High City Limo

I started a company in Denver Co to help save lives. People like to party in Denver. But It's not the smallest town. You can't always walk or ride a bike when you go out drinking. Uber is an option, but not always feasible. The party bus Denver is a great way to get to a show at Red Rocks or 1st Bank center. You can play your own music and dance instead of whispering in the back of some creepy guys Uber car. You can leave your jacket and cooler full of beer for after the show. Smoking weed in a limousine is fine if you ask the driver first. When you look at the cost of a round trip ride, it can be as cheap as $25 per person. That is cheaper than a cab to Red Rocks going one way. Save some cash and more importantly saves lives. It's not just your life you are risking if you drink and drive. There are innocent people just trying to get home safe. Please think when you drink. Call a cab, uber, or party bus for you and your friends. Call High City Limo at 720-515-2033

Repatriate: I'm still an American

Now we have been in Christchurch for 5 days. The first two nights were spent at the beach in a quiet old neighborhood with a nice modern library that had free wifi. Feeling time crunch to sell my van with enough time to get a ticket to Auckland and get home, I started putting up "for sale" signs around town.I found a hostel that traded camper vans for backpackers. They told me it was selling season. All the backpackers are going home in feb-mar. Basically its a buyers market. But such is the nature impromptu traveling. I sold the van for less than wanted to and we moved close to downtown, staying at a hostel. We rented bike and road around town for a couple of days. We found out its a pretty cool town.We ate at really good cafe that made us a delicious burger with egg and cream cheese on a bagel. We climbed some trees, and did some tumbling. But we have just been watching movies on the laptop at night to save money. Josh is going to sleep at the airport tonight, he has an early flight tomorrow.
So I will be on my own for the next three days. This trip has given me plenty of time to think about things like life in other parts of the world. I noticed how culture separates people into groups, creating boundaries and taking the the individuality from the people in them. National pride and ethnocentrism are keepping people locked in their little lives in what I've found to be a very big world. New Zealand is probably the closest to America in culture and even architecture. They were founded around the same time. But it seems NZ has adopted some of the worst parts of American culture through the media or other profit driven information exchanges. The youth cling on to the gangster rap from MTV, and the conspicuous consumption of flashy magazines, and the stereotypical greed, arrogance, laziness and of the American public. Why? IDK. But it makes one wonder about what it is to be human. Do people just always want the easy way out. I don't. Well not any more. I like this simple way of living. Less stuff, less money, less problems.

I am however really looking forward to starting over my life in the states. I feel I have done a lot of growing up while I've been away. Learned much about my own country by seeing it through foreign eyes. Its very humbling, but eye opening as well. I love San Diego, my family and friends and will be back in it on Monday March 2, 2009.

Monday will last 44 hours for me. I may be a bit tired but it will be nice to back in So Cal. I am stoked that Sam is picking me up from LAX. We are going straight to a Mexi shop for burritos. Then ... IDK. Start rebuilding.

Travelling south.

The last few days have been full of adventure and fun. After the kiwi burn, we went to the Mount and hung out for a couple of days. We then went to Waitomo to see the caves and glowworms. We repelled 47 meters down to the cave entrance, hiked half Kilometer into the darkness and turned off our lights. Then it was lit by bioluminescent bugs. Cold and wet but very fun. Then we drove to Taupo to Bungie jump into a blue river. Later that day we ran 6 k to a hot water stream where it enters the cold blue river. It didn’t mix that well so it was hot on top and cold by our feet. We jumped into the river from anything we could. That after noon we drove out to the west coast to find the three sisters. They are small islands right off the coast. It was raining when we got there, but we hiked 10 minutes out to some beach caves. We ran around wet and shirtless in the rain on a beach with nice view but it was getting dark. We then drove down to New Plymoth. That day we had a blowout on the hiway only to find out the spare tire is for a small car and wont even fit around the brake caliper. We talked about hitch hiking into town, but then I tried to put it on backwards and torque the lugs on. It got us down the road to a tyre shop. That night we found a beach that was also a road. So we parked out on the beach. When we woke up we built a hut out of driftwood. Then drove down to Wellington. We had a ferry to catch at 2:30 am that night so we just played around in the big city. Went to a couple of clubs and visited a friend I had met in gisborne. The ferry was a big boat that had a deck for cars on the lower level and cafeteria up stairs, but we brought out cookware and food up and cooked some really good food ourselves. We got to the South island around dawn and just parked and slept till one. Then we drove to Nelson, and saw people walking on stilts on the side of the road we got to walk on them. Then we went to the beach and ran into a friend from Taraunga. Julia and Stephiane. We hung out with them drank some beer spun some poi and did some flips in Nelson and slept there at the park. The next day we went up to able tasman but it didn’t look like that much fun so we headed back south. To Greymouth where we found Montieths brewery and we took a tour. Tired in the afternoon we parked in some farmers farm he woke us up knocking on the window of the van. The Franz Joseph Glacier was a international park but the last tour had already left by the time we got there. We decided to come back tomorrow, and found a indoor ice climbing, where Josh and I had no problem learning to climb ice for the first time. Confident we could handle anything we decided to climb the glacier without a guide against the advice of all the towns people. It was a national park and we had the right to be there so when some guy told us to leave we went past him and kept climbing the glacier. We got some really cool pictures and saved $150
We Drove for hours on the south island because the cities are few and far between. Finally arriving in Queenstown which was nice because it is free of mosquitoes and it is the adventure capital of the world. They don’t like campers here, we were waking up by a city council man banging on all the vans threaten us with a $400 fine. Its raining today here in Queenstown and josh is doing the sky swing. I am out of money, so I will just have to lay low for the next couple of weeks. We have to get to Christcurch by the 27th so josh can fly out. I will remain there just long enough to sell my van and then it will be time to go home to So Cal.

Kiwi Burn

After he had been traveling for a couple of days, my friend Josh finally met up with me in Rotorua just before a grass roots festival of about 300 Kiwis and Americans, as well as some Euros. We had a blast there for three days. It was an art festival but also a really cool party.I gave my self a really nice hair cut, then we made costumes, helped paint a muiral, played with fire, and even got to go kayak on the lake. Very friendly people there. After the festival, we drove north to Mt. Manganui. We went strait out to some cliffs to jump into a very turbulent sea. It was so fun that we did it a few more times. We were practicing POI on the board walk and a ladie said there was going to be a show tomorrow and we could use her fire POI to perform if we wanted. I think we will. This morning we woke up after a good sleep and decided to go running and climb over the rocks on the beach, it was quite a workout by it self but then we hiked up the mount. Real nice view. There are lots of tourist around town from two cruise ships that are dock in the port. We plan to head down to taupo to bungee jump into a river later this week. We keep hearing about the south island and all it has to offer. Everyone keeps saying go south. I am so close to Aussie too. I might try to sneak in a quick trip across the Tasman Sea.

Leaving Gisborne

For last several weeks I have been working a lot in the fields. But thankfully tomorrow is my long awaited last day. It was supposed to be today but I will work one more just the heck of it. I don't hate the job, just sitting in the hot sun all day. So I cerebrated last night with a couple from chile that also work for the farm. We BBQ ed and enjoyed some beers.
I am very excited that my best friend from SD is cruzzing down here. It should be quite fun, a crash coarse three week adventure. I will post some pics next week of gisborne beaches and corn feilds where I've been spending all my time. As well as KiwiBurn pics. Then we will head south to the sparsely populated jungles and mountains.

Harvesting sweet corn

I have been working on a farm here in Gizzy. Driving a Tractor 12 hours a day. We are supposed to work 6 days a week but it rained here earlier this week. I am just going to keep working until my friend Josh from SD gets here on the 4th of feb. I will go pick him up and start having some more adventure. First thing we are doing is going to a three day art festival that mimics Americas Burning Man Festival. Then we will go south for three weeks or so. I still have even been to the south Island so I am very excited to have my friend here with me. I am still sleeping in my van to save money. I havent been to a hostel since the 1st. Its like camping every single day. No worries.

Painting in Gizzy

I have been in Gizzy Gisborne for a few weeks now. I am starting a new job tomorrow. I was supprized they hired me. I told the truth about my lack of experience and short time left here in Gizzy. I will be driving a John Deer tractor towing a trailer, next to a harvest tractor in a huge corn feild. Its more than min. wage and I'll be out there 50- 60 hours a week. Its hot here. The sun has the highest UV rating anywhere. East coast NZ is notorious for Melanoma cancer. There is no top on it so I'll be sitting in the sun all day, but at least I'm not doing very physical work, so I can work more hours w/o burning out.

I am living very cheap now, sleeping in the van and using the Internet sparingly.I cook and do everything with my van. Much of my time has been spent creatively. If I'm not painting, I'm drawing or writing poetry and song lyrics or spinning poi. So here are some images of some of my art. I have met lots of people both very friendly and quite shady. People always come over to watch me paint, and chat about stuff. I will hopefully finish painting soon. The store where I get paint is out of the color I need so I may have to improvise. I just want to get it done.