New Zealand heatmap

Google photos created a "heat map" of my last 7 years in New Zealand. Still a lot of places to visit...

Food processor

A few years ago, my wife's food processor died. I had brought my small one from the UK, but it just didn't cut it. We were pretty skint at the time but I looked up some recommendations and found a used one on Trademe (our equivalent of eBay) that looked good, so I bought it.

My wife hated it.

To be fair, it came with 32 pieces (I counted!) and none of them worked particularly well. When I had to shred 10kg of potatoes for hanukkah, I would put the end bits through the machine two or three times, and still had to pick out the chunks. Recently she tried to make falafel and it was struggling with soaked chickpeas. That was the last straw: She wanted a new food processor.

Not to make the same mistake, I looked up some recommendations, identified three models that looked good and then took my wife to three different shops to see them. She liked the mid-range model and I was about to shell out NZ $324 for it.

While I was looking for the box, she looked on Trademe and saw a listing for the same model, in Wellington, closing the next day. Current bid was $20.

The next day I put in a bid and we got it for $21.

We picked it up today and it's perfectly fine. My wife got one she's happy with and she saved us $300. She's pretty amazing that way.

My next step was selling our old one. Unfortunately while I was photographing it I discovered two cracks and two missing pieces, but as long as I can get more than $20 for it, we'll come out even.

Freedom camping

New Zealand shuts down for three weeks around Christmas and New Years. Everyone is forced to take the time off and, because it's the middle of summer, everyone goes camping. We were reluctant to do anything this year because, after two years, Covid had finally gotten into the community. However, at the last moment we decided to do a driving tour of the north island to visit friends and family. We spent a week driving from Wellington to Auckland and back around and, while it was great to see everyone, I really hate driving. We covered 1700 kilometers (just over 1000 miles) and I was very glad to get home.

Of course, because everyone goes camping over that three week period, there's a slump immediately afterward and I got an email from a campervan rental agency that a 2-bed self-contained van was on sale for NZ $95/day. It's normally around $250/day, which I think is ridiculous (I can get a flight, hotel and rental car for less!) so I was intrigued. Wellington celebrates its "anniversary day" in early January (to commemorate the arrival of the first settler ship on January 22nd 1840) so we had a holiday coming up, and we still had some credits from our aborted Queenstown holiday 14 months earlier.

The next thing I knew, we had a 6-day/5-night driving holiday of the south island planned!! This would "only" cover 1100km (about 700 miles) and would include Milford Sound, Doubtful Sound, Franz Josef glacier and Arthur's Pass. It also meant we could visit Gloria, a deconsecrated church that a friend's son had painted bright pink.

In my head, a self-contained campervan meant freedom camping. With one of the lowest population densities of any country (#211 of 250 countries according to Wikipedia) and one of the highest natural beauty densities (a standard I just made up), being able to camp on public land throughout New Zealand, for free, was considered a birthright. Unfortunately, a few people -- mostly young, overseas visitors -- took the opportunity to travel cheap and leave a mess, which the locals did not appreciate, so in 2011 New Zealand tried to reign this in. Unfortunately,  they left it to the local councils which created a hodge-podge of rules and restrictions with no transparency, so to find out if you could camp somewhere you practically had to go to the site and look at the signage!

New Zealand tried to make exceptions for "self-contained vehicles" (essentially motorhomes and campervans that had their own toilet) but the only requirement was the vehicle needed a blue sticker saying it was self-contained. A lot of people just printed their own sticker and it quickly became meaningless.

New Zealand also has a large number of "holiday parks" which are a mix of tents, vehicles and cabins with communal kitchens and toilets. We've camped at holiday parks several times and they're brilliant, but if I already had a kitchen and toilet, I was affronted at the idea of paying $50/night! In addition, I wanted to wake up someplace where I could see water or mountains, not a neighboring campervan. However, with no real guidance we left it to the fates, and here's what happened:

Day 1: Parked at a holiday park for $48. (I thought it was $24 but it turned out to be $24 per person.)

Day 2: Parked at a  holiday park  but only paid $15 by promising not to use the communal kitchen or toilets. Lovely view of the lake.

Day 3: Parked in the parking lot of the AJ Hackett bungy experience.

Day 4: Parked in a  holiday park for $40.

Day 5: Parked at Lake Brunner for free. Fantastic view.

So it took us five days but we finally figured it out, and it was lovely.

Actually, the whole visit was spectacular. I've got about 130 photos (and a few videos) of the trip here.

After we got home, we got an alert that there had been a covid "location of interest" at the Christchurch airport about two days before we were there. While we were not at risk, it was just a reminder that New Zealand travel was going to become much riskier. Unlike the rest of the world, we really haven't had to worry about covid for the past two years, so this is quite new for us. I expect we're not going to be travelling any more in 2022, but hopefully the numbers will have peaked and fallen and we can travel safely again by the end of the year, in time for the next three-week shutdown.

My new ebike

My old ebike, a Merida Power Cycle, was manufactured c. 2003. I bought it used in 2015 for US $350.  Thankfully someone had replaced the 17-pound lead acid battery with a lithium battery, but it didn't provide much power and was speed limited to 15mph (24km/h). I referred to it as "The Beast" not because it was tough or heavy, but merely getting it uphill was a beast. However, it did get me to and from work for three years so I can't complain.

When I changed jobs, though, I knew The Beast was not up to it. (The old job was a 90m/300 foot climb; the new job was a 200m/650 foot climb, with several sections over 7% grade.) A friend had been complaining for several years about buying a road ebike when he really wanted a mountain ebike, so I made him an offer on the road ebike and he took it.

The new bike was also speed limited to 25km/h, but my friend had installed a "badass box" which effectively disabled the speed limit. (This is actually legal in New Zealand as they restrict ebikes by power, not speed.)

On the first day cycling in to work, I was coming down a steep hill and discovered the rear brakes did not work! Thankfully I was able to bring it to a stop before rolling out into cross-traffic. The next day it went to the shop where they found a leak in the hydraulic brakes. 

I also fitted a rack and some mud guards, but the rear mud guard was rubbing against the tire so I wrapped a bungee cord around it. This turned out to be a huge mistake: The bungee cord was now rubbing against the tire and it snapped when I was coming down a large hill, wrapped itself around the hub and froze the wheel! I snaked and skidded halfway down the hill. It was a miracle I didn't come off the bike. 

And then a week ago, I was cycling into work and someone made a right turn, straight into me. They were looking for parking and just not paying attention. I was going downhill so even with my brakes, I couldn't avoid them. Thankfully they were turning slowly and, although I came off the bike, it was another miracle I walked away with just a few bruises. I just had to buy a new helmet (I got a bright orange one) and I ruined my shirt (somehow I got oil across it).

Hopefully I won't have any more adventures on this bike.

P.S. Unrelated, I was cleaning out the garage and had two bikes that hadn't been used in years: My wife's beloved Marin she'd brought from Scotland, and my beloved Brompton folding cycle I'd brought from London. I made a pact with her that I'd sell mine if she sold hers. However, hers had a lot of rust and she opted to donate it to a group that fixes old bikes and provides them to poor families. I put mine on Trademe (equivalent of eBay) and it sold for more than I paid for my ebike! I really hated parting with it, but hopefully the new owner will love it as much as I did. 

I ended a toxic relationship today

Imagine if we treated personal relationships the same way we treated professional ones: We'd interview five people for an hour, maybe two, and if one of them was interested we'd make an open-ended commitment. At some point we'd feel unappreciated and try to find a new relationship without telling the current one. If we were successful, we'd tell our current relationship we were leaving...in a month.

And we'd all be okay with this and think it was perfectly normal.

But let's face it, it's crazy. It's inefficient, there's no security, it's unrewarding. 

Now imagine if we treated professional relationships the same way we treated personal ones: We'd meet with lots of companies, we'd have a good idea of what we were looking for, we'd understand what they offered and when we found a good fit we'd make a long-term commitment. Both sides would work to support each other, to learn and grow from one another. Not every relationship would work out, of course, but you wouldn't start the relationship with the expectation that it would fail in a couple of years. 

Of course, given that work relationships start out in such a dysfunctional way, it's no wonder so many become toxic. I resigned today because my work relationship was taking a lot from me and not giving me anything in return. The company wasn't listening to me, it refused to change, it couldn't even acknowledge the issues that I've been complaining about for over a year. Maybe it was just so wrapped up in its own problems, it didn't have any time for me. Maybe it never really cared about me, and I've just been fooling myself from the start. 

Unfortunately, I don't know if the place I'm going is any better. I talked to them for two hours. They seemed OK, but they're just replacing someone who left, so who's fault was that? It doesn't matter; what's important is they're giving me more money. It's not like I'm making a commitment; if I don't like it, I will leave.

I used to think dating apps were superficial--a few photos, a couple lines of text, no real depth--but it turns out that's what people like; they'd rather meet up and see if there is chemistry before trying to figure out the rest. Google "Tinder for jobs" and you'll see lots of people have created similar apps, but where does it go from there? Do they invite you to come work for them for a day or two (with pay) to see if you're compatible? Do you slowly work your way up to being "exclusive"? Do you eventually become committed after showing mutual respect, shared values and the desire to build a future together?

I don't know if any of this would work, but it can't be worst than the current situation. As for me, check back in 18-24 months so see if I'm happy, or I'm actively looking. 

Jimmie Rodgers, R.I.P.

I just learned another musical icon passed away January 21 this year. Every year, the family would drive from Los Angeles to Tucson, Arizona, to celebrate Thanksgiving with my mother's aunt. It's an 8-hour drive under the best of circumstances, but of course the traffic leaving LA on a long weekend, and returning after, was always a nightmare. My father would get off from work Wednesday afternoon, pack the car (and three kids), drive all night and arrive Thursday morning. My father would then crash and wake up about 3pm, just in time for dinner.

I'm sure we were little shits during the drive, but oddly I just have fond memories of those trips. Things I loved:

• My great-aunt Irene, who was a real firecracker.
• The food was fantastic (especially the turkey sandwiches on white bread with cranberry sauce the next day)
• Driving past the Cabazon Dinosaurs, which were always closed.
• Driving through the desert. To this day, I love the desert.
• My father's DIY roof racks (before roof racks were popular).

Things I didn't like:

• My great-aunt's dogs. This was before asthma relievers, and I would lie awake all-night struggling to breathe. I often ended up at the hospital for a shot of adrenalin. Imagine drinking a dozen cups of coffee and you'll have a rough idea of how much fun that was.
  
• My great-aunt's clock, which chimed every 15 minutes. As my brother and I slept in the lounge, this was maddening. When I grew up I learned there was a simple lever that would silence the clock.
• My great-aunt's corset, which hung on the back of the bathroom door for as long as I knew her. I later learned she was a can-can dancer in her youth, and that was obviously a memento from that time.
  
• My great-uncle, my great-aunt's brother, who lived next door and was very unfriendly. After my great-aunt died, and he was on his own, I still visited him at Thanksgiving each year, but never liked him.
  
• Tucson. The entire town was a retirement community, and anything that might have been interesting was closed for Thanksgiving apart from the cinema. In November it was always cold and wet (although one year it snowed).
• Doctor Demento always played Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. You could only hear this in Los Angeles and I always wanted to leave early enough to catch this, but we never did. When I was 16 and had my license, I volunteered to drive the entire way, and refused to stop the entire way, but still missed it. (I was an adult before I finally heard it, and it was absolutely worth the wait. I even travelled to Carnegie Hall, in New York City, just to hear Arlo Guthrie play it live.)
  

But what I remember most about these trips was my father had a set of tape cassettes that he only played on these trips. Music from Roger Miller, Johnny Horton, Bing Crosby and Jimmie Rodgers, that clearly shaped my musical tastes. When I grew up, it was easy to find CDs with all the other music but Jimmie Rodgers had disappeared. (It did not help that he shared the same name as another singer from the 1920's/1930's.) I was able to record my father's albums, and eventually was able to find CDs, so I'm still able to enjoy such maudlin classics like "It's Over," "Their Hearts were full of Spring," and my favourite, "Waltzing Matilda" with the wonderful lyrics:

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled,
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda,
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me,
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag
"You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
Down came the squatter mounted on his thorough-bred
Up came the troopers one, two, three
"Who's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."

From Wikipedia: "The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing) with one's belongings in a "matilda" (swag) slung over one's back. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or "swagman", making tea in a billy (metal bucket) at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. [Tucker means food.] When the jumbuck's owner, a squatter (landowner), and three troopers (mounted policemen) pursue the swagman for theft, he declares "You'll never catch me alive!" and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site."

My great-uncle passed away in 2000 and my last trip to Tucson was in 2001, which I wrote about here.

P.S. I hope I don't have to keep doing these, but Alex Hassilev, the last surviving member of the original Limeliters, is 89, so expect another tribute soon...

Chris Barber, R.I.P.

I've mentioned Chris Barber on the blog several times, but I don't think I ever discussed the significance. He formed the "Chris Barber Band" in 1954, at the age of 24. They played "New Orleans Jazz" and their first record had a hit with "Rock Island Line" (https://youtu.be/CublT5vFS2o) that made Lonnie Donnegan famous. (Lonnie went on to popularise "skiffle" music which inspired a generation of Brits to pick up guitars, including Paul Mccartney and John Lennon.)

In 1959, Chris Barber had another hit with "Petite Fleur"  (https://youtu.be/dRFjEko04U0) which went to #3 in the UK and #5 in the US. After that, the band started touring in the US. The musical circuit at the time included a stop in Hartford, Connecticut, where my Uncle George lived. He loved their sound (and was a bit infatuated with their lead singer - and Chris Barber's wife - Ottilie Patterson) and even had the band back to his house one night.

Jump ahead almost 50 years and I had just moved to the UK and my uncle was telling me about Chris Barber. I googled him and discovered that, not only was he still performing, but he was playing in London that week! I bought a ticket and fell in love with their sound just as much as my uncle had. Afterwards, I met Chris Barber and told him the story. I think he was happy to have someone under 70 in the audience.

After that, I saw him whenever he was in London. He was almost 80 when I met him and still maintained a grueling touring schedule, playing a lot in Germany and Asia, as well as the UK. I last saw him in 2013, before I moved to New Zealand.

I haven't thought about him in ages but I googled him this morning to discover he'd passed away four days ago, at the age of 90. Wikipedia said he retired in 2019 and that he was suffering from dementia. He'd been given an OBE in 1991 and published his autobiography ("Jazz Me Blues") in 2014.

As an aside, Pat Halcox played trumpet for the Chris Barber Band since it formed in 1954 until he retired in 2008, a partnership that lasted 54 years. The first time I saw Chris Barber I got to see Pat play, and the last time I saw Chris Barber he told the audience Pat had passed away.

Chris Barber was a legend, and a wonderful link to my uncle who passed away in 2012. I feel privileged I got to hear him play, and lucky to have a number of his CDs in my collection. (I think one of them might be signed.)

You can read more about Chris Barber here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56270163

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/03/chris-barber-obituary

You can buy his CDs at https://www.chrisbarber.net and (should the pandemic ever end) the Chris Barber Band continues to play and tour. 

City slogans

Wellington's motto is "Absolutely Positively Wellington." While sitting behind a bus one day, I got to thinking: How stupid is that? When your town motto is really just the name of the town, you have a serious identity problem. (And a grammar problem, as well.) So I looked into it and discovered it's been the town motto for *30 years*!

I found a news article that explained that, following the stock market crash of 1987, newspapers were having trouble selling advertising because the news was so gloomy. They hired Saatchi & Saatchi, the marketing company, who published feel-good stories about locals doing well using the tagline "Absolutely Positively Wellington." It was very successful, and in 1991 Wellington adopted the tagline as their motto.

Then I looked around and realised that it could be a lot worse.

Auckland hired Saatchi & Saatchi to do something similar; they came up with "Auckland A." In 2008, Auckland spent $1.8 million rebranding to "Big Little City." (I suggest they just adopt their nickname, "City of Sails.")

In 2017, Invercargill adopted the city slogan: "Dream Big". This replaced the earlier slogan, "Friendly." Before that, it was "Where Dreams Come True" and "City Of Water And Light." (What does that even mean??)

In 1988, Dunedin's motto was  "It's All Right Here," which might look fine in print but was pronounced, "It's alright here." In 2008, before an international cricket test match, the city used the slogan, "It's All White Here." If you're a cricket fan, you'd know the New Zealand team is called the "All Whites" (after the all-white uniform) but if you're not a cricket fan, you'd think Dunedin is very racist.

In 2001 they changed their slogan to the enigmatic, "I Am Dunedin" and last year they changed it to, "A Pretty Good Plan D" which I'm not even going to comment on.

A sample of other meaningless town slogans in New Zealand:

• Ashburton - "Whatever it takes"
• Canterbury - "Of course you Canterbury"
• Christchurch - Was "Fresh Every Day" before becoming the "Garden City"
• Dannevirke - named after a Viking-age fortification line in Denmark, the slogan "Take A Liking To A Viking" was clever but sounds pretty needy.
• Featherston - After trying "Wake Up Featherston," they changed it in 1999 to "Try Featherston, it will blow you away." Now the "Welcome to Featherston" sign just says: "If you lived here, you'd be home by now."
• Foxton - "The Fox Town of New Zealand"
• Gore - "A little bit wild, a little bit out there"
• Hamilton - It started with the innocuous "Where It's Happening" but in the 1990s they changed it to "More Than You Expect" and then "City of the Future."
  
• Hawke's Bay - "Everything under the Sun"
• Hutt Valley - "Right Up My Hutt Valley" was adopted in 1995 to try and draw Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt closer. It did not go down well; Lower Hutt then adopted the slogan "We've Got the Lot" in 1999 while Upper Hutt became, "A great place to live."
• Manawatu - "Young heart, easy living"
• Matamata: 'You matter in Matamata'
• Naseby - "2000ft Above Worry Level" (This was adopted as a book title in 2020.)
  
• Tauranga - "Tempt me Tauranga"
• Te Puke - "Stop and taste Te Puke" (Te Puke is known for growing kiwifruit.)
  
• Timaru - Was "Touch, taste, feel" before being changed to "Feel the heartbeat"
• Tuatapere - "New Zealand's Sausage Capital"
• Wairoa - "The Way New Zealand Used to Be"

The funniest unofficial slogan must be Porirua. In 2012, then Mayor Nick Leggett started referring to Porirua as "P-town," seemingly unaware that meth was called "P" in New Zealand. (I don't know why.)

P.S. In 2014, Lonely Planet called Wellington, "The Coolest Little Capital in the World." That seems like a much better slogan to me.

Birth of a holiday

The delightful "Nightmare before Christmas" starts with the poem, "Now you've probably wondered where holidays come from. If you haven't I'd say it's time you begun."

Of course, they come from ritual and custom, but are made official by government. In the US, in 1870, Congress designated four federal holidays:

• New Year's Day
• Independence Day
• Christmas Day
• Thanksgiving Day*

These originally only applied to federal workers in Washington DC, but in 1885 extended to all federal employees. Six more were added over the next 113 years:

• George Washington's Birthday (1879)**
• Memorial Day (1888, originally called "Decoration Day")
• Labor Day (1894)
• Veterans Day (1938, originally called Armistice Day)
• Columbus Day (1968)
• Martin Luther King Jr. day (1983)***

Most US businesses do not provide paid time off for Washington's Birthday, Veterans Day, Columbus Day or Martin Luther King Jr. day, so most Americans only get 6 holidays per year.

In the UK, during the industrial revolution, holidays weren't just local, they were dictated by the factories -- when they shut down, everyone went on holiday. The Bank of England, however, had to be open every weekday for the government to function. In 1871 the UK defined the first "bank holidays" and in true "United Kingdom" fashion, they were different. In England, Wales and Ireland these were:

• Good Friday
• Easter Monday (Easter being the first weekend after the full moon which occurs on or after 21 March)
• Whit Monday (The day after Whitsun Sunday, the seventh Sunday after Easter, which often marked the beginning of the summer)
• The first Monday in August
• Christmas
• Boxing Day (aka St Stephen's day, the day after Christmas)

Scotland, being more puritanical, did not approve of religious holidays -- in fact, in 1640 Scotland made the celebration of "Yule vacations" (i.e. Christmas) illegal and New Year's Eve (Hogmanay) became the main midwinter holiday. As a result, Scotland did not get Easter Monday, Whit Monday or Boxing Day but got New Year's Day and the first Monday in May instead. (Christmas and Good Friday were still considered public holidays in Scotland.)

In 1971, the UK replaced Whit Monday with "Spring Bank Holiday" on the last Monday in May, and the holidays are the same across England and Scotland: New Year's Day; Good Friday; Easter Monday, the first and last Mondays of May; Summer Bank Holiday****; Christmas Day; and Boxing Day. Scotland also takes 2 January and St Andrew's Day off, while Northern Ireland takes off St Patrick's day and the Battle of the Boyne*****.

More than that, though, is that businesses have to abide by these holidays so most people in England and Wales get 8 holidays per year while Scotland and Northern Irelance get 10. The British government can also change the dates or declare extra bank holidays and they have done so four times in the past 20 years: In 2002 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II; in 2011 to celebrate the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton; and in 2012 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II; and they have already announced an extra holiday in 2022 to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.

New Zealand, as a member of the British Empire until 1947 (or 1986 or 2003, depending on how you define "independence") inherited the UK bank holidays (plus 2 January) but eventually replaced the "spring/summer bank holidays" with:

• Labour Day (1999)
• Sovereign's Birthday (1952)
• ANZAC (1966)
• Waitangi Day (1976)

The Holidays Act 1981 set out these dates plus established an "anniversary" holiday for each region (Wellington gets 22 January, Auckland gets 29 January, etc.) so in total they get 11 holidays.

Except now New Zealand has 12.

Matariki****** is the Māori name for the Pleiades star cluster, also known as Seven Sisters or Subaru in Japanese. In the Southern hemisphere, Matariki rises above the horizon in late June/early July and Māori mark it as the new year. It was a time of celebration and there have been efforts to make it a national holiday since 2009. Jacinda Arden pledged to make it official if re-elected and has just made good on her promise, although she did delay its implementation by one year to avoid any economic impact after Covid-19, so it won't be celebrated until 24 June 2022. (She needn't have worried: Stats NZ reported today that New Zealand's unemployment rate, which was expected to rise to 6% because of covid-19, fell to under 5%.)

So there you go: A new holiday is born, in case you needed another reason to wish you were in New Zealand.

* Thanksgiving had been informally celebrated since 1650. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a "national thanksgiving day" as the last Thursday in November. In 1939, in the middle of the Great Depression, November had five Thursdays and retailers were concerned because (then as now) many Americans didn't start Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving. To appease them, Franklin Roosevelt moved it up a week. In 1941 it was set as the fourth Thursday in November.

** In 1968 George Washington's birthday was moved from 22 February to the third Monday in February in order to create a three-day weekend. Contrary to popular opinion, it was never renamed "President's Day" and makes no reference to Abraham Lincoln (whose birthday happens to be 12 February).

*** Washington's birthday was the first federal holiday to celebrate the life of an individual; Martin Luther King Jr. day was the second. Reagan signed it into law in 1983 and it first took effect in 1986. However, some States did not enact it until 2000, and today Alabama and Mississippi celebrate "Robert E. Lee Day" on the same day!

**** Originally celebrated in England on the first Monday of August and not celebrated in Scotland at all, England now celebrates the "summer bank holiday" on the last Monday in August while Scotland celebrates it on the first Monday in August!

***** Do not go to Northern Ireland for the Battle of the Boyne holiday, better known as "The Twelfth." It's ugly.

****** Matariki is a shortened version of Ngā mata o te ariki o Tāwhirimātea, or 'the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea,' the god of weather.

New Zealand citizenship

New Zealand law states you have to be in New Zealand for five years on an "unrestricted" visa before you can apply for citizenship. That is, a visa that allows you to stay indefinitely. I wrote about this before: A "resident" visa has an expiration date but you're allowed to live in New Zealand indefinitely; you just can't leave. (If you do, and the resident visa is expired, they won't let you back in.) It's kind of messed up.

Regardless, I got my resident visa on December 9, 2015. (I'd been in New Zealand for over a year before that but was on a tourist visa.) Today I was eligible to apply for citizenship, and I desperately wanted to give the government $470 for no benefit whatsoever. Seriously, unless I wanted to join the military or get top secret clearance*, there is no benefit to being a citizen over having a "permanent resident" visa. I still get to vote, I still get a pension**, I can still leave the country and return***, etc.

But in my desperate effort to be like Jason Bourne, I wanted another passport, so I applied. In the past I took my own passport photos and they were awful, so I decided that this time I'd get my passport photo taken professionally. It cost me $20 but was so worth it:

New Zealand law states you have to be in New Zealand for five years on an "unrestricted" visa before you can apply for citizenship. That is, a visa that allows you to stay indefinitely. I wrote about this before: A "resident" visa has an expiration date but you're allowed to live in New Zealand indefinitely, you just can't leave. (If the resident visa is expired, they won't let you back.) It's kind of messed up.

Regardless, I got my resident visa on December 9, 2015. (I'd been in New Zealand for over a year before that but was on a tourist visa.) Today I was eligible to apply for citizenship, and I desperately wanted to give the government $470 for no benefit whatsoever. Seriously, unless I wanted to join the military or get top secret clearance*, there is no benefit to being a citizen over having a "permanent resident" visa. I still get to vote, I still get a pension, etc.

But in my desperate effort to be like Jason Bourne, I wanted another passport, so I applied. In the past I took my own passport photos and they were awful, so I decided that this time I'd get my passport photo taken professionally. It cost me $20 but was so worth it:

Of course that looks awful, but contrast it with my other passport photos****:

 

 

When I finished my application, I got a friendly email that read:

Tēnā koe,

Thank you for applying for New Zealand citizenship. We will assess the application and tell you the outcome within 5 to 10 months.

 

After it's approved, I still have to schedule (and pay for) a swearing-in ceremony, so I'll be lucky if this is completed within a year.

 

* New Zealand is part of the "five eyes" alliance with the US, UK, Australia and Canada, so my US or UK citizenship would probably qualify me, anyway.

** The cheeky bastards make me take any other pensions first and then "deduct" that from my New Zealand pension, so once I've taken my US pension they will not likely have to pay me anything.

*** Even during the pandemic, I can leave New Zealand, but if I want to return then I have to spend two weeks in a "government quarantine facility" and pay $3,000 for the privilege. (The quarantine facilities are all 4-star or 5-star hotels and include three meals a day, so $3,000 for two weeks is actually heavily subsidized, but I still don't want to do it.)

**** In my last US passport photo, I wore a Hawaiian shirt. I thought it was funny. Now it would mark me as a radical extremist.

 

***** That's far too many asterisks. What would my English teacher say...