis bungee jump. It’s the second highest in the world. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t really scared walking to the edge of the platform on the cable car suspended 450 feet over the canyon floor and jumping out into thin air. What a rush though when I realized that I didn’t die : ) 8.5 seconds of free fall. Everybody who did it said it was scarier than jumping out of a plane. Does that mean I can check sky diving off my list? Hope so…

Tomorrow I’m off to Auckland for some sun and ocean. Should be a nice change of pace. I’ll miss Queenstown. Walking out and seeing the mountains has a way of firing you up each morning. Brendan Moore took me on a 3 hr bike up to Dispute lake and around Moke lake. The views were incredible. It was VERY steep and I know I was pushed past my limits. I was dragging. It was a great ride and accomplishment. The ride down was a blast on the twisty road into Queenstown. Then it was off to river surfing. That was a blast as well but really tiring since my legs were already wiped out from the ride earlier. It’s you, a wet suit, fins, helmet, life vest, boogie board and class 2, 3, 4 rapids. Great time. I think my extreme sports are over down here for now. Maybe some sea kayaking in Auckland?

I know some family is reading from the U.P. so I wanted to hi to Grandma Hyrkas and all the rellies. I love you Gram and I hope you’re feeling better! Hi Mike and Rob and anybody else up there! It kind of feels a Lac Labellish here. Pine trees and mountains and a big lake at the bottom.

I also want to say hi to everybody back at Seagate that may be reading this. Our team spent a lot of time partnered up with Dave Wickersham, Brodie Keast, and Mike Crump’s team. It was really cool seeing those guys in this environment. All of them (actually every executive I met was really nice and was buying into the whole experience.) I have some great pics of Dave flashing the "W" for Weka sign that I taught everybody. He kept sneaking the sign in on pictures that people would take with him. He's a fun guy. Weka baby! (I'll explain more later) Joan Motzinger was great in being the person to get all of us extroverted engineers cheering, chanting etc. I think she realized if she didn’t do it nobody would. There was some great tribal rivalry.

All right, back to the hotel to pack and relax. Brendan and I got a room at the Blue Peaks. I head out to Sebel Suites in Auckland tomorrow right on the water. Should be nice. That’s all for now. I’ll update some more soon with the complete journal hopefully shortly after I get back. Take care!

Rob

Race day tomorrow!

Well the day is almost here. We did rapelling today. The race looks challenging about 17 miles of biking, kayaking, hiking, rapelling, canyoning. It was designed by world champion adventure racer Nathan Fa' avae (or close to that). It's been really great to hear him speak and talk to him (he helped me set the altimiter on my watch during our orienteering section) He's the race director. Time for early bed. Once eveything settles down I'll get allmy pics uploaded and recap the week and race. It has been amazing so far. Night.

Rob

Must sleep.... : )

Wow. Today has been a long day...wait a sec...I had two put another $2 coin in the internet vending box here at the hotel. I guess I take for granted that every hotel doesn't have wireless. We have a Seagate IT room where we can log on for email etc. but it's open until 6:00 and we get back at 5:30 and have to (or not) jump into the shower to get on the bus at 6:00. So no time yet. We started the day at 5:50 Am and got back at 10:30 PM. Long but fun. We Kayaked and white water rafted today. We also are learning a "Haka" from some local Maori. Well there's so much to tell. I may not be able to really keep this up until maybe Saturday wen I can gather it all up. It's been really great so far, a lot of motavational stuff. Getting along well with my team. If I get any time at all I'll try to get into the IT roomso I can upload pics and fil in some more details. The scenery down the river was stunning. Boated throgu the "gates of Argonath" if anybody remembers that from LOTR. Very cool. I'm a geek I know. I got sucked down a whirlpool that's kind of cool right? : ) Time for bed and then at it again at 5:30. Tomorrow is more Haka (we have to do our own in front of everybody) and then mountian biking. Night!

Rob

P.S Thanks for the comments! Sorry if I can't respond to each one yet. wil try when I get some time.

"Sunday, Sunday.."

Day two Sunday February 19, 2006.

Just finished typing up yesterday's blog and uploading some pics from today. We are all meeting in the lobby at 5:00 for our first event dinner at the Skyline resteraunt. If you follow that trail up the mountain from one of the pics below you'll see the resteraunt at the top. It should be fun. Gotta go!

The Eagle has landed

Day 1 Thursday February 16 The day is finally here! I got up at 9:30 and repacked my suitcase. I always over pack so I unpacked a few things. My new Swiss Army luggage is sweet! I called Rainbow Cab at 12:00 and had them pick me up and bring me to the light rail. It was cold waiting for the train. It's an overcast day, about 15 deg F. I was glad I was out of the wind, and we had the heat lamp on which helped a little. A $1.5 0 fare to the airport is a great deal and you almost get there just as fast. I just saved Seagate $30 on cab fare and $150 on parking, cha ching! : ) On the way to the airport on the light rail a woman across from me sneezed 14 times. I started to wonder what would happen if you couldn't stop sneezing, pass out?

I got to the airport at 12:52, perfect timing. I stopped at Subway at the airport and picked up some lunch. As I was walking to the gate I ran into a coworker, Brian Pollock (there's a pic of Brian and I standing behind a table below) and we sat down to wait. Brian and I play hockey together on the Seagate Hockey League. It's Monday and Friday mornings at 6:30 Am at the Shakopee ice rink. Yeah, I know, it's early and yes it does suck getting up at 5:15 AM. As we were sitting there I could tell there were a lot of Seagate folks and I recognized a few. I'm looking forward to meeting the ones I recognize but don't know yet. A little while later Brendan Moore showed up in his shorts and running shoes. I guess he's ready huh?(there's a pic of Brendan and I sitting next to each other waiting to get on the plane in Christchurch) He sat down with Brian and I. Bren plays hockey with us too. We boarded the plane at 1:45 and we were airborne at 2:25.

I've spent my time on the flight to L.A. learning all the functions of my new Highgear Summit watch. It's really cool. It has a compass, barometer, altimeter, temperature, chronograph, and time zone settings. I need to set the altimeter. It says were only at 8471 ft which is just a little off since we're at 30,000ft. As you can see (picture below) I'm writing this on my Toshiba e330 pocket PC. I'm listening to Kenny Chesney's new Cd. Good stuff! The flight from LA to Chrsitchurch wasn't too bad. We were on an really old 747. It felt like a time warp back to the 70's. I had an exit row so it wasn't too bad. I was able to stretch my legs at least. The plane was so old that when they played new movies they looked 15 years old because the projector must have been wearing out. Kind of funny. Thank God for ear plugs. I had a screaming 3 month old baby behind me.

After landing in Christchurch we went through customs and waited to get on our plane to Queenstown. It was a small 2x2 20 seat plane. It was cool tho. As we were coming into Queenstown the plane was flying between mountains (see pic below). That was cool. We finally landed in Quuenstown and they bussed us over to the Hotel. Queesntown is breathtaking. You're surrounded my mountains and they're a clear blue lake in the middle. When we checked into the room they had all kinds of sweet gear waiting for us. Two meroni wool t shirts, a performance pull over, a water proof wind breaker, a pair of biking gloves, a head band thing, full on macpac backpac and macpac water back pac. Everything had the Eco Seagate logo on it. This is some high quality stuff. I wish I would have know it would have saved me $300 on the same stuff I bought for the trip!

The weather is just perfect. I put all my stuff away and jumped in the shower. After 22 hours of traveling I needed one. It felt great. Water pressure! Whoa, they must have the water at the top of the mountain because it comes out hard and fast, perfect. After we all showered we met up to grab some lunch. The rest of the day was spent walking through town and getting a feel for the place. We're all really excited to be here and can't wait to get started. I'm going to stay up a little later to get myself used to the time difference by tomorrow. I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to be walking on the right or the left side of the sidewalk, I think it's left...or right...

All packed and ready to go!

A picture of the traveling suitcase on the light rail to the Airport.