First, some new photo albums.

Dunedin

Southeast Coast

Stewart Island and Invercargill

First Month in NZ Already

The weather was fantastic the first two weeks plus, less so lately. The locals say it’s unusual, but cite the strange weather worldwide: American Northeast, England, Texas. Half of Australia seems to be on fire. I’ve had a wonderful sampling of the scenery and tracks in the Queenstown area, then spent ten days or so touring the South and am tonight back in QT. It has turned cold and rainy, but Vicki reminds me it is now officially Autumn here. Had to give up on the Milford Sound for now, a premier tourist destination. There is a strong low pressure area, almost a cyclone, off the East coast of the South Island with forecast winds there of 120-140km/hr, making the winds i experienced in the South seem like gentle breezes by comparison. Luckily, I have plans to head up the West coast from here, putting the Southern Alps between me and all that. The forecast temps look much better, so here’s hoping. The next posts should have plenty of rugged mountain scenery and glaciers.

Scatter Shooting for the Geekily Inclined, and Other Potentially Interested Parties:

Addendum to Units and Measures

Calories versus Joules

how many calories in a tablespoon of this peanut butter? The label says: serving size: 15g, Energy/Serving 358kJ, Energy per 100g 2380kJ. The Joule is the unit of energy in the metric (SI) system. We are used to referring to energy in food as calories. Some of us may not even be aware that we are referring to energy, but use ‘calories’ in an abstract score keeping system for weight management. Unfortunately, due to characteristic linguistic laziness, all this usage is technically wrong. What we routinely call calories are, in fact, kilocalories. This has been accounted for by the notation calorie (nutritional), which is one Kcal (thermodynamic). bottom line – 100 calories (nutritional) are about 420kj.

it gets worse. we calorie counters are used to specifying them per oz, or tablespoon, or some unit of volume. joule counters are used to specifying joules per gram, or unit of weight. that means there is no general conversion possible between cal/oz and j/gm. you must specify the material in question.

1 tablespoon of water weighs 14.79 grams
1 tablespoon of table salt weighs 18.25 grams
1 tablespoon of butter weighs 14.19 grams
1 tablespoon of oil (canola or soy) weighs 13.62 grams
1 tablespoon of sugar (granulated) weighs 12.5 grams

So in the case of the label on my jar of peanut butter, 15g is pretty close to a tbs.

Tire pressure

I decided to check the pressure of my tires in a small town after filling up with petrol. The young lady attending the register handed me a hose with the proper fittings and showed me the air line outside to hook it up to. Then I thought, pressure in pounds per square inch was not metric, and i didn’t know the conversion to Pascals. Fortunately, the gauge on the hose read in both units. From the scale, I made the mental note: 30 psi is about 200 (207 to three significant digits, thank you Google) kPa. Hope I remember that in the event the gauge isn’t as accommodating next time.

Addenda to Driving on the Left

When we meet someone on the sidewalk and wish to avoid collision, we dodge to the right. When a Kiwi encounters the same situation, they dodge to the left. This has awkward results when American meets Kiwi on the sidewalk.

Two other things that are not habitual and take focus away from the steering of the car: shifting the manual transmission with the left hand and operating the turn indicators which are on the opposite side. If I don’t consciously think about it, rather than signalling a turn I activate the windshield wipers. Luckily, it’s been raining a lot.

Another thing to remember: when we are habituated to driving on the right side of the road and want to cross the street, we will look to the left for oncoming traffic. Over here, that’s a good way to get run over.

speed bumps = judder bars

ice chest = chilly bin

parking lot = car park

Kiwi Television

is no more interesting than American TV, to me. I can’t get interested in the grayhound races and buggy trotter horse races that seem to be on at all hours, presumably for the benefit of compulsive gamblers (Chinese). There is always a Maori channel. I did get interested in the finals of some sort of Asian badminton world series on the Chinese channel, but one of the finalists in the men’s open sustained an injury. The play appeared to be most strenuous, players sweating as much as any boxer. finally, after trying to resume with an elaborate bandage, he forfeited. no joy.

Kiwi money

The smallest coin in circulation is the 10c piece (edit: originally i thought it was 20c). Registers round everything to the nearest 10c. Doesn’t that make sense? It all averages out, and the government doesn’t have the expense of minting all those smaller coins.

Kiwi politics

Vicki told me pharmaceutical companies can no longer give ‘gifts’ to doctors, pharmacists, etc., not even pens and pads with pharma adverts on them. Imagine a government that actually governs in the interest of the people, rather than in the interest of the multinational corporations that contribute to their campaigns! Mind boggling, that.