Today, I spoke briefly with the ladies I work with about the diffenent lifestyles that people can lead with regards to money, work, travel and hobbies that seem a bit too extreme to talk about.

Some conclusions were that its still possible not to get caught up in the riff-raff of speedy wanna buy everything and go everywhere type of mindset. Its still a minority within the popular culture to be able to not need as many things as your average neighor and just be happy and content with the things you already have.

Last weekend, I played the part of a chicken at my very own house warming party.

For now, I’d like to write down some movies I’ve seen lately. Having been unable to sit down to relax at home, I take it else where and relax while watching a movie.

Soul Power at Kriterion zaal 3

Taking Woodstock at Cinecenter zaal 4

Los Abrazos Rotos at The Movies

La Siciliana Ribelle at Rialto

Inglourious Bastards at The Movies 2x

This past weekend, I was up in Copenhagen with my club team the Cambo Cakes from Amsterdam. We visited the high-level summer season starter called Wonderful Copenhagen. This years event without a women´s division was purely focused on some long missed male bonding so to speak.

Flying out of Schiphol with about 10 CAKES we managed to get to the fields on time, for once. Maybe it was the fact that Fred wasn’t around to compete with Michael for last man in honors? Eitherway, we cleated up and prepared for the first game against the Italian National Team. Which in the end proved as a great wake up for the tourney. We managed to play our own O and get 7 points of em. It was game on from there. Next up the Lookfly oldman Nationals, well sort of , some of them were a bit on the young side.

Miles (me cuzzie) has put together a video montage of car trips of different parts of Australia together, with some beats that is. This was all made between end 2006 through to about November 2007.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5036387089714154478

check it out. 

another funny video that has not been seen is my personal blowhole experience.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6617229859360760773

After almost a month on the Hawaiian Islands, I’ve finally made it to the mainland(US of A that is). The original plan was to fly to Vancouver and see the city before Worlds and slowly make my way down the coast via Seattle and Portland to San Fran. Plans change, people change, flights can be booked on the spot. This had me landing in San Francisco a day before the Booty and the Beach hat draw tournament. Not to shabby, I thought.

Turns out, my pickup at airport wasn’t too convinced I was gonna make it to the city that day, so she was off, drinking with friends.  After a short phone-call, I was on my way to some random bar, with a 50/50 outlook on the nights events. I mean, if you’ve ever thought of entering a bar with full backpacker get-up, don’t, cause, you’ll meet more dude’s who are keen to clam out than have a hand out to help.  Eventually, I found Kate, my San Fran friend who I’d met at Kaimana Klassik tourney on Oahu in a very different way. She’d joined Michael, Fred and I on the Na Pali Coast track so things were smooth.

The night ended and the weekend started all within a few hours of each other.  We headed out to the beach with Kate and Whitey(Jason) driving his rental car, cause his own car was totalled by a driver who saw his parked car as a target rather than an obstacle.

The tourney promised a shirt that you could wear outside of ultimate related events. With an octopus/pirate logo, this was a bit tricky. My team , Team Captain Morgan(Whitey,Shawn,Taylor,Denise,Bee,Frodo,Melissa,Matt,Joe), had an easy day, staying undefeated for the day, with sand in every imaginable place, the day was windy and colder than expected by the Hawaiian import(me). My team seemed a bit stacked, but we still managed to have close games against Blackbeard and other pirate named teams. After our last game we had a by and watched the others struggle through their last games, with the wind-chill got us all quiet cold as the sun got low on the horizon. Pants and Windbreakers couldn’t get me from getting cold a bit. The sunburn from the day didn’t help either. Our trio, driving to the dinner location of Pizza Orgasmica. With some of our friends from the pub/house party the nite before we finished off three pizza’s and a pint or two of fruity flavored beer.  Some of the characters involved were Whit and Clare from San Fran , Drew from Seattle, some of Kate’s girlie’s can’t remember names, but I’ll get to that. With the body at full, ache and pain levels, we somehow made it to the party and caught the early bus home, in order to get a decent nites sleep in. We knew the sand would not be as nice the second day of Booty and the Beach.

Day two started out with a by for team Captain Morgan, mainly cause we had two organizers on the team, giving them more time to get their act together. With the undefeated record, we approached the day with a bit of eagerness. Team Brown with Whit and Drew was our second game, they both having studied out game-play while they had a by during out first game. We managed to trade points for quite a bit. Shutting down Rubs was a key-point in our game. I’d played with Rubs on Doughboy at the Kaimana Klassek a few weeks prior and knew he had money throws. So, game-plan, shut down Rubs and brown goes down. After a while it started to work, we even managed to get the disc back after Drew had a sweet block on Whitey. Whit and I talked it up during the game, just to see how spirits were. High on both sides, enjoying the game and its sandwich like elements. We managed in the end to take the lead and keep it till 13 ending it at 13-9. feeeewwww, thru to the semi’s, against team light blue, with some key players who would make it tough again. We had played them on day one and pulled out a win at 13-9. This time they would play different. We traded again till 9’s and then pulled away to get a spot in the final against the other undefeated team at the tourney, team Tan, or Long John Silver for the record.

The final, with a by, we ate and rested the so tired legs yet again. Finals are always different, you wanna win, but don’t want to take away from spirit and or fun factor,it was a hat tourney. So, dropping the first 3 points was a bit of a shocker. But we managed to get back into the game, with some easy as, points and get close to the tie. But pulling it even was tougher then it looked, for every point we had they had a answer and a terrible foul call or travel. Well maybe it was just how things turned out. Either way, we finished fighting and lost by 2/3?

A decent introduction to the San Fran ultimate scene I thought. thanks Kate W.

I might of promised some photos of the cheerleaders activities of the Party and Thai restaurant in ChristChurch, NZ. I do keep my promises.

Thanks again , team for the memories. 

So, its been a while since my last rant. To be exact probably a few months. I’m still trying to think why it has been so long. They say time flies when your having fun. Well, ok, guilty as charged. It was a bit of fun, a bit of ruckus and a bit of outta control stuff all mixed together.

Right, just had a memory lapse, and forgot exactly where I was in NZ last, making it difficult to start off, somewhere I thought. After Nationals I am now recalling it all.

Hiking a glacier,standing under a 131meter waterfall,swimming head first down a freezing rapid river.

I wrote that at the end of my last blog to remind myself, not to forget.

So, the story begins. After Nationals in Christchurch, some of the team(Ryan,Abra,Pottsy,Piers,Blair,Kicka&Kevin) had planned to go up to Arthurs Pass, just a couple hours drive, so we were told. After a quick abuse of the rental car toilets, we drove until, lunch which was conveniently located next to a river of sorts. Some sort of sandwich buffet was established and people dove right in. Being the only dutchy present, I represented and started building a dam to mess with nature and well, get some culture in for the day. Within minutes, I had Pottsy and Piers up to their knees in water including myself of course. After the small stones were all used up, we resorted to moving/sliding larger stones into place, in order to achieve our goal of a small but cozy swimming spot. Wearing skins & tongs, wasn’t the ultimate combo, as the skins proved cold when wet. Regardless, we pressed on and built a pretty decent sized damn. So much free love was in the air, that at one moment, I was in the middle of a birthday suit sandwich of sorts. Pottsy and Piers deciding, to take a dip and really get in touch with nature. I chose to keep it under wraps and swam some laps in the flowing river just above the dam. Everything seemed perfect, as I looked at the dam, build within 30minutes, I was content. But as I toweled of and noticed a item or two in my boardshorts I was less overjoyed. It appeared, that I’d left my mobile phone and car key/alarm box in my pocket. Oooops, no panic, remain calm and tell the group. It was double trouble, the mobile was fresh with some kinky #’s and the key/alarm, would provide access to the car, which was now locked. Hmmm, what to do? We decided to use the other cars heater to dry the key/alarm. This took some time, and in that time my car alarm went off , a bunch of times, cause a window was open and we secretly tried to kill the alarm like the carjackers do in the movies. Lucky for us, the key/alarm dried up rather well and our worries were over. The mobile wasn’t so lucky, it took nearly a week and a half to recover fully. In that time i’d already bought a new one, in a bit of a panic, that was cause of the kinky #’s. Oh, well another lesson learned.

The weather wasn’t that great, to go hiking up to Arthurs Pass. The lady at the hostel, after almost cutting up my BBH card(not necessary) suggested a hike to the glacier. The next day with a packed lunch we headed up to the glacier. It was a bit of a trek, but in the end worth it, cause we got to cause a few mini avalanches, mostly with mini boulders. A few of us, hiked a bit further up to and on the glacier, which allowed for a mini snowball fight. On the way back down , following the river, we got side tracked and ended up on the wrong side of the river. A dam was needed, but there wasn’t enough time, so Pottsy found us a skip/hop/leaping route that somehow kept us dry and had us on the other side within a few minutes. Back at the car we told the others our troubles and not forgetting Kevin’s Camelbak on the roof, we almost made it home. But the loud sound at the first turn, alerted us enough to get Piers to stop. I raced Kicka halfway up the hill, not fully aware of the distance I had to go until I got to the Pack. I was mostly winded and even had trouble stepping back in the vehicle.

For some of us the day was over, but the thrill seekers in the bunch had spoken of a hike up to the 131 meter waterfall. It also agreed upon to go for a dip in the river afterwards to test the rapids so to speak. Upon seeing the waterfall from up close, we(Ryan,Abra,Pottsy and I) still went of it. The water coming from that height was like small rocks maybe even hail, coming down on you. The pool under the waterfall was a temperature below acceptable and this had us skipping out like little girls, crying for out mothers.

to be continued…

next up, the ice rapids of dome?

This past weekend, the Aussie invading team Megapussi (Finnish for mega chips) took on the rest of NZ at NZ Mixed Nationals Championships.

Day 1

We had a core team of 12, 6men+6women. A quick recap of the games we played.Results.We played Crew from Wellington as our after breakfast warm-up game. Pretty decent game, took our defense a bit to get started, but we let the women do a lot of the work as the wind hammered the fields for most of the day. Game 2 was against Bluefish (Auckland). I had played and trained with them on a couple of occasions and knew it would be a battle of a game. The wind proved strong, something both teams weren’t extremely comfortable with but made due.They took the half and kept a small lead into the final point. Next up Vic Wildcats (Wellington), a uni team with some great players, but our experience team too them to school and the Defense stepped up with the wind helping and took no mercy. End result 13-0, I believe, we played silent ninja, pretty loud, but didn’t compare with the Mingle,Mingle game we had against Crew. Last up for the day was the mighty 1st ranked Credo from Christchuch. With a good depth in the team , they had no problem with the wind, and sweet hucks coming from Sammy and Penny too take a lead on us and stick it to us, good. The team, was tired, but was looking forward to the sports themed party, so nothing could stand in our ways.

The pre- Party and post acts.

With the team staying in a 32 bedroom at the Charlie B’s in Central Christchurch, we were kings of the castle and cross-dressing up like cheerleaders wasn’t the worse of what could be done. After showers and snacks plus drinks of Duty Free booze, we started on our costumes. Skirts and tops bought at the swanky SUPRE, provided us with as little coverage as possible. Next up, nail polish and eye shadow. I was personally missing the lipstick, but this got resolved later in the evening at the Thai restaurant. Well, with everyone ready to bust, we made out exit outta the hostel with a bit of flare. Once outside, we were all hit with the nippy nite air. This caused me to dance and prance a bit extra to keep my core temp. up a bit. A draft up the skirt was not on the menu, before dinner. A fine Thai establishment was chosen, and as we entered I noticed a group of lovely ladies boozing it up. I thought to myself, they must have lipstick, let me just check it out. So without breaking pace, I almost demanded a bit of lippy love, to give em a bit of flash. Two of the girls were keen to party, but with too much Thai and too little to drink, we left almost directly after dinner to go smash up the party. The short walk to the party , was more like a hike and a half. Let me tell you, with a techno colored short skirt, any distance is longer in the nippy nitetime. We, made quiet the entrance with a cheer of “P,U,S,S,I, we don’t need no alibi, we’re PUSSI.” Of course we males got looks from both sexes for the rest of the nite. Ryan and I even convince a pair of ladies that licking out nipples was something possible. I’m pretty sure, she had a boyfriend at the party in the back room somewhere. Multiple scenes of hotties dancing and bumping and grinding in the makeshift dance floor, presumed for most of the nite. Lets say to keep if short, things happened and I know someone has some photos. That could defiantly be Megapussi, hot!!(photos to come)

Day 2

Three games would decide, who would be champ. Our first game against Sour Cream (Wellington) would get us, a placing in a semi. So, we we’re mostly still on the bus, except for about 4 of us. who had driven in. Ryan,Cree,Pottsy and I were keen to just play 4 against 7 for a couple of points if worse came to worse. The team slowly trickled in and we got some serious ultimate in the very early morning. We traded points but knew we could take them with a bit more ease if the Defense clamped down a bit. So with the clamp in place we took more points and moved up on the ladder and into our semi-final. Rock on Megapussi. The cocky but not to great in the final SPY from Wellington was our semi opponent. We wanted to be in the final, point said. All our team emails were trash talk about how we’d show the kiwi’s a thing or two. We stared out trading points and this was not on the menu.So we tried a tighter D, to combat the SPY offense. I had played against the team with Crew, when I was in Wellington, so I tried to best spy out the team with handlers and receivers. Some of these worked out pretty well. Our D, got us back into the game and we traded points till 11-9 or so, then the score leaped up.oh, I had a sick Callahan, flew/jumped right over some chick to intercept a pass and land in the end zone off a pull, that landed in the end zone. That got the team pumped and we took a point to 12-12. Game point with us pulling to SPY. We D’d, got mixed up, they countered up the line and broke across field to score in the end zone. Game over, no final, for Megapussi.

So, we had a rematch against the Bluefish team who had lost there semi to mighty Credo (Canterbury). They took some easy points before we started to fight back a bit. And oh , yes we got a bit silly, playing a Disrespect point on them.

One man on the mark and the rest stays in the end zone to zone the end zone. pretty cool, I thought.
I was sent out to chase the pool and be a crazy idiot.pretty easy I thought.
The pull landed out and I put up a straight mark on the chick with the disc. She threw a dump pass behind her, but with the wind it floated up and started to hang above the dude. I saw this and busted up to jump and grab the disc over the dude, that was the dump. I couldn’t believe my eyes.I had just single-handedly made a D on the whole team.They got a stall count going, and as I waited for my team to sprint from the end zone line, I decided to call a time-out. We see up a reverse stack(stack going the wrong way) with Ryan as my dump. I dumped it to him and busted to the end zone, where with a 7cut I got free and caught the Double Happiness.
Sweet as, cuzzie!

unbelievable!!!!!!!

The game ended with a win for Bluefish and a 4th place for Megapussi. Decent considering out numbers and never having played or trained as a team before the weekend. We heckled a bit or much during the final, and played games during the timeouts and halftime, to entertain the crowd who wasn’t to keen on seeing the Credo, teach the SPY team a lesson by opening up a big lead and holding it to finish on top.

Hiking a glacier,standing under a 131meter waterfall,swimming head first down a freezing rapid river.

Auckland->Rotorua->Whakapapa Village->Wellington->Napier->Gisborn->Tauranga

With my Canadian sidekick named Alex, I set off to discover the riches of the lesser known lesser tourist visited island. Well, that what everyone says “Go to the South Island”. Regardless, with an early start of 8am and shopping done by 930ish, we headed down highway 1 outta Auckland. Finally on the road again, the Subaru impreza 93′ which I have borrowed for the time being from Snowys bro Mike was humming away at a steady pace of 100k’s.The average speed in NZ is lower do to bends in the road, or so they say. The car, which had proven quiet the hassle in the days prior, with getting a warrant of fitness(WOF) and rego(license plates) was now not exactly street legal, but as being a bit of a risk taker, was road worthy to me at least for the short trip that is. Later of-course this would prove to bite me back.

After a brief discussion to our trip plans we decided on Rotorua for the first nite. With early starts come early arrivals. As we entered town we were distracted by a massive low cloud, but then quickly realized that is was a sort of steam rising from the ground. We parked and had a look around at the spitting hot mud and techno colorings of the mineral pools. For me the best part was the smell, good old fashion sulfer. A couple of boyish flashbacks to smoke-bombs and chemistry class in high school came up as the sulfer smell stayed with us for the next few hours. We checked in at the Blue Lake Top 10 Holiday Park and scurried out for a wake around the Lake before supper. Alex got us into some trouble by picking a more adventurous route, which involved a bit of long legged climbing. Not really a big deal for me , but she manage to get herself in a jam about it. A tasty pasta dish was on the menu, as we had signed up to go rafting the next day. It was only to be 45 minutes of paddle-time but we would need our carbohydrates I figured.

Our 9:30 pick-up was even early.Tour guide and later Raft steerguy,Robbie, told us of all the volcano activity and mountains and such along the way to the rafting center. Pretty usual stuff, but good to know either-way, cause the rest of the van was quite quiet, all mentally focusing on the chaos that was waiting for us. At the center, we were first told to sign our life away. I’m always keen to sign without even reading, which was made easier, as it looked like more of a sign-up sheet then a sign-away form. Eitherway, your doing something where you could die or really hurt yourself and they are in no way responsible. They basiaclly just bring you down the river, get you as safe down as possible, but if something absolutly nutty happens, your on your own as far as death is concerned.

Right back to the Grade V-Rafting. Once, everyone was made to look a bit fat with a 5mm wetsuit, some sort of fleece-water rag against getting too cold, a life-vest, and a helmet. Oh, I made sure to test my helmet on Alex’s, which proved it to be adequate, or at least not breakable on minor impacts. So Robbie, gave us the run-down of commands we would have to know before touching the water. Basically some dry rafting, which is just silly, but ok, don’t want the raft to flip over or anything. So after everyone got em’ down we took the raft down Thur the farm fields and dipped it into the Kaituna River. We practiced our commands with some water this time and waited a bit for our partner raft to join us. It winded up being quiet busy on the River with two other companies also braving the gauntlet. As Robbie explained we would face 15 rapids. Two major ones, one of which dropped us a good 8 meters. “Wicked” I was thinking to myself. So the other ones were minor, small, splish- splashy ones, where not that much action happened. I had to even splash myself a bit to cool down enough from the baking sun. The views were decent as we moved down the river. Then Robbie warned us that the next one would be our practice for the big one. So we were told to get ready for the Brace position, which is everyone in the boat, cuddled up like Little Debbie Cakes in a box. Well, it was decently exciting and we made it through as the other boat watched. Robbie, must of lost a grip, cause it turns out, slammed into me on our way down. But it was more of a bump, and no biggie I said.

Round Two folks. So after that we were all keen for the Big One, which after a few mini’s we reached. We lined up with two other rafts ahead of us, we would have to wait our turn. No biggie, Robbie explained the task at hand and we let go, giving out a big yell before we took our Brace position’s. I’m pretty sure the 8m drop was not mentioned before the Big One, but I knew it was more of a drop from looking ahead. With Alex in-front of me in the raft and trusty Robbie in the back, I was sure we’d make it through no hangups. So the drop came, we were Braced, and landed decently, hitting the water with liter’s of water all around us. The raft it appears made it out of the waterfall, but then was sucked back in. I’m pretty sure, I was on the wrong side of the waterfall for a bit there with Robbie trying to push the raft forward. As more and more water entered the back of the raft the front end started to slowly and then suddenly rise up and over our heads. This folks is where the raft flipped over and Robbie had told us to hold on as long as possible, with the air pockets under the raft, you could always breath. Well, I can tell you my first reaction to being under a raft near a waterfall is to let go. So I did and wound up just sort of the raft. Alex held on and was the only one including Robbie who was near the raft. The others had been pushed clear and where in the other raft. Robbie needed two attempts to get the raft flipped over. On his first attempt the carabeiner that held his rope snapped of. Either way is was definitely sweet as , to get in a swim on a rafting trip. Just seconds after I let go, I

was whisked away by the current to the bottom to be banged on a few rocks only to surface near our raft. I guess that’s why they make you wear the silly looking fleece-tops?, Right on for that one then.

Big cheers from the other raft, for providing them with a bit of entertainment as they called it. Later, the staff photographer said out raft was also the more photogenic one with at-least 25 more photos being taken during the whole get stuck and flip routine. Robbie was very proud, like a dad watching his son catch his first fish or score his first goal.

Well, not that I’ve gone into too much details on the rafting, which was awesome, I’ll have to crunch down the rest of the trip a bit.

Day 2 had us driving down to the Tongaririo National Park, past Lake Taupo & Turangi where we planned to do the famous Tongariro Crossing Tramp(trek/hike). The Crossing was a 6 1/2 hours hike in the end, maybe 8 hours for grandma and grandpa. We drove to the start and hitchhiked back in record-time. The trek covers 18kms and rises in elevation from about 1000m to 1900m. With a long decent at the end, where you really start to feel all the climbing you did that day. Don’ t worry about getting lost cause about 300 people do it a day and roughly 70,000 a year. We started a bit later at about 10:30, but kept a decent pace till lunch time. By face the best part is the Red Crater viewing and the emrald lakes area, where sulfur enters your airways, giving a smelly feeling to the whole experience.

Next stop, Wellington, where I was reunited with an old playing buddy, Willemijn. She and I played together when I was first starting to play outdoor ultimate in Utrecht with the UFO club. She’s been over in NZ since 2006 worlds in Perth. She’s enjoying it so much, she’s staying longer. We arranged to meet up later on the waterfront for drinks. This gave Alex and I plenty of time to scurry around the outskirts of Wellington, soaking up some beaches and hikes along our way down to city central. We meet up at the fancy Mac’s Brewery. She had arranged for us to stay with an ultimate buddy named Steve who would have a bit more space and was more centrally located. When we finally meet up, we chatted about old times and new times in NZ, also what Wellington was. A damn great city Steve had traveled and lived in much of the world and was still draw to Wellington. The next day we were to see central in the morning, meet up with Willy for lunch at the Bontanical Gardens and then drive the Wellington Coves to get a real sense of the city. Ofcourse no visit would be perfect without a bit of pick-up afterwards. Playing with the Crew team against the higher ranked SPY. Without a doubt it gave me a good look at the competition for the coming Mixed Nationals down in Christchurch.

Auckland is grand, worked a week down south near Waiki. Painting, digging, and basic handy man stuff. Was fun with Snowy and his bro(NZ for friend) Reagan as the paint hit the fan the days flew by. There where chickens, cats, dogs, a loud cockatoo and a funny mean looking Pig.We managed to make a massive bondfire and even get in a bit of possum hunting a bit of a local tradition. I found out , not like in australia where the possum is a protected species, in NZ they are a pest. I managed to startel on with a mighty blast from a double barreled shotgun. It had a bit of kick too it and as I found out, also a bit of a sensitive trigger. A double trigger for that matter. So after Casey(local dude)managed a kill hit on the possum, I was called in to clear the tree of the hanging possum. Again the shotgun had kick and as I opened up the barrels I could see smoke rising out of them, just like in the movies I thought to myself. I was told later possum tastes like chicken, but since we had pretty much burnt the carcus to a crispy black, it just wouldn’t taste much like any thing at all. The evenings highlight was the couch being torched in gasoline. As we watched the hotseat burn, we realized we had nowhere to sit, a minor problem.