Two days before redeployment...

Well everyone it's two days before I carry my bright orange bag to the "herc" and redeploy to New Zealand. Today the boss left, I leave on Wednesday and the network engineer leaves on Friday leaving the computer side of IT two guys for the winter. I received my evaluation and "possesed skills well beyond a help desk lead". McAfee told me on the flight line today to talk to him in early April if I wish to return as System Admin, its mine if I want it. That's a whole year position but a significant jump in pay. I have applied for the one full time IT position at the Centienial office but I am not holding my hopes out. From what I gather there are already a bunch of internal applicants for it, I am on the outside looking in at this point.

Tomorrow I have "bag drag" and get weighed for the flight. I am dreading my 75lbs limit. I came here at 68lbs and hope I have not gathered much more than that. I am probably going to leave some items to "skua", most notably my timberland boots. They have done well but are very worn in the sole. Plus they are heavy and I need the weight. I should have sent a third box home.

I have been working very hard for the last two weeks. I got "volunteered" for a rec project that everyone beat me up about. There was a film festival here, 18 submited movies, about two hours of running time. Guess who got to make the compliation DVD? I gathered all the source data and migrated to a standard format. Thankfully Nathan "Dr." Bahls pitched in and built a very nice background and used iDVD to make a menuing system. I'll have to bring a copy home, its pretty impressive. Anyway I have slept for a total of three hours today and about 10 for the last three days. I am beat but it's time to pack so here I am cleaning the workstation (and keeping my public informed).

Speaking of weight, I have remained within four pounds of my original weight all season. Today I weighed myslef in the gym and I am down 11 pounds!!! I hope the scale is wrong. I pulled a groin running a couple of weeks ago so I have not been to the gym as much. I would think my weight would go the other way and ballooned up. I have been eating as much as always, maybe less ice cream (it's -40F, a little cold for ice cream).

The story about pictures... Well I have copied a lot of pictures here and now have access to a nice camera. But the geocities site times out my upload/download limit after a couple of MB's. So when I get back I'll probably have to bite the bullet and get a realy host and spend - gasp $5/month on a real provider.

Well I am off to pack as much as possible. I doubt I'll be in the office much tomorrow so this maybe it before I get to Christchurch. It has been an interesting experience but I look forward to positive temperatures and darkness to sleep in.

Later...