Pre #2

I was just about to edit my previous post about the Pre, to add a link and a photo but I thought, hmm I should just post again.

Yeah so there it is. The Palm Pre.

I was playing on the internwebb earlier and I found the most whacked out Wikipedia entery ever, Meat and Bone Meal. Who writes this stuff? And who looks at that with interest? I found it by looking up whether feeding a dog only dried pellets was adequate for it's dietary requirements. Talking about dietary requirements, I'm going to head to the pool now and go attempt a few laps. I made Thai red curry fish (a whole rainbow trout) for tea tonight. So I'm feeling a bit fat.

Just quickly before I leave, I remembered this. Last week I inquired at work about upgrading my computer (a Dell D630) from 1GB of RAM to 2GB. It's only $21 at MSY for a 1GB notebook chip so it can't be too hard. Anyway it seems at work there's red tape everywhere and I'd need to get 2 level-3 signatures and check with IT (who probably would come up with a problem with it). So I saved myself a few weeks of mucking around and bought a Kingston 1GB chip for $21 on Saturday, and installed it at work today. My notebook is much faster now. I spend most of my days with AutoCAD 2007 LT, Outlook 2003, Firefox, IE7, Excel all open at once. Phew.

Anyway, must be going.

Palm Pre

I will get this phone. Watchies:



It is to be released mid-year apparently. Hopefully before I go overseas!

Go-in' to Sann-Frann-Cisco....

Today the Big Trip 2™ was born! Ness and I booked return flights to Los Angeles!
Maybe I'll come up with a better name for it. And not superimpose the US flag on it. It's meant to be a South / Central America trip. But oh well!

Here's the story. Two weeks ago, I randomly looked up flights on Qantas' website for Melbourne to LA, because around that time, V Australia started and cut the route's average flight cost by 40%. I found flights for this leg at $950 return (incl. taxes) which was insane, but they went up to about $1100 or so after July 1. We decided to wait a bit because possibly they would extend the sale to the dates we were planning on going to South America (Jul - Oct).

We forgot about it and Ness needed some more time to figure out what she was doing with her grad work. She finishes uni in late June.

A week ago I heard Air New Zealand were running a special on Melb - LA but I didn't really follow it up.

Then today, we didn't have much to do so we were looking up flights on Air NZ's website, and found they are offering $908 flights (incl. taxes) from Melbourne! They aren't lasting long as probably 80% of the flights are booked. To put it in perspective, 6 months ago I looked up this flight and the best I could get, which was insanely cheap, was $1800. So this is kinda doing our heads in at the moment. This is basically the price I paid to go to Bangkok (I paid $800).

So we went out to 2 travel agencies this afternoon and both couldn't find these cheap flights. One could do $1500 and one $1100. Maybe that's the best they could do with their commissions. We gave up on them and came home, re-found the flights (it is easy, really) and booked them directly on Air NZ's website. We're going to the US, yo!

Why go to LA when we want to go to South America?? And why did we bother our arses with travel agents??

Well, the answer to the first question is this: I was planning on spending my 30th (Jul 28th) in Buenos Aires or Rio De Janeiro, but we'd afterwards decided to only go to Peru and Bolivia and maybe Equador, then spend some time up in Central America. And Ness had an alternative idea that I could spend my 30th in Vegas, which I liked a lot! Plus, Ness wants to hang for longer in the US/Canada after I come home, so to travel together, we'd have to fly through LA. Now that flights are so cheap to LA, it's much more feasible. Direct return flights to Santiago are now about $1600.
The answer to the second question is that organising flights from LA to Lima with a stopover in Central America is difficult. There are a million websites for searching flights within and in/out of the US. But after seeing the travel agents today, it seems that they aren't that much use, and costly! We'll work out the websites and which one is the best in the coming weeks/months. Have found Orbitz to be pretty good, with return flights LA to Lima for about $750. The travel agents were quoting us $1500 for this route. Total of $2700 for the trip. Phew.

The main thing is that we are going to LA, and from there the possibilities are endless. I am finding it weird that I'm as excited to go to LA than South/Central America. I guess I've always had a thing about going to the US and seeing what we always see on TV, hear about, read about. So if we struggle with flights to South/Central America (which is unlikely) we can just hang in the US for a while and go up to Canada or Mexico or something. This is what I love about backpacking, I don't even want to plan anything! But if we go to Peru, we'll need to book a place on a Inca Trail trek to Machu Piccu in the next couple of months.

I have already planned some places I want to go. I'd love to buy/rent an old car and drive this route, from LA to Las Vegas to Salt Lake City to San Fran then back. And see the Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, M5 Industries (where they film Mythbusters in San Fran), Hollywood, Area 51 (will be driving across Nevada, why not!), etc. There's heaps more but these are just initial thoughts.

We'll be flying out on 12th July, I'll be coming back on 13th Oct and Ness will be coming back on 16th Dec (with a 2-3 week stop in Auckland). I'm glad we have something in concrete now. Now to book leave at work...