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 ….