Kiwi-corns

It's not big moments but the country is slowly getting under my skin. I'm pretty sure I really like it here. Everyone is kind and very chill. Views are idyllic and it's just been peaceful. Life wise, it's certainly been a juxtaposition of super busy and also umm what am I doing? Sean's had a nasty cold and has been out for a bit so we've been less social than usual. We've still managed a board game meetup, Parkruns, and I've climbed a little of the local crag with my coworkers. Sean and I are finally biked up so I'm excited to check out the famous mountain bike scene. Hopefully I don't completely eat it on my new enduro bike.  The only not-peaceful thing is the natural disaster potential. Geologically, New Zealand is a playground for geotechs with its earthquakes, volcanoes, rockfall, landslides and typhoons. I guess I have to counter that Colorado wasn't immune to these things and we had our fair share of wildfires, floods, debris flows, lan...

 We finally ended out nomadic ways this week and have settled into our new rental! Ruby was not only the most expensive thing about moving but really put as at a disadvantage in the housing market. Despite the fact that dogs are welcome almost anywhere in New Zealand people really don't want pups in their rental homes so you have to get what you can. Good thing Ruby is the best dog in the universe and absolutely worth it.  That's how we ended up snapping up my coworker Maddi's place since she was moving north to rekindle the geotech group in Gisborne. It is entirely too much house with its 3 bedrooms and an office but it's not a bad place to land. After our many years of bouncing around less than ideal rentals in Boulder, CO there's something to be said about moving into a shiny, almost new house with well thought out conveniences. I don't think I've ever lived in a place in Boulder with a two-car garage, or a sun room, or a big walk-in pantry. In other word...

We're in Airbnb #2 in one of Queenstown's surrounding suburbs, Hanleys Farm. Hanley's also happens to be where we'll be renting our house so it's so much closer to feeling like settling in. In a way, NZ suburbs are like US suburbs but really they're more like little pods of neighborhoods. When you mail anything to the suburbs, the overlying city we're all part of is still Queenstown. There isn't even a coffee shop here or restaurants- just a pump track. Everyone also has to have a P.O Box since the mail carrier doesn't go this far.  Fun fact, Hanleys is adjacent to a bougier neighborhood called Jack's Point. They have some slight beef as the Jack's Point people would like to not be associated with Hanley's riff raff. They're walking distance though so people from both burbs like to stroll over to the clubhouse to grab coffee and eat at the restaurant. When the town's water was infected with cryptosporidium recently, Jack's Poi...

 I am reacclimating to consultant-life and it is definitely different.  Throw that in with the metric system, new geology and learning how to do seismic! Just random thoughts and observations so far: I never realized what a nice benefit it is that we had a drill crew at our disposal. I should know since CDOT's is always very popular with our consultants. NZ is very into Scala Penetrometers which are just hand-run a-rods with a cone tip. You're lifting a hammer and letting gravity drive the a-rods into the ground. I think it can go like 2 meters deep max and people design off of that! I sometimes felt weird about only using SPTs! They're also into vane shears. Again, no sample collection but you get a peak and residual shear strength.  It will be really challenging working with less tools. There is this very large historic landslide my coworker and no one has thrown an inclinometer at it yet! Or a piezometer! (I'm secretly appalled but they're doing neat things with ...