What I do with my weekends

So I took a "me day" here this Friday-Saturday to get away from it all. It has been an intense week of events (some good, many bad), and I just needed to escape it all. ` Now what I consider a relaxing day is probably bizarre and weird to many out there. I went on a trip to the Royal Tyrrell Museum to go and do research on the many things I have been reading about lately. This was neither relaxing nor calming really, but one can not do either of those things if they want to be productive in the brief window of 7 hours I had to engage in this task (especially when trying to catch up on 75 million years worth of information :P). I am extremely grateful to all the scientists and staff at the museum who not only tolerated my visit, but indulged me for a good chunk of their day in some cases. ` The huge bit of news is that I was able to pitch my art, and a few of the curators were willing to have me try and come up with some illustrations for some of their upcoming projects. While this is just way too cool, this was all tentative interest on their part. I can't really blame them either. ` Taking the curators through what amounts to my portfolio, it became embarrassingly clear I have not sat down in the past couple years (2010-2011) to produce any definitive pieces showcasing my current 3D abilities! I have many great pieces of my best as of 2 years ago, but I've come a long way since even then! ` Fortunately I have be cataloguing my progress on modern projects, which shows I can quickly adapt and improve anything that they might wish me to fix. So I need to sit down and really focus on my art and cranking out some top notch pieces in the next few months. So I figure the upcoming Hadrosaur gallery for ART Evolved would be a good place to start my current efforts. So expect something special from me with this Corythosaurus at the end of the month! Sadly with this new initiative there has to be some restructuring of my creative efforts. So I'm making Traumador's effective hiatus officially, and warning Traum fans it could be a while before I return to his adventures. Though this is less than ideal (trust me, I feel very sad at having to make this move), it has been a little while in coming. It feels like I've hit a brick wall on making it any further with Traum (in terms of readership that alone anything else). I am not saying this is the end of him. Just acknowledging it could be while until I can get back to his storyline. Now on with 2011, the year I will make my palaeo-art go legit!

My Tyrrell Talk

Well my talk at the Tyrrell has come and gone. From all the feedback I've heard thus far, it was well received by scientist and general public member alike. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it (and if you didn't make it, no worries. A mid-Friday time slot on the same day as 10cm of snow. You've got plenty of good excuses :P).

For those who missed it (or want to see it again... minus my laser pointing) here is the talk with my audio and slides.



Sadly it might lose a bit without the laser pointing. Oh how I love my laser pointer :P

I'm giving a talk at the Royal Tyrrell Museum!!!

If you have nothing else to do this Friday the 14th at 11am and find yourself in Drumheller Alberta, why don't you pop by the Royal Tyrrell Museum for my upcoming talk on New Zealand Palaeontology.

As I know for 99% of you this will be impossible, no worries. I just thought I'd put it on the record that I'm going to be an official part of the Tyrrell's speaker series.

My talk is a general overview of New Zealand paleontology, with a particular focus on what kiwi fossils do or do not tell us about the evolutionary influences of island isolation.

For the majority of you who won't be able to make it, I'm in the works of seeing if I can record my talk and post it here. I haven't had official word back yet. So I can't make any promises.

My Big News of 2010

Been meaning to get this post up for literally months now!

My work life and situation has been the most blog unfriendly I can imagine. I'll probably post about it at some point, but not to digress from this story again, and risk more months of delay!

We time travel back to the long ago month of August 2010...

A couple takes a ever so brief summer vacation. At the end of their last full delay the boy friend pulls over into this very innocent and unassuming Saskatchewan field (due to the wind turbines you can just make out on the horizon in the photo).

His excuse is to photograph the amazing sunset... Which he insists girlfriend take.

So that while she is distracted, he can spring his cunning trap!

Getting down on one knee so that when she turns around...

He can propose!

So as of August 1st me and Lady R got engaged!

Not that it was a total surprise to her, she knew I was likely to ask the question as she helped pick out the ring (in the failure to get things properly rolling here in Canada, we discussed our long term future, and as marriage helps open a few doors for us internationally, we decided that would be our course... I just decided to have some fun setting it up :P)

However I "accidentally" gave her a false idea for when I'd have the ring. Acquiring it a full 2 weeks earlier than she thought, I sprung it on her during our Cypress Hills trip! It was quite stressful trying to organically launch into the question. Everything is a barrier yet an opportunity...

The scariest point in the trip for me (even compared to losing total vision while driving for 2 seconds going 100km) was when going for the ring in my bag I discovered Lady R's wallet on top of ring's box... She'd gone into my bag innocently, but nearly found the treasure hidden within! Thankfully the ring box camouflaged perfectly with my bag, or it would have been game over man!

So the big event in 2011 will be our wedding in May!

Now to catch up on blogging in general in the next bit, as I have spare time again...

Hopefully not a habit...

Man, can't believe how things have played out in my life.


My last post was two months ago, and that was apologizing for a silence of a month...


What has been happening in my life to so out of control my doing anything (on the net or otherwise). The answer is work.


Up until this weekend, I had been working 6 day weeks which leads to little time for anything else. It was starting to cause problems both with my sanity (working with special needs kids, while rewarding is also draining, which requires down time) and my life in general. I was one step short of a full on intervention by my people (it had even drawn in friends from out of town!).



The good news is I have now rebalanced my life so that while my midweek is a very intense schedule (12+ hour days), but I have a long weekend (only working Friday morning). So you should be seeing a lot more of my on here, and seeing my various projects get rolling again.

Which brings my back to my last update... It feels like an eternity ago in which that all happened, but probably the most important event of 2010 (I'd venture my whole life) occurred.

No one has yet to venture a guess as to what happened during that sunset back at the beginning of August. Find out in a couple days...

My Summer Adventures...

Wow, this has to be the longest time of no posts in this blogs existence. Just over a month!

All I have to say is that a 6 day work week is not very conducive to a lot of spare blogging time sadly. In good news I won't end up on the streets or hungry anytime soon!

Anyways thought I'd do a quick recap of my two "long" weekends, as they're where the only interesting and/or exciting things in my life have gone down.

Note I said quick!
So on the first weekend of August I decided to take Lady R to Cypress Hills Provincial Park. She'd seen tons of the Foothills and the Rockies, but not much of the prairies Alberta's other major terrain.

So we got out our trusty tent from New Zealand for some good old camping.

Apart from forgetting my hammer (I had an inkling I'd need it), and having to borrow a hatchet from a neighboring camper to peg down the tent, there were no incidents on this front.

We are both really happy with the tent, and while it is technically a bit large for just the two of us it affords a lot of space. Which is nice. The other feature we liked, and took full advantage of for the first time was the star gazing roof. You can remove the main canvas and watch the sky through this heavy mesh.

Why Cypress Hills? Well for one it had open campsites on the long weekend. Second it is a truly unique area in the Prairies. While the majority of the area was completely flattened by glaciers during the ice age, Cypress Hills was a lone "mountain" in the area as the glaciers couldn't quite erode them. So to this day it stands towering over the rest of the flat surroundings.

Sadly due to the ongoing forest fires in British Columbia, we couldn't quite see the curvature of the Earth that I fondly recall from this lookout.

While many areas of the Cypress Hills are as beautiful as I remember them, I forgot just how MUCH of it is developed for ranching. So after a few days we got bored of driving through acres and acres of cattle pasture (that and all the moose were hiding in the woods on account of the wet year, and not needing to venture where people are).

On the far side of the Saskatchewan side of the park we made a rather exciting discovery (for Lady R in particular) of a National Park dedicated to the first real RCMP fort in Canada. Granted had we researched our trip this wouldn't have been a surprise. As it turned out it was a rather nice surprise for the both of us. Though definitely more so for Mountie obsessed Lady R.

Having exhausted Cypress Hills we decided on our last full day to push into Saskatchewan. My major objective was to reach the East End T-Rex Research Centre.

Here is the majority of the facility in all its glory. While it was rather cool museum, though I'm not sure if I was happy paying $8.50 for each of us!... Though the money goes to a good cause. I point out again this photo is pretty much the whole place (minus the prep lab, behind me in this photo, and the auditorium which shows a 30 minute video on Sask palaeo). It might be a little over priced (considering the Tyrrell is only a $1.50 more for about 20 times the displays!).

If not for the major thunder storm system that was suddenly chasing us this day, we might have ended out Sask exploration at East End. With the weather being rather miserable behind us we pushed onward... As far as Moose Jaw, which is 2/3 of the way across Saskatchewan. This made it a pretty full on day.

The biggest event of the trip (and probably the year for us... and yes I'm comparing this to the Olympics) occurred on the way home with the view of this sunset.

I will not tell what happened this post. You have to guess, and in my next post I'll cover the huge event that occurred to me and Lady R here. (People who already know are NOT allowed to blow the surprise!)

Sadly long weekends don't last forever, and so on our last day we had to make our way home again. I however didn't feel like proceeding the normal way. Rather we skirted the Montana border, hitting all the sites me and Bond didn't hit in our 2006 road trip to Devil's Coulee.

One stop that I was rather pleased about was our brief stop at Red Rock Coulee. I'd seen pictures of it at the Tyrrell, but never found out where it was... Till this weekend.

Shortly up the road we visited Writing On Stone Provincial Park. Man I wish I'd made the trip sooner! It was spectacular!

Both Red Rock Coulee and Writing On Stone were much larger and impressive versions of some of New Zealand's most famous geologic attractions. I find this kind of ironic, and am glad on the one hand I saw these after NZ (as otherwise I would have been disappointed down under). It proves what I've been telling my Kiwi friends though, despite New Zealand being a great Middle Earth, the LOTR films could just as easily have been filmed in Canada!

Sadly the very intense rain systems caught up with us on this last day, and we drove a gauntlet of 4 really intense storms.

Three of these were so bad I had to slow right down on the highway due to reduced visibility. In typical fashion right as we arrived in Calgary we hit the worst of the lot, and it lead to the scariest moment I've had in a car in a long time. Giant pools of water collected on the road, and a truck beside us hit one sending a huge sheet of water to envelope my car, making us blind for 4 seconds at about 70km/hr!

We made it home safe and sound in the end, and apart from this finale, it was a very worthwhile and fun trip!

More to come soon...

Virtual Delay

As has been the story of my 2010, life is overwhelming me a bit.

This time it is the move that me and Lady R had not planned on. We're pretty much in the new place, but EVERYTHING is in boxes. So my single day off will be probably spent putting the place together.

Helping keep me on task, but not relaxing much, will be the lack of internet we currently suffer. We are booked to get the net hooked up on Tuesday, but until than all my online outposts will be silent.

So catch you yet again on the flip side... Boo! I think all this flipping is making me dizzy!

The Storm MAY be passing...

The aftermath of last week's debacle is still playing out around me. I had thought our renting a new place last night would have been the end of it all, but I have learned (much to my extreme depression) it may have been too little too late.

This situation, caused by my thinking I was doing the right thing, has put a strain on many of my relationships, however I learned the damage between me and Lady R is a lot more serious than I'd thought. She has assured me that things should return to normal once we move into the new place, but I'm not a big fan of how upset she has been lately. Leading like usual to my outlook on life, that no good deed goes unpunished.

I've also shifted from not working all that much to working all the time! I only have Sundays off, and at moment my days are all 8-11 hour ones! With school getting out next week it is looking like my schedule should shift into at least a more manageable version of this timetable (I currently don't finish till 7-7:30pm each night).

Yesterday I had an unexpected bubble of time, so I popped back to my Trilobite piece. I now have a rough composition I'm working on, but had an interesting malfunction with one of my lighting effect.


This was the initial result trying to get my watery haze going. I like it. Not my usual attempt at realism, but the picture has a certain awe factor to it I like. So I might work on as final version like this as well.

Keeping My Mind Off Stuff

Things have returned to not good in my life. I shan't go into detail, but I've just discovered all the reasons I came back to Canada were not only wrong but a complete waste of time. We're not talking a little bit of time either. A whole year!

Rather than dwell on it (that is what "sleep" time is for... it is probably not good that I've gotten used to 3-5 hrs of sleep a night these day come to think of it!) I've been trying to keep myself busy.

With the upcoming Trilobite gallery on ART Evolved it is time to get something ready for that...


Here is a sneak peek. This was just a play render with my fill in sand I made today. The sand needs a bit of work, but I like the hiding it effect.

Here he is in the open. He is looking alright. I'm not entirely happy with the head, but the body/tail are quite awesome.

Next he needs legs and a proper environment.

The Good News

So life has been quite jam packed for me the past week or so...

On the same day as my rejection from the Calgary Board, I received a job working with a young boy with disabilities. Having now met with the family a few times we've got things ironed out so that I will be working with him every evening this last month of school, and than during the days in the summer.

Lady R is the best girlfriend ever, and bought me a new computer! Given its vastly superior performance over my old one (it renders in Carrara about 6-8 times faster!!!), and DAZ having a sale for the brand new Carrara 8 I broke down and picked that up relatively cheap (it was 50% off) new version of Carrara (finally!)...

So things are finally starting to pick up.

I've been too busy sorting stuff out for my new job (I have a pretty full on program to learn and set up), to sit down with the new Carrara and play much. Also most of its new features are pretty intense, and I'll need to sit down with the manual to get the hang of them. More to the point not having a physical copy of the manual I'll need to go to a print shop and get the PDF printed. However being 750 pages this is going to have to wait a little while!

I have plugged some of my "old" Dinosaurs into the new program, and no problems thus far. A few environmental factors didn't make the cross over for some reason, which is a bit annoying. In particular my water's caustic effects and tree bark shaders didn't get saved in the model files, and thus were left on the old machine. It is not the end of the world, it just means I have to manual copy them over to the new machine and tell my 3D models where to find them...

I've been toying with my "top secret" ART Evolved project while working on my job stuff. As I'm currently just trying to make the river work it is just a matter of adjusting the shaders and rendering. Given that the new machine renders the whole scene in 20 minutes this is making progress much faster (on the old machine this scene with plants and such would take over an hour!).
This was were I started on the new machine. It is a slight step back as, again, I lost all my tree bark in the cross over to the new puter.

While I liked the baseline of the water effects, the details were all wrong. The splashes were too defined, the colour of the mist and water were not working, and the whole thing seemed artificial.

Tweaking the water colour and reflection I started to sort of step in the right direction, only the colour was too bright. Now my Rex was standing in a river of Cool-Aid OH YEAH!

A key factor to water is its reflective nature. I'd only had its reflection up to 50%, so I cranked it up to 90% while darkening the colour and got something much better for the river. At the same time I made my splashes more transparent which removed the orb like nature of the water droplets, but the splashes weren't big enough and still not quite right on the colour scale.

Expanding the splashes and lightening the colours I likes the size of the splashes, but not the brightness.

Darkening down the splashes and their mist I arrived here. I like this, and think I'm done on the water front.

I also decided I didn't like the red colour scheme of the T-Rex sticking out from the environment so much. A T-Rex doesn't strike me as the sort of animal that wants to stand out. So I applied the Larry colouration to the model, and like how it subtly blends in with the background. Though I need to tweak the feather colouration as they currently disappear all together.

Next I just need to fix the riverbank (which also lost its texture map), the tree bark, and play with Carrara 8's new tree systems that should let me add dead leaves to the trees and play with some other settings to get way more realistic looking plants!

The Recent Bad News...

Have had a lot going in my life lately. Yesterday in particular had a particular nexus quality to it, with about 6 things all going down at once. Rather than one big post, I've decided to break this up into bad and good news posts. Partially as my good news still needs a day or two to get sorted out.

The first immediate and devastating piece of bad news is that I have been formally rejected from the Calgary Board of Education. So I won't be teaching in Canada anytime soon...

Without so much as an interview, I got a very generic letter stating I don't fit into the Board's ideals. How I don't fit in it doesn't say. Rather than take this personally (which it is hard not too) and assume this is do to with my application package I sent them, I need to remind myself of the more likely underlining cause. That being the 200 teachers they laid off as of yesterday...

In general these are "wonderful" times to be a beginning teacher. Of my dozen or so friends who all went into the teaching profession, only 1/3 are actual still teaching and most of them overseas. Yet people wonder why we're losing our edge? When we can't be bothered to invest in our education system...

Rather than end on this downer, another recent piece of news has hit my radar that has given me an employment idea.

The supposedly upcoming Hobbit movie is looking for a new director, while coincidentally I at the same time need a job. Hmmmmm



I propose I get the job! After all I'm qualified!

• I have directed/produced/acted in over 5 movies... well at least movie LIKE compilations.

• I've lived in and explored New Zealand to the point where I can tell you roughly where all the previous LOTR movies were filmed, and know some great untapped locations for new Middle Earth locales.

• I have extensive experience with low level special effects... how much harder could it be to have high end ones that actual do all the stuff I'd like them too?!?

• I could cut down the budget, by playing Gollum myself. Anyone who has been around me can tell you how eerily close my Gollum voice is to the real thing!

• I bring star power to this new project. Apart from Gandalf and maybe Bilbo (Ian Holm is sadly getting really old) what other established names are attached to this film (again I replace Andy Serkis as Gollum :P)? None, as the characters are all new to the film franchise. Sure the studio could search out people to fill in many of these roles, and they will have to. However I bring one star they'd never think of to the role of Smaug the Dragon, Traumador the Tyrannosaur!

• Finally my asking price is very reasonable and very competitive in today's modern entertainment industry!

So there is my official application to become the new director of The Hobbit.

(Oh I just thought of another thing. How many fancy pants directors could throw together their own crude logo like mine above in under 5 minutes like me :P)

Epic Weekend

I am STILL tired from everything that went down this weekend!

In case I didn't mention it (which I just realized I may not have) this past weekend was the annual Alberta Palaeontological Societies' Symposium. I'd attended a couple of these back in my Tyrrell days, but back then it was more an out of season reunion for all the Tyrrell staffers.

This year I had a totally different agenda. Most of my Tyrrell people have moved on, either to different regions or professions, and as of such there was only a few people I knew to see (which was awesome mind you!).

Due to this though, this year I aimed to get myself out there in the Palaeontologic community, and start networking and replenishing my connections! I was highly successful on this front, but sadly I hit a big stumbling block at the end of the day, but in hindsight it was still a truly epic day!

Bright and Early

Fortunately I woke up a bit early on the morning before my alarm clock, at around 6:30am. After the Olympics (which I still haven't fully recovered from either!) this was really early! This gave me a little bit of extra time to add a couple extra slides I'd forgotten into my powerpoint.

Slides for what you might ask?

My presentation, the first of the day! My lecture "The Fossils of New Zealand: Remnants of a Lost Continent".

In bad news I went about 10 minutes over my time limit (oops! Sorry again to the group right after me!). I was trying to cover a WHOLE countries fossil record in 25 minutes, and to be fair i was just off the cuffing my talk (I didn't have any notes of any kind on me!). In good news my talk went over very well. I had many people compliment me on my talk, and my lecturing style. It also put me on people's radars for the rest of the day.

The only problem with going first was that I started my talk with probably only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the later day's total audience. So I still had to do some leg work getting myself out there.

Among people I most wanted to meet and network with were the Palaeo-artists who were going to be in attendance. Chief among them my long time hero, and favourite artist Marianne Collins. The most influential illustrator of the Burgess Shale ever! Not only did I meet her, but...

The Greatest Lunch Ever!

Marianne was nice enough to let me tag along with her for lunch! Which just got better and better. So in addition to getting to talk to her about such things as artist's rights and illustrating mediums, we suddenly found ourselves sitting with many of the other big names of the conference!

This was my meal company! In the foreground is Marianne Collins and beside her is author Judy Horan (I may have gotten her last name wrong, sorry if this is the case). Across from the ladies was Dr. Scott Sampson (who I hope needs no introduction!), and Michael Skrepnick another super heavy weight Palaeo-artist!

This singular event of the day stands as a competitor for my best moment of 2010. Pushing Speed Skating to a close, but separate second.

Among the highlights were getting to hear two professional palaeo-artists talk shop! Dr. Sampson also praised me on my talk, and asked me a couple questions... He was very intrigued by the prospect of post KT Dinosaurs I mentioned from the Chatham Islands north of New Zealand. Something we should all pay attention for coming from either New Zealand or Australian researchers!

I Learned a Few Things!

The rest of the talks all day were very informative and interesting. Some of the ones that particularly took my fancy included:

A new photography technique that guarantees perfect fossil shots NO matter the lighting in the museum or collections you are shooting in! I'll be giving this a try soon...

What Palaeo-artists have been doing wrong in their reconstructing of Ankylosaurs and Theropod Tails. These were both very relevant to all accuracy seeking Palaeo-artists, and I have made arrangements with the presenters of these talks to perhaps grace ART Evolved with a guest article or two on their subjects!

Dr. Phil Currie gave us a run through of the significant Palaeo-art throughout his life. Starting as a young boy right up into the present. It was a very interesting talk, and among other things I learned that both Dr. Currie and myself were HUGE fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellicular as children.

The Lost Boys

For the last talk of the day the event's organizers had either a sense of humour or drama. We started the day with my talk about the lost continent of Zealandia, and we ended with Dr. Sampson's lecture on the lost continent of Laramidia. Framing the day with lost continents.

Laramidia if you were wondering (as I was too), is the name of western North America during the Cretaceous, as during this time NA was split into 2 or 3 separated land masses by the Western Interior Seaway.

It was a fantastic talk. Which got better when my talk, due to those aforementioned post KT Dinos, was directly referenced in Dr. Sampson's lecture!

A Piece of Unfinished Business!

The other singular thing I was after (and got anyways) was a long overdue photograph. Through all of my years working at the Tyrrell, I have never successful managed to get a photo of me with Dr. Currie. This could not stand, as Dr. Currie has been my longest running hero since childhood. There were several failed attempts at these throughout the years (but I either never got a copy, or they turned out extremely blurry!).

Sadly this latest attempt was a bit on the blurry side, but it works I guess (till next time :P). Besides the Traumador photos with Dr. Currie turned out brilliantly. So I'm not complaining.

The Less Than Ideal Ending

The conference itself was everything I wanted and then some. I had an absolute blast while it lasted. Much in the traditions of most symposiums I've been too, the plan was to move interested people to another venue and carry the discussion on afterwards.

There was just one problem. The pre-"planned" restaurant was shut down due to renovations when we got there. Now as I'd stuck around the lecture hall for 20ish minutes catching up with a couple people not coming out afterwards, my idea had been to show up fashionable late. Only to discover, that everyone was long gone from the shut down location.

To say I was bummed out is an understatement, at the time I was truly shattered. I'd left many things undone (including Traum pics with various palaeo celebs!!!), and more to the point I wasn't able wrap up with many people I'd wanted to. In particular Marianne Collins who'd been nice enough to let me tag along with her all day, and snap all the Traumador photos from this day (talk about a special guest photographer!).

I have managed to contact everyone via email (except Dr. Sampson, but his excuse is good. He is on his way to the White House this week!). So that is something. Not the way I'd hoped to end the day at all, but still a not too bad outcome.

Now I just need to think of something for next years talk :P

(Also a quick note. I'll be away for the next few days on a romantic retreat with Lady R. So please don't take my lack of responses in the comment section personally)

It's my Birthday, and I'll geek out if I want too!

Today I have exactly one year left to my 20's. As of such I'm vowing to do all the silly stuff I hadn't gotten around too yet.

First of all is this fun Star Trek quiz I came across thanks to NeuroDojo.

My results are as follows:
You are James T. Kirk (Captain)

James T. Kirk (Captain) 75% Beverly Crusher 70% Worf 65% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 60% Will Riker 55% Deanna Troi 55% Spock 54% Mr. Sulu 50% Jean-Luc Picard 50% Uhura 45% Data 43% Chekov 40% Geordi LaForge 35% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 35% Mr. Scott 30%

You are often exaggerated and over-the-top in your speech and expressions. You are a romantic at heart and a natural leader.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

So there you have it.

I promise to get around to some posts about Tasmania, Vancouver, and the Olympics.

At moment me and Lady R are settling in here in Calgary. So far all is well. Keep you posted.

There are likely to be some Drumheller and Palaeo adventures coming up ubber soon (thus delaying all my other backlogged adventures further... so let me know of Aussie, Olympics, or Van you wish to read more about. As time is not something I have tons of these days!)

Back to the Old Frontier

Well my time in the Southern Hemisphere draws to end (though I'm certain I'll be back!)...

Had a lovely evening/dinner with the Clan oh R. A special thank you to sister R if she is reading for spending the WHOLE day preparing and cooking said dinner!

I've seen many cool things here in Tassie, and it is certainly a very cool part of Australia worth visiting if you are looking into coming to this end of the world...

Speaking of Australia, HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!!! Sadly we didn't spend it (minus again the aforementioned dinned) doing anything fun. Just packing and cleaning.

Tomorrow we hop halfway back to the Great White North. Making a quick 2ish day stop over in Hawaii. From there we push onto Vancouver and the Olympics. GO CANADA!

Even more exciting than the Olympics, is I'll be hanging with Bond the whole time... So who knows what crazy creative stuff will ensue! Though it might have to do with Traum, ART Evolved, Delta Patrol, and/or educational material... just to hint at a few ;P

There are a few more Tasmania posts coming I promise. I've just been at the mercy of my panoramaing speed (as I'm unhealthily addicted to panorama shots these days).

So we'll catch you once I'm back Northern Hemisphere again.

My 2009

The short version 2009 was a good year for me. At least compared to 2008. There were no really issues or dramas to making a living this year, which was nice change of pace. As 2008 was nothing but those.

Life

The Biggest Event 0f 2009

This year marked my last living in New Zealand. As of such a lot of my spare time was devoted to seeing everything in NZ for the last time, and overall I succeeded. I leave with few regrets of things unseen or not done.

The only things on the list left undone were making it to Stewart and/or White island, cage diving with a Great White, and meeting New Zealand's Dinosaur woman Joan Wiffen. The islands proved to expensive, the shark dive was impossible due to the company offering the experience never actually starting, and very tragically Mrs. Wiffen passed away this July.

Yet despite this small list, the list of what I DID manage to see and do is huge, and easily out weighs these small regrets.

That Which Stayed the Same

This year marked me and Lady R's 2nd year anniversary, and I look forward to many more of these. I couldn't imagine my life without her these days, as I have come to rely on her companionship and love to enjoy and survive life's ups and downs. Lady R's contributions to 2009 I will most certainly remember fondly.

Creative Efforts

2009 proved a huge year in my imaginative exploits.

The Biggest Single Thing of 2009

Of everything that came up and happened in 2009, the one that has had the biggest impact and will probably continue to do so, was ART Evolved.

When Peter and I started the online palaeo-art community, I personally had no idea how much this would impact my art. Originally I saw my 3D as nothing more than a fun hobby, but thanks to the to the motivation and inspiration of the bi-monthly galleries and the other participating artists, I'm beginning to seriously see the possibility of doing palaeo-art professionally (though most likely just on the side). This is a very exciting prospect, and one that I hope to strive towards with solid results in 2010!

As part of all this I saw the first of my art pieces go into print through ART Evolved in the magazine EARTH. I'm hoping in the future to increase this.

The Second Biggest Thing of 2009

I'm officially a "note worthy" blogger! Of my two major creative online projects (Traumador and ART Evolved), both were picked up and highlighted by Google on their Blogs of Note daily feature. I don't entirely bring this as up a boast, but it does feel incredibly good to have both these efforts recognized in such a public venue.

What was Lacking

Sadly in this finite world, one must make trade offs with their limited time and resources. Despite the success that has come his way, I sadly have not been able to put the effort into Traumador that I had in previous years. So I need to regroup and sort out my creative priorities.

Though having said this, I made sure towards the end of this year that I came up with some VERY exciting adventures and guest stars for everyones' favourite T-Rex to encounter in the new year. So hopefully I can pick up the pace on him a bit...

Work

Work that "Worked"

One thing that I will miss about New Zealand is how entrenched in my 3 regular skools I became. Despite being a substitute, I was essentially a staff member at Concord, and getting that way at Fairfield. So teaching went very well this year, with the exception of term 2 in which the swine flu scare caused teachers to take very good care of themselves to the point of not needing subs.

I also found the perfect part time job for the skool breaks! Sadly I stumbled across it on my last such skool break. None the less, the crew at Magic Childcare were lovely to me, and I hope them all the best during the NZ summer break!

Work that did NOT Work

Any job beyond free lance teaching. A small part of the problem is the economic crisis hitting Dunedin hard, but the bigger part are Kiwi employers. I consistently hit an attitude of due to not being a local (or worse be called an American!) I was not worth hiring. The holiday program that laid me off did so specifically for bringing new non-kiwi ideas to the table, which frankly I find unbelievably stupid!

There are many more things I could probably recap, but that would verge on ranting, and frankly I can't be bothered.

So here's to 2010, a year of epic changes for me. Hopefully it runs somewhat like 2009 did, or better. In any case you can probably read about parts of it here. So catch you then.

New Zealand- Final Thoughts

Well, here we are. A time long talked, planned, and prepared for. Only now it is actually here. I'm leaving New Zealand after 3 rather eventful years this weekend.

Like any other period in my life it has had its ups and its downs. This past year it has been becoming clear though I've overstayed the place. Which is just fine. I had many great times, and admittedly some really miserable ones. This is just life. I leave with many fantastic memories and have lots of good friends staying behind as an excuse to return one day.

I thought I try to summarize for both myself and everyone else my New Zealand experience with a BALANCED tally of my experiences of the country... I will do this through a list of for everything thing I will miss countering it with something I will not (currently if I were to just do this without balance in mind the will NOTs would win by a clear majority)

I will miss all the great friends I've made over here. In particular Clare, Paul and Laura, the Twitch, and my horde of Germans (who are too plentiful to list individually!).

I will not miss driving on New Zealand roads. Mostly due to Kiwis absolute inability to drive properly. They are hands down the worst drivers on the the planet (and I'm taking into account the stereotypical Asian)!

I will miss the actual truly "Beautiful Green New Zealand" with its many awesome beaches, forests, mountains, and natural parks.

I will not miss the propaganda and lying about "Beautiful Green New Zealand", a country that doesn't recylce, pumps its sewage into the ocean, has litter and garbage scattered on the street of even its smallest villages.

I will miss New Zealand winters, as it never dropped below zero for very long and only snowed one or two days of the year.

I will not miss New Zealand winters. Despite the aforementioned warmth of winter compared to the Great White North, the Kiwis don't insulate their homes, and as of such your living or bed room is only 1 or 2 degrees warmer then outside. This can be quite unpleasant when sitting down and trying to relax.

I will miss our current house. Especially the fact that the roof is just a giant glass covered balcony

I will not miss our house in the winter. Again it was the same temperature as outside OR colder!

I will miss living by the ocean and the many beautiful beaches of Dunedin

I will not miss being taunted by the ocean, in that you couldn't really go swimming as it was too cold, and despite buying a wet suit, having to still avoid it due to the cities sewage washing back into shore often throughout the year!

I will miss the road trips around Dunedin. 60% of all the coolest stuff in New Zealand was within a days drive (granted this could be a full on 14 hours round trip) of my house.

I will not miss the Kiwi drivers I'd have to watch out for on these road trips. Yes a repeat, but I really can not emphasis how bad at driving these people are.

I will miss how friendly and awesome the world travellers I encountered were. Be they from outside of NZ or be it a travelled Kiwi.

I will not miss the hostility and xenophobia of the none travelled Kiwis. They seriously put Americans to the test for most insular and nationalistic western country.

I will miss the food, at least the fresh ingredient foods like diary products and seafood.

I will not miss the Kiwi food. As a culture the Kiwis don't believe in spices, and eat very bland meat and potatoes style dishes.

I will miss my work. Especially the self employed system of substitute teaching down here. I was an educational mercenary and had to carve out my living amongst the dozens of independent skools in town (NZ did away with centralized skool boards in the 1980's, so they are all self contained entities for my purposes).

I will not miss my work, in how during slow times I was not guaranteed work and had to endure not getting paid for long stretches...

I will miss all the exotic wildlife down here

I will not miss the locals none caring or outright hostility to the wild. Not all Kiwis were like this mind you, but many who lived in the rural areas were the animals were to be found were shocking.

I will miss New Zealand, for the reasons above.

I will not miss New Zealand, again for all the reasons above.

So with this list done and out of the way, I leap into the heart of moving on the eve of the X-Mas holidays. As a result posts from me here and elsewhere (Traumador in particular) may be slow for a little while.

All the best to you this season (be it winter or summer), and we'll catch you on the flip side...

Where did it all go?

It is hard to believe, but I only have 2 more weeks left in this country... Frankly I can't wait to go.

The epic soap opera that is packing and wrapping up have begun with a vengence. I've also done such a good job of seeing all the sights once more, that there isn't much left on the agenda to do that is fun (which is good, as there is no time for it anymore!).

I have so, oh so, many projects to try and wrap up.

Despite my co-creator of the kids book being something of a whinny git about trying to publish it (he has waited till the literal last minute of the 3 *BEEP*ing years!) I've given up on it, but he is forcing me to use up a precious day to work on it again (though I'm not going to be happy about it!!!)... I need to finish prepping my whale skull for Dr. Fordyce, and try and complete my 3D whale. Though the Palaeo-art whale at this stage is likely to have to be completed through email correspondence.

With ART Evolved's big "Blog of Note" break through yesterday, I'm also forced to redouble my efforts on my pieces. I'm being smart and trying to get the whale done for it, plus my Kiwi marine reptiles.

As I got some feedback from Dr. Fordyce on my Kaiwhekea the other day, I thought I should try and complete it here today. Apart from rigging I think it is ready for use in a final piece or two...

The Great Final New Zealand Expedition Part 2

So we'd made it too the west coast, but due to the delays caused by my car we arrived in the total dark.

Meaning on day 2 we awoke not really knowing what was outside our tent...

We did know somewhere very close by was the ocean, as the sounds it made soothed us to sleep (though the exhaustion of the whole first day probably helped too!). Wandering a mere 20 meters from our tent this is the sight that welcomed us...

We didn't cover much actual distance on day 2. We DID see an awful lot though as we drove a 75km stretch of coast. We also checked out several of the dirt roads that led into the local forests.

Hopping in the car we began our tiki tour of the coast. The weather was outstanding as you can see. Not a single cloud in the sky, and it stayed that way all day.

I feel in love with the area instantly, as should be evident from the local vegetation.

I specifically wanted to hit around Greymouth due to the plants. My current book Ghosts of Gondwana goes into a lot of detail about NZ's plant record (and how most of it is million year old stuff blown over from Australia). In this area of the west coast though, survives some of the few plants that are truly descended from before NZ split from Gondwana in the time of the Dinosaurs.

I was quite pleased to say the least.

We spent most of the day just driving and checking out the local forests and swamps. It was awe inspiring.

The only single "attraction" I had hoped to see, was the Pancake rocks. Walking with Dinosaur fans should recognize them, and they were just too cool in person! If you subbed the flocks of Terns soaring about the place with Pterosaurs (an automatic with an imagination the size of mine!) it was like stepping back in time!

While at the rocks, I had to hit the bathroom. While I was doing my thing, this bird wandered up to check out Lady R outside. Lady R recognized it was significant, but didn't know what type of bird it was...

Coming out of the washroom, I was dumbfound to see Lady R right up and close to a Weka. Not that the proximity was the surprising thing, Weka's are notorious for their curiosity and feisty, bold personalities. A friend of mine has a picture in which 2 wild ones are crawling all over him.

It was rather I had been told (misleadingly it turns out) that Wekas were extinct on the mainland, and now only currently existed on predator free islands. In reality it turns out that they are not threatened on such islands, but clusters of them endure on the mainland. The west coast being the largest of these.

This made my day... Saying something as the forests and Pancake rocks were huge highlights of my whole 3 years in New Zealand!

We then swung back through Greymouth to briefly check out the largest centre of the west coast. Not that it is big, even by New Zealand standards. It certainly isn't my favourite town, but its surroundings would easily entice me to move there (if I were staying in NZ).

Lady R was very fond of this fisherman statue, which reminded her of a sculpture her mother owns (though their family version always had a Penguin between its legs I'm told).

We wrapped up the day with a visit to "Shantytown", a Goldmining themed heritage park. It was quite nice. Possibly a little overpriced, but not at all unenjoyable.

I've seen several similar era recreations, but this one took the cake for having what I associate as prairie and mountain buildings and settings, and sticking them in a prehistoric jungle!

We then casually made our way to Hokitika and set up camp. While there we befriended an Australian couple, and took them and their daughter to see the local glowworm dell. Though much bigger then Dunedin's local glowworm site, it was no glowworm cave. At least it was free!

This brought day 2 to a nice conclusion.

The Great Final New Zealand Expedition Part 1

My apologies for the delay in the continuation of my west coast camping trip.

My internet life has been hit by something of a fantastic "good" natural disaster. Peter alikens it to an avalanche of chocolate, which would be great for those who survive it, but still be deadly for those crushed by it.

Traumador has finally made his big break, I'd always been hoping for... However I'm just not prepared for it being this week, and I've been struggling to keep up with it all.

Despite this I've opted to hammer through the camping story (as I've had two of my people actively skype me for the story).

So as you'll recall the car broke down the morning of our intended departure. By the time it'd been repaired we were no longer in the morning, rather early afternoon a good 5-6 hours after we'd planned to depart. As there were a number of things on east side (our side) of the mountain pass we were going to have to cross, we thought we might push the trip back a weekend.

However when forecasts (which are out right now outside!) indicated the weather would be awful in a week, and plus we were going to be depressed hulks of sadness all weekend, it was decided screw it. Why not just go for it!

So with the threat of sunset looming on the mountain pass, we booked it up the main highway of the south island, till just short of Christchurch as which point we headed inland towards Arthur's Pass. An area neither me nor Lady R had been too before...

Despite the lovely weather of the day, some slight systems had passed through the area. It still being just early spring down here resulted in snow dumped on the mountains. Lovely to look at, as you can see here by our approach to the pass. However if we had hit earlier in the day before it melted it would have made the higher roads inaccessible to the OX (my car... my license plate starts with these two letters).

Fortunately the roads had been cleared by a days worth of traffic and sun. So our late departure had one benefit. Apparently until 2pm the topmost road was closed.

Despite this one benefit, the lowering sun caught us at my personal key destination on the east portion of Arthur's Pass. That was the Castle Hill rocks. As we arrived the sun had set on the majority of the section. These were a key location in Narnia, and a minor one in Lord of the Rings. I have at least seen them. Sadly didn't get to go as up close or get many pictures of them as I'd hoped. Can't win them all I guess... and I at least DID see them!

There were quite a few cool little limestone outcrops in the area still in the light at least.
Anyways we hit the summit of the pass as proper sunset, and as we descended onto the west coast we did so in the dark.

Arriving at our camp ground literally as the office was closing we just managed to nab a site (though with our morning we'd earned the karma shift). Thankfully we'd bought a great new tent just for this trip. One of its key features being how easy it is to setup. In the pitch black, minus headlamps and OX's headlights, we had the whole thing up in just over 10 minutes.

We feel asleep knowing nothing about our surroundings, other then we were right beside the ocean. Little did we know the wonders we were going to wake up to!

Stay tuned for part 2