Tuesday, February 28, 2006

"I knew it, I'm surrounded by assholes..."

Ah, nothing more satisfing than a hard days work, the satisfaction that comes from true accomplishments, challenges met, competitors bested...or a bunch of fuckwits pretending to be peers and bosses preventing any of the above.
Since Thursday of last week I've gone from laborer to king of the laborers (a dubious honor at the best of times), to replace the assistant project manager in her absence. This great leap comes with nothing but headache and stress and ZERO to show for it other then some of that stuff mentioned in the first half of the paragraph above. I am now reaponsible for; equipment hire, labor staffing (and occasional mngmt depending on the power hierarchy chosen for the day) office and misc. building materials/tool ordering/pickup, as well as site safety agent. I seem to spend most of my time expliaing why I haven't had time to get more milk for the coffee break, and telling people to put on their hard hats on, at least when I haven't been trying to put up a fence, build sprinkler systems or erosion barriers. Well, at the least the money's gonna be good, I thought to comfort my self, only to find upon addressing the issue that "Well sometimes people have to cover, and if it were going to be for longer [than seven days]..."
So i guess my 10US dollars an hour (9.89 before taxes but whos counting!?) is gonna have to do for another week.
Luckily for me Lake Wakitipu was glass this afternoon and my freinds Woody and Jared needed a third to go wakeboarding for the sunset hours and that was allright.
Looking accross Lake Wakitipu toward Kelvin Heights, from the apt. Balcony.

Queenstown lies 8 minutes round the bend.

Spaceballs audio: http://www.moviewavs.com/cgi-bin/mp3s.cgi?Spaceballs=assholes.mp3

posted by Dusty Calfee @ 1:39 AM 0 Comments

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Riding to Paradise


Here are a couple of photos of the ride up to Paradise, just outside of Glenorchy. Photos courtesy W.D. Besher.











As you can see the countryside is rather appaling




















Especially on the way to Glenorchy....

posted by Dusty Calfee @ 8:05 PM 0 Comments

Dunstan Range


I took a day for myself on the 20th. Having worked over a week straight and having to be in at the Pig that night, I sent quick text out to Barbra, my Tradestaff agent, and let her know that I would not be heading out to the Commonage for work. With that done my head it the pillow and didn't come up till 10:30.

Out on the Bike I took a ride past Cromwell and toward Alexandra, turning off SH 8 at Omakau I took Thompson's Track into the local range land. I opened a lot of gates and passed a couple different sheep stations. Nearly collided with a couple of the fuckers too, and I don't think they're as soft as they look. Most get a bit spooked and throw themseves off the sheer edge of the road; how they keep their footing on the steeps I don't know. Most of the time however you see them peering out from some scrub up on the hillside, a little cottonball or two stuck together to dark receses staring back at you from each fuzzy face.

I stoped into Cromwell SPV for a quick yarn with Marleen and to see if my brake pads were in. Sure enough they were on her desk about to be posted to me. A local rider by the name of Ron was in and we all got to talking about some local rides and I came away with some good beta for the comming weeks of riding.

posted by Dusty Calfee @ 4:56 PM 0 Comments