Days 1 to 3 – Southern California (24th June to 26th June)

Posted on June 27, 2015 by jo

Day One – 24 June 2015 – Los Angeles

We arrived refreshedin LA, having been upgraded to business class on our flight.

Upgraded to business class

We picked up our rental car which smelled of smoke, so we swapped it 3 more times until we found one which would have to do. The seats fold down flat so hopefully we can sleep in it.

Day Two – 25 June 2015 – Los Angeles to La Jolla (near San Diego)

We were up at the crack of 5am and on the road by about 6am. I’ve heard bad things about LA traffic and wanted to avoid it at all costs! We stopped for breakfast at Wilma’s Cafe on Balboa Island near Newport in Orange County.

Wilma’s for Breakfast

Mike’s horrendously big breakfast at Wilma’s cafe.

Mike and I had a little walk around Balboa Island to walk off our giant breakfast.

Balboa Island

Our next stop was Oceanside. There was a nice pier here with weird lifeguards.

Weird looking lifeguards at Oceanside.

Pier at Oceanside

A couple of stoned guys played us a really bad version of Hotel California.

Stoned aged surfer dudes playing Hotel California really badly

We stayed for two nights at La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya) and found an amazing beachside hotel with a studio apartment overlooking the sea.

Stunning sunsets from hour hotel at La Jolla

Day Three – 26 June 2015 – La Jolla and Mission Beach, San Diego

We hired some weird looking bikes which they call “Beach Cruisers” and cycled along Mission Beach.

Cycling along Mission Beach in San Diego

The Charade

Posted on April 28, 2013 by jo

“Chew-ma-chew” says Jenny.

Mike is standing there gesticulating with encouragement.

“Chew-ma-chew” repeats Jenny.

Mike continues to gesticulate with encouragement.

I decide to join in – “chew-ma-chew” I say.

Mike is still gesticulating but with frustration now.

“Chew-MA-chew” – says Jenny emphasising the middle syllable as if that might help.

“Try saying it fast” says Lynda who already knows the answer.

“chewmachew” Jenny and I say in unison.

“That’s it” says Lynda.

Mike is looking really frustrated at this stage and decides to go on to the second word. Two syllables, second syllable sounds like…..Mike is gesturing a bowl and eating out of it.

“DISH” yells out Mum. Somehow we manage to narrow down the second syllable to being ISH.

“So” says Barry – “We have chewmachew something ish”.

By this stage Mike looks like he’s about to leave the room in frustration, Lynda is pissing herself laughing, Jenny and I are chanting “chewmachew something ish“, Mum clearly knows the answer but is afraid to answer in fear of having to stand up and do a charade, and Dad is fast asleep.

“Tomato Relish” shouts Barry out of the middle of nowhere.

“WTF” says Jenny and I – how do you get Tomato Relish from chewmachew something ish!

The Office Smells

Posted on April 23, 2013 by jo

“POO! It smells like fish in here”.

I turn to Roy who is eating a subway sandwich.

“Roy? What’s in your sandwich? Fish?”

“No, it’s pork, but I can smell fish too, it’s pretty gross.” He replies.

I wander off in a hunt for the fishy smelling culprit. As I near the kitchen the fish smell gets stronger. The team who sit outside the kitchen all have their noses blocked and one lady is even spraying her perfume around. I walk into the kitchen and I’m almost bowled over by the putrid smell. There are many people eating their lunch in there, so it is very hard to pinpoint who is eating the fish. I wander back to my desk in disgust.

I work in a team full of blokes. There is constant burping, farting and swearing going on. It’s pretty hard to put up with, but they should be used to me by now.

But seriously, we have had a few issues with smells in the office. Yesterday there was a strong BO smell floating around. Roy reckons there was a workman crawling around in the ducting with bad BO, and this was the cause of the smell wafting around the office. This could possibly also explain the farty smells we had the other day. Maybe that same workman is up there eating fish today.

The Office – All By My Self

Posted on April 20, 2013 by jo

It’s Friday. I’m sitting at my desk eating my lunch. I glance to my left and am confronted with screen full of testicles.

“What the hell are you looking at Roy? Testicles?”.

“It’s the inside of a nose” replies Roy.

I’m not sure which is worse. Now for some reason I can’t stop glancing at Roy’s computer. This is really putting me off my lunch. Roy is a young Asian guy with a kiwi accent who sits next to me. He is in my team, but works on other systems to me. I politely ask him to refrain from looking at noses and testicles until I have finished my lunch.

Speaking of young asian guys with kiwi accents, a chat pops up on my screen

“Hi Jo, how’s it going?”

“OMG, Kevin!” I type back.

Kevin is an old workmate from my previous job in Auckland, and he is now working for the same company as me, but in Auckland. We chat for about 30 mins, catching up on gossip etc. I’m glad he finally got away from our old firm – he was way too good for that place. When I finish chatting to Kevin, I realise I am all alone in the office. Mark has gone for a 2 hour lunch to play board games with his mates. Yes – you heard me right – I said board games. Visions of the guys in Big Bang Theory springs to mind.

I’m not sure where everyone else is. Antony is no doubt in a meeting, Brian and Evan are no doubt in the pub, and Thomas is in Argentina. I was friends with Thomas before I started work, so I get to read about all his travel adventures on facebook – how he got upgraded to business class, cycled around Dubai, photos of him drinking pints in London, and this morning he just landed in Buenos Aires. The fruit is rotting in his drawer as we speak.

At 1.30pm an email pops up on my screen.

You have won tickets to tonights rugby – Hurricanes vs Force.

“I’ve won tickets!” I announce to the empty office.

They have a ballot at work for spare tickets whenever there is a sporting event on in Wellington. I decide to walk up to the 10th floor to pick up my tickets. By the time I get to the 7th floor, my legs are like jelly. I struggle up the remaining 3 flights and am wheezing by the time I make it to reception. Note to self: I must do more stair walking (or take the lift next time).

By the time I get back to my desk everyone is back in the office so I wave my free tickets around to gloat. Mark spoils my thunder by saying “They are having trouble getting people to go, they are practically giving tickets away”. I look on the internet to see if this is true. It’s not.

The afternoon drags on a bit. I was planning to finish early, but now I have to wait around to 5pm as we are going to the game. Mark is busy concentrating on something. I see he has an earphone in one ear – which means he is either watching a movie, a Manchester united game, or something on youtube. There is a fornightly meeting downstairs at 4pm, which we are allowed to take beer to, so I drag Mark along with me. Mark doesn’t drink though. He’s a diabetic vegetarian who doesn’t drink. So that basically rules out any of the good stuff for him.

The meeting was ridiculously boring, but by the time it finished, I had time for another beer before Mike arrived to pick me up.

The End.

The Office

Posted on March 29, 2013 by jo

I arrive in the office at the ungodly hour of 7.30am. Mark is on the phone. He sees me and promptly hangs up. I think I just interupted his early morning phone sex. “Morning Jo, how was the traffic this morning?” chirps Mark in a cheery voice. I’m still half asleep and grunt something in return. I head to the kitchen for some caffeine. As my tea is brewing I begin emptying the dishwasher. There is like a million dishes in there. I half empty it and give up in disgust. It’s worse than cleaning up after Christmas day!

I head back to my desk and notice Mark is on the phone again. He sees me and promptly hangs up. There is a bit of de ja vu going on here. I rustle around in my drawers looking for some fruit that I stashed there yesterday. I load of fruit flies swarm out and the stench of rotten fruit makes me gag. A bit more rustling reveals a nectarine stashed right at the back. It looks like it may have been there since last year! I put it aside to stash in Thomas’s desk when he goes away for a whole month around Europe. That will teach him!

“Where’s that Thomas-M” annouces Mark for the 100th time this morning. “Gone to get a chart” I reply on auto-pilot. Thomas went out to buy a chart of the Milford Sounds once (he has a holiday house there) and ever since this has become a bit of an “in joke”. When someone asks where Thomas is – he has gone to buy a chart.

At 7.40am Brian wanders in. “Morning punkly” says Mark. “Don’t call me a cunt you fucken cunt” replies Brian. Mark then goes on to explain that he called him a punk – not a cunt. An argument erupts between the two of them that involves even more swearing. See what I have to put up with?

Evan arrives at 7:45am. “Are we doing the quiz today?” “No, because you guys are crap at it” says Mark. It’s true we are crap at it. Evan sits down at his desk in a huff. Thomas arrives at 7:50am. “Where have you been Thomas-M – you’re late!” says Mark.

Mark and Thomas start chatting about the cricket so I tune out and get on with my day checks which involves checking my email, facebook and the news. Antony (our boss) rocks in about lunchtime. It’s not really lunchtime – it’s just wishful thinking. It’s only 9.30am, but it feels like it should be time to go home already.

Mark takes a drink of his chocolate milk and gags, splutters and spits all over his monitor. That’s fucking coffee flavoured milk. Christine brought me the wrong milk. She’s trying to kill me. I can’t get that coffee flavour out of my mouth yuck yuck etc etc. This went on the next hour or so.

It’s now 11am. Antony is in a meeting, Mark is washing his mouth out and Thomas has gone to buy a chart. I am all alone and have run out of things to write about.

The End.

Breakfast in America

Posted on August 24, 2012 by jo

In America there is a lot of choice and breakfast is a scary time for me. It goes something like this:

Me: I’ll have fried eggs and bacon please
Them: How would you like your eggs?
Me: well done please
Them: Sorry we don’t do well done
Me: um, I don’t want them runny.
Them: blank stare
Me: cooked, not runny in the middle
Them: still staring blankly
Me: I dont want that yellow bit in the middle to be runny. Mike help me out here.
Mike: What is the choice?
Them: sunny side up, over easy, easy under, over well, over medium, over hard
Me: Its all too hard
Them: do you mean over hard?
Me: yep, sounds good
Them: What sort of toast?
Me: (oh dear, here we go again) what’s the choice?
Them: rye, sourdough, sweetdough, wholegrain, halfgrain, quartergrain, white, Brown, Red, Green, or Blue
Me: um, white please
Them: Drink?
Me: flat white please
Them: The choice is coffee or tea.
Me: hmmmm

Its all good fun.

Getting our Kicks on Route 66

Posted on August 22, 2012 by jo

We followed some of Route 66 to Las Vegas. We stopped at a small town and got chatting to an old guy playing the blues. He was really good so we bought one of his CD’s.

Old guy playing the blues outside a shop

Ooh Aah

Posted on August 22, 2012 by jo

We spent 2 days on the Grand Canyon.

Terry and Sue did a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon and Mike and I did a hike into it.

The morning was cold and overcast, but it cleared around 10am.

The walk into the canyon was amazing. We did the Ooh Aah trail which was a windy trail into the canyon. We had to step aside to let some people on mules through.

Elvis and the Grand Canyon

Posted on August 20, 2012 by jo

I had a good night sleep despite having to climb down the ladder in the middle of the night for a wee.

It was such a beautiful place to camp. We had breakfast overlooking the reflections on the lake.

We stopped in the little town of Williams to top up with fuel, coffee and some Elvis photos.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon around lunchtime and did a walk along the rim. There were afternoon thunder storms and rain so the view wasn’t as spectacular as other times we’ve been here, but it was cool watching the lightning over the canyon.

We had a nice quiet campsite in the Mather campground near the main part of the canyon. There are Elk wandering around the campsite.

We spent a heavy downpour in the van playing monopoly which was fun. Then we went and watched the sun set behind the clouds over the canyon.

It was dark when we got back to camp so we lit a fire and cooked a tuna pasta in the dark. It was yummy, but a bit freaky eating it in the dark, worrying about spiders falling out of the trees into our food.

I’ll put some more photos up later.

P.S. for Liz or Heather – There is no phone reception here which is why Susan hasn’t phoned home yet.

To Arizona

Posted on August 19, 2012 by jo

Jetlag had us up at 6am. We were on the road by 9.30am and it was already stinking hot. We stopped at some outlet stores and sue bought some fancy jandals.

We got back on the highway that was very long and very straight. It was a bit ofr a bumpy ride. We went over a large bump and the air conditioning cut out. Bugger. 45 degrees outside and no air conditioning. As well as that, there was some very hot air coming in on terrys feet. Service stations out here in the desert are about 100 miles apart, so we pulled into the next one we came to. All looked well with the oil and water, so we topped up and continued on. Then the air cond started again. Yay. For about 5 minutes then it stopped again. Poo.

Sue rang the rental car company and they arranged a garage that was on our route to look at it. We were pretty Lucky as it was Saturday afternoon and they were about to close. It was stinking hot while we waited for them to look at it. It wad about 48 degrees. We soaked our feet in the dogs bowl for a bit.

There is a problem with the compressor and he couldn’t fix it, but he did some fiddling and it seems to be working now.

We stopped at a nice campsite right beside a lake and watched the sun set over the lake. Perfect!

Sue and Terry cooling their feet in the dogs bowl while we wait for our air conditioning to be fixed. HOT – 48 degrees!

Sleeping in our upstairs house