Why is the ground rushing so quickly up to my face?

There are two standard questions that serve as conversation starters when you meet someone for the first time in Wanaka during the winter. They are: "So, you here for the season?" or "Been up the hill much?" They're kind of the equivalent of the "What's your major?" question asked by oh so many college freshmen. But I digress. Anyway, I received some strange, uncomprehending looks when I responded in the negative to those two queries over the last few months. The 'never summer' crowd of skiers and snowboarders--those that pop back and forth between the northern and southern hemisphere chasing winter year-round--who descend upon this little berg? burg? burgh? (I really must look that up sometime) every winter seem utterly perplexed by the fact that people actually live here all year and might not actually be here solely to ski (or board). In all fairness, I guess this is technically considered a ski resort town. And in more fairness, even most of those who are not here solely to ski (or board) go up the hill at least a couple times during the season.

This last Sunday, for the first time this season, I 'went up the hill'; and for the first time in my life, I strapped on a snowboard and hurled myself down a mountain (read, the very gentle decline of the learners' slope at Cardrona Ski Resort). With Shannon's board, helmet, and goggles; Mike's gloves and boarding pants; and a hookup on free boots at the rental shop from Amy I was ready to see what all the hubbub was about.

I'll say this: I can see how snowboarding could be enjoyable. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I, however, enjoyed it. I mean, falling down (sometimes quite hard) and picking myself up again a couple hundred times over the course of a few hours is not how I'd describe a particularly enjoyable day. Now, I think with a little bit of practice I might eventually get good enough to find some enjoyment in the activity, but for now, uhhh, not so much.

I don't mean to imply that I was completely hopeless. I mean I did show some (however slight) progress over the course of the day. For instance, I actually got pretty "good" at falling. What I mean is, I figured out how to fall, when I knew a fall was imminent that is, in such a way as to keep the potential damage to my body to a minimum. Sad to say, I never figured out a way to do the same for my pride. Still, I am glad I went and gave it a go, and, the soreness I've felt for the past four days not withstanding, I do actually look forward to getting back up on that horse, so to speak, and trying again.

The only thing is, my first day of the season happened to fall on the resort's last day of the season. Looks like I'll have to wait until the mountain reopens next June for my day two. That reminds me, did I tell you I was staying in Wanaka and making it my home for the foreseeable future? I didn't? Hmm, that's weird. :-)

Cheers!

Scattershooting

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Dirk Benedict. A few random thoughts, observations, and ponderings that were just rattling around upstairs:

-At the bar the other night, I saw a man who bore a striking resemblance to "The Most Interesting Man in the World" from the Dos Equis commercials. He was drinking an Amstel.

-For the most part, I thoroughly enjoy the Kiwi version of the English language. There are, however, two notable exceptions that I find incredibly annoying. They are:
1.) pronouncing the words known, mown, and grown with two syllables.
2.) using a "t" rather than "ed" for the past tense of certain words, i.e. spilt and learnt.

-Bazooka is such a fun word to say it's a shame one doesn't have more opportunity to drop it in normal conversation.

-As exciting as the courses entitled 'Agri-chemical Application Safety' and 'Agri-chemical Equipment Calibration' sound, I can assure you they are nothing of the sort.

-The book I just checked out from the library has an honest-to-goodness library card still attached to the inside of the back cover. You remember those, right? The librarians stamped it with one of those little dial-a-date stamps every time a reader checked it out. I found it fascinating to study the book's circulation. It got checked out two or three times a year, every year between 1978 and 1986. Then it apparently sat on the shelf untouched until 1992 when, all of a sudden, it resumed it's previous pace of two to three checkouts a year until 2002. At that point the date stamps disappeared altogether. I assume that's when the library abandoned the card system in favor of the present electronic one.

-Speaking of the library, when I first got my library card I had to pay a $40 bond that I was told would be returned to me if I stayed for six months. I forgot all about it until this Saturday, when the librarian told me the six months was up and I was due back my $40. SCORE!

-I had Rippon's '07 Riesling for the first time last week--liquid gold!

-When I learnt that the Jumbotron at the Cowboys' new stadium is seven stories high, I had to smile. That "television" is four stories taller than the tallest building in Wanaka. And the tallest building in Wanaka isn't even suspended 85 feet in the air.

-I wonder why nobody wanted to read Brave New World from 1987 to 1991.

-I love it when a plan comes together.

Cheers!

Hello stranger

As a few of my readers have recently pointed out to me, the blog entries have been fewer and farther between as of late. So I'd like to take this opportunity to explain myself.

See, what had happened was...

Actually nothing much really happened to cause the precipitous drop off in entries; and that's precisely the point: nothing much has really happened. At least nothing much worth blogging about. I think it was inevitable, really, that I got to this point. You see, after six months in this town, my life has shifted from more of a 'tourist' mode, where everything is new, exciting, and different to more of a 'local' mode, where everything is more routine, familiar, and comfortable. That's not a bad thing, mind you--I rather enjoy the laid-back little life I've carved out for myself here--it just doesn't make for very scintillating reading is all.

However, the hew and cry about my virtual blog abandonment (ablogdonment?) have served to remind me that, while a comfortable routine is nice, it's most important that I break out of it every so often and revert back to my touristy ways, even if only for good blog-fodder. So, dear readers--if there are any of you left out there, that is--I will make it my charge going forward not to get too comfortable in my routine.

Cheers!

Scattershooting

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Dolf Lundgren. A few random thoughts and whatnots:

-Today is the first day I haven't worn long johns in two and a half months. Spring is in the air, and I like it!

-There are some phenomenally talented Kiwi musicians. Some of my current favorites are: Kora, Tiki Taane, Paul Urbana Jones (all of whom I've had the pleasure of seeing live here in Wanaka), and Gin Wigmore (who I'd love to see live, and will if she plays anywhere close by in the future).

-I popped down to Barluga last Friday night where I found my buddy Mike (the bar Manager) training a new bartender in the making of some very exotic drinks. He was just in need of a Guinea pig to drink them. Oh boy, did I have the heads last Saturday.

-My T Bar M Squirrel hat's status has recently been downgraded from "anytime" to "work only."

-I need to do a better job of remembering to apply sunscreen during my lunch break.

-I recently discovered a new dessert. Brandy Snaps--oh, so delicious!

-I need to find a new Tuesday night activity. Last week was Amy and Shannon's last basketball game for the season. Their record: 2-10. They weren't good, but they sure were fun to watch.

-When a friend asks you "What are you doing this weekend?" and you respond "I have no plans." to which they reply "Wanna help me move?" you immediately regret not having replied with something else to their initial query.

-I'm three quarters of the way through The Count of Monte Cristo. It's fantastic. The Three Musketeers is now next on my reading list.

-One of my favorite Kiwi-isms is "lost the plot." I definitely lost the plot after my stint as exotic drink taster last Friday night.

Cheers!

A star in the making?

Not hardly. But I did make my New Zealand television debut recently. Brief tangent: Kiwis pronounce the word "debut" like dayboo--it's kind of annoying.

Yes, so back to my non-starmaking turn on the small screen. Rippon Vineyards was the recent feature on Country Calendar, which is New Zealand's longest running television series of all time. For you readers from the Dallas area, you may remember that program on Channel 8 that used to come on on Saturday afternoons called Country Reporter. You know, with the guy from the old Dairy Queen commercials? Well Country Calendar is very much like that show. They travel around the whole of New Zealand and feature a unique place each week. The three episodes I've seen featured a 50,000 hectare cattle ranch that uses helicopters to muster the cows; a horse training facility that believes in training horses and riders in an all-natural way, meaning no bits, no bridles, and no horseshoes; and of course the one on my very place of employment.

The film crew came out and shot over the course of four days during harvest back in May. They got some really great footage. The aerial stuff they got from their helicopter is absolutely stunning. Nick tells us that they got something like 11 total hours of footage, from which they had to edit down to 24 minutes of programming. Crazy.

I make my first appearance on screen about 8-9 minutes in, when you see a pair of arms loading a full bin of grapes onto the back of a truck. Those were my arms! A few minutes later you see that same truck pulling away. Although you can't see me, I was behind the wheel of that truck! Then, in one of the very next scenes, you finally get to see my mug as I unload the bins of grapes onto the sorting table at the winery. It was a brief appearance to be sure, no more than a couple of seconds. But that was none other than yours truly making his television dayboo nonetheless.

The producers are supposed to be sending several dvd copies of the program so that every member of the staff can have one. When I get mine, I'll be mailing it to my people back in Dallas. I mean, I'm in television now, I've got to have "people." So if you want to borrow it for a look-see, you'll have to contact my people (read, parents).

Caio!

The naming of barrels

Eiffel's got his tower. Wrigley, his field. JFK, an airport, a space center, and a couple thousand junior high schools. Me? I've got a barrel named for me. Yep, one of the 93 barrels of Rippon Vineyards 2009 vintage of Pinot Noir is named "Steve the Texan" after yours truly.

Hey Steven, why do the barrels have names?

Good question, you. I'll tell ya. Over the next 18 months, before the wine goes into bottle, the Winemakers will do periodic tastings and record their impressions of each barrel's characteristics. And, it's easier to really get to know a thing if it's got a name. Plus it's more fun to say "Jack Kerouac sure is coming along nicely" than "Barrel 36 sure is coming along nicely." Or: "How bout the tannins in Steve the Texan, huh?" Much better than "How bout the tannins in 27, huh?" "I think Kirk is way too oak-y." A better ring to it than "I think 75 is way too oak-y" don't you think? Besides, the wine in every single barrel will develop its own unique tastes, structures, mouth feel, aromas, and other characteristics. So much so that no two barrels will taste exactly the same. So if the wine from each barrel is unique, it stands to reason that each barrel should have a moniker equally so.

I see. But how, Steven, are the names determined?

Another good query. I'm glad you asked. You see, when the grapes are brought to the winery during harvest, they go into different fermentation tanks, or fermentors. Each tank has an identifying letter: A, B, C, etc. But, just as with the barrels, the wine in each fermentor will have it's own unique characteristics based on a number of factors, including, but not limited to, which block in the vineyard the grapes came from, what clone of Pinot Noir the grapes are, or whether or not the grapes were de-stemmed. So, why not give the fermentors a name to go along with their identifying letters? This year C fermentor was called Captains. D fermentor was called Deltas. U was for Ungulates. W stood for Wayfarers. And Y, Yankees. I think you get the idea. Well, from there, the barrels are given names so that they are subsets of the names of the fermentor from which they got their wine. For example, some of the barrels that got their wine from Captains include: Kirk, Hook, and Ahab--they were all "Captains" you see? Some more examples: Fermentor Deltas produced such barrels as Nile River, Mississippi River, and Airlines. Fermentor Wayfarers gave way to barrels including Jack Kerouac and Dr. Livingston. Fermentor Ungulates led to, among others, Antelope, Horse, and Zebra.

Interesting. But tell me, Steven, how is it that you got a barrel named for you?

My, you are an inquisitive one, aren't you? Well, it happened like this. Y fermentor was called Yankees. A couple of the barrels from Yankees were named for famous New York Yankees Babe Ruth and Joe Dimaggio. However; "Yankees" is also a term that those from Commonwealth countries have for Americans in general. As I am an American, Nick and Bret (our barrel namers) decided to call one of the Yankee barrels "Steve the Texan" in my honor.

Yeah, yeah. I get that. But there are literally hundreds of millions of 'Americans in general' from which they could have chosen. Why then, Steven, did they chose YOU?

So full of questions today. Goodness. Well, seeing as how it was me who unstacked all 93 barrels from storage, washed all 93 barrels, stacked all 93 barrels to dry, re-stacked all 93 barrels in the barrel room in preparation for filling, and then finally filled all 93 barrels, I guess Nick and Bret felt I had earned such an honor.

Fair enough. But tell me, Steven, why do they call you Steve?

Everybody just calls me Steve here. I don't know. I think it's cause Kiwis are lazy and can't be bothered with the second syllable.

Alright now, Asky McAskerson, I've had just about enough of your questions today, so I think I will say goodnight.

Night? Is it night time there?

Go away!

and Cheers!

Familiar faces (continued)

Holy Chris, I'm behind on this blog! Right. Where was I? Oh yeah. Katie, Melissa, and I were on our way to Wanaka. First thing on my agenda was to correct my guests' pronunciation of my new home town. Kiwis, I've found, pronounce quite a few words and names differently than Americans would. 'Wanaka' is definitely among those. I imagine that, like me before I arrived here, most Americans would think Wanaka was pronounced so that it rhymed with 'banaca'--you know, the fresh-breath spray?--but no, it's actually pronounced so that it rhymes with Hanukkah--you know, the Jewish Festival of Lights? Correct pronunciation established. On with the trip.

We arrived in Wanaka after about an an hour and a half drive through some very pretty country. We passed more than a few vineyards along the way. Some quite picturesque. But none nearly as breathtakingly gorgeous as my workplace, which I was itching to show my former coworkers. And, after checking the girls into the motel, that's just where I took them. First stop, the tasting room. We sampled the entire range of Rippon wines, from Osteiner to Pinot, and there was much rejoicing. A wander through the vines and the requisite picture taking with the lake and mountains as the backdrop followed. I was so glad the weather was nice--we hadn't seen the sun once during the preceding nine days due to a most-stubborn inversion layer that had settled over the valley. But it cleared up brilliantly for my out of towners, and there was much rejoicing. After snapping a number of pics, it was up to the Winery for a tour, which Bret, the Assistant Winemaker, was more than happy to provide. He gave my guests (and me) quite an education on the process of wine making that was so much better than the tour I would've provided, i.e. "There are the tanks. There are the barrels. Any Questions?" Bret even provided us with a bonus tasting--straight from the barrels! We got to sample from two or three of the 08's and from two of the 09's, including from the barrel "Steve the Texan" named for yours truly (an entry on the naming of barrels, and how it is I got one named for me will be coming soon) and there was much rejoicing.

After the tour of my workplace, we went back to my house where Katie and Melissa took over the kitchen and prepared a most delectable Mexican food dinner. What a treat! They had read somewhere that I had been desperately missing good Mexican food and were so sweet to bring with them some much needed supplies. Although their beans got confiscated as contraband from Customs upon their arrival, they came through with flying colors. Our taco dinner was Grade A, muy delicioso, and there was much rejoicing.

After dinner we met up with Shannon down at the bar Woody's, where my friend Mike is the Manager. Jenn and Michelle joined us shortly thereafter and we had a fun night out, and there was much rejoicing.

The following day, the sky had reverted back to the grey palor it had maintained for most of the previous fortnight, but even so, the beauty of this place was little diminished so we took a long walk along the lakeside. About midway through our walk, it began to snow. The novelty of experiencing snow in July, especially for a couple of visiting Texans who, three days prior, were experiencing triple digit temperatures back in Dallas, was something to behold. I don't think it would've been possible to wipe the bewildered smiles from Katie's and Melissa's faces. I wouldn't have wanted to even if I could.

After our walk, I got to introduce the girls to one of my favorite Wanaka pastimes--drinking Brewskis at Kai. Kai is the cafe/bar on the busiest intersection of town, and if you sit outside long enough, sooner or later you'll see everyone you know. Shannon, Mike and Dean joined us, and for the next couple hours we all drank Brewskis, talked, laughed and greeted the multitudes of passersby we knew. Mostly I just sat back and watched as Mike and Dean kicked their 'entertaining out of towners' engines into high gear. Dean, an angry (not really, it's all an act) Welshman, and Mike, an affable (not an act, genuinely affable) Kiwi are quite the story tellers, and they had us all in stitches for hours. Just get Dean going on a diatribe about the French and you've got an afternoon's entertainment that's second to none. I really couldn't have asked for a better afternoon to show my guests just why this place has become so special to me. And there was certainly much rejoicing.

Come suppertime, we retired back to my house where Paula had prepared a traditional Kiwi dinner of lamb shanks, roasted veggies, and kumura. It was alright, but, frankly, not really worth writing home (or blogging) about, so I won't. There was only a little rejoicing.

Theirs was an extremely short visit--only a few days--but I'd like to think that Katie and Melissa had a good time. I know I certainly did. It was so great to see friends from back home, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to play tour guide in my new little corner of the world. My only regret is that we never got a chance to make it to Puzzling World. Maybe next time. **Sarcasm heavily implied here. Brad knows, but for the rest of you, Puzzling World is the local, cheesy tourist trap.**

So, to sum up: good friends (both visiting and local) + good scenery + good weather + good wine + good food + inclement (but fun) weather + good beer + good conversation + good laughs = one helluva good time...

...with much rejoicing!

Cheers!