Wii Fit insults me

Okay, so I bit the bullet and got the Wii Fit for our Wii. We made little Mii avatars (mine is Timii) and started experimenting.

I don't know what is more insulting... being called a couch potato:



or watching my Mii grow super fat after I weighed myself (I don't look that fat, do I??). Seriously, I think it even went "whoooop!" and the belly grew like it was about to explode, cartoon-style. Not only that, but the avatar got bug-eyed and freaked out, then stared in dismay at how fat it was. I'm not kidding. It stared down at its belly with big surprised eyes. I have proof:



Then it went on to call me obese. In fact, it didn't just call me obese, but put me at the top end of obese.



I asked Beth, "Shouldn't this be using positive reinforcement instead of hurling insults at me?"

She responded, "Well at least you weigh 50 lbs less than the maximum weight the Wii Fit allows."

What? Now I am getting insults from every direction? I never thought a fat guy could feel so small.

Thank you Wii Fit!

Honda Insight Battery

At 121,000 miles, the IMA light came on in my 2000 Honda Insight, indicating there might be a problem with the battery. The warranty expired at 75,000 miles, so I was nervous. Before I even made it to the Honda dealer, however, I discovered Honda had extended the warranty to 150,000 miles or 10 years. With fingers crossed, I visited the dealer to have them run a computer check on the IMA signal. The result was the battery needed to be replaced (for the second time, btw) but I would pay zero dollars. Nice

I thought I would share images of the battery being swapped out.


The battery sits in the hatchback area just behind the seats.


Before you get to the battery, you encounter the casing...


...and this sign. I asked the mechanic why there wasn't a third option: "but if you know what you are doing, you should be fine." Only two options seemed overly forbidding and grim, to me.


To make things simple, all you had to do was toss this baby (which looked just like a light switch) similar to a breaker in your basement and voilà, you were ready to go.


With the case removed.


The battery was shipped overnight from a place in California...


...in this case...


...behold in all its geeky magnificence.


...and all its wires.


Although most of the wires were for the computer system.


and these were the only spots for the positive and negative terminals.


if you look closely, you can see that it is really an array of many separate D-Cell-like batteries all lined up. Pretty cool.

I drove it home the same day. Honda seems to want these 2000 Insights to last, because I am supposed to take it back in a week for an updated computer and a new adapter on the battery (all free).

So far it seems to be driving just fine, thank you.

Server down

If you are visiting this page and the images have disappeared, it is because the university suffered a serious power outage which dramatically affected our servers. Joel is on it and it should be back up soon.

For those Honda Insight fans, or just general hybrid fans, watch for a post about the Insight in a day, or so. The batteries started acting up in my Insight, but it turns out Honda extended the warranty, so they replaced it at zero cost. Niiiice. I took pics of the battery as it was taken out.

Stay tuned.

Peter Cales chair

Peter Cales makes the coolest chairs. He has this "share a chair" program, so he has one of my hand carved African chairs in his house, and I have this chair in my house. I just love looking at it every time I walk by it.

iPhone it in

[written a couple of weeks ago, but never actually posted]

Sorry - if I had more internet access, you wouldn’t have to put up with these. I also just realized the "traveling" tag label has surpassed the "art" label. That isn't good. I need to get focused on art when I return to the States so that ART is the focus of this blog... oops. Anyway:



A hotel in Wellington had this on the wall. You couldn’t get any power (outlets, lights, clock, nothing) unless you put your card key into this little mechanism (the same card you use to unlock your door). Odd.



Heated towel racks are common down here. I should install one in our bathroom.



I keep forgetting to point this out. Everywhere in Europe and the UK, and New Zealand, as well, the toilets have dual flushing. You use a full flush for ... well, you know ... and a half flush when a full isn’t necessary. Seems like such a better idea than those stupid low flow toilets.

Hopefully I have internet access to post travel images tomorrow...

Downtime & Faces

I am taking some downtime after getting back to the States - sleeping and eating lots, seeing family and friends, etc. Soon, this blog will shift away from travel and back to art (I got freaked out when I saw there were more travel tags than art tags). My new-ish big bad computer is in the shop right now, though, so most digital work might have to wait up to a week, depending on what will need to be done with the computer.

There might not be many updates this week, but hopefully I get back into high gear next week.

For now, since Liz seemed curious about the faces snapshots I occasionally take, I thought I would post a few.

So, Liz - enjoy these faces:



Nebraska



London



London

More random iPhone photos

At one of the thermal parks, they had there own tiny version of Old Faithful that went off every morning at 10:15. However, for it to do so, some guy walked up and dumped some chunks of “soap-like substance” into it to get it going. Ugh. I need to check with my parents, but I don’t recall that is how Old Faithful worked when we visited.



This is my reaction.



This is an image of some of the thermal pools that didn’t get posted before.



Here is the Champagne Pool, again, but with the iPhone instead of the Nikon. I can’t say why. Just experimenting.



These are some fishing boats near Goat Island.



These are two iPhone pics spliced sloppily together. It is an 800 year old Kauri tree. Most were cut down years ago for lumber. This one somehow survived the early deforestation of New Zealand.



This is one of the popular rental vans in New Zealand. They were all decorated with various random graffiti-style pop art (screw copyrights, I guess). I don’t think Charles Shultz would have approved.



This is a type of salt that is common down here. Let me preface by admitting I never fully understood Morton’s “When it Rains, It Pours” campaign. I mean, if it said “When it Snows, it Pours” it would make more sense (kind of), but wouldn’t be as catchy.

“See How it Runs” is not only a lame rip off, but makes no sense at all. And, by the way, if you want people to use your food product, don’t use images of rats on it.

Or, use slugs and have Pat and Tom Phalen chase after them with buckets of salt.

Omaha Beach

I am staying with a really nice friend of Burch (our neighbor in Omaha, NE) while in the Auckland area. His name is Shane. Neither Shane nor Burch are from Omaha, but both were at the University of Oklahoma where they met (Burch was Shane’s Ph.D. student). Burch kindly suggested I contact Shane before I went to New Zealand.

Shane has been so incredibly generous and kind. We went with one of his neighbors, Ann, to an art exhibit by Judith Meakin. Judith is neighbor of theirs who has a summer home north of Auckland.



This is Shane and Ann near Goat Island.

We traveled about an hour north to hike, but also took in Judith’s art exhibit. The artist spends her summer up there and paints the beach next to the town she summers in.

The name of the town, coincidentally (and amazingly), is Omaha.

Omaha, NZ is a tiny town. The area across from Omaha Beach makes you feel like you are up at Lake Tahoe. Witness some iPhone pics:







Shane thinks both the name Omaha and Omaha Beach are from WWII when there were a lot of American soldiers in the area. There is very little in Omaha, NZ. There is a golf club there, but not much more:



There is also an Omaha Bay Vinards winery somewhere nearby:



Here is another image of Goat Island (also fairly near Omaha):



By the way - This will probably be my last scheduled post before I am back in the States. Unless I post it earlier, it should appear while I am on the plane headed back home.

I will miss New Zealand and its amazing landscapes and environment. I will miss the yellow-eyed penguins. I will miss the kiwis.

From Omaha, NZ back to Omaha, NE

Solar Power

After I confessed to Jerry Giles (the guy I stayed with in Raglan) that I needed a haircut, he was nice enough to call someone he knew to give us both cuts at his home before I left Raglan.



I didn’t realize we would have it done outside. It was great with the ocean and the bay to look at while she cut our hair, though (I faced the ocean, but Jerry turned his back to the ocean).



Afterwards, I went to see some hot springs near the ocean. Then I decided to walk along the ocean.

Then I decided to swim in the ocean.



Can you guess where this is going? Yeah... I got a nasty sunburn, even though I had been so careful all last month. Ugh.

More kiwi + recap

I visited the Kiwi house in Rotorua hoping to see more kiwis and take more images. Once we (I was with five others) paid the fee and were taken to the kiwi house, we were told we would not be allowed to take any photos whatsoever, so I have no images to share for most of this. It is so sad, because they were so much fun to watch. It was unquestionably the best viewing the entire time I was in New Zealand.

We were first taken to the kiwi hatching area by a guy named Dion. The program had raised approximately 500 kiwis which they then released into the wild. It was an impressive operation. I believe Dion said there were about 20 eggs being incubated while we were there. There were 17 chicks that had recently hatched.

Of the eggs being incubated, we saw two eggs up close. Each egg was marked with lines that indicated the growth of the chick during the final stages of incubation. One egg moved and wiggled quite a bit, as if about to hatch. The woman that cared for the eggs shined a light on each of them so you could make out a silhouette for each. The one that wiggled appeared as if it might start punching its beak out at any second.

They also picked up a tiny chick to give it medicine. It fought a little. It must not have been the first time it was given medicine. Afterward, a different woman cradled the chick in both hands to give us a better look and it tried to hide its beak and head from us.

Then we moved to an area where two tiny glassed-in dens were visible in a darkened room. Two chicks where huddled together in one den, and another chick was sleeping alone in the other den. The two chicks eventually got into a mild shoving match and we saw their heads and beaks for a short while before they huddled back together to sleep.

In the next area there were several large pens with no glass or wire or anything beyond a 30” tall barrier. There were three juvenile or adult kiwis, each in its own penned area. One was an older female that apparently didn’t like humans much. Another female was in the area next to hers. It was a little shy, but got close to us.

The third kiwi was male and was by far the most active. It would get very close to us. I would estimate it got less than two feet away from us many times, and since there was no glass, I literally could have just reached out and touched it.

It was soooo hard not to reach out...

Kiwis have surprisingly strong legs and feet. It hopped around a lot and jumped up on one foot then drop-kick a log with the other foot, apparently to break it open more to get at insects. It made lots of little sounds. Mostly quick snorts as it pecked around, but at least once it even sneezed. It also got excited and jumped against the little barrier as if trying to hop up to us. It would then roll around in the dirt and jump back up and dart back and forth excitedly. It was so much fun to watch.

I returned that evening, between 9 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., to the external nocturnal house and saw four more adult kiwi. One of them called out - a loud startling cry which it repeated about a dozen times. I caught that on video.



Another one touched my hand. I also caught that on video. I had the camera on the ledge of the barrier to steady it and the kiwi just stretched out a couple of times to sniff the camera. I thought it was funny the first time and had no idea it would actually brush against me the next time. I felt like I had been blessed...

At Otorohanga I saw two more kiwi. One was about 13 years old (I think he said they can live to over 50, but I need to verify that since my memory could be wrong). The other just over 1 year old. The 13 year old repeatedly charged the fence between them and stuck his beak through a chicken wire-style fence to attack the younger kiwi. It was surprisingly aggressive. I caught this on video, as well, but it might be too dark to make out very well.

As mentioned in a previous post, I also saw one kiwi at Mt. Bruce (the first I had seen in person).

Depending on how you want to count them, I have seen at least 14 kiwi in person.

1 - Mt. Bruce (behind glass)
2 - Otorohanga (behind glass)

[11 at Rotorua]
4 - juvenile and adult kiwi in their outdoor dens at night
3 - juvenile and adult kiwi in their interior larger dens
3 - kiwi chicks in their tiny dens behind glass
1 - chick (being cared for in the nursery behind glass)

And, if you count the 2 silhouettes still in their eggs, then you could say 16 ... but that’s a stretch, of course. Nevertheless, it was cool to watch the egg wiggle around and move like a vibrating Weeble on its side.

As silly as it might seem to some, seeing the kiwis might just be the highlight of my stay in New Zealand. I joked with Dion that it was almost like a spiritual experience, and he got very excited and replied, “That’s what I thought the first time I saw kiwi in person!”

Meg told Claire that I had seen 14 kiwi.

Claire responded, “He is in New Zealand and he has only seen 14 Kiwis?”

Cheeky girl.

Bridal Veil Falls

I don’t have much from the day I was driving to Raglan, but since waterfalls are always worthwhile, I stopped at the Bridal Veil Falls.

Four Elements, Raglan

I have been doing my best to spend only what was necessary to see and do what I wanted, but after arriving in Raglan, I found all of the hotels were booked. So, a kind woman at one of the hotels recommended I stay with Jerry Giles, who had set up his home to offer accommodations to people visiting Raglan.

It is called the Four Elements luxury retreat in Raglan.

Jerry is a displaced American who is the nicest guy you’d hope to meet. He fed me dinner, breakfast, took my laundry away from me and did that, as well... His place is amazing and overlooks both the bay and the ocean. If I get a chance to take pics, I will, but you can also follow this link to check out his place.

If you end up in Raglan, New Zealand, stay here.

Wallaby in New Zealand??

As I was taking pics of this terraced area, I also saw a wallaby.



I thought there weren’t any wallabies in New Zealand, but I have proof. In fact, I have video proof, as well. Knowing the history of how the non-native species have decimated the native species like the kiwi (and 58 other species of birds now extinct), it was a little shocking to see this wallaby.

He moved fast and I just barely captured these images before it went back into the bush.