T-minus 7 days until liftoff

My wife and I will be leaving on the not quite so proverbial jet plane next saturday evening. Fortunately, we effectively have eight days, because the flight is so late in the day. The flight into Auckland is about 13 hours long (two hours longer than a flight from California to London). Including the layover time, the total flight time is 24 hours. Because of the time we leave, we will be leaving on March 3rd and arriving on March 5 (New Zealand is a day ahead, so it will already be the 4th in New Zealand when we leave, and at midnight it will turn over to the 5th).

We're still trying to work out the details of what time it is exactly when we land so we can arrange for a ride - both my advisor, Dr. Fordyce, and fellow student (and new father) Gabriel Aguirre-Fernandez have offered to pick us up from the airport.

Anyway, what this most likely means is a blog blackout for the next week or so; I've got a really, really, really long checklist of research stuff to take care of by next saturday, so you can expect some posts once we're in a different hemisphere.