I am writing this account from a 2024 Mercedes 17-seater Sprinter. I am parked at Pinewood Lodge in Queenstown the day before New Year's Eve. An early morning flight equals a lazy afternoon for a family that as been on the go for ten days straight. With my dad's birthday, Christmas, North Island towns and beaches, the past ten days have felt like months. So many conversations - people yearning to catch up with time, the time lost in between that is. I've been staying at my girlfriend's house as a means to find some stillness in the frenzy. It's been working, I've felt some sense in the frenzy. It's been working, I've felt some sense of balance but those kilometres creep in and I felt the height of it last night post work, post three course dinner at the highest point in Auckland, post-packing frantically for a flight five hours away. So here I am, at Pinewood Lodge, As though I blinked and Christmas jumped right over head and past me, and I was now staring down the barrel of 2026. A new year. I just spent the past hour and a half sitting in the passenger seat - listening to some jazz, watching the mountains, the tourists, the teenagers gearing up for a long night, the rental car SUV's trying to park in these compact spaces. I thought about taste. Enhancing my taste in each of the five senses. I wrote my ins and outs list. I wrote about giving it 1000% this coming year. Then I wrote a bucket-list. One of them watching Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown. And now, I'm here. You're all caught up. We'll be doing the luge in a few hours. I'm going to challenge my cousins to a race and I am going to win because I promised. 1000%