Wednesday. The 4th of July. Independence Day. Though it isn't yet the fourth in USA. I have nothing more to say about that, just noting.

I have now been working for Massey for one year, have been in Wellington almost exactly 14 months, Celeste has been here almost exactly 8 months. Yups, fascinating details.

I still feel new in NZ, Wellington, Massey. Still learning. Still figuring things out. I enjoy the process. It slows things down a bit that I'm a lazy hermit...

Oh, after my radio show where I last wrote in here Malcolm, who I work with at Massey, appeared on my doorstep. It was a beautiful day outside and he decided it would be good to force me to go for a mountain bike ride with him. I am relatively certain that he now regrets my willingness to go. We went riding, but I found my fat old 39 year old body unable to keep up with his 50 year old body. I was often to be found walking my bike up the hills. Nonetheless I enjoyed myself, but am assuming it was not as much fun for Malcolm.

Coming down started off much more promising. I'm fairly good at going down hill, but as it was my first time really doing mountain biking I was a bit shaky with how narrow the trail was with some big dropoffs to the sides and tree branches often times in my way. Still though, I was riding quite quickly and enjoying it immensely with the added fear adrenaline making it that much more fun. Then one of the branches swiped across my face and into my eye. That was not enjoyable at all. I soldiered on with my eye in pain, watering, squinting...

The next event was when I steered (or didn't steer???) my front wheel a bit closer to the edge of the trail than I ought have and it caught some damp, loose soil and slid into the ditch. I came off of the bike, all of my weight being caught on my left knee before my hands began assisting by scraping along the rocky trail. That really did not help my appreciation of the bike ride. I crawled around on the ground squealing in pain for a bit while Malcolm made his way to me and wisely convinced me to get off of the trail and lie down for a couple of minutes. I took his advice and lay there cursing repeatedly and testing my knee to be sure it was still operating. Luckily it seemed to be in semi-working order and I managed to ride my way to the bottom of the track.

My knee is still rather black and blue and hurts somewhat regularly. When the weather agrees, I would like to ride again. Not sure I'll find anyone at work willing to go with me however. I might need to be a solo rider...

Other than that...just been working and watching DVDs while trying (with mixed success) to take care of my lovely letlet.