:: zone3 ::

Well, the trip to Everest Base Camp was not as I planned, think that's an understatement. Going into it it I was pretty relaxed as am currently quite fit. Although was a little nervous about the altitude as my fitness is at sea level and it can effect anyone.
However it ended up being other reasons that caused me to be unwell and disappointing not make it to Everest Base Camp.

With reminence of parties past, it began to rain….

Phat09 Mud


The morning of the 31st started with a constant rain, quickly turning the dance floor into 6 inches of sticky mud, but that didn’t dampen the atmosphere of the revellers having fun.

Right on cue, the second zone of Phat09 opened at midday with Detail playing. And today the main zone starts up. Shaping up to be a pretty cool New Years party.

Second Zone

Has been a few years since have done any kind of Tech Crew/Roading for events. So this year, instead a normal relaxing holiday, am dragging around 120kg speakers and 60kg power cables at Phat09, one of the multi-day new Years parties around New Zealand.

Have a few photos of the event and the progress. http://zone3.net.nz/photos/Phat09

Phat09 Lighting Matrix Running

Anyone that is keen to on the idea of seeing east Europe, Central Asia and taking entirely in-appropriate cars (1000cc) over in-appropriate and at time non-existent roads, should enter the Mongol Rally 2008.

Entries opened today for 24 hours with a random draw with another chance at the draw on 6th Nov.

Even if not doing it, worth checking it out the site. And if doing it, will be a cool chance to see a lot of piles and get some cool photos.

Have been uploading the rest of my photos from the trip I had away recently to China.

Silk Road Photos
The photos cover following the Silk Road from Xi'an to Western China as far as Kashgar.

If you register, you get to see the larger versions of the pics instead of just thumbnails.....

Was a nice train down from Beijing to Xi'an, sleeper trains really are the way to get around. Although, the Chinese are pretty exact on their lights out in the 3-up hard sleepers. Lights go out at 10pm on the dot and back on at 6am.

Yesterday went off to see the Terracotta Warriors. Did see them last time I was in Xi'an, but being the May holidays it was packed 5 deep with Chinese tourists. This time around it was a wet day and sort of the off season, so was able to get a much better look. Even the 2nd time seeing them, still very impressive. Can see that all the faces on them are different.

Went up to Ohakune yesterday for the night at a friends place.

A few drinks and a fun night had for all that were there. About a dozen there for the night.

A few months ago, I got around to buying a phone with a camera, amazing how many year I took considering work in IT.

Picked up a Sony Ericsson K800i. It’s not a too bad phone, although having used Nokia phones for years still prefer the pre-symbian Nokia interface.

As can guess from my photo page, I like to take a few photos when on holiday. Just before heading off around Russia, Mongolia, and China, I decided to get a bit of a better camera.

Now with a mid-ish range consumer camera, found a few of the photos I took turned out well and am putting them into the Intrepid photography competition. Maybe it is a bit of a number numbers game, take enough photos and bound to get a few good ones…

Had a friend of mine that works as a digital artist have a look over them and tidy up the colours, etc and work other digital magic. After he was done, I was quite impressed with a couple. So a special thanks to James for doing that.



Anyway, have a look at my competition entries…