Waves Inc. Are Theives

Waves Inc, who make audio plugins have stolen a design of an independent Kiwi engineer and plugin Designer Vedat Kiyici.

Waves product called Vocal Rider is a complete and direct ripoff of
Vedat's groundbreaking Wave Rider. I hope Vedat sues the crap out of those thieves. If you're in IP Law and want to make a killing, help Vedat sue these morons and make a considerable sum at the same time.

My Heart Is All In My Head

Wow, so it has been an unacceptably long time since my last post. I'm quite sorry about this. To be honest I didn't think many people read this blog, but a few people DO, and I love them all so dearly that when the requests came in I just had to make the time.

So I guess the biggest news for me... is best told in the form of a story.
Ever since I arrived in NZ, I've felt my heart has been acting funny.. in general beating harder than I ever remember it needing to.. not really faster than it should, but just stronger and more laboured. I figured it was just over indulgence in the amazing NZ coffee. Then I had the run-in with the kidney stone, and subsequent run-in with foreign medical bills vs domestic insurance, with my credit card caught in the cross-fire. That made me consider more intently the consequences that could come should my heart issue develop into something more. It did. I had a health assessment at my gym, and my blood pressure measured at 177/120, and they informed me for insurance reasons that I couldn't work out any more without a doctor's consent. My heart issue then got more intense. It got to the point where I had no choice but to go to the doctor, ready to spend all my savings, because I thought I could be dying (they're called life savings for reason, non?)

So, the doctor listened to my story and my heart, and asked me lots of questions, and came to the conclusion that my heart was fine, and that I was having anxiety attacks: because I thought I was sick (something Charlotte thought all along). HA! How interesting is that? Just THINKING I was getting sick made me sick.
Knowing I'm well, has made everything better, and exposed the underlying point: Stress.

Maybe you know how I feel, but I'm pretty type-A for certain things, especially when it comes to 'dealing'.. and I'm quick to discredit that moving to the other side of the world and diving into the demanding world of dramatic television as a freelancer with no contacts, connects, or friends except my girlfriend is a big deal. I should embrace that it's a big deal and acknowledge that going with the flow with the lack of a safety net is new territory for me... so that is what I'm trying to do.. I feel like I'm just writing to write now, so moving right along now.

I took this shot of a sunset from my editing suite the other day. NZ isn't really home, and know in my heart now that it will never be, but it definitely IS something special. I'm thinking of getting a tattoo to commemorate my time here... but you (may) know me and permanence..so I might just chicken out on the premise that I couldn't find anything appropriate.

Charlotte and I are going down to Queenstown around my birthday this year to do some climbing with a few people from our climbing gym, which I'm SUPER psyched for... I LOVE having a plane ticket booked, because I love flying, and I love stepping out of the plane into a new place... but work will still be CRAZY busy until then...
K. It's 2am and I can't really go make myself a coffee now, that would be irresponsible. Goodnight instead!

-D

We all scream for morphine!

Late blog. This should have come on the night of the 15th of May. I'm lazy so it didn't :(

So, 15th of May is Charlotte's Birthday. Nathan was still in Aotearoa, so we all got up early and decided to get some breakfast. Within 5 minutes of waking up though, I knew I probably wouldn't make it to breakfast. Instead I made it exactly where I knew I would, against all will.

When I woke up, I had a deep and intense pain in my lower back, that I knew was my kidney. I've never felt my kidney before, but I just knew I had felt it then. It was one of the most painful things I'd ever felt.

So I signed some form, after the reception who upon hearing my North American accent dutifully declared "This is the most expensive place you could have come to. The nurse will inform you of your options"
Ever been in so much pain that you agree to stay at the most expensive place you came to? I now have. And for the record, the nurse didn't inform me of any cheaper options. I think we had the same epiphany: Auckland Hospital is named so, because it's THE Hospital in Auckland, and with the symptoms I had, I'm sure my 'cheaper' options would have sent my right back to the hospital. I think the nurse and I both realized this, and no further discussion was necessary. It should be known, If i DID decide to sue, that would be a major point in my case.

I was quickly brought to a bed in emergency, where just around the corner, I hear this conversation:

"Have you ever started an IV before?"
"Yeah, just not in the hospital"
"Alright, well give it a go, he's young.."

Fast forward about 7 minutes, and picture 1 woman holding a bandage over the spot where she just failed a pretty aggressive attempt at starting an IV in my left arm, and another woman starting an IV in my right arm.
I thought it was hilarious.. I couldn't laugh though, because I was still in excruciating pain, and they hadn't administered the morphine yet. More on THAT later ;)

When they did their assessment, they asked me on a scale of one to ten, who much pain I was in. I said 5. The nurse's response was 'Only 5?' and I said 'compared to hiking for 45 minutes on a fractured and sprained ankle, yes.' Apparently If you writhe while saying macho things like that, your pain level gets upgraded two points. I guess that is when morphine gets brought to the table.

Have any of you had the pleasure of being on morphine? It's effective, but not without making things STRANGE. Everything went slow motion, and ugly hospital curtains do very beautiful things in slow mo. I started crying (unrelated, I think?). I was crying and telling Charlotte that I felt silly and have no idea why I was crying. It was definitely strange.

So, I was sent for x-rays and a CT scan, and spend 8 hours in between doing a lot of NOTHING. They filled me with Saline. Every drank 3L of salt-water in one sitting? my veins now have... and it also felt weird. Like my eyes were going to pop out.. I was SO full of water, but I hadn't drank any of it. Strange again..

In the waiting time though, I DID happen to get a STRAIGHT FLUSH in poker. A to 5 of spades! That is a rather beautiful straight flush to get. I don't want to get TOO math-y, but the chances of me getting that hand was 1 in 3590, or 0.027% The chances that I'll ever get that hand again, playing texas hold'em is 1 in 30939, or 0.0032%. In other words, I am three times more likely to bowl a perfect game of 10 pin while out with friends (real bowling, not Wii).

So what is all this for? Because I don't drink enough water. That is essentially it. My bloodwork and urine were all within spec (as far as anyone could tell), though the CT scan showed 'hypodensity' of my kidneys themselves, which could possibly be a congenital defect, but they're giving the scans to urologists to make the call. Either way I don't think it changes anything... so all I have to do is drink a lot more water than I have been. I see it as win-win.

Huge thanks to Charlotte to spend her BIRTHDAY at my side in the hospital, and for taking ALL of the pictures in this latest blog post. Love you babe, you're the best!

To The South Island and Back!!

Wow, it's been a very long time since I've last blogged. I really do admire people like Sonnie Trotter who blog so regularly and have something interesting to say. After such a break, I guess I have a lot to say... whether it's interesting or not probably depends heavily on how well you know me, or how much you want to boulder at Castle Hill! ;)

This is a picture of me with two Canucks who made the 13,800km trip to hang out and see what Kiwiland is all about. Nathan is one of my closest friends, and Keiko is a rad girl that both Nathan and I met through the local plastic crag, Toronto Climbing Academy. In the background of this photo you can see the Spittle Hill sector of Castle Hill.

The 3 of us are all climbers, and where I live (Auckland) is a 1hr flight + 1hr drive from one of -the- bouldering meccas on the planet.

It's easy to see why. The Dalai Lama himself said this place is "One of the energy centres of the universe". I can't speak intelligently about the Universe's Energy Centres, but I can't find a single thing about this place to prove otherwise. It's unbelievably gorgeous, and so unique.. we're SO fortunate to be able to share this land and be allowed to climb there.

We stayed at a cottage in the mountains, in a town (pictured above) called Arthur's Pass. It's the highest elevation settlement in all of New Zealand, and it rains/snows a LOT. It's soo beautiful. It reminds me somewhat of a very small, less commercial Jasper, Alberta... but in a much steeper, tighter canyon.

This place belongs to someone in the family of Charlotte's brother's wife's aunt. I think that someone's named Stu Allen. He's awesome, he's about 60 and kind of lost interest in me when I said I wasn't going to be bouldering anything 'hard'.. which means he's probably pretty badass. His family were the pioneering mountaineers of New Zealand, and I think Stu himself might have put up a few of the days testpieces at Quantum field.

So we got down to make our mark, tick some boxes in the guidebook, and get some photos to incite jealousy in all our climber friends... well, ok maybe we weren't exactly aiming to incite jealousy, but it IS a by product of being so lucky to climb and take photos here. I wish I could say to my friends it's not as good as it looks... but the truth is, it's FAR FAR FAR better. I know there are so many incredible climbing destinations on this planet, but I wish all of my friends could climb here..

In fact, I wish I could have done more climbing!

This problem is called Beautiful Layback. It has a difficulty rating of 'V3' and it's been given a quality rating of 3 stars (out of 3) so naturally I HAD to try it. To it's credit, it's a very cool climb. You don't really have foot holds (save for 1 on the right foot) and you stay on the wall (if successful) by sticking your hands behind a sort of crack, and pulling towards yourself, while pushing into the wall with your feet. It's pretty nifty, but it's a little tall as well, at about 15 feet.. long story short, I fell off the wall from near-ish the top and feel awkwardly on my left foot, which I had fractured and sprained 2 years ago. I couldn't put any weight on it, and was worried about the damage, so we all made the trip to Christchurch, which is about an hour away. A couple hours later, some x-rays and crutches were sorted out, and it's only a sprain. I should be right as rain in a few weeks!

On our trip, we ran into and made acquaintances of Lydia McDonald and Mark Watson, Who were on assignment for Deadpoint Magazine as copy editor and photographer, respectively. They were super cool, and they took some shots of Nathan and Keiko bouldering:

They were trying to get some good shots for an upcoming article on Castle Hill, but as far as I can tell, they got WAY better shots around the corner at Flock Hill, which is supposed to be INSANELY amazing... but we couldn't make the 45 minute hike up there because of my ankle :(

Last but not least, I had a wonderful discussion with a fantastic facility here in Auckland called Images & Sound about working with them on some upcoming projects. I'm super psyched about it to be honest.. the people I met were pretty cool, and the place reminds me a bit of the studio I grew up in... oh and it seems like it would be fairly consistent work, so that is great news. We're set to talk further about it this week, so I'll keep you posted as to how it all turns out!

-D

Borrowed Time

Remember when I was just about to leave Toronto, and I was rubbing it into everyone's face that I was leaving winter to go right back to summer? Well, it was true, and I did... but nothing in this world is free, and now it's time for me to payback the sunshine loan. With interest.

As it is getting warmer in back home in Canada, it's getting colder here in NZ. Now, I'll get laughed at for complaining about this: right now, it's 8c in Auckland, and the windchill and humidity brings that down to feeling like 5c, which my Canadian friends have been cheering as day-time highs for weeks now... but there really IS a catch here: NZ homes do -not- have furnaces, and they don't have double pained glass either. It's 5c outside right now, I can slide paper out of every closed window in our apartment, and the only heat source we have is 3 oil heaters like the one pictured above (which actually IS on and sitting beside me as we speak). I should also point out that it's not even winter yet. We're barely into autumn. This could possibly be the first time I've contemplated that I might have actually made a mistake in coming here. Nah.... It's all good. I have a nice north face parka I can sleep in. WTF? Someone remind me to tell Nathan to bring WARM CLOTHES.

-D

Livin' the LIFE!

It's been a while since I've blogged, so I guess I have a lot of ground to make up! So I'm just going to dive right into it.

Tonight, Charlotte and I were invited to the premiere of the film The Boat That Rocked by none other than Rhys Darby and his wife, Rosie. My North American friends will more commonly know him as "Murray" from the TV series Flight Of The Conchords. Rhys plays the role of Angus in The Boat That Rocked, which features an incredible cast. There was a little gala beforehand with an open bar and hors d'ouvres, as well as servers walking around with fish and chips, (fush ind chups is how it's said in NZ) in chinese food boxes. How Rad! (I was also starving). The biggest surprise was to come next... Now Charlotte has known Rhys for a while, but we were both surprised when we were escorted to our theatre seats:

While people like execs from Paramount Pictures were taken to regular theatre seating, we got a private 2 person box, with drinks and snacks, and big leather seats that were motorized and interestingly reclined completely flat, if one so wished...
Being that there were only 12 such boxes, I felt pretty damn P-I-M-P. VIP treatment is awesome.

My next excuse for not blogging, is that I have been working! I've been doing freelance work for Auckland Audio, including this:

I got to do a recording session with/for actor John Rhys-Davies, a brilliant and prolific actor most likely known (now) for his role as Gimli in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Obviously a giant bright star in my continuing career. (Thanks Auckland Audio!) John was super pro, and a really nice guy to work and hang with.. I got into the business -for- moments like that.

Also, Charlotte and I took a road trip to Napier, a town that was destroyed by an Earthquake in 1931, and subsequently rebuilt in the popular style of the time: Art Deco.

(last two photos taken by Charlotte Griffin)

Napier is also famous for bringing certain myths into reality, like Magic Carpets:

It was a cool place to see, something so unique and specific as a town whose core is entirely Art Deco. We were also in Napier for another reason:

CRICKET!!
New Zealand VS India, and my first Test Match. In the end I was quite annoyed with it. A Test match lasts up to 5 days, and if you compare it to baseball, it works like this: You score as many runs as you can until you get 10 outs (called wickets) then the other team gets to bat. Each side bats twice, then the team with the highest runs wins. In theory.
NZ got 619 runs in their first Innings (10 wickets (outs)) It almost 2 days to Achieve that. India needed 13 outs and almost 3 days to catch up. So by the end you would think NZ kicked India's ass right? Nope. It's a draw. Apparently 5 days isn't long enough to play a game. Dispite this, it's super fun to hang out at.

Charlotte and I were going to stay in a tent at a camping/hostel site. We got there and it was essentially a hippie/migrant worker commune in the middle of town. The 'Campground' was the backyard of a house on a residential street. We decided to forgo that option, and check into a hotel.

As luck would have it, the Hotel we walked into (after a number of No Vacancies) turned out to have only 1 room left, which we took, and low and behold, the India cricket team showed up as we were checking in; they were staying there too. Charlotte and I stood about 10 feet from a man who's proper name is Sachin Tendulkar; commonly known as "The Little Master". Explanation: he's 5'5" feet tall, and arguably the greatest batsman who ever lived. He's the Wayne Gretzky of Cricket... maybe more. Here's a little perspective: He scored more than 100 runs on his debut for the senior team of India, at 15 years of age. So If you ask me, to be hanging out in a lobby with such an athlete was pretty cool, even if it was superficial. Mad respekt.

p.S. The desert above is Tiramisu and it was AWESOME.
p.p.s. How badass is my iPhone gelaskin eh?

Last thing of mention, on the way down we stayed in a campground in a town called Rotorua. I'll let wikipedia explain it for me:

"Thermal activity is at the heart of much of Rotorua's tourist appeal. Geysers and bubbling mud-pools, hot thermal springs and the Buried Village (Te Wairoa) - so named after it was buried by the 1886 Mount Tarawera eruption - are within easy reach of the city."

It was pretty rad... there was steam coming out of the ground everywhere, and off lakes and pretty much everything. We're going to go back there sometime and hang out longer, there are natural hot mud baths and such that are apparently cool!

I'm running out of steam so I'll stop here. I guess I shouldn't wait until I blog for so long eh?

-D

Top of the Bottom of the World

Two nights ago, Charlotte and I finally did something I'd been meaning to do for a while now: take my camera up Mt Eden so I could shoot an Auckland sunset.

Mt Eden is an extinct volcano, about 200m above sea level, and it's basically the highest point in Auckland, so it's great to go up there and just chill above the city.

Once you get to the top, there is a giant crater where the mouth of the volcano used to be... and it's BIG. From the rim to the bottom of the crater is about 50 meters, which is about 1/2 the height of the SKYDOME in toronto.

The above picture is looking across the lower rim of the crater to the upper rim, at parked cars and people... pretty crazy eh? You can't go IN the crater, but Cows live there... presumably put there by the city as to keep the grass under control without having to pay to have it mowed ;)

Charlotte said to me to shortly after I took this shot "When I'm up here, I feel like I could live here [long term].". It's hard to disagree with that statement... it really does show off the city's beauty.

I don't really feel I have to say much about the above shot.

ON another note, AS I was up there taking photos, I was called up by Auckland Audio and asked if I could work a record session the next morning. Since this is what I DO, and I'm looking for work, I said yes in a heartbeat. I met with one of the partners that night, and the other the next morning. The session was smooth and easy, the coffee was good (and strong) and I think we got along quite well. They said they're getting busy... so I'm hoping I become a permanent fixture on their speed dial.

Oh and remember the snapper I caught in Whangarei? (see blog post "Whangarei/Taurikura") Well... we ate the first one raw... and the second... this was Charlotte's doing. YUM.