Relaxing in Naxos

We arrived in Naxos after a 5 hr boat ride and strolled around the bays to the Flisvos resort which has nice accommodation just a few minutes from the beach and windsurfing hire center. We met Tommy and Sarah (from Wellington) who are working at Flisvos for the summer. I got a short sail in the afternoon in a light breeze. The center is really well kitted out with a huge range of RRD and Neil Pryde gear. We had a meal at the beach cafe and numerous cocktails with the kiwi crew.

On Wednesday we biked over the hill to Plaka beach and had a good look around the shops at Naxos. It's nice to come here before the peak season without the massive crowds this place is geared up for. On Thursday we hired a buggy and drove over the hill and down to Flisvos's Kitesurfing center. They're having unusually weird weather at the moment so there wasn't a huge amount of wind so we spent a few hours soaking up the rays at the beach before heading back to Naxos. By this time the wind had kicked in and I got out sailing on some big sails (7.7 and 8.2) for a few hours.

Arrived in Greece

Luckily we had Kerianne (one of Sheryl's friends) meet us at the airport and take us to her place in Glynfada. We spent most of Monday chilling out as we were quite tired from all our traveling. We decided to catch the early ferry on Tuesday to Naxos. We plan to return to Athens for 2 days later next week before we go to Egypt.

Rome in a day

We had 24 hours to see Rome - so as soon as we had caught the train to the Terminus we headed to our accommodation just 3 blocks away. Our vibrant and entrepreneurial host Mabri (he runs a laundromat, internet cafe and rents out the local's spare rooms!) gave us some tips so we could cram in all the mains sights. We got a crammed bus and headed towards the Vatican.

The buildings are amazing in Rome with such a long history behind everything. The city was packed with tourists so it was all pretty full on most of the time. Before our fight on Sunday we walked passed the forum towards the colosseum. We caught our plane to Athens on Sunday afternoon.

Croatian Islands

On Saturday we had a early start after staying the night in Central London so we could easily Tube it to Heathrow for our flight to Split in Croatia. We arrived in Split to a welcoming warmth in the air, our boat had already left at 1pm so we had to play a bit of catch up. We ended up chilling out at a restaurant for most of the afternoon eating pizza and drinking some local beer. Finally we caught a 830pm ferry to Stari Grad. The complete lack of taxis on arrival took us by surprise but we managed to squeeze into the old mini van to make it over to Hvar where our boat was moored. What a day!

On Sunday morning we met most of the other people on our boat which would be our home for the next 6 days. The local Croatians sailing and cooking for us were great with Igor quite an entertaining host! We were surrounded by Kiwis, Aussies and a few Brits and Canadians. Luckily our boat was mostly couples, the other boat that sailed with us had a pile of obnoxious Aussies and Kiwis who were intent on being drunk constantly. We met a neat couple from Wellington that a based in London that we'll catch up with when they get back in November. We quickly got used to the morning cruising, a swim before lunch on a few occasions (it was frickin cold), followed by huge cooked lunch. We got to visit some interesting towns, Dubrovnik being the highlight with its interesting history with the recent war in the mid 90's. We also squeezed in a day trip to Mostar in Bosnia Hertzgovna which is a town that got badly damaged during the same war. The week was really relaxing and great to see lots of different seaside towns in Croatia.

We left the following Saturday in torrential rain heading for Rome.

Chaotic London

We spent the last 4 days in London and stayed with Danny, Janine, Isla and Lulu in Hitchin, about a 30 minute train ride from central London. After quite a bit of flying we did a day trip up to Cambridge which was really relaxing and fun to punt down the river past all the schools of Cambridge University. We picked up some bargain on some warm clothing which was a must as it was only about 12 degrees - usually cold for this time of year. The next day we did the big bus tour in central London and went for a ride on the London eye and took a ride down the river Thames. We walked down Regent Street and had a good look at all the elaborate shops. We caught up with Anthony (Sheryl's old boss) for a curry and had a few beers with a couple of Sheryl's friends and Nick, Heather and Max. The transport system in London is really good but there is just so many people everywhere, so I can't see myself ever wanting to live there. A good place to visit though!

Bring on Beijing

We arrived in Beijing this morning after a 13hr flight from Auckland. Beijing is a busy modern city, unfortunately we didn't know the weekend was a national holiday so the population swelled well beyond the usual 16M.

We had a tour guide for most of our 4 days and crammed in all the main tourist attractions including the great wall, the Ming tombs, the forbidden city, the temple of heaven, the pandas at the zoo and the summer palace. We had a lunch with a local family in the Hutong district, got to see the Olympic site and went to cloisonne, jade, tea and silk factories. We even managed to squeeze in an acrobatic show and a peking duck dinner.

Waikiki beats the winter in Wellington

On Monday we got up early to get out to Kahului Airport for our flight to Hilo. We had such a great time in Maui but it seemed to go so quickly.

We picked up a rental car in Hilo and took the scenic drive around the coast to Kona. The resort we stayed at was located in a nice bay with heaps of restaurants and souvenir shops. This was a good chance for us to sit back and relax for a day or so, soak up a bit of sun and even squeeze in a bit of shopping at the new mall in Kona.

On Wednesday we drove down the coast and up the mountain towards the volcano. Unfortunately the weather changed pretty quickly and before long we were driving in torrential rain. It didn't let up and a lot of the roads were closed due to dangerous levels of sulphur and recent lava flows so we bailed and drove onwards back to Hilo.

Yesterday afternoon we arrived back in Honolulu. Our flight was interesting as the plane was mostly full with US marines coming to Oahu before they head off to Afghanistan.

Waikiki is a pretty mad place, there are people everywhere! Who said we're in a recession? The hotel we're staying at is just across the road from the beach and the view from our room is pretty awesome. It's really warm here - 30 degrees today so we hit the shops this morning and then went down to the beach later this afternoon. We'll try and get down to the beach earlier tomorrow before it gets too hot. Having a great time!

It's a hard life

Over the last few days we've explored all over the island of Maui.

On Wednesday we drove around the west side of the island and had a good look around the shops at Lahaina. The road around the NW part of the island was pretty narrow and a far contrast to the 4 lane highway that goes from Kahului to Kihei - well worth it though as the scenery was spectacular.

We tried to drive down the road to Hana yesterday but had to turn back as the road was closed due to roadworks - this was the perfect excuse to grab some lunch from the locals cooking some delicious teriyaki bbq chicken.

I've windsurfed the last 4 out of 5 days and decided to chill out today and watch some of the action at the Maui Race series. Yesterday I swapped the slalom gear I had rented for a freeride board and a few wave sails - this was heaps of fun in the 25-35 knots at Kanaha yesterday. I'm hoping to get a final sail in tomorrow afternoon before we head to the big island on Monday morning.

The place we're staying at is really cool - a nice swim in the morning and a bit of sunbathe to get things started has become a favourite of ours.

This afternoon we drove up to the Haleakala crater - it was really cold up the top but good to learn about how the island of Maui came to be how it is today.

We've uploaded plenty of photos for you to see more of our travels.

Fun times in Maui

Sheryl and I arrived in Maui yesterday afternoon. First stop was to pickup our rental van then we headed down to Neil Pryde Maui to get sorted with some windsurf gear for the week. What a cool shop, the crew there were really friendly and helpful too. Thanks guys!

Armed with some great gear, Neil Pryde MKII slaloms (the same as I use back home) and a JP Slalom board, we then headed down to the beach where the whole atmosphere was buzzing. Kanaha Beach Park is really cool, heaps of space for everyone to park their vans and wagons and plenty of lush grass for rigging.

I headed out on the 5.4 and was soon getting dialed in. The JP is a bit more full on than I am used to and my 2 months of hibernation prior to coming to Maui meant I was a bit rusty. Soon I was getting back in the groove and getting some good downwind runs and fairly decent gybes.

Shez got some nice photos and braved the wind for an hour!

We then headed down to Kihei where we checked into to our accommodation then went out for a nice relaxing dinner - we had some local fish which was delicious.

So that was our first day in paradise!

Here's a few more photos

A better way to build web apps

I haven't done a tech post for a while so here goes...

Google launched their App Engine project about a year or so ago and have just launched support for Java. I've always been a fan of Java & mySQL as it has always been up to the task with any problem I wanted to solve. Here are my thoughts on how this stacks up.

It rocks... I had to download the latest version of Eclipse and then install the Google plugin for App Engine. I followed the demo app and was up and running in the cloud in less that 30 minutes with a site working off my own domain. I can deploy a new version of an app in a matter of seconds.

In another 30 minutes I've learnt the basics of how to use JDO (persistance) and now can start thinking about building a scalable web app. Using servlets is very straight forward and with JDO I think the amount of code you need to write is pretty minimal, basically you can just focus on the task at hand.

The dashboard in App Engine looks pretty good so you can see exactly what's going on.

It will be interesting to see how many others choose App Engine to be their platform of choice. I think for a startup that wants to get something up and running quickly and not to have to worry about hosting costs initially this is a really viable option. Nice work Google.

Round the Bays 09

Well it was another epic Wellington days for the Round the Bays run today. Thousands of Wellingtonians packed the start line at Frank Kitts for the 7km dash around the bays. I wasn't quite keen enough to do the 1/2 marathon - we'll see what next year brings!

It was great to have a crew from work all keen to enter this year. I completed the race in under 32 minutes - we'll get the official times out of the paper tomorrow. I paced myself pretty well and went the same speed the whole way with a short sprint at the end in the usual Forrest Gump fashion. I'm pretty pleased at how I went - I didn't feel exhausted at all the whole race other than the dash at the end. It was really hot!

Its was a cool event and good to see so many people right on the pace - there is plenty of fit people in Wellington that is for sure!

Fun day at Eastbourne

After a great sail at Pauatahanui Inlet yesterday we headed out to Eastbourne for the Wild Winds fun day event. It was pretty strong breeze with most pretty comfortable on 4.0's and wave boards. I rigged my 5.4 on my speed board.

Sheryl took some awesome photos - the kitesurfers were pretty amazing with their insane air time.

Dave had a new RS Slalom MK III on the beach which looks pretty radical with the shortened boom length - will be keen to try one sometime soon.

Saturday fun

Went for a quick run round the bays this morning to get motivated for the day.
I then had another great sail in the Ditch, it was pretty windy - was on my 6.2 and 104.
It was a bit choppy so only managed 28.4 knots today - great condition for practising slalom gybes. I've uploaded a few photos to Flickr

Great fun!

Flying in the Ditch

Had a great afternoon sailing in the Ditch (that's Evans Bay) today. The southerly was around 15-23 knots so I had my 6.2 and 104 slalom board rigged. My best time of the day was 31.2 knots. A few more photos on Flickr

Cruising to San Francisco

We headed south towards Santa Cruz. The wind farm just on the edge of the Interstate Highway was amazing. We decided to do a splash more shopping before we got to Santa Cruz - not that we hadn't already seen enough shops!

The next morning we had a quick look at Google Maps as we'd be travelling the previous day without a detailed map of California which makes navigation a bit tricky when you have multiple main highways running in parallel - "winging it" was not an option today.

Our first stop along the way was the Apple HQ at Cupertino. We drove onto the campus and proceeded to drive around "Infinite Loop" - a cool name for a street and saw lots of press hanging around the side entrance to the press conference for the new MacBooks.

Next stop was Mountain View to have a look at the GooglePlex. Just a few minutes down the road and we were there. Again we drove around the buildings and had a good look. The atmosphere at both Apple and Google was really cool - these guys sure know how to build a really nice work environment - plenty of open and green areas for their staff to chill out. We then got back onto the 101 and headed for San Francisco.

2000 miles

We drove back to Las Vegas and spent a night at the Excalibur. The next leg of our trip took us through Death Valley and then staying the night at a place called Beatty. From there we drove through Yosemite National Park in the snow and ended up in Oakdale.

It's amazing the contrast in going from a dry place like Death Valley to snow all around in just a few hours. Sheryl has written heaps more detail on her blog and we've uploaded quite a few photos.

We've clocked up just short of 2000 miles in the PT Cruiser - so we'll easy tick over 2K as we head to San Francisco.

Route 66 and Grand Canyon

We picked up a PT Cruiser (much to Sheryl's disgust) and headed for Flagstaff. I'm lucky I have such a great driver - Shez took to the roads like a duck to water. The copilot had general navigation under control - the road signs are shocking over here so it was often it a bit of follow your nose. Only a few wrong turns after about 1000 miles so not too bad. We reckon Chrysler did a deal with all the rental car firms cause we've never seen so many PT Cruisers. Their would be one for about every 20 cars on the road and at least 2 either side of us at any shopping mall. Sheryl now has 7 pairs of new footwear - I just can't keep up!

The Grand Canyon was awesome and it was good to see lots of the countryside.

Vegas Baby!

We arrived in Vegas a long time after we left Rockford! We boarded our plane at Chicago O'Hare airport after the usual full body inspection (SSSS Security check) expecting to be in Vegas 3hrs later. Shortly after getting on the plane, the pilot advised us that our plane was broken and they were looking for a replacement for us. Eventually (like an hour later) they found a plane so we all had to get off and board a new plane.

Mc Carran Airport was pretty cool - slot machines as soon we got out of our arrival gate - a cool train to the baggage area and then a quick taxi ride into town.

Sheryl has blogged about this already so I won't go on - heaps more photos to show you that we haven't uploaded to Flickr.

The place was huge, it is setup to cater for thousands and thousands of people every day. The casinos and hotels are massive with thousands of rooms at each place. The streets were clean, heaps of people everywhere but everyone was chilled out and having a good time. I really liked it.

Chicago was cool

We had a great time staying with Nicky and Gavin (Sheryl's cousin) at their place in Rockford (about an hour west of Chicago). It's interesting to live in suburbia for a week and see all the subtle differences in the lifestyle over here compared with back home in New Zealand.

Heaps of the housing here is condo style - from the outside the houses look the same - but the owner can add their individualism on the inside. The gardens in these neighbours were immaculate and no fences anywhere. Interesting to see houses here having basements, so the they are actually way bigger than you realise cause a good chunk of it is underground. Central heating is pretty much standard as is a 42" Cable TV, a huge fridge and oven.

Food is an interesting one to look at - I've been gob smacked at the size of meals, soft drink bottles and food packet sizes in the US. Everything is pretty much 50% bigger - no kidding! Softdrinks are dirt cheap. You can get 2 x 24 pack of Pepsi for $9 - which is about $NZD 16 - so about 30cents NZ a can - easily less than half the price we pay. Bottled water is cheap too - you buy that in bulk as well.

Dining out - you have heaps of choice - pretty much every place has a drive through option as well - pricing is about the same as NZ. I found the drive through drugstores (chemists) and bank's slightly amusing.

On to clothing and footwear .....where do I start! The range available is massive and pricing varies from ridiculously cheap to really expensive. On the whole, things that are way cheaper include jeans and alot of labelled sports clothing. Shoes are generally alot cheaper as well. A good pair of Levi's can be found for $30US so thats about $NZ 53 - easily half the price we'd pay back home. You do have to shop around though as you could pay double in a non "outlet" store.
Running shoes are heaps cheaper here - a good pair will set you back between $35 and $85 .

If you want electronics and computing gear - you aren't really going to save anything - Apple's are the same price as back home - you get a bigger range of accessories over here - but pretty much the same deals.

Sheryl has already posted a great summary of our time in Chicago. We have loads of photos up on Flickr too.

Thanks again Nicky and Gavin for your great hospitality - next stop is Vegas.

Fantastic Florida

Shez has already written a great summary of our 3 days down in Florida.

Cocoa Beach was really cool - I wish we could have spent some more time there. The local Ron John's surf store was bloody huge and it is open 24 hrs a day! We had a place right on the beach, which despite the stormy weather was pretty awesome.

I really enjoyed the trip across to Tampa - a splash of shopping at Orlando on the way there. I think my girlfriend is a shopaholic but thats ok because apparently I've become one too!

Clearwater Beach was so much fun - simply the best beach I've ever been too.

We caught up for lunch with the guys from Wufoo at the Cheesecake Factory in Tampa. It was cool to share some stories with young tech entrepreneurs from the other side of the planet and hear their take on it as well.

The interstate highway's are just amazing - pretty much 3-4 hrs in a straight line back down and across to Miami for another night at the Hilton before an early 430am start for our flight to Chicago.