KTMusings

'Cause I did some *serious* cleaning/organizing/purging at my house over the weekend and it turns out I have a LOT of pictures frames I'm not using. Seriously, let me know if you're interested. Otherwise they're all going to get donated. It was nice to do some reorganizing - I found out I have lots of things to donate or give away. It also turns out I have 14 tubes of travel size toothpaste ... most of them half used. So for my next several business trips I'll be brining two half-used tubes with me each time!

It's amazing how much we use Wikipedia these days (which is why I donate to them yearly ... and you should too: http://donate.wikimedia.org/ ). I'm amused by some of the tweets today in response to Wikipedia's blackout today to protest the PIPA/SOPA bills. Here are two of my favorites: If you want to support Google/Wikipedia/others in protecting the internet from censoring, sign the online petition here: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Not sure why I added the exclamation point ... I'm not at all excited about the snow. However, seeing as it's January 12 and it's the first snowfall over 1" here in Madison, I suppose I can deal with it. Time to wax my skis, finish knitting the hat I'm working on, and make some cocoa! Here's the view out my front door tonight ... about 4":

Welcome to 2012! I rang in the new year with some great friends at the New Years Eve Rock'N'Roll Ball at the Intercontinental hotel near O'Hare. We got to see the Old 97s put on a show and do the count down to midnight. Rhett Miller (he gets a bit sweaty during shows, eh?) and Murry Hammond (who looks like a middle-aged Harry Potter these days) mid-show, below:

It's been quite a process (and has taken me several months!) to go through the 4,000+ pictures we took between our two cameras on this trip. I think I've managed to come up with a reasonable number to post (approximately 500 in each album), so if you're interested in seeing more than what I have in the daily blog posts below, check out the following slideshows: New Zealand - North Island (days 1-12): http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AZuWzNq3YsWbio New Zealand - South Island (days 13-20): http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AZuWzNq3YsWbkw And to take a look at my day-by-day recap, start here and follow the links: http://kellytmiller.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-zealand-itinerary.html

We woke up to more gorgeous views over Lake Tekapo, before starting literally the longest day of our lives. We had about a two hour drive into Christchurch (where we were supposed to spend our last two nights, but had a change of plans due to their major earthquake before our departure). As we were driving to return our rental car, we heard on the radio that the city had just registered a 4.1 earthquake ... which none of us felt. Here's us after we returned Bruce: As the rental car guy drove us to the airport, Ryan used the phrase "sweet as" - I don't remember what he said, but we thought it was way funnier than the driver did. Once at the airport, Ryan made Dana put her sling on to gain sympathy from the lady checking us in for the flight. It worked - she checked all our bags for free and got us 4 seats in a row so Dana wouldn't get jostled around on the flight. Ryan shows off his leg room: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpp-o0RftRs We flew Christchurch to Auck...

Well, our last full day in NZ was a relaxing one. Ryan heard there was a golf course up the road, so he rented clubs from our hotel and we drove out to MacKenzie Golf Club. The course itself left something to be desired, but we enjoyed the sunshine and the views. Ryan's video recap of the course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1brInmH5HKs On our drive back into town we drove up to the Mt John Observatory for some pretty spectacular views. Lake Tekapo: Looking back toward town: Videos of the view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39-atJequz0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-u04gg2LR8 Here's the lake from back by our hotel: After lunch we walked over to the Church of the Good Shepard and couldn't stop taking pictures. The view of the lake from inside (through the window over the altar): Breathtaking. We had a quiet last night (believe it or not, a town of 300 people has little nightlife) - we borrowed a movie from the hotel owners and spent time getting all of our belong...