Wow, I just uncovered this post over at Engadget on how to make your own coffee roaster… looks like another step on my road to coffee nirvana!
Well Sharine and i made it back safe and sound from a loverly 3 days up in Central Otago, just Sharine and I … it was glorious! We headed away early on Tuesday morning, a little nervous about leaving the kids. We stopped in Roxburgh at the home of Jimmy’s pies, the most delicious pies in all of New Zealand (IMHO). I’ve always wanted to stop there but when going mountain biking in Central we were always too early, too late, or on a weekend (Jimmy’s is not open in the weekend).
It was very interesting travelling in Central, it is considerably more built up than last time I was there (5 years ago?) and New Zealand houses are much more interesting than US houses, they are almost all contemporary in design, unlike the east coast of the US. We saw some loverly places in the Lake Hayes Estate from Jennian and David Reid.
Tomorrow we are off to Auckland for the better part of the day and will hang out with Sharine’s school friend May. May and her husband are expecting their first child and they’re taking us out for loverly dim sum for lunch in Auckland.
Sad today, Jan is off home to Canberra (actually she is off to Melbourne for more sales and schmooozing with clients) it’ll be more than 2 weeks before she sees her fiance again! 
Kylie, Nana and Great Poppa took her off to the airport and Sharine & I babysat wee Hunter. Sharine adn I are away on vacation up to Central Otago later today or maybe tomorrow morning. The kids seem fine with staying with Nana and she has adventure days, treasure hunts, beach visits and all sorts of things planned for them! Might not get a chance to post while we are away, but things looklike they are going well down at ICE anyways. Caleb will be coming onboard to help and both Mike and Jim are away this week.
On Saturday we scooted out to the Otago Model Engineering Society to let Hunter and kylie ride on the trains. What I had forgotten was that it was an engineering society. These guys actually do metal work, stoke coal engines and create real steam engines at about 1/6 scale for real. Hunter had a blast riding on the trains and looking at the remote controlle ships and boats. Unfortunately, like typical McRobies we forgot our camera! Doh!
Thanks to Kiwi Jo for pointing out that the National Zoo in Washington now has it’s first kiwi! I wonder if I should bring some Speight’s back to the US for the wee one?
So last night i went to hang out with my buddy Chris again and talk business, he unfortunately got called away to a wee family emergency (nothing serious) which left me down at the University of Otago with nought to do! So I thought I’d wander around and relive some of the glory days at my old alma mater. Boy things have changed … 15 years later, many new buildings, new sculptures, so many new faces. It brought back a bunch of crazy memories:
But what startled me the most was that I didn’t want to relive my university days!! I wanted to get home to hang out with my wife and family. Golly I must be getting old, I stopped in to the Captain Cook (the old and best haunt of my uni days) and still couldn’t bring myself to stay away for an hour and have a drink and some lame bar food.
It’s funny how quickly you forget the weather. I recall watching shows like 21 Jump Street or one of those teen angst shows like Dawsons Creek or somesuch and laughing at al the pretty American kids wearing their swimming things late into the summer evening. Now in Dunedin where I am now, the chances of being half naked past about 7pm is next to nothing! Even with warm 25degC days, the evenings drop right down into the low teens. It’s such a different high summer to that in DC. In DC if it’s hot during the day, then it’s HOT at night too!
The weather over the last few days has really brightened up, sunny, windless, 25degC every day, it’s loverly! I had however forgotten just hot strong the sun is down under with no Ozone (thanks to all those Kyoto avoiding countries, oh wait thats where I live now).
We’ve been hanging out at home for the last few days and I just discovered I am almost out of time. Sharine and I are off to Wanaka for 3-4 days next week, we have a jam packed weekend of socializing and hanging with friends and family and after that we are basically on our way home! So today I will spend running around trying to hang with my peeps that are still here in Dunners: Andrew McP, Kylie (the other one), Chinch again … phew gonna be one of those days!
As many of you know the New Zealand proper pronounciation of “Fish and Chips” is “fush n chups”. It’s been striking me over the last few days as my kiwi accent reasserts itself, how different I sound when talking about work versus home life here in NZ. I had lunch with a good family friend and mentor yesterday and (after a free golf lesson, he’s quite the player) we chatted about being a small business man and working for yourself. When I spoke about what I do I lapsed into a heavy north east american accent. Bill just laughed at me!
Last night we were over at Bill & Ngaire’s house for beef fillet, good old kiwi barbeque and some loverly wine. We had a Penfolds Tawny port that was quite outstanding and ate our fill of delicious Kiwi ice cream and berries.
Phew, what a Sunday! We had a big(ish) get together on Sunday for Nana’s (shhhh 60th) Birthday. Ngaire & Bill, Kevin & Jessie, Jan & Doug, Dean & Sharine, Nana, Great Poppa, Kylie & Hunter, Debbie & Neil and even Jan’s friend Loranne dropped by. It was pandemoneum! I cooked a great chocolate mud cake and made lavash bread, while Jan made salads and Nana marinated steak, lamb, venison burgers, and of course good old kiwi sausages!
Plenty of fun revolving around the kids and having a blast. Nana thoroughly enjoyed herself, we played a little gentile crocket on the lawn, barbequed, and cracked rude and un-PC jokes all over. Much good New Zealand wine was drunk and many a vodka and gin was had by all. Grill-master Deano cooked some pretty good lamb and the venison burgers were a little over done, but the rest was wonderful.
Gifts galore: Nana got a bunch of neat things some nice wine glasses, a nice serving plate and a new digital camera from Sharine, the kids and I with a huge 2.5″ LCD so she can actually read it! We had a blast taking photos and wee movies. The camera has a 512MB card, so she can take more than 300 good quality photos. Nana laughed as when I was in college/university I had a habit of taking photos then leaving the film in my camera for years (often because I lost the camera). Now Nana can take months before she uploads them just like I did!
So you’ll all laugh at this, we just raced back from the beach to get out of a thunder storm and arrived home to the faint sound of bagpipes. You don’t hear bagpipes in the states, well not in your home anyways. Brings back memories of addressing the haggis, the poet Robbie Burns, and long slow Dunedin winters.
Anyway before that we raced off to Brighton beach down south of Dunedin. We packed a yummy picnic of ham sandwiches and fruit and while the wind off the south pacific was a little cold it was a glorious 24degC on the beach out of the wind. The kids had a blast running in and out of the water, Sharine almost got swept into the sea trying to get a shot of the kids faces! She was standing on a wee rock out in the surf and a quite large wave crashed right around her! Poor honey, I tried to save her but got shooed off!
The kids built sand castles, ran and played in the water but it was cold! Unlike the water in summer in the States, the south pacific water around Dunedin doesn’t get much above 12degC!
Anyways off to the High Tide restaurant with my sister Jan and her fiance Doug tonight to celebrate us all being in one place, and tomorrow is Nana’s 60th celebration (although her real birthday isn’t until the 16th).
There’s a bunch more beach photos over on flickr.
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