I’ve had my Nokia 6100 for nearly 3 years. It’s a simple phone, has the functionality I wanted and no more. That was the beauty. Now I get to go looking for a new phone that will make me happy.

While at the roller disco last night, my phone happiness came to an end. At one point, they closed the rink to let us put on speed. After a while, the slowest of the fast people were weeded out until the judge slid out on a turn and the last 3 of us were allowed to wind down. Rewind a minute. Several laps before Russ slid out, I’d bailed in the same way – I went down on my left side, started a roll to get my feet back under me and pushed up to keep going. My phone was in my right pocket when I rolled.

The problem is only the LCD. It’s been cracked and bled a bit. I can read about 20 characters of a text message and there’s no problems making and receiving calls. Other than the LCD, the phone is fine. I’ll probably put it up on TradeMe to see if anyone wants the working parts of it.

In shopping for a new phone, there are a few things that I want:

• reliability
• tactile keys
• non-stupidly-offensive interface
• PC connectivity

If all of those comes through, I’d also push my luck and go for a phone with either a French dictionary for predictive text or a dictionary that can add more than 50 words. That was easily my biggest complaint about the 6100. Of course, being in South Pacific, it’ll be hard to find a phone that isn’t English with Asian languages available. If anyone has a recommendation, get in touch with me, but keep it under 20 characters…

It’s been 5 years since I first landed in New Zealand with intent to live here a while. I had a short stop in Auckland before connecting to Christchurch, where I would be working for the next two years. It was a beautiful Saturday and my hotel was right on Cathedral Square. I couldn’t have asked for a better welcome to my most southerly home to date. I remember being shown around the city, taken mountain bike riding and still having time for a skate before the sun fell down.

If I had a 5 year plan at that time, it wouldn’t have included still living in New Zealand at the end of it. I fully expected to be back in Canada by now, back with friends and family. Choosing to stay past the end of my contract caught me by surprise. Being a resident by now wasn’t a possibility. I’d planned to see a lot more of the country than my previous 3-week vacation of the north island had afforded, but I didn’t expect that it would take this long, or that I’d live in all three of the major cities along the way. It’s kinda like glacial tourism.

The future, as always, is unknown. I like my current job. Actually, I love my current job. I can see myself hanging around for a while. Wellington suits me surprisingly well, with the possible exception for the disastrous effect of the wind on my beach volleyball career. It’s hard to say that I will be where I am in another five years. There’s still a lot of things to see and do. Whims brought me and whims take me.