Another full day: we drove to Auckland to collect a fridge we bought on TradeMe, I cleaned the rusty grill, and began the rehabiliation of teh house. I hosed off the front wall and windows, digging out spider webs with the brush, and swept as much of the dirt, dust, and leaves out of the garage as I could reach. We have two cars in there (a dead Honda that Dad’s selling on TradeMe, and an Austin that Uncle Zom keeps threatening to fix up).

This domestic labour is new to me: I barely touched our house in the US. I don’t think it felt real to me: a huge palace, bought with the bank’s money, it wasn’t really mine. Jenine did all the work (and, I assume, felt correspondingly invested in it). This house, I don’t know: I feel like I’ll be living in it for a long time, and I don’t want to be living in a crusty dump. I don’t want to dishonour the memory of my grandparents, either, by letting their house turn to crap.

Dad spent most of the day on the boat (the Tiri IV, his trimaran) with William and Dad’s coworker/employee from USA, Jeremy. They caught four or five fish. In Jeremy’s words, “I fished while they slept and got four or five little ones that I had to throw back. William gets up, throws over the line, and within ten minutes he’s caught four keepers.” Jeremy had a great time, though, sailing and fishing on the ocean for the first time.

I spent the trip to Auckland and back bouncing ideas off Jenine and fleshing out my current Great Idea[tm] for a Kiwi Internet business. This one involves food. I think it has potential. Next week I’ll run it past Marc Hedlund, the O’Reilly “entrepreneur in residence” (aka man who has had lots of experience starting and running Internet companies) and get his advice.