I forgot some things!

So, some time ago, like a month ago, I happened to have dinner with a small hero of mine, author Rudy Rucker. He had said on his blog that he'd be in New Zealand, and to drop a line if anyone reading was there. So that was neat. He and his wife Sylvia were incredibly nice, and it's humbling to think that at his age (60!) he's thinking the things he's comfortable thinking about. Ain't that a mouthful. But really, he's way way out there, in a completely coherent, rigorous way. Kind of like Philip K. Dick, but happy. He wrote about our dinner, too.

About the whales, I still don't have the photos, but I'll try to get those up before we leave for the South Island tomorrow night. We'll be taking the ferry over with our car. Down there we'll be hanging out with some friends of ours at a beach cottage in a town called Punakaiki ("poon-uh-kye-kee") for a few days, then going down to hike on a glacier. Also, once we get to Punakaiki we'll re-connect with Nikhila and her friend Saman, before parting after the glaciers, until Nikhila comes back to Wellington on the 31st. I'll try to get some pictures of the glacier, especially if we wind up doing a helicopter tour of it.

Finally, someone on a list at work posted a photo of one of these:

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I thought it was pretty awesome.