Rural

We snowmobiled on tracks though farms about thirty minutes out of Madison today. It was a great day out. We meet up with some super nice people; Carl and Donna who are friends of Fran a work mate from the US office. They lent us a snowmobile each, extra gear to keep warm and I got a special helmet (due to my special head size) with stars and stripes. I felt like Evil Knievel. They then took us along with two other friends on an awesome tour from about 12pm to 6ish through some amazing scenery with a couple stop overs at bars along the way.
The farmers in the area allow a network of tracks to be setup through their properties. One really great thing is that the hills around the farms are all covered in forest, not pine forest, but natural woodland. So yeah the tracks through these areas where quite beaut.

I think the hills are like this because the cattle are all in barns, which doesn't look that nice for the cattle. Well basically the cattle seem to get it about as bad as the pigs and chickens get it in NZ (so my conscientious omnivore thing is going to have to turn into vegetarianism I think).

It sort of seemed like classic rural America. Lots of people knew each other, everyone is friendly, I think nearly everyone had gone to church in the morning and I'm guessing they all vote republican. To be honest not the type of America I was expecting to like, But my preconceptions about the people were wrong. The strong community feel was impressive. and the people are all really nice. Yeah I know I'm saying that a lot.

America Yeah

So I'm beginning to like this place, its the small things that make it different and its the small things that make it cool. I am thinking another "list of awesomeness" is called for here. (or Perhaps a better title would be "A list of small things I like" but I got a bit excited) Ok yeah so some reasons America is Fuck Yeah

• Lots of music makes sense, you know when you listen to a Black Seeds song in a pub and it just sounds right, well when you're in the states and 99% of all music is home grown it all has that feel.
• African Americans, they are even cooler in real life.
• The service at restaurants (of which they have a lot of) is so good. Its a completely different level than you get in NZ, sure the cynic would argue they are just after a tip, but hey at least you can pretend the people serving you don't despise you which is quite a novelty.
  
• They have shuffle board. Man anyone reading this seriously sell everything and start shuffle board in NZ this is the bizzness. Imagine Bowls crossed with air hockey (but keeping the class of Bowls in the cross, so all stylish like) and playable in a pub.
• People are really nice. Its like egalitarianism at a personal level, everyone is nice to everyone there is none of the "cool crowd" business its choice.
• You know when I lived in Gisborne everyone said what the hell are you moving to Auckland for? Auckland sucks blah blah. But when I got to Auckland I found that it was actually a nice place. At the moment I see a bit of an analogy with the states, Its the Auckland of the world. Sure is got some wack going ons but its not as bad as its made out to be.
• You can use slang that is old news in New Zealand, i.e mint, stink, golf clap (thats dans but I stole it) or even Too many Kinas, and people a) ignore you or b) think you're a really witty fulla. (edit - not that good, maybe just in bars after a few)
  

Yeah so thats all, this is my first blog post under the heavy influence of beers ( Since edited slightly as I was talking even more bullocks) so ill leave it at that.

Arrival

So this is a bit overdue, I have been in Madison since Monday.
The flight over wasn't too bad, but trying to sleep on a plane isn't much fun. I flew over with a work mate who has been to the states a few times now and once we got to the US airports I was very glad to be with someone who knew where he was going.
I made it through customs without a blink, which was quite a relief as for some reason I was sure that was going to be an ordeal.

So we landed in San Fransisco first, from the windows of the airport I could see the American cars so familiar from tv and the massive concrete motorway structures outside. From there we flew to Chicago. I had a window seat on that flight which was cool, but it was quite cloudy for most of the way, did get a good idea of the vastness of the country tho from the occasional view below of mountains and huge amounts of what seemed to be uninhabited land. Then we arrived in Chicago, and thats where we stayed for quite some time. The plane to Madison was continusly delayed, like every hour from 9pm to about 3am when we finally got on the plane. Madison had just had a large amount of snow so every thing was covered, the taxi ride to the hotel seemed well dodgy with all the roads completely white.

When I woke up in the Morning and looked out the window at a weird white landscape (with an oddly continuous flow of large fedex trucks streaming past on the motorway in the distance) I wondered what the hell I was doing here.
But things got better, which I will write about next time.

Big Day Out

Yeah so this is a bit late, but Ill make a quick update to the list of awesomeness
All in all the Big Day Out was the shizzle, best one I think I have been to, mainly due to how I spent the day (charging from one act to the next all day) rather than the artists. But the bands were excellent.

So the updated list

1. Unkle
2. Rage Against The Machine
3. Liam Finn
4. Arcade Fire
5. Spoon
   
6. Bjork

Unkle was a wicked show, and I was able to get right up the front, awesome sound and the boiler room was the place to be, out of the sun and liberal use of the water hose to keep everyone cool.

Rage is a very close second with a Fucking awesome show (as only rage can). I was surprised by how good they sound live and everyone was fully into it.
Arcade fire would have been up higher but after Liam Finn Unkle & Spoon where I was able to get in the front row I was stuck way at the back while they played, which was stink. But they played an awesome show.

Big day tommorrow, fan boy music post

So I'm quite excited about the Big Day Out tomorrow.

I have been to a few in my time but I haven't been to one since my musical tastes have broadened to a sufficient extent to make the most of such an event. My musical heritage is grunge followed by awesome metal (not the glam metal featured tonight on c4's excellent history of metal series, I think next week they are going to do awesome metal). And that was about it for quite a while then I slowly realized their was more to music than mean double kicks. But jezz I still love metal for the drums.

So yeah this year I'm a big fan of heaps of artists that are playing from lots of genres and I've pretty much got a band that I want to see for every hour from 1pm to finish. Here is my list in order of expected awesomeness

1. Arcade Fire
2. Rage Against the Machine (my inner bogan is disgusted that this ain't at the top)
   
3. UNKLE
4. Bjork
5. Spoon
6. Liam Finn

The top three have all had turns at being my favorite band so cant complain there. I'll post a full post event review and any adjustments to the list of awesomeness.

PS OMG!!!! while getting links for this post and listing to a Nirvana interview on last.fm "Nevermind - its an interview" I learn that Nevermind was recored in Madison Wisconsin!!! how cool is that!

So...

One of my reservations about starting a blog was that I wouldn't have much to say in it. Given that my life often makes me bored I'm sure writing about it would only make others border.
But I'm about to travel to America which is quite exciting for me and I figure I would like to record the experience and if I include enough photos of the kids I know the grandparents will be interested at least.

So my flight leaves on Monday and its going to go San Francisco then to Chicago then to Madison Wisconsin. Thats what I know, and thats about it. I have no idea what to expect and at the moment, it hasn't really sunk in that I'm going. To date I haven't packed any bags or really done much at all towards planing for trip, I think this is mainly because my choice employer is taking care of nearly everything for me. However I'm thinking this isn't really a good state of mind to be in so I'm going to make an effort to start mobilizing myself and concentrating on the best way to prepare and make the most of the trip.

Being married to a lovely and organized wife (Emma) also means that I can get used to having day to day events planned out without me having to think about the logistics much at all.
This is one thing that will change come Monday as for 15 days I'm away from the wife and kids. This tends to make two things happen. First I miss them more than I expect sooner than I expect and second I realize how dependent I am on Emma sorting things out, and how incompetent I am at many real world tasks. This is normally followed by a sense of empowerment and achievement as I reclaim the ability to plan out simple day to day activities. You should have seen how chuffed I was when I learned how to make wicked home made subway dinners for myself last time I was home alone.
I should point out its not like Emma is a control freak or anything, I soon give up these rediscovered skills at my own accord and at the earliest opportunity. A personality flaw //TODO