In the beginning...

In the beginning, there was The Trip. And thusly did Team Geek say, "The Trip" is good. But Team Geek saw that "The Trip" was lacking, and so, did Team Geek say, "Let there be Blog". There was also some Big Bang, stars being born, and dinosaurs in there too, but that those are just details.

Welcome to the Team Geek blog . Teem Geek is comprised of myself(Jason) and not-myself(Dave). I started this blog so I'd have a place to put down all the inane thoughts, brilliant insights, and witty remarks that we came up with as we travelled to New Zealand for no particular reason other then seeing it. I think this is the best reason to go places.

Actually, that is something of a small white lie. Being as we are Team Geek, there's a small amount of "Lord of the Rings" movie-was-filmed-there as the reason for choosing the locale. But it's also true I haven't been there.

As a bonus, I'm going to commit some continental rounding, and add this to the list of continents I have been to, which means I now only have to visit South America, Africa, and Antarctica before I die. I'm looking forward to two of the three remaining.

This trip, my first real overseas travel as an adult without my family(that is, my parents), has really gotten me much more excited about travel. Which is funny since I've lately become a bit of a home body. I hope this is just the beginning of a lot of travelling that I will do in my lifetime. Again, for truth in advertising reasons, I have to thank digital photography as a motivating factor in this. I'm not patient enough for film photography, but the rise of digital photography has lead to all sorts of new, secondary interests, feeder hobbies I guess I'd call them.

Anyway, back to the main goal. Team Geek is travelling to New Zealand in *3* days! I will be meeting the other half of Team Geek in Chicago's beautiful O'Hare International Airport, where we will fly to San Francisco, and then on to New Zealand! BTW, did you know ORD, O'Hare's airport code is derived from "orchard"?

It will be something of a low low grade miracle if the travel works out as planned. We plotted our flight plans in unison, but through different sources(Dave, directly through United Airlines where he is a frequent flyer, and I through Orbitz.com). At more then one place in the flight plan we are "reasonably certain" that we are on the same plane. If not, I hope the Nintendo DS has a really good range for wireless, but I suspect disappointment will ensue.

Speaking of the flights, the other part...seating. In my normal somewhat fatalistic view, something must go wrong. I'm guessing if the flights all work out, it'll be seating. It will be somewhat annoying if we are seating quite a ways apart. With any luck someone will trade seats with us if that happens. I hope the airlines don't frown down on that kind of thing. I haven't air travelled a lot since 9/11, but my view(gathered from reading the news on TSA) is that it's a major pain in the ass for not a lot of return benefit.

Anyway, we should be arriving(2 calendar days later) on Saturday in Auckland, New Zealand! I'm getting excited at this point! Last night I took the first pictures I consider part of the trip, one of my cats sleeping on my mostly-packed suitcase. I have suitcases which are apparently comprised of a material that cats find more appealing then any other in the universe to sleep on. I would put the picture here, but my camera is at home. I'll try to remember to put it up tonight.

Our first day in NZ should be pretty low key relatively, which is good, we'll get that time to acclimate to the time change. As an added bonus, I'm meeting up with some people from the message forums of ArsTechnica.com where I have been a member for 5 or 6 years now(which is a very scary thought, but is a subject for a different posting and blog even). One of them has even been kind enough to allow us to ship some GPS maps of NZ to his place because we didn't think we'd be able to get them sent to us in the US in time.

Packing must continue tonight, but I think we're in good shape mainly.
-The Cleric