12/28/2008 - Waiting for the Bike

My watch alarm woke me this morning at 6:30AM as I had forgotten to turn it off from the morning before. Oh well, I thought, might as well get things rolling.

Made major work with Skype to USAA and put in a claim. They were closed by the time I could get to Skype yesterday. Unfortunately, only the auto people were there on the weekend, so it won't be until Monday that I can talk to an international claims rep. It sounds good, though.

Also talked to Richard, at the bike shop. He sounds positive about things and is going to call his distributors tomorrow to see about a warranty frame. He is very helpful.

I then spent several hours calling everyone and basically abusing the internet here. Unfortunately, for some reason it won't let me update the blog from here, so I will try to do the updates at an internet cafe if I can find one.

Muesli and the internet. Onscreen is Wade (one of my partners in Wasilla) and Heather's new baby boy. Congrats, Wade!

Once done with my day's duties, I decide to take a long walk and see what I can find. By Google Earth, there are some shops just about a mile and a half north of here. Off I go.

The shops I find are mostly the "outlet store" variety, including this complete ripoff of a certain US brand. I mean, come ON.

By the time I get back, it's getting past 2PM. Grab some lunch supplies (did I mention the hotel room has a refrigerator and something to boil water with?) and, by 3:30, feel very nap-like. What the hell, it's a Sunday.

I wake up in a daze over three hours later. Whoa. I HAVE to do something productive.

As I do not have a bike now, running will have to do. The ocean is only a few miles away, and I would like to see it.

Looking toward the nearest bus station to the hotel.

Off I go. It is very surprising to discover that running is actually very easy after two weeks of biking. It really has not taken long for aerobic side to kick in. And hills are no problem after strengthening up my legs on the long bike climbs. Interesting.

Run through the area of Milford, which is a pretty high-class area. Big houses crowd down by the beach, which is public and full of people walking. All the dogs are off their leashes. It's a very pleasant and relaxed atmosphere.

Those are not homeless people in the background by the wall. Just down eating dinner, believe it or not.

Walked along the beach until a concrete path came up. The water was quite inviting, and I came this close to jumping in until the following sign greeted me:

I am not totally familiar with the exact contents of "effluent", but I suspect that if it makes shellfish dangerous, at the very least it can't taste good.

No problem.

Thanks to many years of playing Super Nintendo, I was able to watch the pattern of the water and run by without getting splashed. A note to my parents: See, all those video games as a kid really DID benefit me.

Looking out over millions of dollars of real estate value into the effluent-full bay.

Finshed the run (turned out to be about 7 miles) and grabbed dinner, did laundry. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo was on Sky 1 and, interestingly, was not filtered at all. Am going to try to figure out the bus system and head to downtown Auckland tomorrow.