I'm A Little Tall For A Stormtrooper

I've been a terrible blogger lately - failing to take photos, have adventures, write up stories, or otherwise keep you updated on my life. In apology, here's a small pile of miscellaneous backlogged photos. (Proper posting to resume soon, I promise!)






The first weekend of spring break, Elana and I went to Armageddon, an annual gaming/sci-fi/fantasy/anime/tv/movie convention down at the wharf.


The 501st Legion was there! Ahhhh!


Elana tried on cute hats.


James Kyson Lee, who plays Ando on Heroes, came to speak!


If he was a type of soup, he'd be something that leaves you wanting nothing else.


A lot of his inspiration for Ando as a powered character came from his childhood DragonballZ fandom.


I don't know who this guy is - he's from Star Trek. Any ideas?


Star Trek panel. No clue who these guys are either.


Darth Vader!
On the way back up the coast at the end of break, we stopped in Kaikoura. Somehow I managed to not take these few shots off of my camera in time for my actual spring break posts.







And now, some random other things.













Next post: Rewa Hill, Castlecliff, and Maitu/Somes Island!

Kia ora!

- Becky

Penguins and parakeets and wetas, oh my!

This weekend, the IFSA Butler kids went to Maitu/Somes Island to volunteer for a day, helping out with conservation work. We painted a fence, fixed up a path, and cleared ground for a garden. We also saw a few blue penguins, red crowned parakeets, weta carcasses, and sheep. Lots of sheep. (There are invariably sheep.)

Maitu/Somes Island, located in Wellington Harbor, is under the control of the Department of Conservation, thanks to which it is entirely free of mammalian predators. Its maintenance depends strongly upon volunteer effort. If you ever go to Wellington and want to give back, get in touch with the folks from Maitu/Somes and offer to lend a hand.

Enough talk. Pictures!































There'll be more pictures once I get them off my Cybershot.

Kia ora!

- Becky

Geographic Reader Shout-Out

Hi there, faithful readers! (Apologies for the unplanned hiatus again!)

I've sneakily been keeping track of pageviews and attention to this site with Google Analytics, which is a nifty bit of code that logs such information for website traffic analysis and means I get all sorts of lovely data about my readership. Today, I'm taking advantage of Analytics to let you know that I really do care when people read this - I'm paying as much attention to your attention as you're paying to my adventures!

Since my first post, I've had pageviews from ten countries: the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Denmark, Canada, the UK, Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea. I don't even know people from most of those countries! Thanks for reading my blog, strangers! You're wonderful people.

And now, a shout-out to the Americans, because I'm inherently biased like that (woot woot). You're from twenty-three different states and I have no idea who most of you are, but it brightens my day to know you exist!

OHIO! (Oberlin! Medina! Ashland! Beachwood! Dayton! Maple Heights! Cincinnati! Fairborn! Kent! Cleveland! Strongsville! Bath!)

NEW YORK! (Mamaroneck! Eastchester! New York! Poughkeepsie! Harrison! Brooklyn! Albany! Huntington Station! Monsey! Latham! Clifton Park! White Plains! Scarsdale! Tuckahoe!)

MASSACHUSETTS! (Concord! Wilmington! Everett! Cambridge! Boston! Amherst! North Amherst! Hopkinton! New Bedford!)

CALIFORNIA! (Larkspur! San Rafael! Sacramento! San Diego! Piedmont! Sanger! Culver City!)

MARYLAND! (Potomac! Baltimore!)

NORTH CAROLINA! (Asheville! Skyland! Charlotte!)

SOUTH CAROLINA! (Mount Pleasant! Greenville!)

CONNECTICUT! (Litchfield! Cos Cob! Middletown!)

MISSOURI! (Kansas City!)

FLORIDA! (Naples!)

TEXAS! (Arlington! Houston! Denton!)

PENNSYLVANIA! (Villanova! Downingtown! Imperial!)

MINNESOTA! (Minneapolis!)

OREGON! (Portland! Eugene!)

VERMONT! (Burlington!)

MAINE! (Brewer! Bangor!)

ILLINOIS! (Downers Grove! Belvidere!)

DELAWARE! (Dagsboro!)

WISCONSIN! (Milwaukee!)

NEW HAMPSHIRE! (Nashua!)

Thanks for reading, all of you. Stay awesome.

(Normal photo-laden posting will resume once I take some more pictures of things.)

Kia ora!

Spring Break, Part V

So. Christchurch. The final stop on our epic journey before our return to Picton and our subsequent ferry ride to Wellington. The last place we slept on the south island. The site of all of my remaining pictures. I warn you, though, they're more arty than touristy.

First, to get this out of the way: I saw a kiwi! The aquarium had a "kiwi house" attached, and I got to watch a kiwi poking about in the dark. No photos, though - they're sensitive little creatures and don't like the sound or the light. Sorry!

And now, the aquarium.










There was one flounder that refused to camp out on the bottom and just swam all over the tank, because it could. Seriously.


Cute little guy, though.


There were seahorses! They were surprisingly photogenic.






After the aquarium, I walked down to the botanic gardens and the Canterbury Museum, which is the site of Alan Curnow's moa skeleton, a really fabulous Antarctica exhibit, and the biggest quartz crystals I've ever seen.


















The front crystal is wider than my handspan, which is C4 to F5 on a standard piano.
Aaaaaaaaand I'm finally done posting pictures from my trip, since I didn't take any on the ferry! Hooray!

Apologies for the posting overload - I probably won't put up anything for a week or so now, as I haven't taken any pictures in the last several days and I have another GEOL 202 field trip this weekend. Should be interesting, at the very least.

Kia ora!

- Becky