The Carrier

Hello Everyone,

I feel that Sonny has more than kept everyone up to date on the events on his life so....MAYBE intoxicated and a little out of it. I will address the occurrences in my life. Last weekend I visited the Harry S. Truman.... for those that do not know, it is an aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy!!!! Pretty awesome, my brother is stationed on the HST until October. I was able to take some time off to visit him, my niece, nephew, and sister-in-law, etc. It was amazing! We saw fighter jets (f18's) land less than 30ft from us. The pics can't tell you how awesome a sight this was!! Then I traveled to Boston to lock down an apartment. I went alone, (quite a new experience), but worked out. I will be living in Brighton! Less than 30 min by metro, and even less by bus/bike to Boston University! I've started to read a book on where to dive in the Boston/Massachusetts area, though, it sucks that it won't be with any of you. I surely hope that I'll be able to find good dive buddies. You will be forever in my mind.

-John

Check your tire and spare tire regularly

Dear my comrades,

On last Friday, I went to the rock climbing gym. I found out that my car got flat tire. As I went open the trunk to get my spare tire. I found out that it's very bumpy and some of its parts were shredded off. With my grab-shit-better-than-fart principle, I decided to put that spare tire on and forced on driving. It didn't last long though. At somewhere on NASA blvd, I had to park my car.

Mike and Adams were kind enough to come by and brought fix n' flat spray in attempting to fix the original tire. Turned out it didn't work because it was the side wall that leaked. Fortunately, I had AAA membership, so they sent the mechanic to tow the car to Firestone. Next day I had Haiyun AKA ocean AKA cloud took me there to get my car fixed.

Now I still have to find a new (used) spare tire from somewhere since they no longer made it. If anyone ran across the spare tire for Mazda 626, please let me know.

Moral of the story

- Check spare tire condition regularly.

- Check the air on tire at least as often as filling the gas.

- Get AAA membership, it will save your soul.

First day of class

We finally survived the 2-day long journey to Auckland. We arrived here on July 11th, and against everything that I had planned, my class starts on July 13th, Monday!... The plane landed in Auckland airport at 6.00am local (Auckland) time, and the plan for the day was to try to look for apartments. We had already arranged a couple of viewings with estate agents. Fortunately, we did managed to catch a couple of hours of nap on the plane, so off we go!.... meeting the agent, and looking at several apartments around the region. There was a vodaphone booth in the airport, so we took the opportunity to buy a SIM card, and see if it worked on our US phone.. Viola!.. and it worked! At least we got the telecommunications matter settled. After looking around for half a day, we found something we really like and did the paperwork. Hopefully, we will hear the approval from the agent in a couple of days.

On Sunday, We took a short tour around the University which is located in the heart of the city. However, with all the greenery, and old buildings, you do not feel that you are in the middle of this metropolitan city. Next, we took the train to Tamaki campus which is located about 15 minutes away from the city campus. We wanted to take a look at that place because my first class on Monday starts there bright and early at 9am, and it end at 6pm!

Came monday, I woke up at 7am, took a shower, make sure that I smelled good and looked smart, and I am on my way to Tamaki campus for my first class. I reached the location at about 9am, and there were nobody there. I think to myself, maybe I should wait for a bit, and people would show up. It is about 9.33am I realized that no one was coming to class. I went to the admission office to find out what happened, and realized that the class was being held in the city campus. So away I went, on my way back to the city center. So for the first day of class, I missed th whole first half of the day!