Palmerston North This description was written by Tisa while we were on the road (the first paragraph was paraphrased from her travel book): Palmerston North- (population: 67,400) Palmerston North is located on the banks of the Manawatu River. This town is home of the second largest university in NZ called Massey University. There are also other small colleges located here. It is not much of a tourist's spot and has a relaxed feel of a rural university town. We drove into PN late at night and stayed at the Palmerston North Holiday Park. The park had great landscaping and many trees. We have been quite pleased with all the parks we have been staying at but this layout was the nicest so far. The town itself was pretty quiet and yet very pleasant. We took a trip down to the local Pak N' Save and shopped for some groceries. We noticed many alternative kids roaming the stores. We got a good feel for the town and its people as we strolled down its streets this morning. It reminds us a lot of Austin because of the alternative scene. The shops and town square remind us of "the drag" a little.

Methven Methven is the base of where we shacked up in order to do our skiing at Mt. Hutt. There really wasn't much to the town except for a few restaurants, pubs, and that sort of thing. I had a fun time helping to build a snow igloo with one of the local kids.

My 28th Bday My 28th birthday was fairly uneventful, but I met up with Amy, Dreux, and Emerson at Trudy's for dinner and drinks, and then immediately afterwards we headed over to the new bar, Bagpipes, for a few drinks. Amy and Dreux went home after Bagpipes, but Emerson and I headed across the street to Sherlock's pub for a few more drinks. There was a band playing by the name of Jawbreaker and Emerson did his very best to introduce me to their hot lead singer. Although he succeeded in introducing me to her, the best I could think to talk about was how she messed up a line in Nina's "99 Red Balloons". Needless to say, that was about the end of our conversation. Another highlight of the evening worth mentioning was Emerson scaling one of the drainage pipes behind Trudy's. We were impressed.

Axel Lane Staking Fence Before heading out to the airport for the air traffic control tour that Dustin had invited me on, I headed out to Axel Lane so that I could lay down a 300 ft long string and plant stakes every 10 feet. This pattern would ultimately allow me to come out shortly after and begin digging with the gas auger.

Axel Lane Bulldozing With the final intent being to put up a fence, the first thing I intended to do for the property was to clear out the dead brush along the front of it. It is more than evident that the property had not been maintained over the years and my goal was to correct that however I could. I rented a skid-steer from Rent-Equip on North Burnet at Braker and Preston was gracious enough to come along for the fun (plus I needed his truck to tow the thing). We made an afternoon out of clearing a rectangular path on the front of the property about 50 feet wide and 300 feet long. At the end of the day, and just for kicks, we cleared a walking path around the perimeter of the property.

Hanging At Brooke's House So after a fun afternoon of driving around New Orleans, a lovely dinner in Mandeville (or possibly technically Covington), Brooke and I had a fun time hanging out at her house with a bottle of wine, some movies, and scrabble. To my recollection she beat me, but what can you do?

Around New Orleans On my second day in Mandeville, Brooke took me across the Lake Ponchartrain causeway into New Orleans so that I could see some of the remaining damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita (the year before). To say the very least, New Orleans was still in a complete state of shambles. As politically incorrect as I can say this, the United States government has failed, and has failed miserably with this situation. I'd definitely say that this is just ONE instance of our 'big government' not working at all.

Axel Lane With Z Prior to actually purchasing Axel Lane, Eric and I took a stroll out there and shot all sorts of panoramic footage of the place. I needed someone else to get their eyes on it before I committed to purchasing it. Sadly, neither of us managed to bump into the well.

Christmas in Corpus The first official Christmas in Corpus as a real house, instead of the beach house. As with every Christmas, everyone got everything they wanted.

Party with Sean Peterson Minutes after arriving back in Austin from a business trip to Seattle, Sean asked me if I wanted to join him at a party near campus. Before even driving home, I just met him in the vicinity and we proceeded to have a great drunken evening. It was especially enjoyable for me as I didn't know anyone.