Weekly Update - 10/30/24

I have successfully returned from New Zealand. My Tuesday ran 36+ hours, and I really only got an hour or two of sleep on the ten-hour flight from Fiji (where we connected to/from New Zealand) and San Francisco. Then it was a couple more hours getting all of my traveling companions to their individual homes before I got home and tried not to completely destroy my sleep schedule. I went to bed at 10 pm PST... and woke up at around 11:30 am PST the next day. But I feel fine now!

We had an amazing time in New Zealand, so I'm just getting my footing being back, but I'll start knocking stuff out tomorrow, or maybe even tonight. I'm going to pepper this news post with a handful of pictures of how gorgeous the trip was.

 I was there with four of my friends, and I did most of the scheduling and organization, so on the days where I didn't really have anything planned, it felt a little haphazard, but we got through it. We had a great time, but the travel time could be a bit long - we had a 6-hour layover in Fiji on the way back, but I got the airfare for $910 per person, round trip, from SFO to New Zealand and back, and that's damn near impossible under the best of circumstances.

 If you get to New Zealand, all the Lord of the Rings stuff is amazing, but I also absolutely recommend doing the Ruikuri Caves, which were one of the most wonderous things I'd ever seen, along with the Glowworm Caves. I almost wish I could just make a recording of the sound of that underground stream and have that playing in the background for any time I need to focus or sleep.

 I mean, look at that entrance! Isn't that fucking amazing? I shot that on my iPhone!

Any way, if you're considering seeing New Zealand, go, do it. It's amazing. We had a blast. I feel really bad for what I did to the place in QT, but oh well, if you want to make an omelet, you're going to have to break some countries...

The current public release schedule looks like this:  11/2 - The Stacked Deck (Silversmith 4), QT2:24, Pack 12; 11/9 - MG20; 11/16 - QT:PT20; 11/23 - FG5, QT:UM2.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be nose to the grindstone for a while, and we'll see just how much of a tear I can get onto. I'm going to take the rest of the day to help settle back into home time zone. (There's also a rumor going around that my flatmate's about to adopt two kittens, so we'll see if that happens or not.)

Thanks everyone for being kind enough to let me enjoy my vacation, and I hope to be brimming with new content as early as tomorrow!