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It’s locked in. Flights have been booked, although admittedly I haven’t done much planning beyond that. This summer, I’m going to South America, for 3 months riding around Chile and Argentina, down along the Carretera Austral, into Patagonia, maybe as far as Tierra del Fuego, then back up to Buenos Aires. From there I’ll head up to the UK for a few weeks, to catch up with some friends, and reach the start/finish line at Greenwich, insh’allah.

I haven’t done much planning yet, but I have just spent a huge amount on my bike – over $1,800. New wheel, new saddle, new bottom bracket, new headset, new cables, new handlebar, new stem, new grips, new brakepads, etc…added up to quite a bit more than I was expecting. But at least now it should be in fairly solid condition, and unlikely to have any major mechanical issues in Patagonia.

I’ve bought a couple of maps, but I need to do a bit of studying them, along with a bunch of reading. I’ve pulled all the gear off the shelf, and put it in a big pile. I’ve bought a few new bits and pieces, but I still need to finish going through it, repairing and replacing, re-waterproofing the tent and panniers, etc. More detail to come over the next couple of months as I sort things out.

And yes, this picture shows what I mean by saying that I am definitely not yet loaded:

Yesterday, for the first time in years, I went back to my old university, the University of Auckland. I was attending a 1-day security conference, in the Owen G Glenn Building. My my, how times have changed. Back in the days I was attending the E school, it was a concrete jungle, designed by the same architects that killed Communism. The small foyer had just a handful of seats, and the cafeteria was a small windowless room.

These days, it’s all steel and glass, huge open light spaces, leather couches, work spaces everywhere – with the obligatory power points and network jacks. I was amazed at how much under-utilised space there was, at least compared to the maximum efficiency ethics that used to drive the Engineering school. Mind you, seems I still seem to fall asleep in lectures.

To be fair though, that was after a fairly tiring weekend, helping out with an Open Water course. Poor weather meant we had to do both days at Lake Pupuke. I thought it was cold last month, at 14° but this was getting ridiculous at 13°. I thought some of the students were going to die. But we made it, and their diving can only be in better surroundings from now on!

My favourite sister, the one that joined me on the bike in Thailand, is now about 34 weeks pregnant. Not really in a suitable condition for riding bikes around South East Asia. So this time, I went to visit her.

Auckland was blanketed in thick fog – as Paul Holmes put it, “it’s enveloping us, and we’re scared” – with visibility only a few metres in parts of the central city. Not surprisingly, this led to a large number of delays and cancellations of flights. I was clever enough to check online before leaving home, so found out early that my flight was cancelled, and I was able to re-book to a later flight. It was never going to be a long time in Nelson, but the delays further squeezed it down.

No matter, for we still had time to do stuff. Nelson has a lovely situation, by the sea, with National Parks nearby, a flat city centre, with rivers running through the area, and parks and forests within a short ride from home. Here in Auckland, I like the fact that I can wake up at 7:00am, and be out riding around Woodhill forest by 8:00am. In Nelson, you can ride straight out from your front door, and fairly quickly be riding in a forest. It’s a bit strange in that there are cyclists and pedestrians sharing paths, and no-one seems to mind. Plenty of dogs being walked, but not on leads – a most unusual state. In Auckland they fine you for doing that sort of thing.

It was easy to see why people choose to move there, and why property prices are retaining their value. It got me thinking about living in a smaller town – I could have a nice lifestyle, easy commute, nice house, etc. Only problem is my current choice of career – how can I find somewhere that needs my kind of skills in a smaller town? Hmmm.

Not long now for Nicola – inshallah, all will be well. I’m sure they will be fine, but it is still a bit scary.

A few years ago, while still living in London, I damaged my left knee. Something minor but unpleasant to my medial ligament, and it’s never been the same since. Full range of motion in a normal plane, but lateral movement was problematic. The physio recommended cycling, and cycle I did. After a few months, my knee troubles went away.

A little over a year ago, I hopped off the bike for a while. I was still conscious that my knees could give me problems again, so I took it easy, only doing a small amount of running, and gently increasing distances. That all seemed to go well, and I didn’t have any problems for 12 months.

But then I’ve been doing some more challenging work at the gym recently, doing more stability and control work. Interesting things like taking four foam blocks, stacking a couple of Duradiscs on top of them, then adding a long skateboard, and trying to balance on top. While tossing a small weight from hand to hand. Interesting times. Some of the other work has been ballistic-type movements – explosive movements, with quick shifts of weight. Somewhere along the way that’s aggravated by left knee again, and it’s causing me problems. Fine if I’m moving around normally, but if I ever need to move my left foot inwards, and I drag the foot a bit, it opens up the joint, and causes a fair bit of pain.

Obviously I’m not doing enough on the bike recently. Might have to do a little tour in NZ – but the problem is that it’s all a bit wet and cold here. Maybe it will improve by August.

It is now a year since I rode my bike up the driveway in Whangarei. It is a year since I last rode a bike laden with everything I deemed necessary to live my life. Turns out that it isn’t much when you need to carry it. But when you only move house every six months like I do now…I’m building up a pile of crap.

It’s been a year of simple pleasures. On Saturday I spent much of the morning indulging in one of my favourites – reading the Saturday newspaper. On the road, I always had the time to read the paper, but I rarely had the chance to get hold of an English newspaper. Now it seems that getting the paper is easy, but I hardly ever have the time. Saturday wasn’t that much different actually – it was just that I had a cold and couldn’t go diving, so I was stuck indoors, and that gave me the time to read the paper.

Today was another simple pleasure. Even though it was the first day of winter, I was able to get up to a stunningly beautiful, if cold, morning and go mountain biking. Cold yes, but not so cold as to require leg-warmers or trousers on the bike. Admittedly I did wear shoes. You can get away with sandals and socks in random Eastern countries, people look at you funny anyway. Here it sticks out a bit more.

In the last month, I’ve seen my parents twice, and my younger brother. In the next two months, I should see my parents again, my sister, and my older brother and his family. That’s another simple pleasure I can get from living here. I’ve also been able to spend time with friends, and make new friends. Not just the sort of transient friends you meet on the road, but people you see regularly over a long period of time. And I’m enjoying that.

I’ve been able to take up a new interest, diving. That’s taking up far more of my resources (time and $$) than I ever dreamed it would have 12 months ago.

I’ve been able to unpack most of my stuff, and have a range of clothes. Not just on the bike/off the bike, but work, casual, sporting, somewhere in between – and variety in each category.

I’ve been in a position to cook good meals, whatever I feel like eating, not just a lump of fat on top of plain rice (plov). At first my kitchen wasn’t much better than the little petrol stove, but now I have a kitchen so big that we don’t even use half the cupboards, because we don’t have enough stuff to put in them.

And yet…

I have just received notice that my CISSP certification has lapsed. Obtaining this certification involved a reasonable amount of study, for a six hour exam covering 250 multiple choice questions. To maintain certification, you need to log “Continuing Professional Education” credits – a total of 120 over three years. Credits are obtained for taking course, reading books, attending conferences, etc. Apparently you can even get them for reading security blogs, of which I currently follow at least half a dozen.

Should be easy right? Well apparently it is 120 over three years, but you must log at least 20 each year. And I happen to have a little bit of a gap in my CV…thing was I probably did enough reading over that time anyway, but I don’t have notes to verify it. Hell, at one stage I managed to renew my CCNP, despite not having logged into a router for over a year, and not having done any real Cisco work for 3 years.

A lot of it is done on trust – only some people get audited to check they have actually done the training they say they did. So I could have just made something up, but that would have been a clear breach of ethics.

Oh well. If you’re looking to hire a CISSP, you’ll have to look elsewhere I’m afraid. Maybe I’ll re-sit the exam one day. Only problem is, it’s only held once or twice per year in NZ. Even in the UK, I had to fly from Edinburgh to London to sit it. We’ll see what happens in the future, if my career path seems to require it.