Manifest Destiny 2:

July 27, 2010

“There are plenty of smart engineers. Very few of them know what they are doing. Get into construction management and learn how things are built. Then go be an engineer.” – Sara Loughead

That sage advice was given to me by a family friend, Sara—a working Civil Engineer—somewhere back in early June 2003. In every interview I have ever participated in, I quoted it. At first it was a platitude to make me sound wise beyond my experience. When I left construction management and got back into design engineering, the significance of the decision was not yet apparent. As years have passed, however, the comment has become axiomatic. I prided myself in understanding construction techniques and integrating them into my designs. Contractors were receptive and appreciative, and I felt justified. But it wasn’t that comment alone. Hours before my first day of work post-college, my grandfather called me with another great aphorism: “The difference between you and your bosses is their mistakes”.  The unspoken latter half to that advice is to learn from their mistakes instead of repeating them for myself. Seven years later, I sat in an interview with two highly successful senior Aurecon managing engineers and was able to share Sara’s advice. It was no longer the regurgitation of a clever saying but my design philosophy. They were suitably impressed, and perhaps it was because they had roughly 70 years of mistakes between them.

Thank you for all of the congratulatory emails and Facebook comments. To clarify my new job, I have been hired on as an Intermediate Structural Engineer at Aurecon, a large multi-national engineering consultancy. The Wellington office specializes in Seismic and Structural Engineering, which is the crux of my education and experience. Their courtship was quick and generous. Less than a week after I sent them my resume I had an hour-long telephone interview and a round trip plane ticket to Wellington in my hand for a follow up. The interviews were professional and courteous and most of the time was spent selling me on their work instead of me tap dancing with my credentials. I felt like the prettiest girl at the ball! Particularly enticing was the repeat mentions of Seismic Base Isolation, a very progressive engineering concept where whole buildings sit on top of an array of rubber and steel pads. Conceptually, in an earthquake the foundation shakes but the base isolated structure moves a lot less so. I took a really interesting class in it while at UCLA and built up a healthy infatuation. In addition to base isolated structures, a couple of overseas projects were mentioned and some high rise buildings in New Zealand. My experience so far has been from the ground down (infrastructure at Playa Vista) and up to 3 stories (my last job working for Gordon Polon). The prospect of working on large commercial and industrial projects is really exciting. Have I mentioned that I’m a dork?

Wellington is about to be my new home, and, as I summarized in the blog a few months back, it reminds me of a smaller version of San Francisco. Geographically, the city is spackled onto the steep hills that wrap around the G-shaped bay. Because the North and South Islands are slightly skewed to each other, frigid southern winds can take the direct route from Antarctica. The city huddles for warmth in the crook of the bay, fostering a supposedly tight-knit and intermingling community that differs greatly from the independent, homogenous ethnic and cultural enclaves that make up Auckland. Spiraling out from the Central Business District (CBD) are a string of suburbs to give the area a respectable population base, not unlike the Bay Area supporting the meager 700,000 residents of San Francisco proper. The city has bustling music, art, culture, food and sports scenes. Although the surf isn’t particularly reputable, it does exist and I plan on making myself a fixture in the line up regardless of the temperature (I say that while sitting next to a space heater while wearing sweatpants and a hoodie). I already have a few friends in the area and they are active surfers, soccer players and sailors so the seeds of my new life are in the ground and ready to be watered. All I need now is an apartment, a bed (I can’t wait!), furniture and some work clothes. The prospect of a stable, adult life is surprisingly exciting.

Work starts on the 16^th of August and temporary housing has been set up for the week of the 8^th. In the mean time I have been sorting through Aurecon’s HR paperwork, immigration paperwork, NZ tax paperwork and checking the Wellington rental market online. On the 3^rd of August, Darlene Conolly—one of Chris’s surf buddies from high school—is coming through NZ to surf Raglan for a few days. I plan on joining her. Also roughly on my way from Auckland to Wellington is Taranaki and my friends Ton and Mary Deken. Might as well surf Taranaki too! That leaves the next week in Auckland to get my remainders sorted. If I can get it done quickly, and the surf and weather reports look favorable, I might jump north to the Northlands—the only remaining part of NZ I haven’t explored. However much I get around, my camera will follow and pictures will be posted. When I get to Wellington and my life starts to come together, I will reveal whatever nuances to my life that seem particularly or curiously interesting.

Thanks again, Sara. And thanks Grandpa. It was wonderful advice that shaped my life for the better.

July 22, 2010

“’I don't see any connection with Vietnam, Walter’ ‘Well, there isn’t a literal connection.’” – The Dude and Walter, The Big Lebowski

Time for a flashback to travel. Way back on the first days of June I was in the doldrums of early winter on the West Coast of the South Island. Incessant rain coupled with loneliness was dragging me down. Tyler tossed me a lifeline with an invite to surf and camp in the cold and rain in Kaikoura. After that excellent weekend I was back in Nelson, the artsy city at the north end of the island. Despite its moniker as the Sunshine Capital of NZ, I saw nothing but rain in the few days I was there. This put me at a crossroads. To the west lay Abel Tasman, the crown jewel of NZ National Parks. To the east lay Picton and the ferry back to Wellington and the North Island. The prospect of hiking Abel Tasman in a near-freezing rain was not appealing but the idea of bailing on the South Island without a single multi-day hike was really disappointing. Weather forecasts were sketchy and contradictory but I decided to gamble and book a trip through the park. When I got to the departure town of Marahau, my fortunes hadn’t turned. It was gloomy and grey, the town was empty and ominous thunderheads were blooming overhead--hardly the welcome I was hoping for.  In the 3 minutes it took me to fill out paperwork, rain began to fall steadily. It was a fitful night with visions of hiking in soaked clothes and shivering myself to sleep. Instead, I woke to clearing skies and the placid, silent waters of the Tasman Bay at low tide--perfect weather for an expedition.

Abel Tasman National Park was the mooring place for the Dutch Explorer of the same name. He arrived in 1642 some 125 years before Captain Cook. Local Maori greeted his arrival by attacking them from a canoe, killing a couple of men. Tasman pulled up anchor and cruised off but not before naming the land Staten Landt. Later, some Dutch cartographers named it Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. That was anglicized when the British began colonizing the islands. What remains is the bigger question of why Tasman bailed after a couple of tattooed locals in grass skirts waving stone clubs paddled up to them in a wood canoe. Sure it was intimidating but the Maori were still living in the Stone Age and Tasman would have had such radically advanced tools as clothing, metal and gunpowder at his disposal. Plus, he was in paradise. Tasman and Golden Bays are calm, fertile waters sheltered from the harsh southern winds from Antarctica, populated by numerous fish, seals birds and frequented by migrating whales and dolphins. The rocky cliffs are broken up by numerous protected coves of coarse, white sand.

This natural beauty has not gone unnoticed by New Zealanders as it is the most popular National Park in the country. I was told that 90% of the park’s traffic is during January—the heart of summer for the Southern Hemisphere. The Lonely Planet Guide recommends attempting to book hut and campsite reservations at least 6 months in advance for the summer season and even then to be prepared for disappointment. In regard to overcrowding, I felt pretty safe venturing a day-of booking in the rainy gloom of June. And I was right. My plan was for a full-day guided kayak tour of the first third of the park, camping in the Anchorage Bay Hut overnight and then a full day hike to Onetahuti where a water taxi would bring me back to the start at Marahau. The guided kayak part of the tour was a lot of fun. Our group was about 16 people, inclusive of the guide. We were partnered up in tandem kayaks and I was gifted a completely useless Chinese girl who could not have confirmed more stereotypes. She spent a lot of time not paddling and taking pictures of herself and her friend. Luckily her English was terrible and the whole sight became a running joke between myself and the rest of the group. When we broke for lunch, the Chinese girl, her friend and a couple more pairs jumped on the water taxi and called it a day. I was left with our guide, Mark, 3 Scottish travelers and an Israeli. We spent the afternoon exploring and becoming fast friends. About an hour before sun down, Mark dropped us off at the Anchorage Bay Hut with a few handy tips and wished us luck.

Ryan and Julie and Brian are from Falkirk, Scotland somewhere between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Upon meeting them, I tipped my hand as a dork and asked about the Wheel of Falkirk—an engineering marvel. They laughed and admitted they had never seen it but were nice enough to keep talking to me anyway. Ryan and Julie are a young couple who were tired of quiet life in Scotland and were looking for a change. They came to NZ a few month before I did and settled into jobs and started saving for travel. Brian, their friend from home, was hitting those early 30s blues and decided to uproot for some change himself. Having spent some time in Australia working and fishing, he came across the Tasman Sea to visit his friends and never quite managed to leave. Having forgotten my camera, Julie generously offered to share her photos when the trip was through. Omri, the fifth in our group was in his early 20s and recently discharged from the Israeli Army. He was traveling the world alone, armed with endless energy and a chutzpa that was endearing and likeable. At the hut, we ran into 3 more Israeli travelers and the 8 of us sat around the cabin playing cards, chatting, rotating wet clothes in front of the heater and sharing dinner as dusk was replaced by candle light.

Around 8pm we set off down the beach under a clear and moonless night. Every footstep was punctuated by the dancing sparkles of bioluminescence in the sand. At the north end of Anchorage Bay was Elephant Rock and behind it were a couple of caves. Mark suggested we check them out after dark. We crawled around in the shadowy crevasse until the walls opened up around us. Dotting the ceiling and walls were glow worms. These strange larvae hang a thread of glowing snot out of their body to entice insects. Walking into a dark cave faint pinpricks of light hovered overhead. Brian decided to turn the flashlight on them and we were greeted with a cave full of giant crawling wetas, a cricket-like insect about the size of your hand. When surprised by them, they look to be the size of a pterodactyl…a harmless, non-stinging, non-poisonous pterodactyl. Eventually, we wandered back to the hut and resumed story sharing late into the night.

In the morning we set off on our hike. The Abel Tasman Track has 2 shortcuts, both of which are only available within hours of low tide and can cut several kilometers off the trek. Why anyone would want to shorten a walk through paradise is beyond me, but the time restrictions have consequences. Walking tidal flats is not normally a big deal but when the tide swings 4 vertical meters (12.5 ft), the ocean comes back in a hurry. We opted for the safer, longer route and managed the 20 or so kilometers in a couple of hours.

Unlike January park-goers, we were greeted with solitude. Maybe twice hikers passed us going the other way offering a smile and quick wave before disappearing into the undulating trail cocooned in tangled vines and lush overgrowth. The day was perfect. The sun beat down on our shoulders, casting cones of light through the sporadic gaps in foliage and illuminating the orange and black fungi, the turquoise waters of the bay and the brilliant greens of life all around us. When the trail would curve outward to a vantage point we would stand as a group, panting in silence, admiring the infinite views of pristine water and unscathed land. Onetahuti beach opened up before us not 10 minutes before our water taxi was due to arrive. We had put in 7 solid hours of hiking and I celebrated by walking barefoot in the frigid water. The day was perfect.

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July 19, 2010

“’You are one pathetic loser—no offense.’ ‘None taken.’” – Lloyd and Harry, Dumb and Dumber.

What luck. The job search and my bank account could not be going in opposite directions faster. Job leads and interviews have been lining up nicely. My van, however has decided to get very, very expensive. On Monday evening I was attempting to drive half way from Auckland to Hawke’s Bay to shorten my drive before an interview. It was just after dark and I was passing through the town of Tokoroa when my battery and water warning lights popped up on the dashboard. I put a call in to a mechanic buddy and he confirmed my fears that my alternator was most likely the problem. Driving through the mountains in winter in NZ is not the time or place to risk breaking down and getting stranded. Traffic is sparse and the temperature is below freezing for at least 12 hours every night. I wouldn’t starve and the elements wouldn’t get me before help arrived, but neither of these prospects was getting me to my interview. I went back through Tokoroa and pulled into the first motel I saw. The proprietors of the Carlton Motor Lodge, Neil and Andrea, were sympathetic to my predicament and offered me a discount on the room for the night and called a mechanic for the morning.

I got to the shop early and the mechanic promised my van would be back on the road in 24 hours but because my interview was in 6 hours this wasn’t exactly great news. A couple of phone calls later I secured a rental car and set off for Hawke’s Bay. That doesn’t sound difficult, but Tokoroa is a pass-through town with no tourist attractions and isn’t even mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide. The fact that there was even a rental car agency is stunning. The owner/sole employee, Shon, explained that he made no money from the company as I stood in a packed lot of shiny, new Toyota Corollas. He said they pretty much wait for people to break down in the any of the surrounding towns and come to the rescue. 5 minutes after getting to Shon’s lot, I was on the road in a zippy red Corolla and less than 3 hours later I was in Hawke’s Bay.

The interview was fine, but not spectacular. Afterward I turned around and drove back to Tokoroa and checked back into the motel for the evening. In the morning, my van was up and running for a mere $450. The mechanic showed me the old, worn out alternator and explained that I had made the safe decision. I returned to Auckland but not before a detour to Mt. Maunganui for a much needed surf session. All told, it was an $800 interview. That’s only $780 more than my Monday interview cost me and I felt a lot better about that job.

On Thursday I was running errands, the most pressing of which was to renew the Warrant of Fitness (WOF) on the van. This is an annual safety check that all vehicles require and mine was set to expire at the end of the week. I’m sure you can guess where this is headed. English teachers call it foreshadowing. 2 hours after dropping off my van at a WOF station I was told that it needed about $1450 of repairs (windshield replacement, suspension repairs, 2 new tires and 1 new wheel bearing). The windshield was anticipated but the rest caught me off guard. I know there are a bevy of issues with the van but how bad they are can be a matter of interpretation. As Duncan Wu expressed so eloquently in broken English “Left eye no problem. Right eye no good”. I was hoping for some generous Left Eye treatment instead of a finger in my eye. The real stickler is that I can’t just unload the van. It’s illegal to sell a vehicle with an expired WOF. That and I still need it for at least a couple more weeks. So now I’m out more than $2000 on the week. So frustrating. Instead of taking the bus back from the mechanic, I walked back to Epsom stewing in my misfortune.

In my last post I mentioned The Grapes of Wrath. Part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was because of the resonance with my life. For those not up on their 9^th grade English lit, The Grapes of Wrath is the story of the poor share-cropping Joad family fleeing the dust bowl of Oklahoma in the Depression Era 1930s. They are pushed off their land after the bank evicts them. With only farming experience to fall back on, they follow some help wanted fliers to California in search of fruit picking work. With visions of white farm houses and fertile fruit trees as far as the eye can see, they ignore the growing signs that their dreams are little more than fairy tales. Their denial of the obvious was born from the desperation of poverty, starvation and a lack of options. To many readers, this story is the condemnation of Capitalism, a defense of Communism and a parable for the death of America as an agrarian society.

Two points stuck me in particular. The first is the fear of consequence that haunts the Joads. Their dire straights turn molehills into mountains. Despite their initiative and willingness to work hard, they lack the resources to see them calmly through the valleys of life. John Steinbeck paints a beautiful picture of Al, the horny, wayward teenage son, hugging the steering wheel of their Rambler 66 as they beat down miles on the perilous desert highways. His sensitivity heightened with fear, he feels for any sign that the truck is breaking down and will leave them stranded. I too spent many days trying to decode the automotive Morse Code being tapped through the steering wheel of Orange Whip. While I was never at risk of starving, I was often at risk of being stranded. That fear was ever present but really escalated the further from civilization I got. It sat like a bad meal, turning my stomach and clouding my thoughts. I can’t wait to sell this van and the emotional baggage riding shotgun.

My job search has tipped the other salient point in the book. What the Joads lacked was the resourcefulness to change. They were (barely) skilled labor with farming as a specialty. Pushed from their home and their lives, they struck out on the road for an identical life in a new part of the world. They sought a modest and honest living, but they failed to understand the forces behind their ousting. The advent and propagation of tractors made their hand work and horses unnecessary and slow, and their farming capacity far too small to produce at market rates. Their solution was to give up their local knowledge and hope that their skills were needed elsewhere. What the Joads and the other “Okies” failed to grasp was that the nature of their specialty had changed and they were reduced to unskilled labor. The decision to move west condemned them to their sorrowful fate. Had moved east, it would have signaled an admission of their inadequacy as farmers and they could have sought work in the factories and adapted to city life—work no more skilled but in growing demand.

So what does this have to do with me? I am feeling the beneficial effects of having a unique and progressive skill set. Within hours of posting my resume I had multiple recruiters calling, and within days I had a handful of interviews scheduled. 5 years ago I was trying to transition from construction management to design engineering and it wasn’t nearly as promising. I wasn’t getting my phone calls or emails returned, much less any interviews. Finally, a friend set one up with her firm. Afterward, I heard nothing. A week later it took several phone calls just to hear that I was rejected. What I really needed was to know why and what I could do about it. The interviewer said that her firm wouldn’t consider any candidate with an out of state education or anyone without a Masters Degree. It was honest advice, I took it to heart and less than 2 years later I had a Masters Degree from UCLA. Damn am I glad I have it. Not only are the interviews lining up, but I have noticed that they spend a lot more time trying to convince me that I should work for them instead of the other way around. I guess what I’m trying to say is: don’t be a Joad.

Since most of my past two weeks have been spent in the Epsom library sending out emails or in front of the tv watching crap, I don’t have any interesting pictures. Attached are maps of NZ with my path highlighted sequentially from red to violet. Each of the arrows is hyperlinked to the relevant blog posting. Hopefully it works.

Updated: I guess the hyperlinked metapages didn't work. I simplified it and attached pictures. The arrows are no longer linked to the appropriate posts but if you can follow along pretty easily if you open these pics in a different browser window. Thanks for the feedback.

July 7, 2010 Continued

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July 7, 2010

“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain. I’ve sunny days that I never thought would never end. I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, But I always thought that I’d see you again” – James Taylor, Fire and Rain

Happy belated 4^th of July. 5 months ago I quit my job to move to New Zealand and be a traveling hobo. Well, not exactly, but that is how it worked out. Last Friday I returned to Auckland having covered most of this beautiful country. I know there is some perfect aphorism to describe my adventure, some sage advice and scholarly wisdom from a man who has accumulated so many hours and miles and footsteps on the road, but it eludes me. All I know is that the 6 months before I left were difficult. I wasn’t happy. But today I am happy and I don’t regret even the tiniest fraction of my decision.

Instead of trying to be insightful and prolific, I’m going free-form:

$3300 for a 1989 Toyota TownAce with 221,000 km

12,000+ km traveled

$2300 on fuel

1 new engine ($2500)

2 new heater hoses ($178)

1 flat tire ($10)

115 nights on the road

39 nights spent sleeping in the van ($314 in camp fees)

43 nights spent in the homes of friends ($0)

33 nights spent in hostels ($759)

$60 for a heavy blanket, my second best purchase

$35 for imitation Ugg boots, my best purchase

16 books started

12 books finished

$1 for a paperback copy of The Grapes of Wrath, the book I most enjoyed

30 lbs of body weight lost

3 razorblade cartridges used

March was the month of fish and chips

April was the month of avocados and sausage

May was the month of meat pies

June was the month of mandarin oranges and trail mix

Castlepoint was my best surf session

Victory Bay was my scariest…and coldest

Marmite is not good. Neither is vegemite.

Kiwi wines are excellent. Kiwi beer is decent.

Rugby is cool, but not even close to football (or soccer). Cricket is a lame version of baseball.

I’ve been to 98 of the 104 pages on my NZ road map. The Northland is all that remains. It will be explored, but now it’s time to get a job and return to the world of responsible adulthood. I’m excited about my prospects in rebuilding a stable life: to living in a bed without wheels, to showering daily, wearing clean clothes, to after-work sports leagues, friends, dating and becoming a local at a surf spot.

I guess this is the inflection point for the blog. It isn’t much of a travel memoir if I’m not on the road. There will be stories but they will be fewer and further between. I will try to keep everyone updated on the major news, amusing anecdotes and quirks of being a Kiwi-transplant. If you just check the website to see if it has updated, this would be the time to subscribe. When I post, you’ll be notified. Until then, enjoy this youtube clip. It’s an Aussie’s take on Kiwi accents.

I'm Beached As, Bro!

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July 29, 2010

Almost done. The home stretch is in front of me. All that is left is Taranaki—the  unnaturally round peninsula at the elbow of the North Island—and the small stretch of land between Taranaki and Hamilton. What makes Taranaki unnatural is how perfectly round it is. On maps, it looks like it was drawn in by some lazy European cartographer who knew his work would never come under scrutiny. Driving into the region the key to the peninsula becomes obvious. Mt. Taranaki dominates the rolling green foothills around it. Standing like the platonic ideal of a snow-capped volcano, one can’t help but stare at it and take redundant photos. It looks like a child drew it, or rather, like a Hershey’s Kiss dipped in white chocolate. Also known as Mt. Egmont, the volcano stands 2,500 meters above sea level—high enough to influence local weather patterns. This, combined with the shape of the peninsula, guarantees that there is offshore wind at a surf break somewhere. To the south, Opunake is the surf hub. To the north is New Plymouth, the largest city in the region. In between is motorway 45, the “Surf Highway” which circumnavigates the peninsula half way between the volcano and the beach. Roads intersect the motorway like radiating spokes. Almost all of these narrow roads lead out to the coast and a handful of rocky reef and point breaks.

At the west end of the peninsula, down one of these roads is the most famous surf spot in the ‘Naki: Stent Road. I arrived on a Thursday afternoon, driving up to the de facto parking lot where a dozen or so cars were haphazardly arranged on a muddy plateau, facing the water. The surf was over head, ledgy and hollow at the take-off, and peeling quickly down the line in long, steep walls. The break looked like an abbreviated but punchier version of Swamis in Encinitas. I quickly suited up, danced over the shallow rocky bottom and paddled out. Not 30 seconds after reaching the outer peak I was confronted by a beefy Maori local who wanted to put me in my place. “Hey bro, where you goin’? Wait ya turn, son.” I gave him a cocky, but friendly laugh and waited through 2 sets. When the third set rolled through, I deferred the first wave to him and caught the second one. I made the drop, linked some nice turns and kicked out 100m down the line. On the paddle back out, I caught up to the guy and started chatting with him. His tough “locals only” demeanor softened quickly when it was clear that I wasn’t a kook and I respected the locals. We compared wetsuits and boards. Arriving back in the lineup with the enforcer probably placated the rest of the locals and I had no further issues.

I surfed until dark before retreating to the beach. It was my brother Chris’ birthday and I was determined to call him. The 9 hour time difference was accounted for, I just needed to find a cell phone signal. Instead of heading back south where I came from I drove north. 20 minutes later I was in Oakura. It was good to catch up with my brother. We haven’t seen each other in a year and the best case scenario for getting together is Thanksgiving. His ticket is booked for San Diego but my plans are still up in the air. It’s a question of time off from the job I don’t yet have.

After the phone call I was in a really good mood. The local pub across the street was crowded with young surfer types and I decided to treat myself to good meal. A Flintstone’s sized lamb chop, heaping dish of mashed potatoes, a handful of roasted veggies and a pint of beer and I was a happy camper. When dinner was done I stood up and prepared to leave when a warm couple started chatting with me. They asked where I came from, how I got to Oakura and where I was headed. We talked about travel for a few minutes before they offered me their guest house for the evening. I gladly accepted.

Ton (short for Antonius) and Mary Deken are a bright and gracious couple. Social and independent, they playfully push each others’ buttons with one hand while being exceptionally considerate with the other. They are in their 50s, and parents of 3 kids who are in various stages of leaving the nest. Mary often laughed and pointed out the similarities between her oldest son, Simon and myself. Beautiful, stylish and patient—Mary, not me—she was quick to invite me to dinner every night and always insisted that I eat a second helping. Ton is a barrel-chested man with boundless energy. He shared stories of his surf travels, tipped his local knowledge of the breaks and surf conditions and was happy to talk rugby with me while we watched the All Blacks matches on tv. They made it clear that the invitation to stay was indefinite and one night turned to a week before I extricated myself from the guest house. Their horse ranch offered incredible views of the mountain, the hills and the ocean. Every day was a sleepless combination of World Cup matches in the middle of the night, mid-day surf, afternoon internet access at the library and then dinner with Ton, Mary, their daughter Abbey or some of the neighbors. One night they roasted a whole lamb leg for the 3 of us. It easily could have fed 10. I tried to repay their generosity by making chicken fajitas and a fresh pico de gallo another night. Regardless of the meal we always enjoyed a few drinks and some lively conversation. They created such a warm and comfortable environment that by the second night they felt like old familiar friends. On the third night, Mary insisted that I was like family so I should just show up around 6 and expect dinner. The Deken Family join the Pantheon of wonderful families who have always opened their doors to me. Like the Wus, Learneds, Rajcics, Sheas, Craigs, Carlsons, Corvans and McKiels before them, it’s a great feeling to know that there’s always a place at their table for me.

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