the show! (big presentation part 2)

T-Minus: 14 days...

Location: Port Chalmers

Objective: Signature

alright people of the innerweb as of last time we spoke i was left in something of a pickle...

i was helping my new buddy andrew out with a talk he was giving at a big OFFICIAL celebration at port chalmers. the thing was moments before we had to present andrew informed me that the talk would be on stuff i knew absolutely nothing about!

well i've heard a saying before "grace under pressure"... so hopefully there's a girl in the audience named grace and andrew brought a vice or boulders... otherwise this was going to get a little interesting...

andrew welcomed the crowd, and introduced himself... so far all so good. though there was a lot more people then i thought there'd be...

remember it has been 6 months since i have really spoke in front of people, and that was when i knew what i was talking about...

then came the big moment andrew introduced me... i was kinda scared for a second and couldn't speak... oh man the whole talk was going to be a disaster...

andrew caught this and encouraged a bunch of the kids in the crowd to come up and give me a moral boast...

well okay that kinda helped. children are pretty none scary to talk to. they are way better listeners then know it all grownups, and i tend to be on the same wave length as them too. just wish my small brain would get bigger like human kids seem to.

all right with that courage infusion i was ready to get on with the show...

wow what a big crowd we'd gathered too! was more then a hundred (not sure how many more. i'm not able to count above a hundred...). okay i had to remind myself no pressure. no pressure...

so andrew called up a volunteer from the audience to ask a question. right on cue, as this was supposed to be about sports in new zealand, the cute little guy asked us to talk about cricket and rug-bee...

okay so i know a little bit about bugs, but what do crickets and bees have to do with sports?

the pressure that wasn't existing a moment ago was coming right back i tell you.

andrew grabbed some stuff and started talking about "the games". i had no clue what he was talking about. he started talking about crickets hitting wickets for some reason (not sure why jimmy cricket would want to beat up an ewok in the first place?), and rug-bees tackling...

even more confusing was that he was holding a leather egg and a canoe paddle.

oh man i thought. just don't call on me to say anything...

right then of course andrew asked me if i had anything to add... suddenly every eye in the crowd was upon me...

i did the only thing that seemed natural... try to get out of there!

now because port chalmers is surrounded by water i was going to need to boat my way out. so i tried to grab the paddle from andrew...

he was not happy about that at all! after an insane tug a war i lost...

andrew tried to get the talk back on track and once again asked me if i had anything to say about sports...

why didn't he say it that way in the first place!

i know all sorts of things about sports. like at the beginning of every game of anything i've seen they sing the canadian national anthem!

so i got out my flag and started to sing...

andrew stopped me quickly saying that wasn't what he meant. the kids were all laughing at my mistake. oh man i was losing credibility and andrew's audience!

it was at this point i figured i'd come clean and admit i knew nothing about new zealand sports. i did just move here in the new year!

andrew said that was okay, and so he explained to me how the games of cricket and rugby (not rug-bee for those of you out there who've never heard of it before either) work...

before both knew it everyone left... andrew looked so mad... oh man had i messed this up?

then the organizer of the day walked up... great now i'd gotten andrew in a ton of trouble... i was so going to get kicked out of new zealand at this rate!

"well boys i see you ended 3 minutes before you were supposed to." she started off very disappointed. "i'm not sure where to start on the whole thing, the cricket bat fight, the canadian anthem, or the explaining to your dumb friend."

andrew's heart was plainly sinking. if he was upset then i knew i was going to be worse off in a moment... then suddenly...

"that was brilliant boys! the kids loved it! i love your thing traumador. pretending to be all stupid, and then having andrew explain it!" yeah act stupid... that's it! "you boys did an outstanding job! thank you."

like that she went on to get more work done for the days events...

andrew stood motionless for a moment. clearly in shock. i'd seen this sorta thing on dan's face before. he was just processing all the ways i'd screwed up, and in a second he was going let loose...

i nearly jumped when andrew gave me a high five and screamed "traumador that was AMAZING! you saved the day man. making the kids laugh and acting like you didn't know a thing. oh geez man. i owe you one."

wait did he just say what i think he just said?

guess what people of the world wide web...

i just got the first part of my government criteria!

i got one of the three signatures i need!!!

rather then ruin this otherwise brilliant day me and andrew are going to celebrate our successful presentation. which also a bonus to getting the autograph. looks like i have a new friend here in new zealand!

no vest?!? (big presentation part 1)

T-Minus: 14 days...

Location: Port Chalmers

Objective: Signature

man does time fly by... which is absolutely no good when you're running on a tight deadline people of the web wide world!

though unlike other weeks gone by i do have one possibility for success in meeting my governmental criteria!

that is helping out andrew with his presentation on new zealand sports...

giving me a call last night andrew checked to make sure i was still coming. there was just two catches one was that it was way out in port chalmers (a small community way out on the peninsula... which is quite a LONG walk from where i am living right now), and that it was going to be a BIG OFFICIAL presentation as part of a big deal celebration going on at port C.

without thinking (which happens often with a brain the size of mine) i said i was still totally in...

then it occurred to me both these new bits of info were kinda a big deal!

first off a big official thing... AHHHHHH... i haven't done one of those in like almost a year now! (well okay 8 months... but so much NOT official things have happened since then... the closest to this was the eco centre in BC, and we all remember how that turned out!)

i was going to need a second opinion on whether i could do this or not. more to the point i needed an ego boost... there was only one man qualified to do both these in the time i had...

PETER BOND!

now it's been a little while since i've talked to my special talent agent... why almost a month on the dot... i had no way of knowing who he'd be working with that alone where on the planet he might turn up.

turns out he's doing some work with the people of cadbury chocolate. helping their mascot improve his sweet selling savoy... what can i say my agent is the best...

peter was excited to hear from me. turns out he's learned there's a BIG cadbury factory in dunedin (wow news to me!), and that i should drop his name there at some point and see if i can get some work out of them... definitely worth noting...

sadly didn't have time to worry about that immediately. i had a presentation to worry about.
peter said it was a great idea, and that i need not panic about anything bad happening. though the eco centre incident wasn't the best last note to have been on i only had anywhere to go but up! so he said to break a leg (though preferably someone elses) and good luck with the show. peter had to get back to show the cadbury dude a thing or two about how to make glasses look cool...

okay so there was that problem taken care of...

now i needed a way to get to port chalmers... well there was only one person i knew who could help me with that part of the plan...

CRAIG... uh what is craig's last name come to think if of it!

that's right my good old legal guardian, discoverer, and buddy craig. now i've been living with him a little while, and well frankly i haven't been the best closet surfer (no i haven't been surfing in his closet. just sleeping in it). so craig hasn't been too happy with me lately. added to the fact my sneaking into new zealand got him into some trouble too...

anyways craig had some big plans for the weekend, but explaining my situation to him, and after a convincing speech (in which i most certainly didn't cry and act like a temper tantruming 4 yr old... though in fairness i AM only 4!) he agreed to take me out to port chalmers...

now the plan had been for him to just simply drop me off, but arriving at the big event they had planned the organizers assumed that we had BOTH showed up to take part. next thing craig knew they had him in a pretty snazzy vest if you ask me, as "security". some guys have all the luck. though craig wasn't too happy about it... something about writing off his whole day...

oh man one of these times i'm hoping somehow i can make it up to him. he has been such a nice guy and here i go just taking and taking. well once i meet my government criteria i'll be in a place to do so. for now this is the ending of the meaning... or was that the means justifies the ends... or the means justifies the ends of meaning???

anyways craig was supposed to stick to the harbour and patrol along the dock, and make sure everything was cool for the open house that was going on at the port. i wish i could stuck around and check out all the boats and ships, but i had business to get too.

that was tracking down andrew...

track him down i eventually did! he was busy grabbing some lunch from a big display of something called haggis... at least andrew said he was grabbing it. though before i said hi i could have sworn he was sneaking it... after all i thought it was for guests. andrew had one of those nice vests on too like craig. meaning he was working here for the day. or so i thought.

wonder why i didn't get one of those cool vests?

andrew showed me the haggis quickly. man i'm a great carnivore, and this stuff even sickened me out! what is it?

more to the point how much of that stuff did andrew have to eat... ewwwww

with his lunch out of the way andrew took me to where we were going to do the presentation. we had an hour to figure out what we were going to say, and do. however andrew spent most of it saying how he was worried about talking in front of so many kids, and eating these things called pineapple lumps...

it was just as the first of the kids were showing up for the presentation that andrew said "okay so all we have to talk about is the sports of new zealand. So remember we'll just focus on cricket, rugby, and football."

hmmmm i've heard of cricket's before. though how you play a sport with jimmy the cricket is a bit beyond me...

oh man and the kids are here for the talk!!! i have to go people of the inner web...

wish me luck... i'm going to need it!!!

to be continued....

collecting opportunity (big presentation part 0)

T-Minus: 20 days...

_

Location: Octagon

Objective: Signature

man with time ticking away it is getting more and more stressful people of the innerweb...

i've wasted nearly a month trying to meet the government's criteria, and still no success. i figured i'd switch tactics altogether here today. thus far i'd been going for material things on my list, and due to their being big i'd been failing. time to scale down i thought, and try biting off smaller pieces (which is a little silly for a t-rex. an average t-rex could eat something like 200 cheeseburgers in one bite... if only i were an average sized t-rex...)

that meant going for the one objective i hadn't aimed for yet. getting some signatures or referral and/or endorsement...

for this i already had a good lead (granted i'd had leads on homes and jobs too, but i hadn't messed this criteria up... yet...)
_

to get it though i was going to have to contact that nice guy andrew i met at the beach last week...

_

he gave me a number for his "cell" phone (still don't get what that means), but the problem was craig is so cheap he doesn't have a phone in his room at salmond. as of such i needed to hike all the way into town from his place (a good 30 minute walk) JUST to find a phone...

getting there i met with a different, yet equally annoying challenge. i needed money to make the phone work!

fishing around in my pockets i found i had no change at all... which i guess is to be expected. what with my having never had any new zealand money of any type at all!

then i remembered a trick i'd seen on a movie once. i called "collect"...

now it didn't work quite the way i thought. movies sadly are never quite as real as you'd think.

see i thought when you called collect you had to collect the number of the person you were trying to reach. instead what it is is a game to try and find someone stupid enough to pay for you're call. now it took me a few tries, and the operator got kinda mad at me, but i finally got someone to cover my call...

craig was surprised when i called him at skool collect... he answered it expecting to hear some big emergency. once he accepted the charges i immediately had the operator redirect my call to andrew...

getting through, andrew was kinda "keen" that i'd called (cool my first exposure to kiwinese!). turns out that he was in bit of a jam.

he had to do a presentation on new zealand sports on the weekend, and his public speaking skills weren't so "hot". he remembered from our conversation the other day though that i had a ton of working with people telling them stuff experience from the tyrrell.

andrew asked if i could help him with his presentation. i totally said yeah! not only was andrew about to owe me a favour, and i was about to make him my friend for sure (cause hey who else would help you in a bind like this but a true friend), but maybe i could make even more contacts at this presentation thing!

so agreeing to meet up with andrew this weekend to help him with this problem we hung up. perfect i thought i was finally on the right track to fixing some of my problems in life!

right then the phone cut back to craig who was on the other end of the phone, and man was he NOT happy with me pulling that collect trick... oops.

why is it i can never do anything without something going wrong?

chat on the beach

T-Minus: 22 days...

Location: Sand Fly Bay

Objective: Home and Signature

okay people of the inner web i NEED to make some sort of progress on this whole government criteria thing... i'm now over a week into march, and i haven't made a bit of progress!

craig's been telling me i should work on getting a job as i can stay at his place till the end of the month, and with a job i can afford to get or rent a home.

the problem is i don't know what he means. i've never had to pay for a home before. craig and dan used to pay all the rent when i lived with them in drumheller, and then when i moved to the museum my room and board was provided...

so i think i'm going to try and find a home that's free, and to do that i'm going to have to find a nice outdoor place... as indoor ones cost money, and i don't have any of that at the moment.

my place of preference for a home is of course the beach! nice, outdoors, and well... da beach!

i can't really describe it any other way.

so i'm here at a place called sand fly bay. which at first glance was kinda boring, and not all together screaming live at me.

that is till i saw how far it goes on, and just how much scenery there is too this place!

i was totally sold on this place. it was even nicer then pilot's beach. there wasn't many sea mammals or birds i'd have to live with, and better yet it wasn't a nature preserve so the department of conservation wasn't going to be able to kick me out!

just as i was about go set up my hammock and move in there was a voice behind.

"nice pick on a spot to nap dude!" said a man who'd been swimming in the water earlier.

"oh i'm not having a nap." i replied. i told him all about my predicament with the government, and how this was my solution to my home problem.

"you can't do that man." he told me.

the reason i'm informed by this random dude is that it is illegal in new zealand to live on the water front. anywhere along the water front. meaning that unlike north america (or at least BC where i've bee) there isn't such a thing as beach front property.

so even though the department of conservation won't get mad at me for living here all the other parts of the government would...

oh man. wish somebody had told me that earlier!

then again it was nice of this stranger to tell me at all. knowing my luck as of late i'd have been found out by someone later on and gotten into even more trouble!

well as this whole trip was bust, and i'd wasted even more time i figured i might as well be sociable and maybe make a friend here down under (that and maybe i could get this guy to give me a signature for my references).

so that's how i met andrew. turns out he is from canada too! what are the odds of that... though he is from the bleak flat plain of saskatchewan... poor guy. no wonder he came down here.

he is down in NZ to work with kids, but today he was just enjoying a nice relaxing day at da beach.

andrew seems to be a really nice guy. he offered me a ride back into town, and gave me a "cell phone" number (what the heck is a cell phone?!?) plus email. he said we should meet up at some point for a hang out...

can you believe that people of the web wide world! somebody wants to hang out with me!!!

i've never had anyone ask me to hang out before!!!

in the middle of this amazing social development i forgot to see if i could get andrew's signature though... have to remember to do that when he contacts me...