Off to Georgia!

Well, tomorrow I'm traveling to Atlanta and Savannah for work. I have an appointment in Atlanta for the morning/lunchtime on Monday, and then I'll travel onto Savannah after that until Thursday night. Should be good.

I've been to Savannah a number of times. It's a nice little city. However, I've never been to Atlanta and cruising around there for an afternoon will be a bit of a treat.

Watch out!

Atlanta, GA

Stopped by the police.

Usually, I have the worst luck with traffic stops. Tonight, that was different.

After having a little Mexican food with some friends, I had to take the two missionaries back to their bicycles. When we picked the bikes up, the missionaries asked if I could drive them to another person's house, so that they could put their bikes in the back of an SUV, and then drive them back to their flat. I had to follow alongside them in the car and then I waited while they squeezed the bikes into the SUV.

When they got back into the car, we started driving towards their apartment and I noticed a police car heading toward me on the opposite side of the road. The policeman drove past me slowly, did a quick U-turn, and turned on his lights. The officer walked up to my car slowly, searching the back of the car with his flashlight. I wound down my window.

Policeman: "Good evening, I'm from the Austin City Police Department."
Me: "Hi."
Policeman: [Looking in the back] "Ahhh...are you missionaries?"
Me: "Ha. Yeah, they are." [Pointing to the back seat]
Policeman: "Well, we had reports of a dark car chasing two men in white shirts."
Me: "Yeah, I was following them so we could put their bikes in the back of the SUV and am about to drop them home."
Policeman: "Oh, ok. Well, have a good night." [Walks away]

Pretty uneventful. But, I thought it was funny. Oh, and the missionaries also felt like they were being looked after. Good on you, good Samaritan! Good on you.

But chasing? Ha! Oh wow.

Ever wonder what happened to Leilani Joyce?

"Leilani Joyce, now Leilani Rorani, (born 15 April 1974, Hamilton, New Zealand) is a former World No. 1 professional squash player from New Zealand. During her career, she won the British Open in 1999 and 2000, and finished runner-up at the World Open in 2000 and 2001." More on Wikipedia.

It's Thanksgiving...

Just wanted to wish all my friends around the world a great big "HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!"

I hope that it's filled with all sorts of things to be thankful for. Food, family and friends...not necessarily in that order. Love ya!

"The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth"

(Click here to find out what Thanksgiving is all about...)

All the Above by Maino

During this past summer, I was introduced to this song (Note: The word "Hell" is used. American viewer discretion is advised):



Anyway, I really enjoy running or lifting to this song. After listening to it, I just want to go out and start achieving..."all the above."

Ha.

Never too late

I really wish that I had watched this video again yesterday.

You've probably already seen it before. It's hilarious. (Thanks, Allie.)

A new day

Name the rock in this person's eye. It's quite famous.

You know, I fully intended on blogging yesterday, however, it was rough. I was in meetings from about 8am until 6.20pm and then I still had work to do. That's right, I was writing emails etc until midnight last night.

But, Monday is over and today is a new day.

I'm glad.

Benevolent Sexism

Apparently, I'm sexist.

I don't want to be sexist. But, according to understandingprejudice.org, I have a very high rating of something called, "benevolent sexism." What the? (You can find out more here)

I know. I'd never heard of that either. However, I'm now very disturbed and want to try hard not to be that.

Here's how it played out: My companion and I were hometeaching two girls this morning. The discussion began after I asked one of them, "So, where are you from?" She said, "Minnesota." Because I am somewhat familiar with the politics of Minnesota, I mentioned presidential candidate and current U.S. House Representative Michelle Bachmann (she's from the state of Minnesota and pictured to the left).

From there, I learned some things that will forever change the way I perceive women.

Now, here's one reason why my friend (and understandingprejudice.org) think that I'm sexist: I've decided to only give money to homeless women and not homeless men. Something that I thought was pretty noble, maybe even a little endearing. But, sexist? Woah.

I feel like I've been taught to revere women and, often times, place them on a proverbial pedestal. However, apparently that's a very sexist thing. Not hostile sexism, which is what people traditionally think sexism is, we're talking about benevolent sexism. 

"Benevolent sexism may seem harmless, noble, or even 'romantic, but its effects can be devastating. Benevolent sexism, like hostile sexism, is an ideology that supports gender inequality."

At the end of the day, I don't want to be any sort of sexist. I'm against gender inequality and I would love to understand this more. In the meantime, I think I'm making progress by at least accepting and acknowledging this. That's the beginning, right?

Opinion Blogs

Riddle me this: do we want to see not-so-serious stuff on blogs like mine OR hardcore, well-thought-out (three hyphens?) and meticulously executed opinions about life occurrences or current events?

I'm just of two minds about it all.

I don't think that ya'll really want to hear a travel log of my life--although I will be excited to share stuff like that at times--because it's just too braggy to do on a regular basis. I also don't think that you want to hear my opinions about the electoral state of affairs in America right now, because I'd probably alienate nearly a quarter of the five people reading this.

I just don't know.

Plus, if Americans disagree with my politics, they can always take a cheap shot: "What do I care, you can't even vote!" Ooooo...so true. Sorry you're not smart enough to come up with a better comeback than that. Just saying. (Ha ha. It's happened to me before!)

I know not to ask for opinions/comments below on the subject. Because, I have a marginal response rate with such things, however, I just wanted you to know that I think about it.

Oh, the issues of our day. #nerdproblems #firstworldproblems #cantreallycomplain

(P.S. And before you make a comment about my use of a hashtag in the blog, I'd just like to say, "Meh." That's right. They give me an excuse to use poor grammar, no punctuation and communicate some Adam Ruri style. #livingthedream)

Alarmed.

I blame the blog.

Remember how I was meant to wake up for our Stake Production (I'm the Music Director) at 8am this morning so I could be there by 8.45ish? Well, I didn't. I slept right through my 8am alarm and I think it was because I wrote in the blog last night. Seriously. Why was I up that late blogging anyway?

It turns out the Assistant Director gave me a call at 9.25am. The call woke me up, I threw on some clothes, brushed my teeth, wet my hair and was there by 9.39am. Legendary? In my own mind, yes.

I'm going to the gym now. I've got to get this day back on track.

The parentals

Some of you may know that my Mum and Dad (pictured below) live in Rarotonga and Australia respectively.

In the last month--once in person and once over Skype--they mentioned that they were looking at my blog. Dad told me to keep it updated more often (because he doesn't follow the twitter feed) and Mum just said, "You don't blog much anymore, do you?"

Needless to say, I've decided to resurrect the old blog and begin anew. I really wish I had time to talk about this business visit to Shanghai, China:

Or discuss my weekend and first ever trip to Sydney, Australia with Dad & Shazza:

Or, tell you countless stories about these two High school mates of mine from Upper Hutt, New Zealand:

But, unfortunately, I do not. It's 1.30am in the morning and I really should be asleep. I will let you know that I had an awesome time though.

I loved being in Shanghai where nobody could really communicate with me and where I bought some "Beats by Dr. Dre" for less than a quarter of the price they go for in the U.S.

I really enjoyed spending time with Dad and Shazza in Sydney--eating fish heads, paua fritters and lamb/kumara pie while watching the All Blacks beat France in the Rugby.

I also really loved being back in NZ, getting my visa approved, road tripping with Mum, staying with my cousin and then my 'bootiful scissor' (Shout out to my niece and nephews--Belle, Molela, Monaco and Zydal! And thanks for waking me up in the morning by sitting on my face with your smelly nappy or jumping on my stomach...awesome).

New experiences and families are just great, aren't they?