look out beantown

i had been meaning to post this up for a while - but time seems to be getting away on me !

i've sorted our accomodation for our stay in boston - as andrew (junior) and his girlfriend need to get themselves a new place to live. no drama for us though!
he said to stay south of the charles river so i went online and had a good looksee at what was available and how far that placed us from the kind of things we might like to do whilst we are there.

it just seems wrong to stay in a hostel in a city like boston (well anywhere that we dont have to) so i have been looking at the hotels in the 2-3 mile radius around the city.

then i found the boston park plaza. built in 1927, it is a very historic hotel.

"Created in 1927 by the great hotelier E.M. Statler as a grand American hotel, it was called a “city within a city”. Today it takes pride in serving Boston as a destination itself, housing under one roof some of Boston's most famous restaurants and lounges, including Todd English's Bonfire Restaurant, McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant and Smith & Wollensky's Steakhouse located in the Castle at Park Plaza, beauty salon/barber shop, airline offices, Business Center, full-service concierge, fitness center, shoe shine and more."

and its right in the middle of where we want to be. yayy !

Autobots, transform and roll out!

Transformers!
Robots in disguise!
Transformers!
More than meets the eye!

We are off to see the Transformers movie tomorrow night.
We are all very excited.
Woohoo!

Bring it!

40 days to go !

i havent added a countdown in a while and seeing as i collected our tickets yesterday - its about time.

we have 40 days til we leave !

i just gave notice at my apartment so i have a moving out day.
this weekend i will be dropping some stuff off in our locked room at jonties and taking my wine to cossies (where i KNOW he will take care of it - and by that i mean not drink it!).

the international women of mayhem have been rather busy lately hence the lack of updates.
i've been to melbourne for work - again - and have been selling things from my house on trademe. if you know of something that you want, let me know as you might get it cheap or even free.

nell has been studying like a demon for her instructors course. shes also been getting ready to finish up at work. lucky biarch.

have tickets .. will travel

I'm alive, and well

I wish I could make a big thing out of this, but it really was such a minor procedure. All I can say is that I have three extra holes in me now, and even those will be gone in a few days.
For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, here is the short version - minus all the moaning and groaning everyone else had to endure.

For the last few years I have been getting abdominal pains at certain times of the month that could not be wholly explained by the time of the month. I have also experienced cystitis symptoms, which are not painfull as such, but very uncomfortable and unpleasant. I lived through these with minimal complaining - ish - but about a month ago, I suffered a bout of these pains that was rather debilitating.
I rushed off to the doc in a fit of hypochondria and was informed by him that I was in fact, probably, really ill.
I went to get an ultrasound scan that day, which proved my doctor correct in his assumption; I had what looked like endometriosis on my left ovary.
So that friday, only two days later, I went to see a gynecologist who also confirmed these suspicions and booked me into surgery.

There is a post below which goes into how I messed up with my medical insurance, so we won't go into that again, but I had to delay the surgery till today to make sure I had enough money to pay for it. I worked out my budget and the doctors gave me a little bit off the prices because I was paying for it myself.
So into surgery I went today.

They really should figure out a way for you to enjoy the drugs a little more.
"This is going to make you feel floaty, and then you'll go to sleep."
Alright, bring it on!
Not.
It only lasted about a second and then I was out.
I'm paying for this stuff. Can't I get some fun out of it?

Next thing I knew I was lying in a cosy bed with a smiling nurse looking down on me, "How are you feeling?"
Pretty damn good actually. I was groggy and sleepy, but had no nausea and no pain. I was surprised because it was a whole different story when I had my wisdom teeth out.

They let me drift in and out of sleep for a while and then gave me something to drink. I lifted my arm over the blanket to take the drink and there was dried blood all over it.
eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww!
"I hope that's my blood." I said to the nurse, who gave me an odd look. Well... I was still a little spacey.
She explained that my arm had been lying against my side during the operation and that there was a whole lot more on my back.
EEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW!
It's no wonder some people are nauseous after an operation. Can't they just clean up the mess they made? Yuk!

Anyway, we cleaned me up before I got dressed, they were actually very nice and friendly folk. I got two juices, a cup of tea and a date scone before Tara came to pick me up.
Oh, and the bill...

Thanks to all my friends and family who called or e-mailed or asked about me in the days before the operation, and the special friend who took care of everything for me, there's no I in IWM ...
... figuratively speaking.
There's one good thing that always comes out of something like this; you get to see how much the people around you really care.

So I am now in bed, as per Tara's orders, with a cup of tea and three small holes in me.
Not the stuff of drama, but worth a blog post me thinks.

ode to andi (cancer boy)

so late in april - our friend Andi found out he has cancer.

it always happens to the people that you least expect.
andi and wendy moved over from the UK and have thrown themselves into the good old New Zealand lifestyle - kayaking, cycling, diving and Andi even got his helicopter pilot license.

andi has created a cancer blog - and i (tara) went through it last night and had a good old read.
it made me a little teary but also rather proud to see what us humans can stand when surrounded our friends and family.

so this is our little ode to andi - our shout out to him and wendy.
we're thinking of you buddy. and you may have just scored yourself a dive name. cancer boy.

51 days to go

i have been to the pub.
i have also calculated that there are 51 days til we leave.

bring it on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what do your shoes say about you

we have bought our walking shoes - the puppies that will be cradling our tootsies on our journey around the world.
got me thinking. nell and i were both looking for comfortable shoes that can be worn all day every day but we came away with totally different pairs.
i have an addiction to shoes as it is so it got me thinking - what do your shoes say about you?

the choice of shoe depends on the function required.
so in this case - daily wear, unknown terrain, to be paired with trousers and possibly shorts (not above the knee shorts).
the function required sets some specifics for the material used. unknown terrain and some rain means durable, not too much mesh and the all important tough but soft sole.

what kind of shoe are we?
well just for fun i found a quiz. and holy smokearoonies - same results!

You Are Big Black Boots!

You can be best described as: attitude A guy has to be pretty gusty to You've got lots of it - and you love to give it hit on you But if he's your type, you'll warm up... a little

What Kind of Shoe Are You?

waahhhey!

nell was in fine form on her birthday! i wasnt too bad the next day.


poor knights diving - queens birthday weekend - may 2007
what a wicked long weekend.
the farmhouse we stayed in was excellent.
i think it had a pretty good view too but as we were out all day, i only caught a glimpse of it in the mornings.

i wasnt diving with nell this weekend as she was doing a course. i had my own training to do.

spent saturday diving with andrew and astrid doing the underwater digital photography specialty.
wonderful dives at rock lilly inlet and then at blue maomao arch. it might have been raining but the water was clear at 12m.

sunday i went out on the dive! tutukaka boat perfect day with anna and her open water student bette and her husband john.
john learnt to dive in papua new guinea and bette was on the last day of her open water course.

we went to cream gardens where the dive didnt quite go to plan but in the afternoon we dived in rikoriko cave and it was just lovely.

monday i had dives 3 and 4 scheduled of the deep dive specialty.
leigh and cheryl drove up to join me and astrid and anna was our instructor.
first dive at barren arch was gorgeous. 34.7m and no problems.
an emergency decompression stop breathing off a drop tank at 5m and that was that!

for our second dive we went back to blue maomao.
leigh and i led anna out in to the channel where we photographed some eels and then we headed back into the arch. spectacular dive!!

i really enjoyed my weekend and took loads of photographs. they are getting better - so i better keep practicing!

I'm never drinking again!

Thursday's birthday celebrations all went according to plan. We all got very drunk and happy. I have very patchy memories of the night, but luckily there are lots of photo's - mainly of me molesting poor Marcia.
So, I'm never drinking again.
Yeah right!

But seriously.
I woke up on Friday morning still drunk. Thank God! It meant I was able to get in a crucial two hours of work before the hangover kicked in.
Tara came to fetch me at about one for lunch. I had been alternately sitting on the couch, vegging in front of the TV and hanging over the toilet throwing up whatever it was I had last put in my mouth. My Burger King didn't stay down very long either.
We went to the dive shop to pack up for the weekend's diving at the Poor Knights, only to find a lot of hungover people there.
Ha ha ha!
Like I said, I don't like to suffer alone.
We finally managed to leave the shop just before four, and promptly hit the long weekend traffic. Luckily my hangover had subsided by that time and it was a rather pleasant trip after Wellsford.

The weekend was fantastic! Aside from a little rain on Saturday, the weather was great. The vis at the Knights was "insane", as Marcia put it, about 25m.
Our dive at Blue Mao Mao Arch was the best one I've ever done there. Every fish that Evan, from Dive! Tutukaka, had said would be there was there, and exactly where he said it would be. You could see for miles. I'm sure.
I also finished my Divemaster on Saturday. So I almost have a number!

Six of us were doing the Kings College Open Water course on Sunday and Monday, and that was a whole different load of fun. The boys were very well behaved, most of the time, and they all did extremely well.
We were invited to the Holiday Park for a BBQ with them on the Saturday night, and while it wasn't eye fillet steak and mushroom sauce like the last time, it was still mouth watering. Steaks for everyone, with the usual chips and salads etc.

The drive back on Monday evening was another surprise. No traffic, we made it home in record time.
As an added bonus, I had left my dive gear in the shop van and it was all rinsed and rying for me when I went to pick it up on Tuesday.
Thanks boys!

While Tara was there with me, she had a whole different kind of weekend, I'll let her tell you all about it herself.