7 years ago
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Friday, 19 December 2008
Las Vegas Blowout
Well as a celebration of both Derek acknowledging he is yet another year older and Alex’s imminent departure to Alaska for work after Xmas to hang out with Palin in the frozen cold we decided to go to Vegas. The main purpose of this trip was to do one of Derek’s lifelong dreams. To fall out of a plane with a ‘professional’ strapped to his back. In the end 5 of us did this ‘silly’ activity with only Alex not doing it. His excuses was money but after watching him lose money on the Blackjack tables, well I’m not so sure :-)
The posse included myself, Derek, Alex, Scott and the tag along Canadians Jamie and Lee. We stayed in the old part of Vegas. The Fremont Experience. It was pretty cool and when the half mile long roof lights up every hour to play some rocking tunes night turns to day. It was pretty wicked. So this first night turned into a mess. I guess that’s what happens when you hang out feeding the penny slots and getting the waitresses to bring us free drinks. Especially when you ask for the strongest drinks which had a multitude of different poisons mixed together and presented itself as a toxic blue liquid. It tasted ok and by the way we were feeling the next morning it worked well too. The next morning after looking extremely hung over in McDonalds we got a call from the Skydive place. It had been cancelled. The winds were huge and there were dust storms blowing up all round Vegas in the desert. We rescheduled for Sunday and went down to the Strip. We decided to go up the Stratosphere and do the rides up there. 1 was shut but 2 were open. Anyway we get up there only to find out only one was open. We did it and it was scary and a moment after we got off the ride which shot you off the side of the tower 300m above the ground a power cut occurred. The wind-chill was nasty up there as was the speed of the wind. The whole tower was shaking. We were so lucky not to have been stuck out there.
The rest of the day was proceeded by doing the tourist thing on the strip. Like drinking beer on the streets and in the foodcourts. Mmm. Fun times. Oh and the highlight was definitely Alex procuring one of the T-Shirts that all the non English speaking Latinos wear when trying to promote the services of the many prostitutes which are available for as little as $35 straight to your room within 20mins. Mmm, yes please can I have a main of herpes and a side of the STD currently in fashion thanks. Dirty, dirty. If you have not been to Vegas you will not understand how many of them there are and how aggressive they are. They all where these T-Shirts which Alex is proudly shown wearing in my pics and literally throw these cards of girls in all sorts of positions at you. Little did I know but they were even filling up my back pockets as I walked past.
Anyway another night preceded much like the first one except it started out with a great meal and festivities at a German beer house. This included Derek, Alex and Scott attempting a competition where you hold out a 1 litre stein in front of you, with arms straight and hold it for as long as possible without spilling any beer. Alex got third overall with a great effort; suffice to say that a girl bet him. Hehe. They lasted for 7 mins which is a great effort, the world record being 12min. I wish I had tried it too but I did not volunteer because I thought it was a drinking competition and after finishing 2 of these big steins dropping another liter would not have been conducive to lasting the evening.
The next day after dragging ourselves out of our rooms at the illustrious El Cortez Hotel we filled up on yet more glorious food from El Pollo Loco. What a joke. They call this fast food. It took me 30mins to get a shitty burrito. We then drove out to Boulder City and before we knew it we were sitting in a little Cessna, 7 pairs of us climbing rapidly above the desert. The views of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead were impressive. The rest of it as you imagine is pretty stark and boring.
Anyhow my tandem fellow turned out to be this little Dutchman. And by little he is much smaller than I but in the end my worries were alleviated. Even if he did start out by saying that he had yet to lose anyone. I asked him how long he had been working here. He said 2 weeks. I thought yikes. As it turns out he is a veteran. Been doing it since tandem started and has over 13500 jumps under his belt. His record in a day is 27 jumps. Don’t ask me how.
Well what can I say? I was scared as hell. More scared than I have ever been. More so cause I was not in control of anything other than the VISA card that let me do it. After kitting up and small talk in the plane before I knew it I was crouched at the open door of the plane 5km above the earth. The rest really is a blur. It all happened so fast. I was screaming then enjoying the ride, then scared when the parachute opened up and we got tugged big time, then happy as hell at the zero gravity moments then ecstatic that he let me take the controls, then we were on the ground landing using my butt as a stopping friction pad. It was an experience I will never forget, I will not do it again for ages but don’t regret it.
I ordered a DVD of my wild ride so I will post that up when I get it. There are a few pics on here as Alex captured the before and after scenes and a few of us floating back to earth. Anyhow after the ride we all slumped back into the car in our somewhat hung-over states and spent the next 4hrs cruising back home talking about the weekend, the holes in our bank accounts and the jumping out of (well actually being pushed out of..) a plane. The traffic was very light for a Sunday so that somewhat eased the pain :-)
Overall a great trip. One I will not do again in the same capacity for a real long time.
Hotels in Vegas - $$$
Food in Vegas - $$$$
Drink in Vegas - $$$$$
Taxis in Vegas - $$$$
Activities in Vegas - $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Being scared like that – Priceless!!!
The posse included myself, Derek, Alex, Scott and the tag along Canadians Jamie and Lee. We stayed in the old part of Vegas. The Fremont Experience. It was pretty cool and when the half mile long roof lights up every hour to play some rocking tunes night turns to day. It was pretty wicked. So this first night turned into a mess. I guess that’s what happens when you hang out feeding the penny slots and getting the waitresses to bring us free drinks. Especially when you ask for the strongest drinks which had a multitude of different poisons mixed together and presented itself as a toxic blue liquid. It tasted ok and by the way we were feeling the next morning it worked well too. The next morning after looking extremely hung over in McDonalds we got a call from the Skydive place. It had been cancelled. The winds were huge and there were dust storms blowing up all round Vegas in the desert. We rescheduled for Sunday and went down to the Strip. We decided to go up the Stratosphere and do the rides up there. 1 was shut but 2 were open. Anyway we get up there only to find out only one was open. We did it and it was scary and a moment after we got off the ride which shot you off the side of the tower 300m above the ground a power cut occurred. The wind-chill was nasty up there as was the speed of the wind. The whole tower was shaking. We were so lucky not to have been stuck out there.
The rest of the day was proceeded by doing the tourist thing on the strip. Like drinking beer on the streets and in the foodcourts. Mmm. Fun times. Oh and the highlight was definitely Alex procuring one of the T-Shirts that all the non English speaking Latinos wear when trying to promote the services of the many prostitutes which are available for as little as $35 straight to your room within 20mins. Mmm, yes please can I have a main of herpes and a side of the STD currently in fashion thanks. Dirty, dirty. If you have not been to Vegas you will not understand how many of them there are and how aggressive they are. They all where these T-Shirts which Alex is proudly shown wearing in my pics and literally throw these cards of girls in all sorts of positions at you. Little did I know but they were even filling up my back pockets as I walked past.
Anyway another night preceded much like the first one except it started out with a great meal and festivities at a German beer house. This included Derek, Alex and Scott attempting a competition where you hold out a 1 litre stein in front of you, with arms straight and hold it for as long as possible without spilling any beer. Alex got third overall with a great effort; suffice to say that a girl bet him. Hehe. They lasted for 7 mins which is a great effort, the world record being 12min. I wish I had tried it too but I did not volunteer because I thought it was a drinking competition and after finishing 2 of these big steins dropping another liter would not have been conducive to lasting the evening.
The next day after dragging ourselves out of our rooms at the illustrious El Cortez Hotel we filled up on yet more glorious food from El Pollo Loco. What a joke. They call this fast food. It took me 30mins to get a shitty burrito. We then drove out to Boulder City and before we knew it we were sitting in a little Cessna, 7 pairs of us climbing rapidly above the desert. The views of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead were impressive. The rest of it as you imagine is pretty stark and boring.
Anyhow my tandem fellow turned out to be this little Dutchman. And by little he is much smaller than I but in the end my worries were alleviated. Even if he did start out by saying that he had yet to lose anyone. I asked him how long he had been working here. He said 2 weeks. I thought yikes. As it turns out he is a veteran. Been doing it since tandem started and has over 13500 jumps under his belt. His record in a day is 27 jumps. Don’t ask me how.
Well what can I say? I was scared as hell. More scared than I have ever been. More so cause I was not in control of anything other than the VISA card that let me do it. After kitting up and small talk in the plane before I knew it I was crouched at the open door of the plane 5km above the earth. The rest really is a blur. It all happened so fast. I was screaming then enjoying the ride, then scared when the parachute opened up and we got tugged big time, then happy as hell at the zero gravity moments then ecstatic that he let me take the controls, then we were on the ground landing using my butt as a stopping friction pad. It was an experience I will never forget, I will not do it again for ages but don’t regret it.
I ordered a DVD of my wild ride so I will post that up when I get it. There are a few pics on here as Alex captured the before and after scenes and a few of us floating back to earth. Anyhow after the ride we all slumped back into the car in our somewhat hung-over states and spent the next 4hrs cruising back home talking about the weekend, the holes in our bank accounts and the jumping out of (well actually being pushed out of..) a plane. The traffic was very light for a Sunday so that somewhat eased the pain :-)
Overall a great trip. One I will not do again in the same capacity for a real long time.
Hotels in Vegas - $$$
Food in Vegas - $$$$
Drink in Vegas - $$$$$
Taxis in Vegas - $$$$
Activities in Vegas - $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Being scared like that – Priceless!!!
Kiwi's In LA Dinner
I headed down to Myles and Ashley’s place at Manhattan Beach where I was going to crash for the night since we were all going to the Kiwi’s in LA dinner at the Consulate General’s house in Brentwood. A pretty exclusive part of town. Before we got down there I played touch rugby with Myles and some South Africans. It was good but after an hour and a half I was stuffed. I felt it for days after. I have not run for ages but at least I now know that the knee was fine. It is confirmed the only thing that brings on the chronic knee pain is walking downhill.
Anyway it was a good night with all booze and some good Kiwi tucker included (I have since learnt that Americans have no idea of the concept of the word ‘tucker’). They auctioned off some flights to NZ for charity. The highlight would have been the 2 large lambs which had been on a spit roast for 6 hours. They were real good. Flown in specially from NZ. The other highlight other than mini pavs and trifle and of course the 42 Below Vodka. :-)
After the party Myles and I checked out some of his local pubs in Manhattan beach before arising the next morning to hit up some breakfast at a great wee spot I can’t remember the name of before driving around Palos Verdes. This is a very expensive area with a huge Country club and where every car was a BMW, Merc or Porsche. We did feel the part in Ashley’s ML350. I think I would have been chased away by soccer mums in new Range Rovers and Escalades had we gone in my Camry.
Anyway it was a good night with all booze and some good Kiwi tucker included (I have since learnt that Americans have no idea of the concept of the word ‘tucker’). They auctioned off some flights to NZ for charity. The highlight would have been the 2 large lambs which had been on a spit roast for 6 hours. They were real good. Flown in specially from NZ. The other highlight other than mini pavs and trifle and of course the 42 Below Vodka. :-)
After the party Myles and I checked out some of his local pubs in Manhattan beach before arising the next morning to hit up some breakfast at a great wee spot I can’t remember the name of before driving around Palos Verdes. This is a very expensive area with a huge Country club and where every car was a BMW, Merc or Porsche. We did feel the part in Ashley’s ML350. I think I would have been chased away by soccer mums in new Range Rovers and Escalades had we gone in my Camry.
Sunday, 14 December 2008
Santa Joke - Golden
When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce Toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.
Then Mrs Claus told Santa her Mother was Coming To visit, which stressed Santa even more.
When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were About to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.
Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the Floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys Were scattered. So, frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of Apple cider and a shot of rum.
When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drank all The Cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally Dropped The cider jug, and it Broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor.
He went to get the broom and found the mice Had Eaten all the straw off the end of the broom. Just then the doorbell Rang, and irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.
The angel said Very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?'
... And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas Tree.
Then Mrs Claus told Santa her Mother was Coming To visit, which stressed Santa even more.
When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were About to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.
Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the Floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys Were scattered. So, frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of Apple cider and a shot of rum.
When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drank all The Cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally Dropped The cider jug, and it Broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor.
He went to get the broom and found the mice Had Eaten all the straw off the end of the broom. Just then the doorbell Rang, and irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.
The angel said Very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?'
... And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas Tree.
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Sedona (Arizona) MTB Trip
I had been looking forward to a trip to Sedona for biking for ages. I have known of this classic Mountain Biking area for years. It was great to hear that Russell, Margaret, Colin and Karen normally head to Sedona for Thanksgiving for a Mountain Biking Trip each year. All up there were seven of us.
Anyway the riding was all that I thought it would be. The tracks are many and varied. No big climbs, just some short ones with short downhills and flowing flattish singletrack. The rocks and dirt even with 2 days of rainy weather were still so grippy. You could rail flat corners like they were banked and as for slickrock its amazing.
Submarine rock which we biked to and on, on the 4th day is awesome. You can bike up ridiculously steep grades of sheer rock. A very cool feeling and then bomb down the other side.
The number of cactus especially on one track called the "Chapel Trail" was very cool. You are literally guiding yourself and your bike between huge cacti just wanting to tear you apart on your first slip up. Though for the most part everything I found was rideable downhill wise though there are some very fun techy bits I really enjoyed the challenge of the technical climbing. Be in on single track or slick rock due to the grip you could manage to get up some pretty steep pitches. Though they took it out of your legs it was wicked fun. Especially when the at the crest of the climb you knew there was some sweet singletrack for bombing down on the otherside.
So other than the biking we has a few good meals, checked out the tourist spots while some of the others who did not ride as much did some great hikes. The area is stunning, never seen an area like it. The rock really is that red. You can even buy locally made T-Shirts stained with Sedona Red Dirt. Anything for a few bucks aye but they were unique. I give them that.
The weather was mixed. The first couple of days were overcast and rainy with some good downpours and lighting. The 3rd day saw the weather getting better and on the last day of riding it was lovely and sunny. Of course the best weather was on the day we left. Still it was wicked overall. We drove back through Flagstaff and Williams. We stopped at Williams (a classic Route 66 Outpost). Had a great lunch and then continued the mega 460 mile (740km) trip home. For the most part through Arizona it was good. 2 lanes, slamed the Camry onto cruise control at 84mph and let her roll. As soon as we crossed the border into Cali it got busy and the road worse so 84 was no longer possible. Once we got onto the I-15 at Apple Valley for 25 miles we were in a massive jam. Never seen anything like it and it was a pain in the butt. Well actually the foot :-) Still I was happy I was was not way further down the I-15 towards Vegas. It was taking people on this day 12hrs to drive the 4hr route from Vegas to LA. The smart people figured this out, turned around and went back to Vegas.
Anyhow enjoy the picture slideshow. As normal never enough riding pictures but I will also be attaching some shaky videos from my new headcam when I get round to making them.
Later,
Kurt
Sedona Mountain Biking - Lhama Trail from Kurt Janssen on Vimeo.
Sedona MTBiking from Kurt Janssen on Vimeo.
Anyway the riding was all that I thought it would be. The tracks are many and varied. No big climbs, just some short ones with short downhills and flowing flattish singletrack. The rocks and dirt even with 2 days of rainy weather were still so grippy. You could rail flat corners like they were banked and as for slickrock its amazing.
Submarine rock which we biked to and on, on the 4th day is awesome. You can bike up ridiculously steep grades of sheer rock. A very cool feeling and then bomb down the other side.
The number of cactus especially on one track called the "Chapel Trail" was very cool. You are literally guiding yourself and your bike between huge cacti just wanting to tear you apart on your first slip up. Though for the most part everything I found was rideable downhill wise though there are some very fun techy bits I really enjoyed the challenge of the technical climbing. Be in on single track or slick rock due to the grip you could manage to get up some pretty steep pitches. Though they took it out of your legs it was wicked fun. Especially when the at the crest of the climb you knew there was some sweet singletrack for bombing down on the otherside.
So other than the biking we has a few good meals, checked out the tourist spots while some of the others who did not ride as much did some great hikes. The area is stunning, never seen an area like it. The rock really is that red. You can even buy locally made T-Shirts stained with Sedona Red Dirt. Anything for a few bucks aye but they were unique. I give them that.
The weather was mixed. The first couple of days were overcast and rainy with some good downpours and lighting. The 3rd day saw the weather getting better and on the last day of riding it was lovely and sunny. Of course the best weather was on the day we left. Still it was wicked overall. We drove back through Flagstaff and Williams. We stopped at Williams (a classic Route 66 Outpost). Had a great lunch and then continued the mega 460 mile (740km) trip home. For the most part through Arizona it was good. 2 lanes, slamed the Camry onto cruise control at 84mph and let her roll. As soon as we crossed the border into Cali it got busy and the road worse so 84 was no longer possible. Once we got onto the I-15 at Apple Valley for 25 miles we were in a massive jam. Never seen anything like it and it was a pain in the butt. Well actually the foot :-) Still I was happy I was was not way further down the I-15 towards Vegas. It was taking people on this day 12hrs to drive the 4hr route from Vegas to LA. The smart people figured this out, turned around and went back to Vegas.
Anyhow enjoy the picture slideshow. As normal never enough riding pictures but I will also be attaching some shaky videos from my new headcam when I get round to making them.
Later,
Kurt
Sedona Mountain Biking - Lhama Trail from Kurt Janssen on Vimeo.
Sedona MTBiking from Kurt Janssen on Vimeo.
Some Work Stuff - An NZ Topographical Map
Well not sure what to say here. I wont say much other than I have some of my work up and viewable to anybody on the Net. I was testing or new mapping server software, specifically caching to create fast lovely maps. They liked it lots so we decided to serve it up as a demonstartion of ESRI software. Pretty cool, and also cool to get some NZ exposure at work.
The Blog post a wroteup is here with the links to the web mapping application.
Its not often that people can see what I actually get up too so I thought it would be worthwhile for people to check this out.
http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/arcgisserver/archive/2008/12/03/Map-caching-case-study_3A00_-New-Zealand-topo-maps.aspx
http://serverapps.esri.com/NZTopoMap/
For other GIS nerds here is a download to an .mxd file referencing the above service.
https://redowa.esri.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=22a1fc381bdc4bf1891f19942cdabb87&URL=http%3a%2f%2fdownloads2.esri.com%2fresources%2farcgisdesktop%2fmaps%2fNew_Zealand.mxd
The Blog post a wroteup is here with the links to the web mapping application.
Its not often that people can see what I actually get up too so I thought it would be worthwhile for people to check this out.
http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/arcgisserver/archive/2008/12/03/Map-caching-case-study_3A00_-New-Zealand-topo-maps.aspx
http://serverapps.esri.com/NZTopoMap/
For other GIS nerds here is a download to an .mxd file referencing the above service.
https://redowa.esri.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=22a1fc381bdc4bf1891f19942cdabb87&URL=http%3a%2f%2fdownloads2.esri.com%2fresources%2farcgisdesktop%2fmaps%2fNew_Zealand.mxd
Later,
Kurt
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