Auckland Festival '07 opened in style, if you ask me. The festival is 2 weeks of music, film, art and theater. Smashing. Kim, Chloe and I went with Krystal and Mirko and James and met up with some new friends who went to the Domain (park) early and got a choice (good) bit of lawn for us to occupy. It was a beautiful afternoon - we chilled out w/ a bit if wine/cheese&crackers/sour worms, etc. Don McGlashan, a kiwi folk music dude was the headliner - I had heard one of his songs which I'm not partial to 'stand in the river' which is from this kiwi movie, No.2, which I'm also not partial to- but I really dug the rest of his songs. I look forward to catching one of his gigs later on in the festival. The main event was this pyrotechnics display by this french group, Group F. This was the absolutely most amazing fireworks display I've ever conceived of. It was good.
These last two photos are of the grande finale. There were some serious fireworks going off and at the very end there was a flash that was approximately as bright as the sun. It was oresome (awesome). Otherwise, things are going fine, I'm turning in this big grant on Friday which will cover my salary in my current lab for the next 1.5 years. It's a pretty good grant, they'd be crazy to turn it down. 
