You are only as old as you act (or Shane's juvenile side reappears 2 years on)

Sorry, I couldn't resist; every time I need a pick-me-up, I have a look at this and snicker. (h/t to Oliver Meier).

So if you haven't heard already, I'm going to the Middle East for a 6 week short term work assignment this week and am reactivating my blog to document the travels of the Lone Jew of Abu Dhabi. Stay tuned and watch this space.

Cough Cough Hack Hack

I just came back from jogging around Hagley Park with Orli tonight. The park was an eerie scene - the rows of willows poked up through the thick fog and were backlit by the far lights from the netball courts. But wait, it wasn't fog. And so begins my annual whinge on air pollution here. At this point, I probably should pause and point out that I am not really a professional pollution expert - I just play one on TV. So this could all be a bunch of bunk, or I could be on to something here.

Granted, it is cold tonight - when I got back and checked the Council weather site, it was 4.2C/39F out, which probably makes it the coldest weather I have ever run in. But that doesn't excuse the smog - it was worse than I have ever seen in Denver or Seattle or Albuquerque, and sadly standard for a cold Christchurch night. It is a horrendous soup to be running through, especially when you've got your respiratory system trying to gulp in as much oxygen as possible. I have even had Anne ask me if I've taken up smoking in the past after walking home in this.

So I hopped on the trusty laptop and did a brief amount of research. It seems that air pollution from fireplaces (or wood burners as they are known locally) is measured in terms PM10, which is related to the size of the particulate matter, or soot from the wood burners. In 2007, the Ministry for the Environment measured Christchurch's average PM10 at about 18 μg/m3, down from around 21 μg/m3 in 2006. The highest measured 24-hour period was about 120 μg/m3, while the Queenstown area had a stunning 24-hr high of 168 μg/m3. The highest legal level is 50 μg/m3 here. Source: http://www.mfe.govt.nz/environmental-reporting/report-cards/air/2009/air-report-card-2008.pdf

Now, for the sake of comparison, let us look at Los Angeles, which had the worst PM10 counts in the US in 2007. It also had about 17.4 million more people than Christchurch. In 2007, the highest 24-hr period was 143 μg/m3 somewhere out in the suburban sprawl of Riverside County. That is only 19% higher than Christchurch and quite a bit lower than Queenstown. The averages were around 30-60 μg/m3, so worse than Christchurch, but the average doesn't hurt your body so much as those high nights (Christchurch was over the legal limit 14 times that year). Source: http://www.aqmd.gov/smog/AQSCR2007/aq07card.pdf

What is my point? Only that while New Zealand does pretty good for sustainability in some areas, all it takes is a run through Hagley Park (or even the 4-block walk home from work) to see where it desperately needs improvement.

Revenge of the Piggies

I write from the couch in the lounge, where I have been sitting all day with the exception of the time spent disinfecting the kitchen and bathroom. Why? Have I picked up the OCD cleaning compulsion of the woman who lives above my bedroom? No, fortunately (I think) not.

My flatmate, Alejandra, went back to her home country Chile on holiday last month. She arrived back here on Thursday, just as Anne was departing. Chile, as an aside, has the highest incidence of swine flu in South America - 292 confirmed cases and rising. Can you guess where this might be going?

Well, Alejandra got home and was feeling a bit out of it, what with jet lag and all. But when Sunday rolled around and she had a high fever, bad headaches, nausea, and all sorts of other symptoms that are only associated with travel when you drink the water in countries where you shouldn't, she dragged the two of us back out to the airport so she could get tested for that vicious menace: Mexican Pig-Unrelated Flu. The tests take 24 hours to run, and thus, the Canterbury District Health Board called us last night to inform Ali that she did have the dreaded flu and that I was volunteering to be quarantined. Volunteering is usually done by the volunteer, but not in this case.

So I have 10 days of free Tamiflu courtesy of the Director-General of Health, and 3 days off work, in which I cannot leave the house, even if I have run out of Coke and don't have any good DVDs to watch. Not exactly what I had in mind when I traded Anne for Ali...

Thus Departeth Anne

Well, Anne has departed our fair shores back for summer in the US. She was supposed to leave yesterday but Air Pacific canceled her flight (without letting her know), leading to a quick change of plans and a respite of her impending departure. She is gone now, winging her way to Iowa via Auckland, Fiji, and the pleasant fellas at Immigration in LAX.

I suppose that is all there is to say about that...

Tick one off the bucket list

I've finally gone and done it: I ran myself a marathon. The Christchurch Marathon, to be specific, all 42.2 km / 26.2 mi of it. I approached today with a deep sense of foreboding for every meteorologist in the country was predicting gale force winds, sub-zero (C) temperatures, and probably snow. In fact, we probably had all together 15 minutes of sleet, and the wind coming back along Kerrs Reach was pretty wicked, but all in all, the weather cooperated quite nicely. The moral of this story? If you whinge enough about the weather ahead of time, it might work out in your favour.

I was aiming for a time of 3:40:00 partly because that fit in with what I run halves in, and partly in the misguided belief it would qualify me for the Boston Marathon, which I have no plans to run (that's the time for girls, duh!). I was actually running 3 minutes ahead of that all the way until 6 kms from the finish, when I past my house and cheerleaders the second time. It's really handy having the race course go 8m from your doorstep, except when your body decides it's had enough of this running crap and wants to be in a nice warm, dry bed. Well, my body and I didn't see eye to eye on that and I really hit a wall around the last lap. I ended up running in 3:45:03, which is not a bad time at all, unless you consider the winning time: 2:18:18. The only way I could ever run that fast was if I just skipped the second half of the race!

Coming to America

I've booked flights to come back to America for a 3 week visit in the autumn; my first time back across the Pacific since I emigrated. My friend Chrysi is getting married so I thought I would combine her wedding with the High Holidays, the Great American Beer Fest, and some decent New Mexican food. My schedule is as follows:
18-21 Sept: Los Angeles, CA
21-25 Sept: Seattle, WA
25-29 Sept: Denver, CO
29 Sept-5 Oct: Washington, DC

Be sure to save the date when I am in your neck of the woods as I am not traveling all the way across the Pacific to find that you've got your golf trip to Hilton Head conflicting!

1 Year Anniversary

Sorry for the lack of posts - with Anne here, I seldom have much free time to sit down with the ol' computer and hunt and peck at the keyboard. Not that I am whinging about this at all.
A minor celebration today - it's officially 1 year since I landed, befuddled and confused (ha!) at the Auckland Airport, not sure what I had just gotten myself into. Crazy, isn't it? I don't regret it for a moment!