Lane's Ramblings

Post Marathon

2009-07-09T10:02:00.000+10:00

Where were we?

Running - I finished my marathon. Was I happy with it? Not really. Did I set my expectations too high? Maybe. But it was necessary. The objective of the race was to attempt to qualify to run in the Boston Marathon, which requires a 3:10:00 time for my age group (that's really fast, btw). And that's the pace that I tried to keep but I just didn't have the legs for it. I did long runs during training but I guess it just wasn't enough.

The weather was perfect in the Gold Coast for the run and the course had virtually no hills. It was your own speed and endurance that would get you to the finish in time. The first half marathon went well and I hit most of my splits and crossed the halfway line at 1:36 (that's my second fastest half-marathon time) but then started to slow down significantly. Around the 30km mark my split times were way too slow and getting worse each km. There was no way I was going to make it. Around that time I was nauseous and my legs were dead as I continued with the slow drag across the finish line. Finish time was 3:38.

As always, it was a learning experience, though at the moment I don't know what capacity I will be running another marathon in. I'm sure I will run one in the future but the 'enjoyment' may be the goal rather than the time. For a few years now I've felt that the half-marathon is my distance and maybe I should accept that that is the case.

Training will slow down in terms of running and change fundamentally for at least a month. This month I'm concentrating on mountain biking, weights, and yoga and I'm actually going to get into the pool with thoughts of starting triathlons in November/December.

This was my fourth marathon: Toronto, Mississauga, Great Ocean Road, Gold Coast.

Bread - My new favorite hobby is baking bread. I've baked bread before but that was about 8 years ago and I never got it right. I've baked 3 batches in the past 3 weeks and I still haven't gotten it right but I'm getting there. I'm not doing the electronic bread maker or even mixing the ingredients in a mixer. Everything is done by hand so that I can appreciate the process rather than the outcome. I love the simplicity and complexity of bread and, despite its ubiquitousness, it can be difficult to make.

I'm learning through "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart. It's a very good book because instead of saying, "mix this with this and cook for this long," he explains the significance and chemistry of each step. He stresses that everything is a guideline and as a bread baker you create the formulas that suit the flavors that you want. He teaches to bake artesan bread, which looks nice as well as tasting good and having innovating ideas.

So far I've made pain a l' ancienne, which is a simple flour, water, salt, yeast recipe with no pre-ferment (a second doughy type mixture added to the main dough) three times. I've learned something new on each one and I'm getting better (though they have all been edible). From shaping, to mixing, to kneading, it all seems to be coming together. The latest batch (3 baguette shaped loaves) came out around 5 last night and though it wasn't as light as I'd like and it was a bit doughy, it was still my best attempt with better shaping and larger loaves.

Today I'm going into the city so I should get moving. Either going to the Day in Pompeii exhibit at the Melbourne Museum or the Salvador Dali exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria. Will let you know how it goes.

Sunday

2009-06-28T22:18:00.002+10:00

Thanks, Mel. I know everything will get there. I think now I need to start pushing harder instead of waiting around. Proof read your thesis? I didn't say that I was having trouble sleeping. Just kidding.

How much fun have we had the last few days? My last post was Thursday and it is now Sunday night so I hope something happened. Friday I went to Ula's father's farm and, yes, I did see a baby cow, which was just under a week old. She was very cute and can run very fast. We took Pepe (the small white fluffy dog) and Grady (the bigger, working dog - he's a kelpie crossed with something that we're not sure about; a kelpie is a herding dog used for sheep and cows) because they love to run around in the fields. We're still unsure about Grady's recall so for most of the day I had him on a 10 meter rope so he couldn't get too far. A lot of times I just let him drag it without me holding it but that's enough for him to think that he can't get anywhere. He did well and came when I called him. He did this well enough that at the end of the day I took him completely off the leash and let him roam around, though not too far away from me. He did well.

One story about when he was still on the 10 meter rope. We were trying to stay away from the cows because Pepe likes to chase them and if she got too close to the calf then the adult cows would have something to say about that so we were just over a hill out of line of sight. We were along the fence and Grady found an opening and very quickly slipped through the barbed wire before I could do anything. Now we were on opposite sides of the fence with me holding onto the rope; not good. I tried to coax him through the opening but he touched the wire and jumped back. I tied the rope short to the post and went to walk the long way around (with Pepe) to get him on the other side. This paddock has been closed off to the cows and the gates are tied shut, which meant that the only way I could get to the other side was by jumping the gate (you can't jump the fence because it's just wire). I tied Pepe up, did a litle one foot on the gate and one on the horizontal pole, which gave me a bit of a flashback to jumping the fence before my last marathon (I have one this coming Sunday) and messing up my leg, and there I was on the other side. I looked up to Grady.. and he was back on the original side! Sigh.

Saturday I finished "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby. I'll have to do a write-up for this one because it was quite good. I still haven't seen the movie. Maybe I'll do that. Right now I'm reading "How Language Works" by David Crystal, which is not what I thought it would be. I'm also going to start Dominion by Matthew Scully tomorrow.

I took Grady to obedience school and he just could not pay attention. All he wanted to do was run around and play. And this week was test week. Lucky for him we're in the beginners' class and everyone passes. Ula and I also took him through the flyball jumps (Pepe does flyball - link) and he did quite well with that, I think (as if I know how well a beginner should do at flyball).

Saturday night some friends had us over for dinner. Nice area, very wooded and hilly - reminded me of Boxford (where I grew up).

Sunday I woke up to run and had a bit of an easy one. I'm having trouble with my knee and I have a marathon this coming weekend and I'm a bit nervous.

I'm rushing through the rest of the weekend. This afternoon I met up with Tori and her friend's kids for an Aussie Rules Football match - the Western Bulldogs vs the North Melbourne Kangaroos. I have nothing invested in either team so I was fine with the Doggies winning. I got to have a few beers, hang out at the stadium; it was fun.

Last thing that I did was make some bread dough. I first started trying to make bread 7 or 8 years ago and never got back into it but here I am. It's something that I really want to be able to do so I hope that I can stick to it and learn a lot. It's not easy at all. I made some last week and it was at least edible. Tonight I made up the dough and will cook it tomorrow night. I'll let you know how it goes.

To Begin Again

2009-06-25T19:26:00.001+10:00

We're going to try blogging again. How do you feel about that?

My problem is that I don't find my life very exciting. I live in the suburbs, I don't have a job, and I pretty much sit around and read, train for an upcoming marathon, and take care of the dogs. I suppose it's more complicated than that but that's how I explain it to people, why I don't call anyone, and why I don't really email anymore. Not to mention but in the employed world everything's fast paced; you have 30 seconds to push out a 3 paragraph email to a friend 10 time zones away. But here, sitting at home, where's the rush? 10 days later you get the "are you still alive?" follow up.

But (as many times before) I feel something coming out. An explosion of want and need to express myself through words. Ok, fine, it's more of a leaking than an explosion but let's get through this anyway.

At the moment I'm drinking scotch (pretty good), going through Nick Hornby's "The Polysyllabic Spree" (read it earlier this year) to see if I should read any of the books that he mentioned, and scrolling through Business Week's 'World's Most Expensive Cities 2009' (so far not shocking or exciting).

I've been doing a lot of sudoku lately (on lovatts.com.au because I like the set up) to try to sharpen my brain a little bit. I'm doing other stuff too, I'm just talking about this at the moment. I've also tried their crosswords but I'm not a big fan - they have too many answers that are plural nouns. Mostly I do the level 2 puzzles but occasionally I do level 1 if I don't have much time (I'm about to start a level 3) and usually finish in under 30 minutes (today was less than 15). When I did one on the train the other day (in the free paper) it was noticeably more difficult even though it was marked as 'novice'. (side note - No 17 on the 'most expensive list is Manhattan; does that count as its own city? Also, I'm surprised at the number of African cities on the list.) In the end I had two 3s in the same block and gave up.

This morning while I was reading ("High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby) I remembered that I had recorded a soccer match from the night before (Confederation Cup - it's being played in South Africa so comes on around 3am here). But Ula's mother was here and I didn't really want to seem as if I sat around reading fiction and watching soccer so I didn't turn it on. A few chapters later I went to the computer to check the news sites and it's plastered everywhere, "The US upsets Spain!" Damn. That's the game I recorded and the US, who was very flat in the first two games and somehow squeaked into the semi-finals (I still don't understand how) when the beat Egypt, just upset the number 1 ranked team in the world who happened to be playing with a 35 game unbeaten streak. Aside - I am not a US national team fan, nor am I jumping on the bandwagon, it's just a coincidence that I was born and raised in the country that the team that I am happy for is representing. I would be just as happy if it were Senegal or India (probably more so). They played well in that game and so did Spain and they had a lot of chances. If they beat Brazil in the final then I'll be happy again. But I'm still picking a different team to back for the World Cup next year.

Tomorrow I'm going to Ula's father's farm to give the dogs a bit of a run around and hopefully see some baby cows - they have 3 cows, 2 are pregnant and due any day. I was there last week and nothing.

This writing took about 10 minutes while being distracted so maybe I can do this regularly.

BTW - finished level 3 sudoku in 17:46. I have to go feed the dogs.

2009-02-01T08:19:00.001+11:00

It is Saturday afternoon. It's sunny but cold. Some of yesterday's goals were met and some were not. I spent 3 hours on job hunting and I updated my LinkedIn page but it also brough a lot more to-dos for the job hunt. I am ready to send a resume to company A but need to write a better cover letter. The same goes for company B but I would also like to do some more research. Company C has quite a bit of information on their website so I will be doing a lot more research on them.

I found a gym in Salem where I signed up for a month for $49. I then got on the treadmill and did: 5min warmup, 1 mile @ 7:30min/mile no incline, 1 mile @ 8:00min/mile 1.5 incline, .5 mile @ 7:30min/mile 3 incline, 5min cool down. Then I did light weights. I'm concerned about the running because although I felt good while running, I feel like I'm fading. Plus, I get really bored on the treadmill.

Sat - Portsmouth Brewery
Sun - early morning run at gym, dinner at grandparents' house, Superbowl at parents' house
Mon - snowboarding at Gunstock, run at night
Tues - Boston. MFA, lunch with friend, possibly the Stewart Gardner Museum

Details:- I've been to the Portsmouth Brewery just once, I think. Tonight I'll be going with the parents, Steve, and Rebecca.
- I'm not going to run today but want to get two days in a row (Sun - Mon). I have emailed my running coach and asked for a program so I should be ok for the rest of the week.
- While snowboarding my goals are to get the rust off, practice goofy foot, and smooth out the turns. I remember my last time at Buller I was not executing my turns very well.
- The MFA is my favorite art museum, mainly because I used to be a member and lived a block away so could go whenever I wanted to. Though I did live in the area, I have never been to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I think this is the time.

Today's accomplishments:
- Read the Eagle Tribune and the Boston Globe
- Went for a walk
- Read ch XVIII and XIX of DQ

Ramping up

2009-01-31T04:03:00.008+11:00

Whew.. it has been a long time. I'm in Haverhill, MA today trying to become more efficient and motivated (this seems to be a recurring theme). But we're getting there. Today I've already read ch XVI and XVII of Don Quixote and the entire Eagle Tribune (local newspaper; takes about 15 mins). I'm putting this up to make some goals for today.

1) Spend 3 hours on job hunting, including finishing pages for LinkedIn and Seek.com and sending resumes to companies A, B, and C.

2) Find a gym in the area that has a pay-as-you-go option. Go to the gym, run 35mins on the treadmill, light weights.

3) Read ch II and III of "A Passage to India".

4) Create schedule for the weekend and early next week.

5) Review goals.

6) Write 30 minutes.

That should be enough for now...

Here are some pictures to keep you going:

The end of the week

2009-01-15T16:45:00.000+11:00

Yesterday - Wednesday - ended up being an off day. I had Kerry's birthday dinner to go to so after work I just went over to her place and we went to Cafe Rosco for a drink while we waited for Ula and Tracey. Dinner was nice at Hotel Max on Commercial Rd with a group about 10 or 12 and we got home around midnight.

Tuesday night it was so hot that I had to sleep downstairs on the couch and I still didn't get much sleep. That coupled with last night and a 7am in the office meeting this morning I'm a bit tired. I'm running with Dave's group tonight around the 'Tan and hopefully I'll get to bed a reasonable hour because I have another 7am tomorrow (which is also my last day of work for a while) and then we're hoping for a big night out.

LTC needs to be finished before I leave for the US. I'll be plowing through that this weekend. DQ can go on hold because I'm bringing it with me - maybe that will help me sleep on the plane.

Pictures of the cricket that I promised ended up on Tori's facebook, which you can get to through mine because I was tagged in them. I'm also working on my goals for the year and for the trip to the US and they will be up here in the next couple of days. Only 3 more days... I'm nervous.

Running, Cricket, Rice

2009-01-13T11:01:00.001+11:00

Sunday was a busy day; I woke up early for the Sri Chinmoy race up in Princes Park. This race organization is worldwide and if anyone is trying to get into running races but may be a bit timid to do so, I recommend these. They're also great for training purposes or to add to your race schedule if you've been running for a while. They're generally small, inexpensive, and they have a pancake breakfast at the finish. This race was 10kms and ran along a path on a 5k loop and had only one 180 degree turn, which you had to do twice. I was aiming to break 43 minutes but came in at 43:45, which is just over 7min/mile. Running may take a backseat once I get to the winter in the States so it's something that I will really need to concentrate on and make sure that I keep it up.

I then mowed the lawn and read some LTC and DQ. In the midafternoon I headed up to the city by train to meet Tori and Tracey at Riverland in Fed Sq, which is a great outdoor bar on the banks of the Yarra River. We had a couple of warmups before we went to the cricket at the MCG for a twenty20 match agains South Africa. It was a crazy match and even though both teams brought in their batters, it was mostly dominated by bowling. The Aussies lost 9 wickets and South Africa went all out - this is unusual for this type of cricket. The Aussies won in the end and it was good, fast-paced (for cricket) match. A lot of fun. I'm trying to get the pictures from Tori to post here.

Status:
LTC - 330
DQ - Finished the first part and have begun the second, which has 74 chapters plus a preface so if I keep with this pace up then I should be done by the end of March but I am hoping to increase the pace during my trip.

Plan for today:
Running group in Aberfeldie in the 100 degree heat.

Congratulations to Jim Rice for making the Baseball Hall of Fame. I followed him when I was a kid but am even more amazed now when I read about what he accomplished. Rice played left field and I remember one game in particular when he was close to the wall in foul territory and a fan took his hat and ran in the other direction. Well, Rice went into the stands after him and got his hat back.

The bike is ready!

2009-01-10T22:21:00.002+11:00

Well, it happened; I got on the bike. I only rode a few k's but the important thing is that i fixed it up and this has been on my to-do list for months. I didn't need to do too much; clean it up, work on the chain a bit, make some adjustments. The front brake is dragging a bit too so I'll need to adjust that.

There really aren't too many places to ride around here. Melbourne's really good for bikers, bike lanes, and bike paths but just coming out of the garage without driving anywhere can be tough out here in Berwick. Not all of the roads accommodate bikes, there are a lot of neighborhood streets that require a lot of slowing down, and the drivers aren't as used to bikers as they are in the city. But I'll find some places and maybe drive up to St Kilda and go along Beach Rd with all the other biking nuts.

Next will be the mountain bike. I'm hoping that this one will be just as easy but I think there may be some other issues as I am prone to fall off of that one and I know that it has a few dents, not to mention a bent brake lever. There's a great mountain bike path system about 5km from here, where they held the Commonwealth Games in 2006 (sort of like an Olympics for the countries that were part of the English Empire and consider themselves part of the Commonwealth).

LTC - now up to page 240.
DQ - read ch XLVIX and L
Greek - read some
Running - ran a short one around the block to stretch out for the race tomorrow. Aiming for 42 minutes on the 10k.

I also made banana bread. This I've done before and it's come out very well but this time not so much. It's fine, it's edible, I'll eat it, Ula says that it's ok, it just doesn't say 'banana bread' to me. We'll try again. But I only have one more week here and I don't think perfecting banana bread is at the top of the list.

Tomorrow, like I said, I have the 10k race up by the zoo in Princes park, I'm going to come home and mow the lawn, maybe take a nap and then I'm heading to the cricket. There are 3 types of cricket and I may have explained this in a previous post but this is the homerun derby of cricket. The bowlers are bowling fast, the batters are hitting hard, and there should be 75,000 fans there so it'll be a good time. I'm going with Tori and Tracey and we're meeting up with some people beforehand at a pub called Riverland. Riverland is where you want to be on a nice afternoon in Melbourne, plus it's right near the MCG, where the match is being played. My concern is that with 75k people, I think a few might have the same idea and the place will be packed. Tori disagrees because we'll get there at 2. Ok, the match starts at 7:30, is 3 hours long, and we'll be drinking there; now we have a 5 hour warm up? 8 hours of drinking on a Sunday afternoon - great way to start the week.

And to Corrigan's comment: I have heard of the place but have never been there. Maybe I'll go with my all of the extra time that I'll have while in the D.

2009-01-09T22:25:00.001+11:00

Today was somewhat productive but most importantly I was able to face what's holding me back from being very productive and that is just that I am in and around the house all the time. I've faced it but I haven't fixed it. This blog is to help me over this hump as well as to organize my thoughts to help me along. Plus it doesn't hurt to have some support.

LTC - got to p210. I'll write some stuff about the book and GGM tomorrow.

DQ - it's 10pm (on a Friday) and I'm about to go read the next chapter.

Greek Mythology - didn't read any.

Yoga - read a few pages. I'm going to write down some poses for when I'm in the US. I have trouble remembering which ones I should do.

Running - Ran 6.5kms today. I have a 10k race on Sunday. I also had a good stretch but one thing that I really need to incorporate into my daily routine is my ankle strength exercises. I've always had bad ankles from soccer injuries and they've been bothering after long trail runs. Now my coach (yes, I have a running coach) is telling me that I can't run on trails until my ankles are stronger so I need to do the exercises.

I booked my flights within the US today. I arrive in Detroit on the 19th of Jan, fly to Boston on the 24th of Jan, Colorado on the 10th of Feb, and back to Boston on the 15th of Feb. I'm not sure when I'm heading back to Melbourne just yet.

Last night I bought tickets to the cricket Twenty20 match - Australia vs South Africa. I'll get some pics for the blog.

I had lunch with Ula and a friend of hers from work - they're both working this week. We were going to go to a Vietnamese place but it was closed so we went to a cafe instead. Generally the cafes in Melbourne all have the same boring veggie focaccia sandwich but this place had a couple of different ones and I got a Mediterranian wrap that was pretty good.

After lunch I went to the Wilson Botanic Garden in Berwick, which is nice; they have a lot of older trees and it's well laid out.

Tomorrow:
Tomorrow I will be riding my bike. Probably my road bike. Why is this a big goal? Because I haven't ridden either of my bikes in months and they're both sitting in pieces in the garage. I don't even have all of the necessary tools to fix them - most of my tools are still in the States. This is a better goal than saying that I will work on my bike tomorrow. No, I will ride my bike tomorrow; if only for 5 minutes.

Reading

2009-01-09T11:36:00.004+11:00

I finished up yesterday by reading chapter XLVIII in book 1 of 'Don Quixote'. I was supposed to run but I didn't with the rationale that my legs were tired from some hard runs earlier in the week even though I promised myself that I wouldn't deviate from my program. I did walk to the shops to buy some groceries; though that was only 3kms all up. I then read Tom Friedman's column from the New York Times. Lastly, I read from 'Greek Mythology and Religion' before I went to sleep.

Today we'll talk about reading:My sixth grade math teacher once advised us to read everything we could, even cereal boxes and I took that to heart. I had always been curious and read quite a bit but this gave me a quest though not a reason. That reason became apparent later when I became aware that one had to build a foundation to their lives, their knowledge, and their character. You never stop growing, you never hit a pinnacle in your life. To me that would mean that you're finished.

In ninth grade we filled out a survey, which included a question asking how many books you read in a year: A) 1-3 B) 4-6 C) 7-9 D) 10+. Even though I really didn't read the books that were assigned to me in school, I was surprised to find that I fit into the '10+' category, which I was secretly proud of.

I'll read just about anything and if it's on my shelf then I'll force myself to read it. I'm also a bibliophile, which means that I want every single book that I can get my hands on and I don't want to get rid of any of them (much to the annoyance of my mother and now Ula - who will soon learn just how many books I own when I ship them to Australia some time this year). I have fiction, history, religion, philosophy, sports, biobraphies, cooking, garending, language, college text books, math, science, essays, poetry, etc, etc, etc. It doesn't stop. Now I'm not going to pretend that I can remember all if any of the content of the books that I've read but I would describe it as a quest that has no end, though I certainly hope that it has its benefits. I do believe that I am growing from the experience. I at least enjoy it.

Like I said yesterday, the books that I am currently reading are 'Don Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes, 'Love in the Time of Cholera' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 'Greek Mythology and Religion', and I am reading/studying 'The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga' by Swami Vishnu-devananda, which has more words than the title suggests.

I consider the internet the second most important invention in history, next to the printing press. Without the distribution of knowledge we wouldn't have the exponential increase in technology that we have now. Yes, there are downsides to this as well and we don't seem to be improving in other facets of life but I'm getting ahead of myself. The point that I started was that the internet now allows us to receive our news immediately from anywhere in the world (as well as watch major league baseball in places such as Australia) and over time I've created a list (neatly orgainzed in my 'favorites' tab of Internet Explorer) of websites that I get a majority of my information from.

News Sites:
BBC NewsBoston.com - from the
Boston Globe, lately I've been using it just to get a quick headline read, see what's happening with the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, and to see if it snowed last night.
CNN - where I get a majority of my up-to-date information.
Detroit News - just to see what's happening in the D.
The Associated Press - where everybody gets their information from.
Herald Sun - Aussie new.
CNN Political Ticker - one of CNN's better features.
El Mundo - I hate to think that we get all of our information from our culture and our news media. This Spanish news site gives me a perspective different from ours but I do need to work on my Spanish.
Business Week - this engineer is trying to figure out business and finance. Those people are crazy.
Financial Times - more information from Europe.
The Wall Street Journal
CNN.co.jp - when I finally learn how to read Japanese this will come in handy.
The New York Times - mostly for its opinion section.
The Washington Post
Yomiuri Online - also waiting for me to learn Japanese.
The Age - Aussie news.
Fox News - There's no doubt that the media is slanted and no matter how much the liberals disagree, it's obvious that it's slanted to the liberal mind. If you keep reading one side over and over again then eventually you're going to believe it. I hope that Fox's right wing stance will keep me objective.
The Boston Herald
Times (of London)
Asharq Alawsat Newspaper - a Saudi website in English that I haven't gotten into much yet.
The Times of India - to gain a perspective from a very important country in the world.

Research Sites:
Dictionary.com - used as a second opinion to the next entry.
Merriam-Webster Online - my choice for word definition.
Wikipedia - used quite a bit but with caution.
Google - I'm starting to question their validity.
CIA-World Factbook - the best source of international statistics.
The library grows...

Columnists that I read:
Maureen Dowd - NYT
Frank Rich - NYT
Thomas Friedman - NYT
Jeff Jacoby - Boston Globe
And there are others that I read occasionally and this list should grow as well.

Newspapers - to get off the internet for a bit:
Local Berwick papers
The Herald Sun
The Australian
The Age

Any suggestions are very welcome.

And that's enough for today. I'll recap today's work later tonight.

Let's start...

2009-01-08T15:57:00.001+11:00

We all wish that we had more time to do the things that we enjoy doing or to do the things that we've always wanted to do: read the books in the 'to read' pile, spend more time outside, redefine ourselves and our careers to make us happier. I've had that time this week as the company that I work for is back from the holidays but where I am based is not, which leaves me at home replying to the scant emails that I receive over night and then the rest of the time is for myself. I had promised that I would work through projects and read books that I have been meaning to and I have been doing just that. But as I move closer to inevitable unemployment and while thumbing through a Nick Hornby book ('The Polysyllabic Spree' from his column where he tells the story about the books he buys and reads during a month) that Kelly recommended to me and that Amazon delivered to me this morning, I thought I'd involve everyone else in this quest to build a new and better me.

I have always made lists of projects that I'd like to do and even current hobbies that I have just so I don't forget what it is that I enjoy doing. I have one Excel file called 'CURRENT', referring to what I am currently working on and one called 'Life', which lists my interests and goals. First we'll run through life goals and then we'll get to specifics.

I'm going to work through my daily life and you can help me out, keep me motivated, tell me I have too much time on my hands, whatever.

Life Goals (general - what most people want; not in any particular order):
Career - have a pretty good career as a mechanical engineer but will need to clean it up. I'll be unemployed very soon so this is a big focus at the moment.
Mate - done; her name is Ula, no need to do anything there.
Where to live - at least for the next few years I'll be in Melbourne VIC Australia; I'm currently applying for permanent residency so that will be included in the quest as well.
Travel - I've travelled a bit so far but, like books, there's always more.

That's a place to start for today. Let me quickly go through what I did today:
1) I'm currently reading 'Life in the Time of Cholera' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I am on a schedule that requires me to read 30 pages per day so that I can finish it by the time I fly to the states on the 19th of January. I got up to p180 today.
2) I'm also reading 'Don Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes (coincidentally, both of these books were translated by Edith Grossman) and since this one is a bear for me, I read one chapter a day. I haven't read that yet today but I will.
3) The third book that I'm reading is 'Greek Mythology and Religion', which Ula got me when she was in Greece. It has a lot of pictures and I mainly read it at night.
4) I tried to play catch with Pepe (the dog) but she wasn't feeling up to it. Maybe this afternoon.
5) Cooking - I made Japanese curry for lunch. I've made this many times before so there's not much to learn with this.
6) Job search - I'll have to let you know. It's been very frustrating because the economy's bad and not all companies are back from the holidays yet.
7) Permanent residency - I checked my online status again today and they still haven't received my medical check yet. I'm waiting a couple of days before I call.

I'll start on the lists tomorrow and we'll see how I can incorporate them in my daily routine.

After Thoughts

2008-11-21T15:32:00.000+11:00

I had some other points for and against the Coco trade.

Against - With slack Manny in LF and "I'm made of glass" Drew in right, it was nice to be able to have a defensive outfield where you had 2 people out there (Crisp and Ellsbury) that could really run the ball down. Even if it is in a relatively small yard.

For - I had a thought that maybe this was holding Ellsbury back. The inconsistencies of playing different positions, not playing every day, and moving up and down in the line-up. Maybe we just need to pick up a utility outfielder not as good as Kapler but not as bad as Wily Mo (ahh, Wily Mo.. the memories) to fill in whenever Drew hurts his back or the opposing team realizes that all you have to do is pitch Ellsbury inside. Oops.. maybe I shouldn't have let that little secret out of the bag.

How could I forget?

2008-11-20T08:17:00.002+11:00

Pedroia wins the MVP!

That leaves me a bit speechless. And he also gets the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger on the side. Somebody throw that man some money.

And Youk getting 3rd in the MVP voting.

These two need to stay around for a LONG time.

Ok, ok

2008-11-20T07:42:00.002+11:00

Wow, it's been a month since my last post? I was going to post something when Bonnie first commented but never got around to it. So, now that Hober's reminded me of it, let's go even though he never answered my questions on his blog.

Coco Crisp - I'm fine with it. I like Coco, I think he plays really hard, doesn't cause any problems and is a solid player. I'd give him a 6.5 to 7 because his defence is great but he's hard to watch at the plate. But I'd also give Ellsbury a 6.5 to 7 and having rotating centerfielders with the same ability level is just irritating. One of them had to go and for over a year we all knew that it was going to be Coco. But I don't think Ellsbury is anything special, although you could always run into the Jeff Bagwell, Hanley Ramirez, and to some extent Carlos Pena problem of sending someone away and their career explodes from there. You can't use that with Manny because he's always been good.

I think the Sox need to focus on a core group of guys and make them Nixon/Tek-like franchise players. Get back to the Dirt Dogs. Pedroia, Youk, DO, Papelbon, Lester, Beckett, Dice-K. Then give Masterson, Delcarman, and Lowrie a chance to see what they can do (I'm not sure Lowrie can handle SS on a regular basis). Pay as much money as necessary to drop Lugo. Let Wake and Timlin leave on their own terms. See if you can jolt some life into Okajima. Buchholz has some nasty stuff... I say develop him in the beginning of the season and trade him in July. Bay and Drew - big hitters, consistent in the outfield (though I get nervous whenever the ball is hit into right field), i guess we can keep them. Lowell has one more good year in him and a couple of ok years. And of course there's Tek. What to do about Tek... He can't possibly make a huge salary somewhere else can he? I just can't justify paying that money. Call the game from the dugout and put Cash in there.

I miss Manny. And Pedro.

For me, I'll be back in the States in January when my assignment ends and my company pulls me back. I haven't really done anything exciting. I went up to Shepparton, Victoria to participate in a half-ironman this past weekend. A lot of people from my triathlon group (I don't do the tris, I just run) did the full thing, which is 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13 mile run. I just did the run in the team event and we did ok. My time wasn't great (1:41) but I'll be ok.

That's all for now.

Game 5

2008-10-18T01:31:00.000+11:00

Coco Crisp - the best AB of his career? Does it for me.

$133 Million

2008-10-17T11:17:00.002+11:00

The Red Sox have a very high payroll (4th in the MBL at the start of the season) and are constantly accussed of buying their championship teams ('04, '07). But if you look at the 25 man ALCS roster for this year's AL wild card and ALDS winner you'll see that it's a homegrown team and not one made up of bought superstars.

Players brought up from the Red Sox farm system (8 players, all position players are starters and all pitchers get significant playing time):
Manny Delcarmen, P, Drafted by the Sox in 2000, Actually from Boston
Jacoby Ellsbury, OF, Drafted by the Sox in 2005
Jon Lester, P, Drafted by the Sox in 2002
Jed Lowrie, SS, Drafted by the Sox in 2005
Justin Masterson, P, Drafted by the Sox in 2006
Jonathan Papelbon, P, Drafted by the sox in 2005
Dustin Pedroia, 2B, Drafted by the Sox in 2004
Kevin Youkilis, 3B, Drafted by the Sox in 2001

Players that have never played for another MLB team (1 player, Captain and starting catcher):
Jason Varitek, C, Drafted by Seattle but traded to the Sox and has been playing full time since 1998 (11 seasons)

Players that have played for the Sox for 5 or more seasons (3 players, 2 starters):
David Ortiz, DH, Has played for the Sox since 2003 (6 seasons)
Mike Timlin, P, Has played for the Sox since 2003 (6 seasons)
Tim Wakefield, P, Has played for the Sox since 1995 (14 seasons)

Everyone else (13 players, 5 starters):
Jason Bay, OF, Picked up by the Sox in July of 2008
Josh Beckett, P, Has played for Sox since 2006
Paul Byrd, P, Picked up by the Sox in August of 2008
Sean Casey, 1B, Has played for Sox since 2008
Kevin Cash, C, Has played for Sox since 2007
Alex Cora, SS, Has played for Sox since 2005
Coco Crisp, OF, Has played for Sox since 2006
J.D. Drew, OF, Has played for Sox since 2007
Mark Kotsay, OF, 1B, Picked up by the Sox in August of 2008
Javier Lopez, P, Has played for Sox since 2006
Daisuke Matsuzaka, P, Has played for Sox since 2007
Hideki Okajima, P, Has played for Sox since 2007
David Ross, C, Picked up by the Sox in August of 2008

Off the ALCS roster but significant:
Mike Lowell, 3B, Has played for Sox since 2006

Conclusion: the Red Sox are expensive but ARE NOT a bought team.

Game 1

2008-10-02T20:47:00.001+10:00

Lester.

Wow.

Just... wow.

2008-09-25T22:08:00.002+10:00

Saturday Morning

2008-09-20T08:52:00.002+10:00

Answer to Hober's comments:

First off - why do I get the feeling that Hober just posted a comment to plug his own blog? But looking at it, why is the post from July? Did you start it way back then? Didn't you go to Hawaii or something? Where are those pictures?
The previous post alludes to the news that DFW - David Foster Wallace - who I have become a big fan of killed himself last week. So it was more shock than surprise. The book, Infinite Jest, I read earlier this year (after being in the 'to read' pile for 10 years) is his best known novel. And you need 2-3 months of constant reading because that thing is a beast. Not just because of the page count but it's dense, the paragraphs (and sometimes the sentences) can run on for pages and you're constantly checking the footnotes in the back. But it's well worth it.

Not much of an update for this week, I think it's just been full of meetings at weird times - 10pm, 6am, that sort of thing. I did get a lot of reading done this week in the news web pages and a couple of books but that kind of tailed off towards the end of the week. Right now I'm taking a break from cleaning my apartment and then I think I'm going to the mall to buy some new clothes - all sorts of excitement.

In Aussie football Geelong beat the Bulldogs last night, though it was a really good game and tonight the Saints (my team) are playing the Hawks for a trip to the Grand Final (their Superbowl) next week. And best of all, Ula is coming home today after being in Greece since August 22. She lands at 0030 on Sunday.

And what is going on with the Sox playing TB? Come on. You're killing me.

...

2008-09-14T19:08:00.002+10:00

I am speechless and expressionless in regards to the news of DFW. Please, buy a copy of Infinite Jest, take 2-3 months off of work, and read it. Change will most likely reach you incrementally rather than profoundly and may just come from reading a book.

Lazy Saturday

2008-09-13T16:16:00.003+10:00

First we'll answer comments:

Bon - I will pass on the 'congrats' to Big Steve. I saw your pictures on your blog - they look really good.

Mel - I know he was looking for the sandwich because that's a Colourful Cheese Sandwich Bird and it just so happens that I had a cheese sandwich, which is their second favorite food (their favorite being chocolate chip cookies but there's already a bird named that). You might be able to swing a trip to Holden with what you do. Let me know if you want me to look into it. And look at that, I even put a link to your blog on mine.. you're welcome.

This weekend:
It's warm today, around 75, so I didn't do much except laze around town and take a walk down by the beach where there were tons of people and some even trying to get an early jump on their tans. Don't worry, I was sitting quietly on the bench. Tori and I were going to go to the snow to do some snowboarding but it was too warm, it hasn't snowed since Sept 2, and I'm sure the snow was going to be crap. Tonight a few of us are heading up to James Squire in the city to watch the St Kilda v Collingwood match. Tomorrow may be more of today but hopefully getting a bit more done.

Updates:

I finished "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace. It's a collection of some very unrelated essays that he wrote 10 years ago. I do recommend it but be careful because I'm sure a good number of people would not finish it.
I just started "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman (his 2005 book, not the one that was just released).
I can't believe the Red Sox blew two games in a row against Tampa Bay. Unbelievable. I also cannot understand why I still like Timlin so much... see? even right now I feel bad for saying something bad about him.
6 games ppd today due to weather? That's got to be some sort of record.
28 days until the half marathon. I have a 2hr 20min run tomorrow and a recovery week next week. Nice.
Ula will be back in about a week.. Now I'm starting to go crazy.

It's Spring

2008-09-06T16:43:00.003+10:00

It does feel like it's spring out there today. I wanted to go for a hike, possibly using the snowshoes, but the closest snow is about 2.5 hours away. So instead I went for a quick - couple of hours - hike in the Dandenongs, which worked out better because I was a bit tired today.

Here's a picture of someone that was very interested in my sandwich:

Other stuff that's going on:

Watching the Red Sox - today the Sox beat the Rangers and the Rays lost to the Jays. 2.5 games back. Go Sox.
Watching the playoffs for Aussie football - the Saints, my team, play Geelong, the best team in the business, on Sunday. Go the Saints! Right now I'm watching Collingwood, Ula's team, clean up Adelaide, though it's a close and good game. Am I allowed to cheer for Collingwood? I think most people would say 'no'.
Training for the Melbourne half-marathon, which is October 12. I have a running club, a coach, and I'm on track so I should do alright. I'm not expecting to get my PR but I should do alright.
Ula's been in Greece for 2 weeks now and will be there for another 2 so I'm on my own here. I'm doing alright.

News:

My brother, Steve, got engaged not too long ago to his girlfriend, Rebecca. This is all very cool. They should say the 'I do's in about a year.
I never know when you're allowed to say that someone's pregnant. I was told and there was no disclaimer. But just to be safe - congratulations to the unnamed cousin.

??

2008-09-02T13:14:00.002+10:00

Tampa Bay is playing the Yankees this week. I really have no idea who I want to win. Really, what do you do in this situation? I kind of wish these games just wouldn't happen.

Somebody think of something for me to do this weekend. I tried to get a bit of surfing and hiking in this past weekend but waves and rain kept it to mostly a driving semi-adventure. Brought the camera but there was no need for pictures.

Congratulations, btw, to Steve and Rebecca for getting engaged not too long ago. Very exciting.

2008-08-24T19:31:00.002+10:00

Hey!

I have pictures from my trip to the States/Mexico/Canada (yes, I got back a month ago):

http://www2.snapfish.com/share/p=41261218088276052/l=408633072/g=85181364/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

I bought the DVDs for the Red Sox 2007 World Series the other day and watched game 5 of the ALCS against the Indians. Is it bad that not only am I yelling at the players for how they're playing but I'm yelling at the Cleveland fans because A) they're waving those stupid towels and B) they were cheering very loudly and I knew they were going to lose so I thought it was unnecessary?

Thoughts from the game: How could CC win the Cy? More innings my ass.

Boarding in Australia is awesome this year.

Follow up

2008-06-13T14:43:00.006+10:00

Comments from Hober:

"Nice pics, but where's Tower Hill? And what's the bird in the last pic? Do we get some words and sarcastic comments to go with these pics?"

Answers (randomly):

No words because I really didn't expect anyone to check out the blog since it hasn't moved in 6 months. Tower Hill is a national park on the west side of Victoria. Ula and I went out that way to hunt some whales - look at them, anyway - and stopped at Tower Hill on Sunday. Unfortunately, we didn't see any whales but we did see these animals. The koala is only the second (live) one that I've seen in the wild since moving here. The kangaroo came over to say 'hi', had a look, and bounded away again.

The bird? Dude, it's an emu. The third largest bird in the world after...

The ostrich (#2)

And Big Bird (#1 - The Big Daddy)

Tower Hill

2008-06-10T16:27:00.003+10:00

Arthur's Pass - Dec 26-28

2008-01-22T22:05:00.000+11:00

The train to Arthur's Pass was nice, it was a smooth ride up through the mountains despite the storm and that I was in a car with a tour group. It was nice to look out the window down into the valley of a turquoise river winding it's way through the mountains down towards Christchurch. They had a food car but those around me said that it was not worth the trip and the people that went to the outdoor viewing car came back soaked with rain and cold. I just sat where I was.

We pulled into Arthur's Pass, a town of 54 people in the middle of the Southern Alps (Ka Tiritiri o te Moana), and I unloaded my pack from the train with hopes of doing some hiking in the area. I wanted to do Avalanche Peak, though I didn't know if I would hike today because of the weather. The hike up Avalanche Peak was billed as a 6-8 hour yet very steep ascent above treeline into a potentially dangerous alpine zone but not high enough that mountaineering equipment was needed. They generally overstate the time that's actually required and this was only 7km return so I was confident that I could do it in an afternoon. My first stop was the DOC (Department of Conservation) to check the forecast and it was not encouraging. The afternoon was rain, fog, and wind. But the next morning was going to be fine but changing to a storm with "severe gale" in the afternoon... I'll have to wake up early.

The next task was to set up camp. There was a public shelter across the road where you could set up a tent or camper van next to the shelter for only $5 a night but you couldn't actually sleep in the shelter, which was fine with me because I had a tent and it smelled like someone fried some calamari inside the shelter. I still had the entire afternoon to explore the town - which didn't take very long at all - and the surrounding area. The town, of course, was very small but it provided for a lot of tourists as they made their way from Christchurch to the west coast of the island. There were two restaurants, one store, and the DOC.

I hiked some of the shorter tracks in the area that led to some of the many waterfalls that came down from the mountains. I spent some time in the cafe watching the cricket (New Zealand vs Bangladesh) and discovering that the beer in New Zealand is ssssooooo much better than the beer in Australia - it reminded me of the Canada/US beer enigma where Canada won't let their good beer across the boarder. I also got a lot of reading done in the cafe and the public shelter. I had to spend a lot of time in the public shelter, which was cold and uncomfortable, because it was raining pretty hard and I didn't want the people that worked in the cafe to think that I was a drunk since I wasn't going to eat there, which leaves me with drinking as my only option. Even while I was inside and even though it was summer I was wearing two pairs of pants, 3 to 4 layers, a tuque (that's Canadian, not Australian), and sometimes gloves.

Finally, I was able to head to bed and I would like to take this moment to say that A) my tent is absolutely awesome at keeping the rain out, even my pack that sat on the ground in the vestibule was dry and B) my sleeping bag kicks ass.

I was trying to catch the morning's 'fine' weather so I set my watch alarm for 5:30am but woke up around 7am instead - I found out later that the beeping function on my watch doesn't work anymore. But no matter, I left all of my gear except what I needed and could fit in my daypack, and went to the DOC to sign the little form saying that I was heading up Avalanche Peak and if they don't hear from me by tomorrow to please come look for me. It was cold so I was wearing quite a few layers but the trail was very steep and I quickly got pretty hot but didn't want to lose any of them because there was a little bit of a wind. I passed one guy - he was probably 55 - who was on his way down because the steepness of the trail was just too much for him. I pressed on.

Soon I was above treeline and making my way along steep drop-offs formed by rock slides. The mountain didn't seem like it was doing a very good job of holding itself together. The trail was well marked but at one point I did lose it and where it looked like it was marked with cairns (it wasn't, it was just very rocky), the fog seemed to be so thick that it would be impossible to reach the top. Plus, the rocks that appeared to be the trail were too lose to stay under my feet and I was sure that I was going to head down the mountain along with a couple tons of small rocks. But luckily as I backtracked a little I found where the trail made a sharp turn to the right.

The next obstacle was a snowfield, which I was not very happy about. I did get a picture of it but in the picture it doesn't look as steep as it really was and the trail crossed it perpendicular to the way that it would go if it decided not to hold onto the mountain anymore. It was summer, not warm, but certainly the warm weather and rain made this large patch of snow unstable but I was able to make it across - thinking about it now, I probably should have found a way around.

As I made my way to just under the peak I ran into another hiker on his way down. He told me that visibility was limited but the clouds did break away for him for a few minutes and the view was the most amazing thing that he has ever seen so if it is cloudy I should wait to see if it clears. The trail to the top was very narrow and had large drops on each side and the rock did not hold together well. It took some talking to myself to make my way over the small ridges to what is considered the true peak. The view was amazing even without the unimpeded view. I waited for about twenty minutes crouched just under the rocky top to shelter myself from the wind but the clouds never cleared and it looked like even more and darker clouds were coming in. I had to head down.

On my way down I met some more kea. This is my third time running into these incredibly irritating birds. They are a very nice looking alpine parrot that lives only on the South Island of New Zealand but they act like 5 year old children. They are not afraid of people and they love to take things apart. During a break in the rain around camp I was trying to read but they would jump up on the table that I was sitting at, knock over my water bottle, and bite at my books. Then they tried to break into the tent next to mine by pulling on the guy lines and playing with the zipper. When that didn't work one jumped on the rain fly and poked his beak through. I can't imagine having a hole in my tent fly in that weather. I kept chasing them away but they would always go back and try to make the hole bigger. Finally I threw something at the one making the hole but missed on purpose and he just kind of looked at me and then went right back to what he was doing. I picked up a bigger stick, threw it at him, and this time hit him. He fell off the tent and landed with a whimper that sounded like a small dog and then he walked off and left the tents alone.

Soon after trying to get the kea to hike down with me I saw that the guy that I had passed near the peak was not too far in front of me. How could he still be so close if I passed him on my way up and then spent over twenty minutes on the top? The last thing I wanted to do was pick up a hiking partner - unless it was a kea - and have someone that I had to talk to all the way down. I slowed down. But he was moving so slowly that I couldn't take it so I decided that I would pass him quickly enough that he wouldn't want to hike with me. "Hello!" I said as I bounded down the trail. "Hi. I think going down is harder than going up. My legs are so tired." "Yeah, it's a bitch. Can I just slip by?" as a practically ran and skipped past him. I yelled back, "Have a nice hike," as I rounded the corner. Ok, I did talk to him a bit longer than that - one of the reasons that I enjoy hiking so much is because fellow hikers are so friendly - but I also made it obvious that I wasn't going to wait around for him.

I reached the road in Arthur's Pass - yes the road - at 11:30; that only took me 4 hours. I walked into the DOC and handed my return slip to the girl behind the counter. "Where are you coming from?" "Avalanche Peak." "Today!?!" she asked very surprised. "Yes," I replied very proud of myself and I walked out the door.

Now what? It's noon, it's raining, and I'm in Arthur's Pass. The orignal plan had me hiking a 2-3 day in the area but losing a day in Christchurch put a damper on that plan and the weather was putting a damper on hanging around Arthur's Pass so I had to make a decision. I needed to book a bus trip to Franz-Josef Glacier and I could either make a booking for Friday (it was now Thursday) or Saturday and hope that the weather clears and have another go at Avalanche Peak. I walked towards the payphone thinking that I would need to decide right then and when I was just 20 feet away the rain came down just a little harder, a gust of wind blew through the town, and I heard myself say, "I'm getting out of here." Five minutes later I had a bus ticket to the West Coast for Friday.

The rest of the afternoon was the same as the one before - more beer and cricket at the cafe (still NZ vs Bangladesh), reading in the public shelter, and coffee at the store (why didn't I get coffee at the cafe? I don't know, I was drinking beer there and they had coffee at the store). There was still the second restaurant that I hadn't tried yet so I walked up there. It was big but I was the only one there. "Are you open?" I asked the guy behind the bar but he just kind of looked at me and continued to clean the beer glasses with a towel. "Are you open?" He nodded. I looked at the variety of beer taps along the bar and said, "Could I have a pint of Mac's Golden?" He looked confused then opened the door to the refigerator behind the bar, motioned to the bottles of beer, and said in a very strong German accent, "which one do you want?" Great. "Mac's Golden." I was going to give up on the pint and just take the bottle to relieve myself of the aggravation. He pointed to one bottle but wasn't even close to the one that I asked for so I amused myself by saying very vaguely, "No, the one over more," until he pointed to about three different bottles and finally I said I would take that one - still not the one that I originally asked for. Then he put the bottle on the bar in front of me without opening it - ok, he's over here on a summer working holiday and this may be his first or second day but he's never been in a pub where they open a bottle for you?

And I spent the rest of the night as I did many in New Zealand, sitting around, waiting, and reading but it was nice. This night it rained a lot harder than the night before and as much as I liked this little town and would love to come back I was happy to be leaving the next day.

The next morning I had a coffee and laid all of my wet gear out inside the public shelter to let it dry as much as possible. When it was getting close to the time for the bus to pick me up I packed up my stuff and headed to the store where the bus was to pick me up but I could see it parked up the street a little bit. I walked up there and everyone was standing around the bus so I asked where the driver was and they said that she would be back. Ten minutes later she showed up and saw that I was the new guy and said that she was looking for me all over town - in the backpackers', in the store, in the cafe - but all along I was standing next to the bus. On the phone for the booking the day before the woman that I talked to was very clear that I would not have a ticket, the fare would be 35 dollars and I would pay the driver. This woman asked me if I had a ticket, I said 'no' and asked what that meant (she was nicer than the one on the phone), to which she replied that it was 5 dollars more. Oh, I don't care about that, how much is it? She'll have to check... 25 dollars. I can handle that. Load up...

...and I'm on my way to the West Coast and Franz-Josef Glacier.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=s8e95zp.60adi8j5&Uy=-rdc2n1&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=859159022208_112121652209

Christchurch - Dec 24-26

2008-01-13T13:30:00.000+11:00

When you're traveling to the South Island of New Zealand, Christchurch is an obvious starting point because this is where you'll most likely fly into. And, for me, even though this was a trip to get away from the city, I figured I could stand to see the town for a day or two. I booked a hotel for the first night (Dec 24) just north of the CBD and I also had one booked in Christchurch for the last night of the trip (Jan 5) so that I could easily get to my flight on the 6th. The days in between these two were a free for all.

I didn't have any problems getting on my flight even with waking up at 4:45am to get to the airport by tram and bus. I even got through customs in New Zealand with my hiking boots and tent without any issues - they did take them into the other room to clean them up for me, which was nice of them. A shared shuttle to my hotel for just 20 dollars (I later learned that there are much cheaper ways to get to the city) and I was checking into my aparment style hotel room. This is easy.

But it's Christmas Eve afternoon and I have some business to take care of before I can catch my train to Arthur's Pass tomorrow morning at 8. I need food for camping and some gas for my stove (obviously I couldn't take this on the plane). One problem is that I have a European stove that was bought in the States and I'm not sure if they carry that brand - but one question at the second outdoors store puts a gas container in my hand and there's a grocery store down the street where I geared up with dried fruit, real fruit, bread, cheese, some instant rice and I was on my way. Now I can start having a look around Christchurch.

I quickly realized that there's not much to do around Christchurch. It has some great parks - especially along the river - and some good restaurants and cafes but it's a very quiet town and at first I wasn't very impressed with it. The river was intersting; very slow, only 20-30 feet across but seemed that 3ft was as deep as it got. The river was lined with weeping willows (my favorite tree) and grass where you can sit and read or have a picnic and you can even go for a gondola ride.

After wandering the town and dinner at a vegetarian restaurant on Colombo St I made my way back to the hotel and watched a movie or two until it was pretty late and I wanted to get some sleep. But then around midnight they had a show on the Flight of the Conchords; a singing comedy group from New Zealand, which I originally heard of through Kelly. I hear they have a new show on HBO and they are hilarious - highly recommended. But I forced myself to shut it off and went to sleep.

The next day (Dec 25) I packed up my gear and walked the 5km to the train station. I was only using buses, trains, and walking for this trip, I wasn't going to rent a car, and even though I thought the train would be a nice way to get to my next destination, Arthur's Pass, it was 75 dollars more. Ouch. But while trying to purchase my bus ticket online while still in Australia I was told (by the website's lack of having a Dec 25 ticket) that the bus didn't run on Christmas. But I really wanted to get to AP as soon as possible so I looked into the train, which let me buy a ticket for Dec 25. The train was leaving around 8 and I got there about 15 minutes early but as I was walking up the station looked awfully quiet. And the parking lot was practically empty. And the doors were blocked by carts. Hmmm. I walked onto the platform and thought that they'll really have to move to get this place open and everyone checked in for the train. But I started to have the feeling that I wasn't going to make it to Arthur's Pass today. I took out my ticket and in about 4 pt font I was informed that my ticket was for Dec 26. Merry Christmas. Now, I know for a fact that I put in Dec 25th but it must have just given me the next day (I probably glanced over the confirmation page).

I wasn't upset but a little disappointed that I had to spend another day in Christchurch. Also a little concerned that I wouldn't be able to find a place to stay since it was Christmas. It was still a little early to start going door to door so I was going to scope out an area close to the station for a hotel and then hang out in the park. On my way I had some people when they saw me walking down the street with my huge backpack come out of their house wave and say, "Merry Christmas." I passed a few hotels with 'vacancy' signs and headed to the park to read for a couple of hours. The first place had plenty of rooms and they gave me the biggest room that they had for just $90. I'll take that. But can I find anything to do in town if it's Christmas?

I spent a lot of the day reading in the botanic garden. A lot of kiwis were there for a Christmas picnic or a walk or a bike ride. Botanic gardens are very popular in cities on this side of the world and I would rank Christchurch's as one of the best. It's not as big as Sydney's or varied as Melbourne's but the trees that they had were enough to keep me there for hours.

Eating on Christmas was next to impossible; every place that was open seemed to have a limited menu, which didn't include their normal vegetarian options. I grabbed some fries and a drink at a cart in Cathedral Sq and hoped for something else a little later. I found a Chinese restaurant by my hotel that gave me a huge serving of fried rice and 12 springrolls (12!) for just $9 and that was going to do me for the night as well as breakfast the next day. Another night of movies on tv put me to sleep and ready to head to Arthur's Pass the next day.

I woke up to the worst sound possible - rain. I was hoping that I could do some hiking today once I got to Arthur's Pass, especially since I was already a day behind, but this was not going to make that very easy. I had arranged for a shuttle to pick me up (free) and bring me to the train station in the morning, I checked in and was assigned a seat. I dropped my pack onto the luggage car and went to find my seat.. which was occupied by an old woman who was part of a tour. I told her my problem (that being that she was in my seat) and said that I would gladly switch seats with her but she had no idea where she was supposed to sit. After talking to the tourguide I was put in a seat with an older couple and their granddaughter from the UK. We talked for a little bit but they mostly just let me sit and read, which was all I wanted to do anyway.

Christchurch photos:

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The next stop will be Arthur's Pass...

New Zealand

2008-01-08T22:15:00.001+11:00

My most recent traveling adventure was a little 2-week holiday to New Zealand's South Island over the December break. I was looking for some hiking mostly and then just wanted to see what I could discover from there. I didn't have a very well laid out plan; I knew that I wanted to hike, and because it's me, I was looking to do some tough ones. The logistics of the trip were what was going to be an issue - I was traveling by bus and so needed to follow where they went. I had an itinerary when I left Melbourne but that was quickly thrown out the window and just a sketch of what I had remained and that's all that I needed. The trip was better than I could have been expected even though I didn't do all of the difficult hikes that I thought I would like to do.

New Zealand's two main islands

If I went back to New Zealand (which I fully intend to do) would I change my approach to the planning? Yes I would; I would pick an area, have a general idea what's there, and then explore depending on how I felt that day - I wouldn't force anything and I would have any requirements.

Since it was a two week trip I'm going to split the stories up into 6 sections relating to the area that I was in at the time. There are also around 300 pictures that will go with each section.
The first section to show up soon will be Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island and where I can get a direct flight from Melbourne. Hopefully I'll have everything done in a week and I'm aiming to have Christchurch done in the next couple of days.

Ahhh...

2007-12-23T23:31:00.000+11:00

Here's a good question: Where the hell have a I been? Or, actually, to use an Aussie tourism slogan: "Where the bloody hell are ya?"

Well, I'm in Melbourne but in a few hours I'll be on a plane to New Zealand for a two week tour of the South Island. Where will I be? It's complicated but I do have a general idea.

But I've been traveling a bit too - I drove with Corrigan and Bonnie from Sydney to Brisbane over the course of 10 days, then I went up to Cairns to see them, and finished it off with having Bon here in Melbourne for about 5 days.

Here are some pictures to tide you over until I get back from this trip. Also, Bonnie, while on her 7 week trip took over 2000 pictures so once she has those uploaded I'll put up a link for that. And comments to follow too.

From Tori's wine tour in the Yarra Valley:

More wine tour:

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Wilson's Prom:

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Sydney:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=s8e95zp.6oflkxup&Uy=-eeo236&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

Between Sydney and Brisbane:

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Cairns:

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2007-11-02T11:21:00.000+11:00

On Thursday I needed to head down to the testing facility to attend some tests for the program that I'm working on. It's not so bad because it gets me out of the office even though I have been known to sit around there for 8 hours with nothing to show for it. The facility is about 100km outside of Melbourne and, even better, only about 30 minutes away from Phillip Island, which is one of the places that I go surfing. If they run the test early enough and with the recent time change here in Australia, as long as I can get out of there by 5 I should have at least an hour to surf.

I checked the surf that morning and it was forecasted to be around 6 feet - that's pretty big for a beginner like me but I didn't want to waste this opportunity so I loaded my board into my car and headed down to the test. The test guys were on the ball and it looked like I would be out of there in plenty of time and be able to get down to the island to put myself out as shark bait.
The first choice was Smith's beach because the rip isn't as bad there but the tide was up and the waves were choppy and wouldn't be easy to handle. There were also only 2 people in the water and being by myself and a beginner, I feel safer when there's a crowd. I also go by the theory that if there's a crowd then the waves are good because someone in there must know what they're doing.

I decided to move on down the road to Woolamai, which is a place where I've surfed before but the rip is much stronger there so you have to be careful. Same result here; no one out on the waves and very choppy. But I could see some surfers around the corner not too far away. I went over to that parking lot but it looked like they were surfing a reef break, which I am not ready for at this point. They also looked like they were really good, some of them would paddle twice and all of a sudden they would be standing where, in contrast, I tend to paddle about 20 times and then roll over when the wave hits me. In the end I decided to save myself and the rescue team the trouble of pulling me dead or alive out of the water conditions that I'm not ready for.

But I did get some pictures. They're all from Smith's Beach.

Cricket

2007-11-01T21:55:00.000+11:00

It's sad that baseball's over, especially now that it's finally warming up over here. What I wouldn't do to sit in an old ballpark out in the sun with a couple of beers and a couple of friends. But they don't have much for baseball here.. they play cricket, which is similar but very very different. But going to a match would be a good excuse to get that sitting at the ballpark feel. Especially since I know that not many people attend the interstate game so I would have plenty of room to stretch out and enjoy the day.

The Victoria Bushrangers were playing a one-day against the Western Australia Warriors. The match started at 2:45pm and was scheduled to go to 9:45pm with a half-hour break around 5:15. There was no need for me to be there the entire time. The plan was to go for a couple of hours, have a few drinks and leave. And when the tickets only cost 10 dollars there isn't a problem so I was planning to get there around 6.

I sent the email out to invite others along even though I was perfectly happy with going myself and to my surprise some actually bit... but then thought better of it and cancelled.

I was on my own. I left work a little after 5 and rode my bike home to get changed, grab a book (in case I got bored), and jumped on the tram up to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). On the way there I passed a ferris wheel with the MCG in the background:

I also had a pretty good view of the city center:

Found some strange and large art:

Then looked back at the ferris wheel with the city behind it:

And finally came upon the MCG, one of the largest cricket grounds in the world. The stadium holds around 100,000 people and hosts events such as international cricket, soccer, Australian Rules Football, rugby, etc. It's huge - I've been there for AFL games and an international one-day cricket match vs England, which had 75,000 people.

I walked up to the ticket window and asked for one adult ticket. "Did you buy a public transport ticket today?" the woman behind the glass asked me. I took out my metcard, which got me up to the match and cost me $3.30, and showed it to her. "You can go in for free then." Look at that. I walked in, found the beer and food stands, and then found a seat.

Now, cricket is boring. Baseball is one of my favorite sports and I can watch it - and usually require myself to - from first pitch to last no matter how the game is turning out but I understand when others say that it's boring. Cricket consists of some guy throwing the ball at the wicket and the batter in turn defending the wicket. If he hits the ball far enough or in the right location then he can run in between the wickets to score runs. But it seems that these guys were just interested in blocking the ball and not running. There's not a lot of action. Also, a dismissal (or 'out' for baseball fans) happens so infrequently that when they do accomplish what is actually an unecessary part of the game the entire team runs (or walks) over to that player to congratulate him. And since this doesn't happen very often it's not unusual for the spectators to miss the play because your mind tends to wander away from the game. I can't imagine how cricket was before instant replay (they replay every significant play about 40 times on the big screen).

Like I said, the MCG holds 100k people - that's a big stadium. I get to the ballpark for baseball games early and I remember one time in particular when I was the first one in my section (my beer in hand, I sat there in the middle of the section and the beer guy walked by and screamed "BEEEERRR!!" I looked around... "Is he talking to me?") but I arrived to this match at 6:30, right in the middle of the action. There's no way that I can tell how many people were at the match but I would guess 200.. maybe. In a stadium that fits 100k:

Look at the crowd:

Seriously, do we need to play here? We could have played at the oval by my apartment. We could have played in the street. This is crazy:

Overall it was a great time. There's just something about hanging out with not much to concentrate on and some sort of sporting event happening in front of you to draw your attention intermittently. And for cricket you can just walk in and out whenever you like without really missing anything. I would highly recommend it but, please.. for your own sanity, only stay for an hour or two. Though if you get into a big international match stay for the whole thing. Incidentally, test cricket lasts 5 days (4 days for Australian interstate) and is much slower than this - you've got to be kidding me.

"It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect."

-Bill Bryson

WE DID IT AGAIN!!!!

2007-10-29T22:59:00.000+11:00

SOX ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!

Best team all year and best in the end. This team is untouchable.

GO SOX!!

Saturday

2007-10-29T22:28:00.001+11:00

I guess the story really starts on Friday afternoon when I went to Trigger Brothers in St Kilda and finally bought a surfboard. I had my eye on this one for a few months, actually - it's a 7'6" stubby, 3" thick, white, and minimal graphics. It's a nice board and it was going take it's first dip in the ocean on Saturday morning.

I woke up early and went to get some breakfast and a coffee in St Kilda and drove across the bridge to Williamstown to pick up Lincoln and we made the hour drive down to Torquay - Jan Juc to be more precise. The surf was forecasted to be 3ft, which really isn't that bad for beginners.

The new board

The beach

Surfers

The water was cold even with a wetsuit but I was able to get used to it pretty quickly. There were a lot of surfers out on the water but the beach was wide and there was a lot of room so you didn't feel crowded. The waves were manageable and there was a bit of a lull right where I got in, which was cool because I could get right over the waves to start up.

Cliffs around the beach

You know what else is really cool? Surfing chicks. You see a few but usually only a couple a day. Oh, but not today - they were everywhere.. Everywhere. There was even a group of them just learning.. The weather was great, the girls, the new board - it was going to be a great day. Right? Well, of course not. Not too long after getting in the water Lincoln said that he thought he cut his foot on his board. When we got to the beach he had a 2 inch gash near his heel and it was bleeding. We wrapped it in a towel and I ran to the Lifesavers to get a bandage, some tape, and directions to the nearest health clinic in Torquay.

When we got to the clinic they wouldn't let him in for at least an hour because he didn't have an appointment. He was bleeding. How can you not let him in? I ended up dropping him off at his parents' house because his mother's a nurse and I went back to St Kilda. He did end up going to the hospital and got stitches - he's not allowed to surf for 10 days.

I went for a bike ride on the road for an hour and then met up with Paul at the Belgian Beer Gardens on St Kilda Rd. The Hoegaarden was flowing - well, at least for a little while until they ran out of kegs and we had to drink from bottles. How do you run out of one of your most popular beers on at Saturday night? It wasn't even night yet. Another 5 or so people joined us a few hours later before I stumbled home 8 hours after getting there. The Belgian Beer Gardens is a 'must go' in Melbourne, especially in summer.

This place gets packed

St Kilda Tour

2007-10-26T23:21:00.000+10:00

Last Sunday I took an early morning tour of St Kilda, the town that I live in. I thought that people would want to see some of the things that you can see around town that early in the morning.

I woke up at 5:30 to watch South Africa beat England in the final of the Rugby World Cup, which was being played in France. I then went out to do the tour before the Red Sox game at 10. I went out at 8:30 and it was already hot on a day that was going to see 32C (90F), I first noticed when I was in line to get my coffee. The heat was evident in the sun but when you're in the shade it can be rather cool.

There were a lot of people out that morning. Some were buzzing around town for a coffee or paper, others were getting out in the warm weather for some running or biking, while others were stragglers still finding their way home from being at bars the night before.

Without going any further, here's the tour and my route:
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Sox Are AL Champs!!

2007-10-22T15:25:00.000+10:00

Let's kill some fish..

2007-10-21T20:39:00.000+10:00

I've been a vegetarian for over 5 years and in that time I have never intentionally killed anything. Sure there were times when I accidentally ate meat due to misunderstandings, mistakes, or just pure ignorance. There was that time at a wedding in Jakarta where I ate a krupuk even though I knew what it was but I blamed it on being tired and the heat.. and then 10 minutes later I ate something that was certainly meat but they put it next to the brownies! Who puts meat on a dessert tray? One time I just bought the wrong spring rolls. But those are examples of animals that are already dead.

I killed a duck in Quebec when she flew in front of my car. In New Hampshire a chipmunk darted in front of my car and stopped but there was a car coming in the other direction so his best hope was for me to put him in between my tires... Kelly: "Do you think he made it?" Me: "No, he didn't." Kelly: "How do you know?" Me: "I heard him hit the bottom of my car."

But in 5 years I have never killed anything intentionally, which is why it was a surprise to everyone that when I was invited to go deep sea fishing I said, "yes". It was supposed to be a nice day, it would be a good time out on the boat, and deviating from my beliefs for one morning wouldn't hurt anyone - well, except for the fish.

We were heading down to the Mornington Peninsula about an hour south of Melbourne but it took quite a bit longer to get there because of rush hour traffic. But eventually we got down to Rye where our hotel was, which was more than big enough for three people staying for less than 12 hours since our boat left at 6 the next morning.

The plan was to head up the road a bit to get some dinner and maybe a few drinks in Sorrento but a quick walk through that town showed that there's nothing there. Our next option was Blairgowerie, which had already driven through and we saw a bar that had a deck and seemed to be rather full. But this place was filled with people older than my parents.. not that my parents are very old but these people were. So back to Rye and the hotel for one and on to the closest bar. We had a few in this place that was mainly there for betting on horses and had one of the foulest smelling bathroooms that I've ever been in and then we moved next door where we just made it in time for dinner. Dinner was quick and not too bad so now it's time to move back to the bar.. oops, they close at 10. What? Are you kidding me?

The pier

The alarm goes off at 5am - whose idea was this? - jumped on the boat that held 14 and we were off to the ocean to find some snapper. The swells were big; 13-15 meters and all of a sudden I wasn't feeling very well. But I didn't know if it was from the ocean or the drinking the night before or the fact that I didn't have any breakfast. After trying a few spots we went to the deep part where we saw quite a few sea birds and two of the biggest gulls I have ever seen - they looked like flying dogs. Then someone else said that they weren't feeling well - I wasn't alone! Then another.. and another. And then people started letting loose over the side. Well, I might as well get in on this and here I go...

The rods

Most of my morning was spent sitting on the bench trying not to lose what little was left in my stomach and I gave little attention to my rod and it seemed that the fish were ignoring it as well. That was fine with me. But I did get one tug and when I reeled it up I met Franky.

Franky the Fish

Me and Franky - he's just a little guy

Luckily, I just barely got Franky through the cheak and I was able to easily get the hook out, take a picture, and then send him on his way. I threw him back into the water and at first he was stunned from his first venture outside of the ocean but then he slowly started to swim away.. and then he was eaten by a seal.

We had a seal follow us to about half of the spots, he loved to steal the fish off of the hooks but he hated to be photgraphed so, unfortunately, I don't have any. We also tried to do some trolling for salmon but I didn't participate in this part of the day. Then on our way back to the pier we spotted some dolphins and one even followed our boat while jumping in and out of the wake.

How do you finish off a day of fishing? Well, you go to the pub, of course. And we went to the nicest pub in the area, The Portsea Hotel, which had outdoor tables and some good food. The only thing left to do was head back to Melbourne and do nothing for the rest of the day.

The Portsea Hotel

So how was my day of death and destruction? It wasn't bad. Sure I was sick most of the time but it was nice to get out on the ocean on a nice day and see some seals and dolphins. Was the enjoyment of the day worth Franky's life? No.. I don't think so, it was very sad. Next time I'll do without the hook and rod and just enjoy the trip (hopefully without losing my breakfast).

Pictures:

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Manny

2007-10-07T06:23:00.000+10:00

The Response..

2007-09-20T23:00:00.000+10:00

Hi Keith

I have changed you to the Half Marathon event.

Please keep and wear the bib you receive in the mail on Race Day.

See you on 7 October

Kind regards

Kim

:-( (sad face added by me)

I've Decided...

2007-09-19T22:00:00.001+10:00

I hate baseball.

I hate baseball.

I hate baseball.

Game 2

2007-09-16T20:30:00.001+10:00

This one was worth waking up at 6am for:

What have I been up to?

2007-09-15T22:14:00.000+10:00

I've been meaning to put an update up here for a while and that's just what I'll do now.

Picture of the Week: This little game is on hiatus while I pull some stuff together. The last picture (Aug 15) is Larry (on left), Tara (on right), and Stef (holding the camera) in July of 2006, in their backyard in East Boston during their wedding.

What have I been up to?
It seems that after I broke my rib (that's my official diagnosis - no doctor required to make that call) work picked up considerably, as did how much I was reading but the rest of the time was just a big piss up (drunk fest). There was a lot of going out to the pubs, staying out till 4 in the morning on the weekends, sitting in front of the tv watching the footy or rugby. I wasn't able to concentrate on anything productive outside of work. But the weather has improved greatly, the rib feels better, and I'm caught up with work so I have been able to do more outside of work such as running, working out, hiking.

The injury:
The rib feels great and only hurts at times, otherwise, it feels weird - not the rib itself but something internal, especially when I run. This has been a very long recovery where I couldn't run more than 0.5 mile, sleep through the night, or lift anything heavy for 5 weeks. I thought it was a bit excessive for one little rib.. maybe I'm getting old. But I ran all of last week, including doing some nasty hills in the Dandenongs but the downhills did give me that weird feeling sort of below and right behind my ribcage.. any suggestions? Have that organ removed? Suck it up? That sort of thing?

The marathon:
Yeah, right. I did 5 miles the other day.. add 21 to that and I'll be lying dead on the side of the road or walking the last 15. The race is in 3 weeks and, just to taunt me, I got my number in the mail the other day. I can change my event to the half-marathon but I have to decide by Sept 21. Suggestions welcome.

Rugby World Cup:
The rugby world cup is being played in France right now and is being shown nonstop down here - Australia has a good chance. I'm in a pool with 10 people and the set up is that we all pick 2 teams out of a hat (if we got to choose a team then everyone would pick New Zealand) and I picked Argentina (who unexpectedly won their first two games) and Canada (yeah, they're not that good). So now I'm fully behind Canada and have been going around singing the Canadian national anthem... of course, I only know the first two words so it goes something like: "Oh Caaa-nada da da da daaa dada." Everyone's very impressed and I'm sure it will give the backing the Canucks (that's their team name) are looking for to pull off the upset. They're playing Fiji tonight.

What's coming up:
I have quite a few trips coming up so stay up to date by coming back to the blog to check out what's going on. I'll also be spending some time up in the mountains and down on the beach. Should be cool. Hope to hear from everyone soon.

The Grampians:
Last weekend a few of us went to the Grampians, which is a mountain range about 3 hours west of Melbourne. They're not vey big but they have some good hikes and it looks as if they exploded out of the ground, which makes the rocks jagged and a lot of fun to do some free-climbing on. The way that the mountains were formed reminds me of Tasmania and makes me want to take another trip down to the island.

Looking east you can see how the range just ends and

the landscape turns into flat farmland

Dark but you can still see the Tassie quality in the surrounding mountains

I don't think it would be very difficult to convince someone

that this is Tassie even if they've been to both places

What is going on?

2007-09-15T19:23:00.000+10:00

I wasted 5 hours of my Saturday watching this piece of shit?

We have the best damn bullpen in the Majors and we can't hold them down for 2 innings? I know that NY has the best offence but let's keep some concentration here. Oki and Pap up there throwing meatballs for the Yankees to push around the park - it looked like I was pitching.

Now I'm just mad...

Oh, Baby!!!

2007-09-02T12:38:00.000+10:00

Man, am I glad I watched this game.

The big no-hitter right when the Sox needed a turn around going into September. Buchholz's stuff was nasty and the bats were working for Boston. After the game I think I watched Pedroia's diving grab in the 7th 10 times. That dude is awesome. But nothing was better than Clay's pitching.

I missed D-Lowe's no-hitter in 2002, I remember checking the score before heading over to Brookline to play some whiffleball and breaking the news to everyone there that we had missed a great game. But I saw this one from beginning to end. I was jumping up and down in my apartment while watching the game on the greatest invention ever - mlb.tv, which lets me live way the hell over here and not miss a game.

Awesome game, Clay! Go Sox!!

Picture of the Week

2007-08-15T20:43:00.000+10:00

This is one of my more artistic photos.. actually, it was completely unintentional.

Last week's answer:
Who (L2R) - Forquer, Rob, Darian, Lane, Lane
When - May(?) 2006
Where - Chad and Tasha's wedding, Flint

Today

2007-08-11T11:51:00.000+10:00

Red Sox
You gotta love this...
I turned the game vs the O's on in the 8th. Dice-K held them to 1 run but Bedard didn't let anyone cross the plate. But the Sox are persistent, talented, and resourceful. They're known as a power hitting team but when they need to work some runs and were able to do so by keeping the ball on the ground. Admittedly, Baltimore helped a little but the Sox hitters really know how to place their hits... Tek putting one through the hole between 3rd and short, Lugo dropping the bunt, Pena putting an ugly hit into left after an ugly at-bat, Ortiz putting one into right on the ground even with the shift, and so on. Nice job by the offence.

Now newly acquired Gagne is trying to keep the O's down and he is not doing a very good job of that. I am not very impressed.

... Still in the 8th.. ok, sorry about the language but this guy fucking blows. Why is he on the team? What is he doing? What is Theo's deal with picking up players after major injuries? We know Drew is falling apart, Gagne's off of Tommy John surgery and they both blew the 8th inning. If we lose this game...

Now we're tied. Oki let up a linedrive to left. We're already through Manny and DO going into the 9th... SO for Oki, bad swing by Ramon... Jay Payton, remember this dude? Wouldn't mind having him back instead of any of the Sox backup OFs.. 3 outs.

Top 9.. How about that 4 hour game against the the Angels the other day? Now that's the kind of baseball that you want to see this time of year. Two great teams going at it, late drama.. Fly out for Lowell... Come on Tek.. 99 mph from Hoey? Who is this guy?... SO on a great pitch from Hoey... Also in the LA game, Coco had a SO with a passed ball letting him go to 1st, giving the Sox 4 outs that inning, you don't see that very often... Sox getting on base again, Crisp with a single to right and Drew gets a walk... even Lugo's looking good at the plate - he's doesn't look like a pitcher up there anymore.. Crisp steals 3rd! Damn.. fly out.

Bottom 9.. Oki's still in there.. Roberts with GR double - 32 doubles on the year.. Patterson has a good bunt to push him to 3rd, one out.. Sac fly? What? short CF and Crisp has to hit the cutoff? WTF? Oki let up a couple of runs but Gagne definitely blew this game. I hate that dude. I hope he files out of Fenway in line with Pena and Drew. Sorry about the play by play on the blog.

Running/Injury
Miles this week: 0
Pain: not much better
Plan: new schedule made, starts Monday
Outlook: not looking good

NNNOOOOOOOOoooooooooo......

2007-08-07T19:44:00.000+10:00

Is the dream dead?

For the past few months I've been working toward one of my life goals - qualifying for the Boston Marathon by running a sub-3:10:00 in Melbourne in October. And I was on my way too - I had some trouble in the GRO Marathon in May but worked pretty hard and had a great time at the Run to the G Half Marathon and I was building from there. What I needed to avoid was injury, extracurricular activities, and peaking too early.

I was doing very well except for a trip to Tassie and one to Sydney. Then everything happened at once.. the Victorian mountains were having their best snow winter in 15 years so I had to hit the slopes but before that I had a breakdown during a speed workout - my body gave up. Then while boarding I pulled a muscle in my calf and with everything else going on it was too easy to take a break. The routine was gone, how was I going to pull out of this? But I was determined and started a comeback. But then I went on another boarding trip and a third...

This is the idea, I just want to qualify for this race and then I'll be done with road running for a while. I consider myself a runner but over the years I've come to despise road running, especially racing. All I want to do is run through the trails while surrounded by trees and run up mountains. Of course I'll still need to run on the road some days but I won't have to train for 2 months just to shave 5 seconds off my 10k time - I'm done with it, I hate it. Add to that boarding the snow, surfing the waves, biking the trails, hiking the mountains and I'm a happy person and still in shape. All I have to do is check the box and fulfill this dream.

On Saturday I was boarding down some good snow on a black diamond run on Mt Buller when I got too far off trail. I came to a stop before going over some boulders just on the other side of some snow covered trees. I had to climb back up the hill a little to get over to the side. The trail was full of uneven moguls and proved to be a bit steep as I slid a few times and even broke a strap on my backpack while sliding on my bum. Nearing the bottom of the trail I caught a toe edge on top of a mogul and fell 4 or 5 feet and landed on my chest. It hurt - bad. (side note - I hit this trail the next day and rocked it... bitch)

The rest of the weekend was rough and I spent a lot of time on the blues to avoid further injury. I was having trouble sleeping and the last couple of days I've been hunched forward but I'll be fine. I took Monday off from running to rest a bit but went out today - my main concern was being able to breathe and the pain caused from my chest expanding. How far did I get? 3 steps. That's right.. 3. Screw the breathing, it can't take the impact from running. I stopped and looked around. What do I do? I held the area with my hand and tried again. I can't run miles like that. Plus, it didn't help. I stopped again and looked around as if someone would be able to help me or tell me what to do or tell me that it would be all right. Then it hit me that I may not be able to recover to run Melbourne.

This wouldn't be the first time. I've dropped out of marathons before due to injury. Bay State many years ago because of my ankle, Detroit in 2004, oddly enough, due to a chest injury (how many people drop out of races because of chest injuries? This one was from soccer - thanks, Darren), and my entire 2006 season was out because of a broken foot (also soccer - I actually thought about all of the races I was going to miss before I even hit the ground).

I could run the race next year but I don't want to be a road runner anymore - I just want to qualify for this goddamn race now. What do I do? I have 9 weeks until the race (not a lot of time) and I have no idea how long this injury will last. Some options:

1) Buy a road bike to stay in shape.
Pros - I was going to buy one anyway to ride to work and as a new hobby.
Cons - Wicked expensive in Australia, not the same kind of workout (Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France how many times? and he runs a 3:15 marathon).
2) Fast walking (not speed walking).
Pros - I can do that, not expensive.
Cons - Certainly not enough cardio or muscle work.
3) Join a gym and get on the elliptical machine.
Pros - Similar cardio, no impact, girls in tight clothing on the machines around me.
Cons - Expensive, I'm not even sure if the injury can handle that.
4) Find a later marathon.
Pros - Gives me more time.
Cons - There aren't many more in Australia after Melbourne and it needs to be accredited.
5) Give in and hit the bottle.
Pros - None.
Cons - Everything else.

Seriously, people, this is killing me. I'm very upset about this. Tell me that I'll be able to run. Tell me that I don't need to check this box. Tell me to just dust off the mountain bike or grab a surfboard and hit the surf, do what I want and enjoy life. Tell me something.

Picture of the Week

2007-08-07T19:27:00.000+10:00

I would like to say that the people that are putting in guesses for these pictures have kept up with it a lot more than I thought they would have so thanks for that.

Last week's answer:
Who - That's me, people (a lot of people got that one)
When - Hmm, I think it was June of 2001 (I was wearing a KU intramural soccer champs shirt)
Where - Kayaking in a mangrove swamp in The Bahamas (someone got this - check out the "all-inclusive" wristband)

I definitely need to add up the points and will have the current totals by Sunday.

Going back to the snow..

2007-08-02T13:11:00.000+10:00

Let's try this one more time. Tomorrow I'll be heading up to Mt Buller for the third time this year. The iPod's charged, the gear is dry, I'm leaving right from work, there should be about 5 of us, we're getting a hotel and staying till Sunday - that's 2 full days of boarding. I'm going to be wrecked. Here's a pic from the last trip:

Everyone have a good weekend. Go Sox!

Picture of the Week

2007-08-02T06:39:00.000+10:00

Look how young.. umm.. this person looks in this picture. Where and when? What clues can you pick out from the picture?

Last week's answer:

Who (L 2 R) - My brother, Steve; My father, Pat; Me

When - June (or July) of last year

Where - New Hampshire, my cousin Sue's wedding, Lake Winnipesaukee is in the background

The Weekend

2007-07-29T22:40:00.000+10:00

Friday was a day to leave everything behind - work, running, everything - hang out with some friends and have some drinks. First group at Transport in Fed Sq before I met up with a new group at Y&J's across the street. They had a band doing covers, everything from Bryan Adams to Pink to Chilis. They were all right but probably sounded a bit better after a few drinks. Left around 1 and was still able to grab a tram home so a good night overall.

Saturday I had an outdoor coffee at a St Kilda bakery on Acland St with Sal-boy and Dean-o as they made their way up from Virginia to NYC, picking up revelations, epiphanies even, on the way - of course the big ones coming in the big town. That's all I had time for because I needed socks.. that's right, socks. I walked it to Chapel St, music in ear, another coffee in hand, meeting the best parts of any dirty old town - where only your feet can take you. Through the alleys, the secret ways of the locals, what the driving tourist doesn't have time to see and what the walking tourist doesn't dare to see, past the local shops on the south end of the street that haven't yet been touched by the consumerism and name-brands of Prahran - yet. I ducked into a CD store for some inspiration but came out empty handed, then into the sport shop, had a look around, stood in front of the sock display, read the tags for each pair, and walked out with nothing added to what I carried. I pressed on north in search of an Asian grocer I had heard about and got all the way to the Yarra before I decided that it was time for the tram to take me home, the only gain was the experience of the walk and added knowledge of the street and that was good enough for me.

I needed to be at Balaclava Station at 6:30 but missed the tram to get me there by 5 seconds. Another came 10 mins later and took me to the station but I heard the 6:29 above me leave as I crossed to the station. That's ok, I was alone, I wasn't the one that was late. Two more additions to the party before the 6:49 took us to the CBD and dinner in Hardware Lane, outside with a band playing to the side, and endless throngs of people walking past.

End of alley jazz club, invisible to those not knowing - with directions from the musicians that lit up our dinner we had table up front. Drummer in soft hat backwards, glasses, tongue out, "yeah!", feeling it. Shaggy haired upright bassist, smile on face, head bobbing. Pulled together pianist, business hair, business shirt, business pants, belt even, with business attitude but jazz soul through fingers to keys banging on piano strings. Gorgeous, Filipino/white, shaking hips, in green dress, ruffled, raising voice and soul to share stories of love and life. Bodies swaying to the jazz, beer bottles tapping to the blues - good night.

Sunday was more coffee and reading. It has warmed up a little here in Melbourne and it doesn't rain as often so it's possible to sit outside during the day and at night if they have the gas heaters. Normal day, checked the Sox score, grocery store, went for a run, took a nap. I also finally finished "A Short History of Australia" by Manning Clark. If you want to know the story of this country I strongly recommend that you do not read this book because it just takes time away from reading a history that you can actually make sense of. I'll let you know if I find one.

This week should be about refocusing on running and getting back to the schedule after pulling my calf muscle a couple of weeks ago. It feels better but I'm going to need a 2 week build-up to get back on schedule. Should be alright, I feel good and still have 10 weeks before the race. Maybe go out one night if I have the time. And I still don't have any socks.

Just talking

2007-07-27T13:03:00.000+10:00

I think Wily Mo is reading my blog...

July 26 @ Cleveland
Pena - 4-5, 4 RBI, 2 R, 2 2B, HR

Hi Wily! Love your stuff.. really.

Comment reply:
"Hey how bout those Jays!" -Doogie

Jays.. Jays... Oh! You mean the Blue Jays. They're still a team? They're all right but not a threat; they're 10 games back but in an underperforming division. Three scenarios - Sox and Yanks keep on keeping on and go 1, 2 (whichever order); both teams explode and there's a race in the end, leaving TO way behind; both teams fall apart, Jays take the division, and get slaughtered in the ALDS by either LA, Cle, or Det.

What is going on with the Royals - they had a nasty schedule after the break, didn't they? Cle, Bos, Det, NYY and went 1-2, 2-1, 2-1, 1-3, respectively, with the obvious high points being the series against the Sox and Tigers and then shutout the Yankees in the last game to avoid the sweep.

Let's respond to some comments

2007-07-26T23:37:00.000+10:00

"I'm not ready to give up on Wily Mo just yet"-The Hobester on Jul 20 post. I'm sorry, what? What logic could possibly go into that statement? He's hitting .197, has 3 errors (playing outfield with only 310 innings - Manny has 1 E in 737 innings, Crisp has 0 E in 778 innings), and will swing at anything. My favorite WMP moment was when he was just brought over to the Sox and we lost Arroyo so everyone was already pissed and I was at an April game in Baltimore, which always brings a lot of Sox fans. First time this dude is up he swings at and misses the first 3 pitches that he sees. Next time up he swings at the first 2, then, I don't know he was distracted or something - maybe a bird flew by - and he lays up on a pitch.. the entire stadium erupts in applause.. you don't have to swing at everything.. but that's how he does it, watch him next time. And Hinske's numbers aren't much better. Think about this - it's October and we're in the bottom of the 9th against the Yankees in the ALCS, we're down by 1, Drew's on the bench because he's made out of glass.. Do you really want Wily Mo going up against Rivera's cutter? Heeeeellllll No. I'm not saying that we need a superstar backup OFer but let's at least have someone force some pitches or put some contact on the ball even if it's not in play.

Umm.. Lester's going to do very well.. ok, that game already happened. I like the idea of Tavarez back in the pen though.

Picture of the Week

2007-07-24T22:27:00.000+10:00

Last week's answer:
Who - Me and Jill (niece)
When - October 2006; my early b-day and going-away party
Where - Parents' house; Haverhill, MA

I'm never going to sleep again...

2007-07-20T16:28:00.000+10:00

I might have mentioned before that I was hoping that this weekend was going to be a nice quiet weekend that I could sit around, read a bit, and just get some rest. And then I was invited to the footy for Saturday night - St Kilda vs Hawthorn. One game.. that's alright, I can handle that. Then the next day I get a, "How do you feel about doing some snowboarding this weekend?" "Umm, I'd love to but I have the footy on Saturday.." "That's alright we're going on Sunday." "I'm in." Ok, now we're getting a little tight but that's ok, I still have Saturday during the day and I can take it easy on Friday... Today (Friday) I got a text message "want to go to the footy tonight? I have free tickets." "Hell yeah."

Let's recap: Friday - footy (Bulldogs vs Geelong, should be a great game), probably going out after that; Saturday - maybe actually getting some rest, maybe doing some laundry, footy; Sunday - waking up at 4:30 to hit the slopes at Mt Buller; Monday - start it all over again. It's a good thing that I'm uhh, injured and can't run this weekend. We'll start that back up on Monday as well.

Sox
Alright, the Sox blow. What the hell is going on? I've seen a few 9th innings on Gamecast and I think they've all been 1-2-3's. Does JD Drew do anything? At least Lugo's hitting again. What's he on? A 8 or 9 game hitting streak. I certainly have not become a Lugo fan but this is impressive - he's hitting an absolutely horrid .218 (but like .350 in July) but he has 43 RBIs; how does he do that? He only has 72 hits for the year. One stat that I like to see is Wily Mo - 127 ABs and 26 hits (.205), let's trade that dude. We've got to pick it up here, July was supposed to be our easy month. What happened?

Hey - everyone have a good weekend.

Check out this line...

2007-07-17T22:55:00.000+10:00

July 16, 2007

Boston 4
Kansas City 0

There's not much more to say about that...

Picture of the Week

2007-07-17T22:42:00.000+10:00

It's all about the winning for you Hober, isn't it? I'll post the scores next week... And someone did get last week's - and, no, it wasn't Hober. I'm also a little disappointed because no one had creative answers even if they didn't know what the picture was. I was ready to give out some points too. Maybe I'll post some of the good answers.

Last week's answer:
Who - There really wasn't one - how about the guy standing on the bridge in the distance?
When - I don't know, it looks like summer
Where - Lake Chocorua from the summit of Mt Chocorua in New Hampshire

Boarding Mt Buller

2007-07-17T22:29:00.000+10:00

4:45am... the alarm is beeping like crazy... louder than usual, it seems... "stop it!"... "whose idea was this?"... hit the snooze button... staring at the ceiling - it's dark but a little bit of light from the streetlights comes in through the window... "Why am I doing this?"....... "This is crazy"..... "All right - let's go."

I didn't know much about snowboarding in Australia. I knew that I was going to Mt Buller, which I've been to before but in the summer, and that it was about 3 hours away. I also knew that once I got up there I would either need to take a bus from Mansfield or rent some tire chains to drive up the mountain. The chains are precautionary - the village of Mt Buller is close to the top of the mountain and you have to drive through switchbacks the entire way up, or what's worse, the entire way down. On top of that, most Australians have zero to little experience with driving on ice and snow and Melburnians are VERY cautious drivers. Otherwise this is just a scam to take more of your money - 16 bucks to have these things sit on the floor of my car and, yes, they do check at the gate to make sure you have them. There was no snow or ice on the mountain where I was driving.

I also didn't know how the mountain or the snow would be. I knew that it would be wet snow, similar to the Northeast of the US, and that it really doesn't snow very often but they're having the best winter for snow in 15 years. Mt Buller is the closest large ski area to Melbourne and the summit comes in around 5920ft, close to the altitude of the highest mountains in New Hampshire (Mt Washington is 6288). The difference? It snows at sea level in NH - even though I do complain about the cold in Melbourne, I don't think it's ever been below 40F. And when you tell the Aussies that you're going boarding they're almost apologetic about the snow and the mountains. So my expectations weren't high.

To add to that the last two times that I've been snowboarding were for a week in Colorado in March of this year and a week in Austria and Switzerland a year ago. Even with all of this against it, I would have to say that the snowboarding at Mt Buller was awesome. The snow was great, the mountain was cool, the trails were nice (albeit, a little short).

I made my way up the Maroonda Hwy - I've been this way before so there was nothing new. The speed was pretty good and I was making good time but there were quite a few other cars on the road aiming for the same destination that I was. At this point I had intentions of taking the bus from Mansfield but as I got closer I realized that there was no reason to. I stopped in Mansfield to pick up a coffee and a bit of breakfast and also to rent some chains. The first place I tried to get chains in also rented ski equipment and winter clothes and was just mobbed with people but had a huge rack of chains by the door. I was sort of waiting in line and an employee was walking by and said, "can I help anyone?" I jumped in hoping that I could bypass the line since I didn't really need anything else and his reply was, "try the BP up the road, they have heaps of chains." Ok, he's sending me to another business, to me that says "get out while you can." But even the BP was packed with people and I waited in line for 15 minutes. Finally it was my turn and I spewed off my tire size like I knew what I was talking about and he came back with, "have you ever used chains before?"; of course; "on this car?"; yes; and even though he gave me a questioning glance he handed me the chains and I was on my way. To tell you the truth I've never used these things before and even though I'm sure I could figure out how to put them on I have no idea. Australians are confused by this because they don't understand the concept of driving in the snow without them - "so did you have a 4wd in the States?"; "no, I drove a little Honda Civic"; "how deep was the snow?"; "I don't know, I'd probably drive in up to 6 inches or a foot of snow with that car."; "really? I can't believe that."

The next line was to get into the parking lot at the base of the ski area, I'm still unsure of why this is so difficult, and then waiting in line for lift tickets. this is what makes boarding here such a production - you have to drive there, get the chains and if you don't have equipment you have to rent that, wait for the cautious drivers to drive up the mountain, watch everybody park, wait in line for the tickets while everybody uses a credit card, and then wait in line for the lifts. It's also expensive:

Gas - I used about 3/4 of a tank but I'm driving a Corolla but gas is also expensive here so let's say $40
Chains - 16 bucks for rental
Park Pass - this is ridiculous; $30; this might be per person too (I was by myself so I'm not sure)
Coffee - 2 dollars - this is actually a really good price
Lift tickets - $92
New goggles since I left my sunglasses in the car - $59 (actually I needed new goggles anyway - anyone remember the ones that I had with the red scratch across the lenses?)

Total - a lot of freaking money - this better be a damn good time

I took the lift from the parking lot and not from the village so I was glad to see that there was a place at the top to get some 59 dollar goggles and some breakfast. You people have pasties in MI, right? And from my time there it seems that you're all very proud of that but you know that they're English, I hope? And because of that they're all over Australia too and they have veggie ones, which is good for me. Melbourne also has meat pies, which they're big on, and you can have either one any time but they're big for breakfast. So, I was in line (yes, another line) and looking forward to a veggie pasty if they had any (that's not always the case). I got to the front and inquired about what I sought but the girl behind the counter came back with, "what do you want?"; I repeated, "a veggie pasty"; "I'm sorry?"; after a back and forth exchange and repeating what I was looking for 5 times she said, "oh, you mean pasty." Here was the problem, I was asking for "pasty" and pronouncing the 'a' as in 'ass' but she was looking for the 'a' to be pronounced as the first 'a' in 'pasta'. Come on, chickee, it's not that much different and anyone that has seen the word in print can make that jump, give me a break here. The next problem, I was looking for a veggie pasty, "do you have any veggie pasties?"; "Aren't all pasties veggie?"; "Umm.. I'm not sure" I was pretty sure they weren't but she should know better than I do, I would think; "Let me check"; she runs off to ask someone; I'm holding up the line; she's back; "No, they're all meat"; that's quite a difference from your original answer.. "Thanks, I'll have a muffin."

Have we even been snowboarding yet? I'm back outside and at the top of the trail, strap in and wiggle my way to the edge, I lean forward.. and we're off. The first run since March. 30 seconds later I'm at the bottom. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration but the trail was short.. and to make it worse, the line for the lift was gigantic. Maybe even enormous. But you know what it wasn't? Ginormous. You know why? Because ginormous isn't a word, I don't care what the people in Merriam-Webster's marketing department say. I believe in the evolution of language and even believe that literary sources that coin a term that enters the country's lexicon deserves notice but to choose a group of letters that some people call a word just because it is seen in print and is used as a novelty or, even worse, wins the "favorite word that isn't in the dictionary" contest is no reason to degrade the language by putting a fad into the record of what defines our spoken language for our time. You know what I'm going to do? Next time I get a new dictionary I'm crossing that bad boy out. How do you feel about that?

Where was I? Yes, so the snow was great - it wasn't powder but it wasn't too wet. It was packed but it wasn't ice. It was nice, you could grab an edge and make clean turns and you wouldn't kill yourself if you took a spill. I think this one was a blue and there was no way I was waiting in that lift line again so I headed up to some other blues. Buller has two sides, the North Slopes and the South Slopes - you start out at the North Slopes but the South Slopes have fewer people and more blues and blacks. I worked my way up to the summit and from there you have two choices: Summit (blue) and Summit (black) - blue keeps you on the north side and black takes you to the south side. We might as well get started.. down the black. It was steep but really not that steep. I played around on the south side for a while on the blues and blacks and it was fun. The trails were wide - very wide (compared to the Northeast of the States), some of the blues had a lot of people on them but the blacks were empty, the moguls on the blacks were gino... really big, which took a lot out of me.

I came to a stop at a food hut about halfway down the mountain and decided to rest for a bit because my leg was bothering me. That's when the trouble started. When I first strapped my board on in the morning I realized that my legs were tired - from running of course - but it was my front leg, the one that doesn't get detached from the board all day that was hurting. Two problems with this, the backplate of my bindings might have been too far forward and my legs are constantly in the state of recovery, when you put them in the same position for a few hours - like in a slight bend forward - they fall apart. The left leg hurt a little while I was boarding but now that it was out I was in serious pain - it was either my achilles or my calf muscle, I couldn't tell. Now I not only had to put the board back on and get down the hill, I also had to get back up the hill and board down the other side. I adjusted the backplates and made my way down the hill and up the chairlift. Next I had to get back to the village to grab the shuttle back to my car, which requried a quick glide down a green trail. Oh my god. It was "Demo Days", which meant every tourist that has never seen snow, never mind been on snowboard or skis, was lying on this trail in huge groups trying to get down the hill on borrowed skis and snowboards. Somehow I navigated by all of the moving obstacles and was the last one to squeeze myself onto a bus as it pulled out of the parking lot.

I got to the car and started down the mountain but my windshield was covered in filth from the salted roads. I don't need to use washing fluid very often and I'm always returning a rental car so I never have to add any but I was out and I needed some. I had to drop off the chains at the BP anyway, I'll pick some up. It's the little differences that make the good stories and interesting conversations. I looked around for the pallet of washing fluid that you usually find outside of gas stations in the States but there was nothing. I looked in the store.. they must keep them out back. I also don't know what they call it so I tried to be descriptive, "hi, I'm looking for some washing fluid for my windscreen"; inquisitive look, "what are you looking for?"; "umm, washing fluid for my windscreen.. you put it in the tank in your car" as I showed the approximate dimensions of the reservoir with my hands; "oh, I know what you're after"; he brings me a bottle that's about half a liter; "Uhh.. I was looking for the stuff that uh you put in your car for cleaning the uh windscreen"; "yeah, that's it you just squeeze some of that in there"; "uh ok" and I paid and walked out with it. Later I learned that they put water in their reservoir and this just makes the windshield especially clean - I guess they're not concerned about the water freezing or anything like that.

I got back to my apartment and thought about getting some food - I didn't have any in my apartment - but I was in too much pain to even walk down the street to get anything. So I pulled together the last remaining food in the house and called that dinner. I was also supposed to meet up with some people to watch the rugby game but that was definitely not going to happen either. The next day my body gave me a message: "I'm freaking tired! Leave me alone!" So that's what I've been doing.. running has stopped for a few days, which is fine, and I've been working on getting some sleep, which I badly need.

The outlook for this week is probably the same as the last few but with less running. Saturday I'm heading to the footy to see my Saints (St Kilda) take on Hawthorn. Even though this is the most exciting season in years (or so I'm told) and any of 10 teams can make the finals, the Saints (I picked them because I live there - I thought it was a good reason) have been destroyed by injuries and sit somewhere towards the bottom of the standings but we're slowly moving up. A win against Hawthorn (2nd place) would be a big boost for them, I think... but, again, I don't know what I'm talking about. This also means that I'll be missing the next Australia vs New Zealand rugby match that will be finishing off the Tri-Nations Tournament. That's all right, though, they can do it without me.

Picture of the Week

2007-07-10T21:50:00.001+10:00

I would be VERY impressed if someone got this... But it is recognizable (hint - the closest lake is the discernible feature)

Last week's answer:
Who (L 2 R) - Stef, me
When - After Suzi's wedding, July 2006
Where - Somewhere between WV and MI

18, 18, and 18

2007-07-09T13:35:00.000+10:00

18 seemed to be the theme for this weekend, although, I think I could have done without any of them.

The first 18 came in the middle of the day Saturday and was concerning my long run for the week. I had to change my long run from Sunday to Saturday because I had plans on Sunday that would have made the run absolutely horrible so with a little shuffling of the schedule, I had myself out in the cold rain doing a slow but long 18 miles. As you progress through training it's amazing to see what your body becomes used to. I can do 10 miles like it's nothing and Saturday I got through the first 13 without even noticing anything - actually, I was questioning whether or not I had added up the miles correctly. And the time just flew by, I didn't think I had been out there long enough to have run that far. But the great thing about this training schedule is that every 2 weeks the long runs increase by two miles, and whether it's mental or actually physical, the run doesn't become difficult until the last two miles each time. And to explain to those that have never done long distance running - it has nothing to do with being "winded" - at this point running is a natural state and the limiting factors are leg fatigue and fuel consumption and the last two miles are tough because your legs need to get used to that distance.

18 number two - on Sunday I was able to take care of my annual golf game - I think I have consistently played golf just once each year for the past few years. Six of us met up at a course in Werribee to try out this stupid skill (it's not a sport, people, quit fooling yourselves), it was cool but sunny, the course was wet but not exceedingly so. I actually did a lot better than I expected to and it was fun but still reinforced my belief that I have no interest in pursuing this hobby.

And the final 18 actually came this morning when the Tigers scored scored 18 runs in the 3-game series against the Red Sox. As I'm sure you know, I really could have done without that one. No excuses about "well, we had Tavarez and Gabbard and then Dice-K was off..." The Sox just sucked it up - we couldn't even do anything when Detroit had 5 errors on Sunday. Am I concerned? No. I think the team is tired and needs the All-Star break to recoup. We still have a great team and an easy month coming up and with the lackluster AL East, the Sox should be playing in october. And if the Tigers keep playing the way that they are then maybe we'll get a chance to play them again... But they need to take care of Cleveland before they can worry about being around in the fall.

The upcoming week is a normal one for me, nothing exciting. But I'm hoping to head up to Mt Buller on Saturday to do some snowboarding. I'll keep you posted on that.

Celebrating the 4th of July

2007-07-04T18:22:00.000+10:00

http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration_transcript.html

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
-Thomas Jefferson

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
-Abraham Lincoln

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
-Abraham Lincoln

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
-Abraham Lincoln

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
-John F. Kennedy

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
-George Washington

Picture of the Week

2007-07-03T22:13:00.000+10:00

Aww, look at this one...

Last week's answer:
Who (L 2 R) - Darren, Dina, me, Julie, Hober
When - March 11, 2007; Detroit's St Patrick's Day Parade
Where - Downtown D-town

Sydney

2007-07-02T22:06:00.000+10:00

Ahhh, Sydney... Everybody has to go to Sydney, right? It is the premier city of Australia.. Arguably of the Southern Hemisphere. When you tell someone that you've been to Sydney the most likely responses are "Oh, I've always wanted to go to Sydney," or "I loved Sydney". Well, I have a different story to tell...

**Caution** - If Sydney is your dream holiday location or even on your "Top 10 Places Before I Die" list then you may not want to read this post.

**Disclaimer** - I'm not saying that it was a horrible city or that I had a bad time - it was a lovely city and I enjoyed it for the most part - I'm just saying it wasn't as advertized. 1) I could have been tired.. I fell asleep on the plane. How significant is that? My first trip to Australia back in 2002, or whenever it was, I flew from Boston to Detroit to Tokyo to Singapore (had a 7 hour layover) and finally to Perth.. it took me 35 hours and I slept for maybe 2 of those. I've been known to fly for 24hrs straight without sleeping. This was an hour flight in the middle of the afternoon and I slept most of the way. 2) It's winter, it got up to 60F but that's not the Aussie weather that you're looking for. 3) I'm not exceptionally familiar with the city and spent all of my time downtown.

Landmarks and Downtown

Ground that I covered

But here we go..

Friday
The flight out of Melbourne was easy, of course, Qantas must run 15 flights to Sydney a day and the approach into the airport went right by the city and had great views (try to get on the right side of the plane for this approach). Getting to city central is easy too, the train station is under the airport and takes you right downtown. My first impression came as I left the Central train station and found myself in a flood of people. This doesn't happen in Melbourne unless you're in a tourist area - Sydney is a real city. The next thing I noticed was that the streets were dirty.. and then somewhere behind me I heard a famiar sound; something that I haven't heard in a while - somebody just honked their horn! And at someone else for doing something stupid. Again, this doesn't happen in Melbourne, they're too tolerant. I was beginning to like this place.

I had a map of downtown Sydney imprinted in my brain, I didn't have a hardcopy, I knew where my hotel was and where the major landmarks were, I just didn't know where the train station was on that map so I didn't know my starting point. So I wandered a little bit through Chinatown and eventually found my way to Darling Harbour where I found an Information Centre that gives out free maps and my hotel was at the corner of Liverpool St and College St, right on the corner of Hyde Park. The hotel was kind of nice and my room was on the top floor (15th) and had a balcony that can fit one person standing and maybe a plant but it had some views anyway.

I wanted some food and was looking forward to seeing the town at night and some of that "outdoor culture" that I was told about. This is where the problems started. I wandered for hours through the shopping district, again to Darling Harbour, even through Pyrmont, then the outskirts of Chinatown, and back to Hyde Park and didn't find anything. I finally settled on a pizza/kabob place that was good for finishing the meal and then scurrying off but not so much for having a relaxing dinner. The next idea was to find a pub but even though there were a few hotels (pubs) on some corners, they just didn't have the right feel to them... I was tired enough as it was and would be walking all the next day so I just called it a night.

Saturday
The plan was to see the Harbour Bridge, the Opera house, the botanical gardens, the art museum, and finish the day off with some dinner and the Australia vs New Zealand rugby game (which, incidentally, was being played in Melbourne). I grabbed some coffee and a pastry and started to wander north through Hyde Park (very nice), up through the shopping district where I caught my first glimpse of the famed Sydney Harbour Bridge, along the east side of Darling Harbour, and to the Observatory, which was surrounded by a nice park and was on a hill that provided some good views of the harbor. But most importantly, the observatory is right next to the Harbour Bridge, which can be crossed by pedestrians. I made it halfway across to take some pictures of the city and of the opera house, which was just off to the side. It was a nice walk and I could see some people doing the Sydney Harbour Bridge walk, which I am told could be the best thing to do in Sydney but it's expensive and I wasn't going to do it by myself. I was walking on the road level - for the bridge walk you go up onto the top of the bridge.

After coming off the bridge I found myself in my favorite part of town - The Rocks. The Rocks is the oldest neighborhood in Sydney and it still looks that way. There are many old buildings and some nice restaurants and cafes in the area. There's also a small market where you can buy some useless stuff.. I'm sure some people would appreciate it. I stopped at the front of a souvenir shop to look at some postcards and this woman came up to me and asked if I would like to come into the store. I will but I'm looking at these postcards, I tell her. Of course - so she doesn't say anymore.. but watches me... from three feet away. She was freaking me out so I grabbed a couple of the cards, paid for them and got the heck out of there. I went to a nearby cafe and picked up another coffee (I was drinking flat whites this weekend) and a muffin (raspberry, toasted with butter) and made the short walk through Circular Quay to the Opera House.

This is where I'm going to start with the whining. Sydney has some very nice architecture - except for Sydney Tower, that thing is horrid - and the Sydney Opera House is probably the most famous. But the feelings on that building go either way, some people think it's the most beautiful thing they've ever seen and others say that it should be dragged out to the ocean and sunk to the bottom. No matter which way you lean, it's instantly recognizable from the multitude of photographs that are splattered anywhere Sydney is mentioned. There are many things that fit this profile, you know them well, everyone does - the pyramids, the White House, the Taj Mahal (I'm not putting the opera house in the category of these landmarks, I'm just comparing its fame). But even when they are so well known by photos, even enhanced by the photos, there are some that make you stop short when you see them, maybe even take your breath away, or just surprise you. The Sydney Opera House did not do this for me. It was big - huge even - but it was just there. The same with the Harbour Bridge - it was a very nice bridge, artistic and functional, but, again, just a bridge.

Next was a walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens, which I liked a lot because it had a collection of very strange trees and some cool birds walking around but not too much for flowers or smaller plants. The path brought me around Farm Cove to Macquerie's point for a view of the Opera House with the Harbour Bridge in the background and then I stopped at a cafe in the park for lunch before I went into the art museum. I spent a couple of hours in the museum, which was a lot busier than anything outside. I won't bore you with my thoughts of the art - let's just say that it was less than inspiring.

I had accomplished just about everything that I had intended to for the day and there were still a few hours before the rugby match started so, again down near Hyde Park, I stepped into a pub. The young, woman bartender, whose pulchritude did not go unnoticed by this bar patron, came over with a "What ah ya aftah?" - "I'll take a Carlton" - "Schoonah?" - "Do you have pints?" - and she returned with "Not in this country, mate" with just enough accent and sass that anyone would feel smitten. And I - with my renowned smoothness with the ladies (sarcasm) - responded, rather defensively, with "Uhh, well, we have them in Melbourne." To which she said in a soft, possibly hurt voice, "Well, I've nevah been to Melban." I felt bad - I really did - but I can't help it if I'm socially inept. Right? Anyway, when I ordered my second schooner, she gave me a huge smile - she even smiled with her eyes, which had me smitten all over again and I felt that she had forgiven me (or, more likely, had forgotten who I was) and I never asked for another pint the rest of the time that I was in Sydney.

I went to the hotel to drop my gear off (books and such) before I headed out for the dreaded search for dinner and pub for the game. Dinner came easy enough at a pizzeria and I found an alright place across the park and over a couple of blocks from the hotel to watch the game. I even had a seat. I was drinking VB - schooners, of course - and watched the Aussies come back from a terrible first half to beat the All Blacks for the first time since 2003. Go the Aussies! With that last item crossed off the list, I headed back to the hotel for some sleep.

Sunday
There was only one thing that I wanted this morning: a coffee with breakfast outside under the sun. Would I find it? You bet I would. I walked over to Darling Harbour and found a few cafes with outdoor seating and a great view of the city. From this spot the city looks very familiar.. like a place that I've been to before but I can't think of where. It's been bothering me all weekend. I had a coffee and brekkie, read my book in the sun on a Sunday morning and I was happy and loving Sydney.

I took a walk back to the Opera House (feelings hadn't changed) but the wind forced me back away from the harbor and I then met up with a parade going down Macquerie St for Reserve Forces Day. I watched that for a short while, walked past the Sydney Tower (still horrible) and thought about some lunch and how I might get back to the airport. A couple of streets into Chinatown I saw an Irish pub and knew that I had to go in. Stepped up to the bar and ordered a Guinness and while she was pouring I had a perusal of the menu, which I wasn't very interested in so I took my Guinness over to a table and had a go at finishing the book that I was reading ('The Wayward Tourist' by Twain - it's good). About five minutes in I noticed a sign on a pole near me that said "Guinness - beer of the month; $5 pints". I thought, "that's pretty cool and, yes, I do recall only paying $5 for this, it's not often that you can get a pint of anything... wait a minute.. I'm drinking a pint. They do have pints in Sydney!" My thoughts even warranted the exclamation point. But rather than run off to tell my old friend from the day before, I finished off my beer (two of them, actually - just to be sure), finished my book, and got on the train to the airport.

And that was Sydney. A nice town but it didn't strike me the way that I was told it would. Going through a guidebook after my wanderings, I really didn't see anything in there that I had missed. I haven't given up on it yet, I fully intend to go back in October when the weather's nicer and I know more of what to look for and I don't have to see the bridge or the opera house (although, that is why I'm going) or the god-awful Sydney Tower. The trip was frustrating and a lot of the places just didn't feel welcoming. But come October I'll be able to make a better estimate, I think.

And the pictures:

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Response to the comment..

2007-06-26T20:08:00.000+10:00

"What's the prize?", indeed. That's a good question. We'll add up the points. Quick rules:

1. Split the year into quarters - that's 13 weeks per, people - and we'll have a winner for each and then a grand champion at the end of the year. I'll decide the prizes later.
2. You get one point for answering each of the following questions: Who or What? Where? When?
- I will determine the correct answers to the questions; for example a picture of my brother and sister can be answered as "your brother and sister", "Joanne and Steve", or "the turds you grew up with" but I won't take "some dude and a chick". If you say "Big Steve and someone that I don't know" I might give you a point, depending on my mood. Cool?
3. You have to email me with your answer by the next week when I post the next picture and the answers to the previous week.
4. I can give out extra points for creativity as I see fit.

And, yes, Ang, you can win even if you were the one that took the picture (thanks for letting me steal that btw).

More contests:
Not really a contest but we still have the poll open on the type of surfboard that I should buy. My credit card company called me up and told me that I can't buy it just yet.. maybe next month.

And in a week or so we'll be putting up a pretty cool contest that anybody would want to win... It will at least be fun for me.

Picture of the Week

2007-06-26T10:03:00.000+10:00

This is an easy one.
Any guesses? When and where? I'll even give you points for the who.

This Week

2007-06-25T23:19:00.000+10:00

This week will be busy.. Marathon training is taking over my life (16 miles on Sunday) and I'm always tired and hungry. But the big news is that Friday I'm flying up to Sydney for my first trip there. Of course, Sydney is the largest, oldest, and most famous city in Australia. Sure it's winter and they had some huge storms recently but I'm going to see what the have to offer. I may need to make a summer trip as well to see how it compares to Melbourne. At least the surfing's just a walk away instead of a 2 hour drive.

Beached freighter off the coast of Sydney from the storms last week.

Tassie Concluded

2007-06-25T23:02:00.000+10:00

Back to Tassie...

Sunday

I woke up early to make the drive to Hobart in the southeast corner of the island. It's not a long drive, 300km from this hotel, it should take 4 or 5 hours. First I need to find gas, which brought me back to Queenstown. Now in the morning light Queenstown has somehow come alive.. the gas station is open, people are walking around, and even worse, there are hotels everywhere. Where were these last night? No bother now, I filled up the Corolla and went on my way.

The first climb was to see how mining has torn apart and stained the mountains surrounding Queenstown. There's nothing that you can complain about, it just gives you an idea of how this process is done and what it does to the land. I pulled over to see the Iron Blow, which is a huge absence of earth where a mountain once stood. It was very impressive how they removed so much rock and kept the formation so round and the walls so sheer.

I drove on and on through the mountains until I came to Nelson Falls, a short hike from the highway that brings you right to the base of a 100ft waterfall. The signs tell you that early in the morning and late at night you can see platypuses scouring the the bottom of the river but I didn't see any. I looked as much as I could though. It was cool and quiet and a nice place to spend sometime even though there weren't many places to sit because it was so wet.

The next stop was Donaghy's Lookout, just underneath the Frenchman's Cap. Another short hike, the trail brought you to a point that juts out of what seems to be nothing. Suddenly you are far above the surrounding ground and can see a 360 degree panorama of the surrounding mountains and valleys. I don't know who Donaghy was (he probably owned the land at some point) but his lookout was a great place to read, think, or just sit and admire the surrounds.

The last stop on this trip to Hobart was Tarraleah - I needed coffee and the sign told me that they had a cafe. And that they did - a very nice cafe on the edge of town where it would have been nice to have lunch but instead I took my coffee to go. Before I got back in the car I had a look at the enormous power generator that they had in the town. They diverted two rivers through some very large pipes and then sent the water, still in the pipes, down a very steep part of the mountain into the generator at the bottom. It was a nice little town and I was glad I stopped.

The rest of the drive to Hobart was flat and not very interesting. I pulled into town and it was still light, which is what I needed to find my way around and a place to stay. I did one or two laps of the city before I parked and wandered into the Information Centre - they have these all over Australia and they are extremely helpful. They have brochures, book tours, maps, and for me, today, they found me accommodation. I would have settled for a small hotel with paper-thin walls and a small lamp on a table for light but they put me up in a very nice Mercure Hotel in the CBD for a reasonalbe price and full breakfast - high class all the way.

I was checked in and had the necessities out of the car and it was time to explore the town. I did a quick walk by the water and made my way over to Battery Point - a very nice (and I'm sure expensive) part of town with roads that wound by old houses and small shops. I found a nice Irish pub (naturally) where I stopped for a Guinness but they were setting up for dinner so I didn't stay long. I found The New Sydney Hotel, another pub that seemed to be a bit more lively so I stopped in there for what must have been the worst veggie burger that I've ever had. Aside from that, it is a great place and I would recommend it. And that's where I finished the night, it has been a long trip already and sleep was very inviting...

Monday

I woke up early but not early enough to see the sun rise over the harbor. I had enough time to get Macquarie Point but not enough time to get a coffee on the way. When I got to my viewing point I realized a couple of things - Hobart doesn't face the ocean, there's a large piece of land directly east of the city, although, on the other side of the river. Second, because the sun has to rise about the town opposite, it takes a lot longer to become visible so I was sitting on the point - without coffee - 20 minutes after 'sunrise' waiting for the sun to show itself. Finally it appeared, pictures were taken, and I was on my way back to the hotel for my inclusive full breakfast (that means buffet!).

There are plenty of small towns that boast some sort of historical significance or another but I wasn't having any of it. I was on the fast road to Launceston, the third oldest city in Australia, and I think the nicest town in Tasmania (from what I've seen). At first it didn't seem that they had too much but once I found the main streets and the cafes it was quite a charming town. I also found a nice little bookstore where I, of course, bought some books. And in the park they have a Japanese Macaque exhibit where you can watch the monkeys sit around, groom each other, and sometimes get in fights. The kids of the town seem to love it, which convinced me to leave a little earlier than I would have liked. Don't get me wrong, I like kids but kids and monkeys and trying to be quiet doesn't add up. I didn't want to be late for the boat anyway and I wasn't exactly sure how long it would take me to get up to Devonport.

Well, it didn't take very long to get up to Devonport so I had a lot of time to kill, which shouldn't be too hard because the ferry lands here so there should be plenty to do in town. That was my first mistake - the only thing worth doing in Devonport is getting drunk then falling onto the boat but even the pubs weren't open. Nothing was open except for the gambling establishments but I'm really not into those. I did find a cafe that let me in for a while but that time waiting for them to finally let us on the boat was just hell.

And then I was back on the ferry on my way back to Melbourne with a better idea of how I would see Tasmania on the next trip. Hobart and/or Launceston on one trip. Hiking on another. They don't go together, especially for just a weekend.

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Whoops..

2007-06-18T21:15:00.001+10:00

Before I finish off my Tassie trip, which won't take too much longer - I promise, I wanted throw in a quick race report.. Yesterday I did the Run to the G Half Marathon as part of my marathon training. The start time was 7:15am in Fed Sq but there aren't any trams or buses that get there from here that early in the morning so I had to drive up to the city. Then it was really cold and I just didn't want to be there - leading me to declare "This is f-ing stupid". But as I started to wake up I felt a little better about the race.

Then the gun went off.. the course was crap and other runners didn't corral themselves properly but I had a good run. Again, I was using this race as a practice for pacing and I was looking for a pace of 7:45min/mile. I had my splits written on my bib, my watch on my wrist and I was going to do it. Well, it didn't happen that way.

I started out fast and knew that I could keep it up for the entire race.

I finished at 1:33:18 official (1:33:17 watch), which is 7:07min/mile pace.. I'll take that.

Tassie - Friday and Saturday

2007-06-17T23:41:00.000+10:00

Well, Friday was a work day that turned into a going-away party (I go to a lot of these) for a couple that are doing a 5 month tour of Australia before they move back to Europe. But I really didn't have much time to stick around because the boat was leaving at 8 and I needed to be on board about an hour before that.

The Spirit of Tasmania was great, it was an 11 hour.. uhh, float? Voyage? It went from 8pm to 7am, they had bars, restaurants, and a casino on board, they even had a store and an information center. I was able to walk around, go out on deck, go to the bar and read, get a coffee. Plus, I already had a car to get around the island with and for some reason I like the slow travel of boats and trains.

I had a general idea what I wanted to do: a counter-clockwise tour of the island, some hiking, maybe some camping, and end the weekend by checking out the cities. Tassie is covered in national and state parks but I really only had time for small hikes just off the road and I was hoping that would hold me over for a time.

The cars are parked in the lower levels of the ship and they unload one or two levels at a time to avoid congestion and keep the amount of exhaust down. So I'm on level one and they're calling for levels 3 and 5 - that's easy, I just need to wait around, drink my coffee, no big deal. About 10 minutes later there's an announcement over the PA - "would the owner of a blue Corolla, rego #..." SOB - yup, I was "that guy". My car was parked on level 3.

So I'm on the road, flying down a seaside highway on my way to Burnie - I don't know what's there but it does have a junction to head down to Cradle Mt, which is my first stop. Turns out Burnie had some coffee and a vegie pasty (or is it pastie?) for me before I turned south to drive the winding roads through the start of the wild part of Tassie.

Cradle Mountain and it's jagged summit, though not the highest in Tassie, is the iconic symbol of the state. There are signs everywhere pointing out it's location but none that point out that Mt Ossa, the highest mountain, is only 25km south. I had no intentions of climbing the mountain but there were some tracks along the base of the mountain and around Dove Lake that would offer some great views of Cradle Mt and it's surroundings. When I arrived at the parking lot and saw the huge mountain in the distance with it's steep peak jutting out of the ground it only solidified the idea that today was not the day for this. But then there was a sign that said, "Cradle Mt summit.. 6km". I looked around.. 12k return? To that? I can do that.

The decision was made, it was 10:15am and it gets dark around 5pm, sure it's only 12km but look at that thing. So I signed in at the hikers registry, threw every piece of cold weather gear that I had into my pack. Hat - check; gloves - check; coat - check; headlamp - check; extra food and water - uhh, I had a bottle of water and a granola bar.. hmmm... let's do it.

The track leading up to the mountain was not difficult but gained a significant amount of altitude. There were also some great views just from the various lookouts. I was still unsure about the final approach but when I got up there it wasn't too bad. It was a lot of handholds and pulling up but nothing too difficult. Once I made it over the first peak there was quite a bit of snow and it could be easy to slide down into the rocks but luckily that didn't happen. From the summit it seemed you could see all of Tasmania. The walk back was easier than expected too but getting down the rocks was difficult as it can be harder to get down then to go up. Total time - 4hrs. Piece of cake.

From there I was looking for food, there was a 'cafe' just outside of the park but under "Hot Lunches" on the menu on the wall was absolutely nothing. Because it's winter they weren't serving anything so I just got a coffee and a water. From there I was going to drive down to Queenstown to get some food and possibly spend the night, I had my tent but it was pretty cold. I picked Queenstown solely on the fact that the name was printed in larger font on the map than any of the surrounding towns but when I came to a T in the road there was a sign that said Zeehan to the right followed by symbols for hotel, gas, food and then Queenstown to the left but not followed by an symbols at all. But I was confident in the larger font and if there's a problem then I'll just continue on to Hobart. Well, the latter idea was quickly thrown out the window when I saw a sign that said "Hobart - 289km", it was already dark, I'm tired, and these roads are anything but straight and flat, there's no way that I could make it to Hobart. Ahh, Queenstown.

My dreams and confidence of Queenstown being the answer to my hungriness and sleepiness disappeared as soon as I got a glimpse of the town - or, more accurately, the enormous mine splitting the mountain next to the town. Yes, it was a mining town. As I drove down the main street I had the feeling that I shouldn't be there - first of all, I think I was the only one there, the streets were empty, second, I don't think they get too many visitors. A pizza place.. yes it's open.. sweet. I went in to place my order and the place is being run by teenage girls and there are no adults to be seen at all. But I place my order - one cheese pizza - that will take about 35 minutes.. I glance around, you're kidding me, right? I'm the only one here. Oh well. I felt kind of weird just sitting in the pizza place so I walked outside and saw a grocery store across the street - that works, I need some food since I ate my one granola bar on the mountain. This place was being run by teenage boys. What is going on here? Do all of the adults work in the mines and the kids run the town? 40 minutes later I was happily eating my pizza - in my car - and then turned my mind to where I was going to sleep that night. Queenstown has done enough for me for today.

There's a town, Strahan, not too far from there and it has an airport - this place has got to be huge. The road there didn't suggest that. It was about 40km and just turn after turn and I was driving fast - I don't know how I made it - I did see one wallaby though, I'm glad he didn't run in front of my car. This is a problem in Australia, like other places, animals come out at night and run into the street in front of your car so I just knew that a kangaroo or a wallaby was going to become my new hood ornament (imagine returning that to the rental car place - it was there when I got it?) but I lucked out and didn't hit anything. Strahan was lacking my needs as well but now I need something else - gas - and the one station in Strahan was closed - it was 6pm! I couldn't get much further on what I had. Strahan was a bust. Do I sleep in the car? There's one more chance - Zeehan (from before) is not too far from here and there's a road between where I am and there so I don't have to backtrack. I know there's gas, food, and hotels there, the sign told me so. And I can just barely make it there on the gas that I have.

Pulling into Zeehan I had the only close call for endangering any animals as someone's cat ran out in front of me. After driving through town I decided that if there was any town that I wouldn't stay in without a damn good reason, it's Zeehan. This place is dodgy.. I'm not kidding. I guess I can sleep in the car somewhere.. wait.. there's a not so bad hotel. I walked in and asked if they had any rooms available and without even thinking or looking at the book in front her she said 'yes'. "And how much would that be?" "102 dollars." "Sold!"

Then she said to me, "Are you here 4 wheel driving?" "Umm, no." Seemed like a weird question. "Where do I park?" "Out back by the room." As I walked to the car I noticed that it was really getting cold and I was happy to have a room to sleep in instead of my tent or car. Then as I pulled into the back parking lot her question started to make sense, there were 4wd's everywhere and they were all covered in mud. These things were huge and here I am pulling in with my little Toyota Corolla hatchback thinking, "Just please don't tip my car over while I'm sleeping." I really wanted to take some pictures but didn't want the flash to bring any unwanted attention to me so I decided to pass.

So, my first night in Tasmania was spent in a very cold hotel room with a space heater and me lying in bed watching footy on tv and wondering what was going to happen tomorrow...

Back from Tassie

2007-06-12T21:36:00.000+10:00

So, I made it back from my crazy tour of Tasmania - 4 days if you count the first night on the boat. I think I'm going to cut this up into different posts and do one day at a time to be sure that it gets done in a good time. And those that read all of the posts will be rewarded with the picture slide show on the last day. But to get you started, here are a few pictures:

Map of Tasmania

View from the summit of Cradle Mountain

View from Donaghy's Lookout

Cooking with Gas in Launceston

And make sure you check out Kelly's new blog from paradise. The link's to the left.

Help with my new board

2007-06-04T22:04:00.001+10:00

As stated in my last post, I have been looking to get a surfboard and demoed one yesterday known as a stubby and I've decided that I'm going to get one of those. So, I need your help, I'm getting a 7' 6" stubby from the surfshop down the street from me and you can help me pick the color - they'll paint it for me.

No graphics, just one color with different color stripes. Stick to easy colors because they have to mix them themselves. Plain white is cheaper and is probably the most popular, I can add lines to that, and it can be glossy or not.

One thing to think about: I'm what they call in surfing lingo as, um, "not good" and one thing I don't really want to do is look like a poseur by buying a fancy board and not knowing what to do with it. See where I'm going with that?

Monday Post

2007-06-04T21:22:00.000+10:00

Sox
M-Fs got us.. you've got to be kidding me. A great rubber game at Fenway that ends with A-Rod, after everything Red Sox Nation put him through the last 3 days, putting one into the bullpen in the 9th.. off of Pap no less. I bet the Yankee fans are loving it (at least those dirty bastards that actually pay attention, not the stupid people that wear the hat 'cause everyone else GD does). M-F! Lane - Not Happy!

Weekend
Friday wasn't a bad night, a few of us went to a small pub down the street from me. The band started up, very loudly, covering Stones' songs so a really not to bad. Great people watching, it seems that this band must play there a lot because most people knew they would be there and since they're all Stones fans, I think most of them were older than my parents. Some crazies too.

Saturday is my rest day but I was ready to spend some money. I hung around to watch the Sox lose to the Yankees then finally bought some balcony furniture but of course it is stinking cold here so I'll be out there all bundled up, maybe I'll light a candle to warm up. Then I headed up to a running store in Kew East where I spent A$... let's just say a bit of money on new running shoes. They're the next generation Asics of what I've been using so now I'm running 2 pairs of 2120s and a pair of 2110s. I checked out some surfboards too, sort of picked out the type that I want but the place said I could demo one so I took the used one for Sunday's trip to Philip Island. Lastly, just hanging out - dinner and a smoothie - this is what it comes down to during marathon training.

I had a plan for Sunday. I was being picked up around 7:30am to go surfing but I had to run 12 miles that day too. Go surfing and then run? No let's run first. That means a 4:30 wake up call.. Think that can happen? I woke up at 4:20 without the alarm, got up, ran a great 12 miles and then... the alarm went off. You know what's worse than waking up at 4:30 to run? Waking up dreaming that you've already run 12 miles. But I did the 12 - in the cold - man it's cold here and was back in time to be picked up. We some how fit 3 guys and 3 boards in an Astra and drove the 1.5 hrs to Philip Island and Woolamai Beach. Woolie is known for it's rip and big swells and is not a beginners' beach. What am I? Yeah, a beginner. The board was great but the waves were huge and I just got wrecked on a few of them. And then it was even worse trying to get back out there. I did survive, although tired and cold, and can't wait to get out there again. Rest of the day? Yeah, nothing.

Running
I have 18 weeks until the Melbourne Marathon and two weeks until the Run to the G Half Marathon. Last week I ran all 7 days for a total of 37 miles and today was my 12th day in a row of running. I've switched to running in the mornings and it has just been cold, I can't say that enough, and it rained one day too. Running every day can kill your joints and muscles and what the experts are saying, and this is used religiously by Scott Jurek and Dean Karnazes, is to jump in a cold tub after your run to constrict the blood flow and lower the swelling. Well, I don't have a tub but I have a shower and when it rains or is cold my knees swell up but this makes the swelling go away right away. This really works and I use it after just about every run but can you think of anything worse than coming in from a 6 mile run in 40F temps and cold rain and then taking a cold shower? ...I haven't thought of anything either.

Question: I'm going to Tasmania from next Friday to Tuesday, I can run Friday morning, Saturday and Monday are only 3 miles so I can do that on the island and Tuesday when I get home but I'm supposed to do 14 miles on Sunday, how am I going to squeeze that in? Any suggestions?

Let's Go Red Sox!!

2007-05-31T21:41:00.001+10:00

So the Sox dropped one yesterday - it happens, I'm not concerned. Otherwise, they've been ripping it up like crazy. They do need to pick it up for this weekend against the Yankees before they can put it into low gear for interleague play.

People ask me a lot if I am following the Sox from over here. Absolutely. Without the internet I wouldn't have a chance but with it I am able to follow the entire season. And with that.. If you want some inside information on the team here's where you can find Curt Schilling's blog - he always has something to say - and the other day Youkilis started one. His first post described his first inside-the-park homerun from the other night.

http://kevinyoukilis.mlblogs.com/

http://38pitches.com/

Incidentally, it was almost 2 years ago at Fanfest during the MLB Allstar Game weekend in Detroit that Hober and I had the privilege of meeting Curt Schilling...

Books and Pictures

2007-05-29T21:45:00.000+10:00

Here is my third and final post of the day...

I just finished Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey: The River of Doubt by Candice Millard. I just happened to pick this up at some airport on my last trip to the States. It's a great book - the story is amazing and something that you wouldn't expect from an ex-president of the US (even if it is TR, I didn't expect him to do such a trip after he was president) and the writing, storytelling, and pertinent facts were very interesting and allowed me to fully picture the expedition's progress. And TR is someone who is always interesting to read about.

Just before this one I read Kerouac's Lonesome Traveler - this dude is writing the life I've been dreaming about for 15 years. He is now my favorite mid-20th century American writer. How's that for specific? But once I read a few more of his then he's likely to move up the overall list.

And to finish off some unfinished business, which will now be considered finished, here are some pictures:

On 25 April I did a trail run up in the Cathedral Range in Victoria:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=s8e95zp.2fya0571&Uy=-86iq94&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

And on 6 May Kevin and I ran the Great Train race, which is a race through the mountains where you race against the tourist train that they have there. It's a 13km run that is very hilly but a lot of fun. I can't remember what my number was so I can't find my time but I came in around 59 minutes, which was 1min 20sec slower than the train. Next year I'll get him.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1&Uc=s8e95zp.56iek231&Uy=a8rvk8&Ux=1

I need to go to sleep!

I don't know how I do it...

2007-05-29T14:53:00.000+10:00

Being away from my family and friends, traveling alone to the other side of the world to a place that I have never been to before, that has a strange culture and strange people. I have to contend with driving on the other side of the road, strange wild animals, unfamiliar food, weird sayings and customs. How do I handle it?

Oh, this might help a little. Once again, Melbourne, Australia (where I live) has been placed very near the top of the list of "The World's Best Places to Live" according to Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

TOP TEN 2007
Vancouver
Melbourne
Vienna
Geneva
Perth
Adelaide
Sydney
Zurich
Toronto
Calgary
Source: EIU
Based on Stability; Healthcare; Culture & Environment; Education; and Infrastructure
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4306936.stm

But a different survey done by Mercer (also 2007) shows "The World's Best Cities" and puts Melbourne in 17th place - still not too bad. And look who's number 3 for the US - Boston (36), look at us.
1 Zurich Switzerland
2 Geneva Switzerland
3 Vancouver Canada
3 Vienna Austria
5 Auckland New Zealand
5 Düsseldorf Germany
7 Frankfurt Germany
8 Munich Germany
9 Bern Switzerland
9 Sydney Australia
11 Copenhagen Denmark
12 Wellington New Zealand
13 Amsterdam Netherlands
14 Brussels Belgium
15 Toronto Canada
16 Berlin Germany
17 Melbourne Australia
18 Luxembourg Luxembourg
18 Ottawa Canada
20 Stockholm Sweden
21 Perth Australia
22 Montreal Canada
23 Nürnberg Germany
24 Calgary Canada
24 Hamburg Germany
26 Oslo Norway
27 Dublin Ireland
27 Honolulu USA
29 San Francisco USA
30 Adelaide Australia
30 Helsinki Finland
32 Brisbane Australia
33 Paris France
34 Singapore Singapore
35 Tokyo Japan
36 Lyon France
36 Boston USA
38 Yokohama Japan
39 London UK
40 Kobe Japan
41 Barcelona Spain
42 Madrid Spain
42 Osaka Japan
44 Washington DC USA
44 Chicago USA
46 Portland USA
47 Lisbon Portugal
48 New York City USA
49 Milan Italy
49 Seattle USA
Based on: Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Health and Sanitation, Schools and Education, Public Services and Transportation, Recreation, Consumer Goods, Housing, Natural Environment
http://www.citymayors.com/features/quality_survey.html

2007-05-29T07:44:00.000+10:00

Fartleks into the wind suuuucccckkkk... especially in the morning.

But the fact that it's 7:45am and I'm done running for the day is AWESOME.

I made it

2007-05-28T15:26:00.001+10:00

Well, the bar from Friday night wasn't as bad as originally thought - maybe I'm just a little fancier than I thought. It was more like a chill bar than what was described on the websites. And it wasn't necessary to drink the fruity mixed drinks that they were offering - thanks for the tips Hobes but haven't we had the conversation about you and margaritas? - they did have a few beers but I went with a 15 year Glenfiddich. So they brought over a taste of it, which I drank and said, "that was nice, I'll take that one, " and the reply was "you just did.. that will be 10 dollars." This is what we've come to call the 'Australian shot' - it's like an ounce and a half without the ounce.. it's small.

Now it's time to start the pub crawl back into the city. We sent the organisers up ahead a bit, which proved to be a bad idea because we didn't make it into every bar that we passed - maybe that was a good idea. Our first stop was a crowded one that had Bon Jovi blaring from the inside. We stood around drinking our beers but got tired of being manhandled by everyone that walked by, which led us to the next bar - a very 'local' hotel that had an interesting mix of people. But it also had a pool table that we could use so one of the better bars of the night. Gradually, we lost participants and when we got to the CBD we hit another fancy bar but this one was of the scotch-and-cigar variety. But I can't tell you that I'll ever go there again - not because I thought it was a bad place to go but I may not be able to find it. There's no sign and it's up some stairs so you can't see it from the street, it's just a door, albeit, a nice door. And the last bar of the night landed us in the Elephant and Wheelbarrow in the city where I had a Guinness and called it a night around 2:30am, took a cab home, and that's about it.

Saturday - nothing, read a bunch of a book, got some coffee, that's about it.

Sunday I picked up a couple of friends, loaded up the Toyota with surfboards and headed down to Torquay for the 5ft swells promised to us by the internet. Well, the internet is a big fat liar because there were no waves, just some inconsistent 2 footers. But it was fun to try to catch some anyway, it's always nice to get in the water, and the beach was really nice too - although, it was a nude beach (no one using it for such these days because it's stinking cold) that is surrounded by cliffs (sorry, no pictures) and is very quiet. We made our way back to town and I finished off the day with a nice 10mile run. The ankle is feeling better but my knee is jacked up. The inside back is giving me some issues and throwing off my stride.

Let's go to the pub

2007-05-25T19:41:00.000+10:00

I had my first legal beer in the States (thank you Canada) with my parents on my 21st birthday at some place like an Applebees or 99 or something like that in Salem, NH. Probably only a few days later my cousin had me hurling out of the passenger-side door of his car in the breakdown lane of 495 after going to a place that had Bud Lite for a quarter and tequila. Getting back to college I was hanging out in the bars of Flint, MI. My local in Flint was Paddy McGee's, in Boston it was Crossroads, in Haverhill it's the Peddlar's Daughter, in MI it was The Hideout, and in St Kilda it's the Elephant and Wheelbarrow.

I like pubs to be old, dirty, and moderately lit. I like them to have Irish names on the front, with Irish waitresses with Irish accents, and with Irish Guinness on tap. It's a bonus if it has a couple of steel-tip dart boards in the corner and a pool table. And if I'm in the Midwest then I'll even take a shuffleboard table as a substitute.

Well, a couple of days ago I got an email from a friend of mine saying that he and his girlfriend have arranged a night out at a bar on Friday and everyone's invited. This guy's a fellow GMIer - he won't steer me wrong, right? So we all give the green light. Then today I was wondering where we were going so I looked it up and to my horror this place is billed as "Sex in the City come to life" (is it Sex in the City or Sex and the City?). Also, "If you're looking for beer or wine don't come here." What has this dude gotten us into? This place is all mixed drinks - I think the only mixed drink I've ever ordered is a 3 Wisemen. I'll tell ya - I'm not looking forward to this.

But wish me luck, one consolation is that the dirty pool hall that we went to last week is just across the street. Somebody help me!

Exploring the High Country

2007-05-25T15:11:00.000+10:00

Way back in April - the 7-8 - I went for a long drive up to the Alpine Country of Victoria. This trip was to check out the area as well as do a little bit of camping. I've had a bit of trouble finding trailheads when I go hiking and maps are difficult to find or do not exist and when they do they aren't very helpful but that didn't stop me from heading up to the Mt Buller area to try some hikes.

Mt Buller (1804m) is the closest large ski area to Melbourne and there's a road that goes almost to the summit so I decided to take a drive to the top before I made my way to the base to do some hiking. I wasn't interested in climbing the mountain, I just wanted to get out in the bush to get away from everything. There was a small village at the top and there was some views but not too much to speak of. BTW - Mt Buller recieved 7cm (2.75in) of snow the other day - time to sharpen the board!

It was tough finding a trail at the base of the mountain and when I did it was impossible to figure out where it went but I started out on a trail that didn't seem to climb too much and followed a small creek but soon it went straight up a hill but the trail was almost impossible to follow. There was no sign of a trail under my feet and I had to rely on the sporadic blazes on the trees. Finally, I said 'stuff this' and decided to do some off-trail hiking instead - I wasn't going far anyway. The forest that I was in was recently burnt by bushfires and the ground was covered in ash that, when disturbed by my walking, got into my nose when I breathed and got onto my gear.

I only went in a few k's and set up camp on a flat surface without much ash butthere also wasn't much of a view but there's no need for that when you're sleeping. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and reading. One of the things that I wanted to see while I was out there were the stars - I'm not sure what it is but people always seem to be drawn to the stars and the ocean; neither of which can be fully grasped as you're standing on a small planet looking up towards the little specks of light or standing on the shore gazing out at the large blue expanse. The stars did come out eventually that night and the sky was clear of clouds and the moon was no where to be seen and without the light pollution of the city I was able to see a huge number twinkling above me. Without the moon it was so dark that I could only see around the campsite using my headlamp, otherwise it was I couldn't see my hand in front of me. After I got my fill of looking at the stars I went off to sleep in my little one-person tent.

I awoke to what must have been a pretty large tree branch breaking off in the distance. But it wasn't the sound of a branch that was still part of a tree, it was as if it was stepped on. And then I heard it off in the distance. It wasn't making any animal-like noises like barking or grunting but I could hear it move across the ground, or, to be more specific, hop across the ground. Kangaroos have to be the loudest animals around here - they don't have any natural enemies here so there's no reason for them to be quiet as they bounce through the forest. I think I heard this one coming from half-a-mile away and then he suddenly stopped.. crap, he saw me, or at least saw the tent that I was in. Just as I was thinking that he's going to want to come over to see what this bright orange dome is in the middle of his forest I heard him move cautiosly closer until he was what sounded to be 3 feet away - I couldn't tell because I had the rain-fly over the tent. My food was up in a tree so I wasn't concerned about that but I didn't really want him to hang around and start clawing at my tent so I just rolled over and it frightened him enough and he scampered off.

After my visitor left I saw that it was quite bright outside so I figured that the sun is coming up and it's about time to pack up and walk out of the woods. But when I got out of my tent I saw that the moon had come up and lit up the entire area and I was able to see about 100ft around the site. But with it still being night I had to go back to the tent and try to sleep through the rest of the night.

Now as the sun came up it was time to make the short walk back to the car. I easilly found my way back and it was still early in the morning so I pulled out the road map to see where else I could go. I could get back to Melbourne by doing a big loop along the Great Alpine Road, which wound its way through the rest of the alpine area. This road brought me by Mt Feathertop and over Mt Hotham then down through the towns of Omeo, Bairnsdale - where I had lunch, through Sale, and finally my route emptied into the very boring drive west towards Melbourne arriving 10 hours after I popped out of the bush that morning.

My mountain goat

From the top of Mt Hotham

Still the top of Mt Hotham

I only took pictures from the top of Mt Hotham

Any guesses?

Hikers on the ridge trail to Mt Feathertop

Even with the comment earlier in this post about riding the board on snow, Sunday I'll be riding a different board on the water when a few of us head down to Torquay for some surfing. Hopefully I'll have some stories from that on Monday.

Great Ocean Road Marathon - Race Report

2007-05-22T19:25:00.000+10:00

Purpose - Use as a warm-up for October's Melbourne Marathon, to see if I can maintain a consistent pace (slow), and to see what I need for food and drink during a race of this distance. The pace that I was looking for kept changing, originally, because of when the race took place during my training, I was going to do somewhere between 8:20 and 8:30 miles but after doing pretty well in a couple of races and checking my pace during training runs 8:00 seemed to be doable.

The race would start at 8am on Sunday and the course ran along the Great Ocean Road from Lorne to Apollo Bay. The Great Ocean Road is one of the main attractions in Victoria and is a cool place to drive along to see the beach, ocean, cliffs.. that sort of thing. I have a post from my drive along the road in November, check it out.

The run was from Lorne to Apollo Bay

Let's start this story on the Sunday before - as stated in previous posts, I woke up that day with a nasty soar throat and was stuffed up. I spent the entire week trying to get rid of this cold, which meant no running but I just couldn't shake it until the Saturday before the race. I decided not to run on that Saturday either because I wouldn't gain anything from it and could possibly bring the cold back so I didn't do too much that day except go into the city to buy some Gu for the race and sit around to rest.

Runners needed to be at the start line at 7am for check-in and Lorne is about 2 hours away.. leave at 5.. breakfast beforehand.. I'll wake up at 4:30. Oh man, when that alarm went off I was full of cuss words, whining, and thoughts of skipping the race altogether but I got up, had some breakfast, finished packing my bag and I was off. Coming up to about 30km away from St Kilda (still 110km away from the start line) I realized that I forgot my watch - in my defense I've worn a watch maybe 5 times while running, it's not a piece of gear that I normally bring - and now I'm not happy at all because whole point of this run depended on me having a watch to pace myself. It was already well past 5 and I thought about going back but at this point I would just get there around 7 and it just wasn't possible to go back.

I was somehow able to convince myself that I can get on without the watch and just enjoy the run but I wasn't sure when those pissed off feelings would creep back into my head but the issue was off to the side for now anyway. I arrived, checked in, it was a little cool because it was morning but otherwise looked like it was going to be a nice day, no rain, some sun, not too hot. At 8 the gun was about to go off so I lined up right up front, not looking to take off too quickly but there were only 400 something people in this race and we had the entire road to ourselves. If I had sprinted the first couple of meters then I would have been leading the race for a few seconds but I left that up to the Kenyans who were 4 or 5 people to my right.

I came to realize that the watch wasn't even necessary because they didn't even mark the kms, the first marker wasn't until 7kms in and someone that did have a watch said that it came up too quickly so I was fine with not pacing myself. The first 13 miles went very well, although, a bit faster than I would have liked but it felt good. The scenery was great and the course was nice, a lot of turns on the road and quite a few hills, which make the race more interesting when you're not going for time. I never knew where I stood for time, they didn't have clocks anywhere along the course, not even at the half-way mark.

After around 16 miles I started to slow down considerably and then around 20 miles in my legs just froze up and the muscles didn't want to move anymore. This brought me down to a very painful and slow shuffle for the remaining 6 miles. Fortunately, it was just the muscles that were bothering me, everything else felt fine, even my ankles, which was encouraging, and the endurance was there. To get over this for the Melbourne Marathon I just need to do a lot of miles during training and between now and October my schedule is telling me that I have to run 834 miles so I think that should be enough.

It seems convenient that the two towns happen to be a marathon apart but that's not actually the case. They're really 45km apart and not the marathon distance of 42km so instead of moving the start or finish lines they give you your time for a 42km marathon and then make you run (or walk or crawl or whatever) the extra 3k's into town and then give you a time for that as well. So, does that mean that I've run an ultramarathon?

Aside from not being able to pace myself and my painful breakdown and my not very welcome marathon time of 3:52 (that's 8:52 mins/mile - my 45km time was a lot worse) I was happy with the race overall. Once I finish this Melbourne Marathon and can run races just for fun and forget about the time then I would come back to this one because the course was so nice. I did learn quite a bit about where I am in my training as well and what I need to do in the next marathon. I didn't run on Monday after the race but I think I'm going to try to go out today even though my ankle is a bit messed up... Maybe I'll just walk.

Next race (that I'm signed up for) is the Run to the G Half Marathon in 4 weeks.

Sun coming up over the ocean in Lorne (why do they start these runs so early?)

Lorne

Lorne over the Toyota (doesn't the car look like a pool?)

I ran with this dude for about 5 miles - he's fast

That's me

Running with the ocean behind me

Bigger ocean

Why do we lie to ourselves?

2007-05-19T10:39:00.000+10:00

How often has this happened? "I have a busy day tomorrow..." or "I've been sick all week..." or "I have a marathon on Sunday..." and they all end with "...so I'm not going to stay out late tonight" or "...so I'm only going to have one or two." Next thing you know you're walking in your apartment at 2 in the morning. That's what happened last night.

I didn't drink too much but staying out that late definitely didn't help my sleep situation, which I needed plenty of since I had been sick all week (still am a little) and because I have a marathon tomorrow. I picked the place that we went to, I don't get to play pool here very often here because there aren't too many places that have tables and when they do they're crap so we went to a real live pool hall. A lot of people ask me what I miss from the States and my answer is usually 'nothing' because I have everything that I need but now I think my answer might be pool.

First of all - they play on snooker tables, they're enormous (a 10 footer is 3/4 size) and the pockets are small and have rounded corners (you'd think that this wouldn't be too bad but it's horrible). If you're off by just a tad on a straight shot it is not going in and then will bounce off the rounded corner and end up on the other side of the table.

Second - the cues are very light, short, and the tip is about half the size of a normal cue. You know how everyone that owns a table has that one cheap cue that you only use when you're up against the wall? Yeah, that's all they have.

Third - the balls are smaller and coupled with the small cues it's tough to get a good strike on the ball or control the spin.

But if I keep playing on these tables then I should be able to hit a straight shot from 12 feet... if an opportunity to do that ever comes up again.

So we had some fun trying to push the balls around the table, played some horribly long games of 8 ball, and then headed home around 2 am. Today I'm just going to rest up for tomorrow, try to get to a running store, and maybe head into the city to grab some coffee and food. I'm looking to run 8 minute miles consistently tomorrow - this isn't a race that I'm going all out on, it's practice for October's race. I haven't run for a week because I've been sick so it should be interesting and let's hope that my ankles hold up. Full on marathon training starts on Monday.

To answer Hober's question from two posts ago - Jill (4 years old) is my sister Joanne's kid and Riley (0 years old) is my cousin Jamie's newborn.

What's with the rain up in Boston forcing two doubleheaders for the Sox in one week? It was nice to see the Sox take down the Tigers this week though. I told you Tavarez was going to come out with a good game. And how about Hinske coming out in the second game on Thursday? Diving game and a jack. Getting it done. Go Sox!

Jill and Riley

2007-05-16T22:27:00.000+10:00

2007-05-16T21:49:00.000+10:00

I think I can write an entire blog just on the comments made by Hober (see comments from yesterday's post). Hober, I'm glad to see that marriage hasn't changed your smooth way of talking to the ladies. I can see Julie rolling her eyes right now.

To finish my story about the trip...

We had the wedding, which was fun, of course, and then came the boarding. I agree with Angella (see her blog) that anytime someone has a CO wedding let me know. I carried my board from Melbourne, to Detroit, to CO, to Boston, and back to Melbourne and it was well worth it.

Boarding was great all around even though it was very warm and the snow conditions were not always great. It seems like it was different at each mountain - slushy, icy, not there, etc. Where did we go? Breck, Loveland, Keystone, and back to Breck. While in CO a few of us got to head into Denver to see Porsche in her new city...

Then I got to head over to Boston to see the family, visit some friends, and have a good time over there too. I'm sure I have plenty more stories but we'll stop there because I have a schedule to keep here and this trip is old.

The US - Part 2

2007-05-15T21:17:00.000+10:00

Already I'm behind schedule and it's only Tuesday. But here's the picture version of the US trip...

I didn't take too many pictures but Bon and Ang have some better ones on their blogs (link to the left). More stories to come.

Hober walking off to his doom (or destiny, depends on how you look at it)

Pausing to look like a tool

Card taking pictures

Sometimes this kid just freaks me out

Stef and Dina chilling

Ang putting the kibosh on taking pictures of her

Me and Steph'nie

Tuesday Morning

2007-05-15T05:53:00.000+10:00

Holy crap it's early! Of course the focus was going to be on sleep this week but you know when you're sick and you just can't fall asleep? Yeah, that was me last night.. I finally fell asleep around 12:30 and woke up at 5:30 (work reasons) and I feel horrible.

In response to Hober's request for more pics - sorry about that, I forgot that you "read" this blog. More picture content, fewer words, and I'll even try to reduce the number of syllables per word - I know that's how you like it.

Sox are playing the Tigers tonight. Dice-K v. Robertson - should be a good game.

Anyone see the Sox game yesterday? Beckett was looking for his 8th win in 8 starts, I checked the score and it was 5-0 Balt in the bottom of the 9th and Beckett had come out early with a blister. Crap, there goes his perfect record since he let in 2 during the first. I checked again not too later and it was 6-5 Sox! How did they pull that off? I didn't get to see any of it but read that Baltimore's horrendous fielding gave Beck a no decision. Thanks O's.

The US - Part 1

2007-05-14T22:01:00.000+10:00

How do you write about 2 crazy weeks in the US in just a few paragraphs? Well, here's one way:

The whole reason for this trip was to go snowbo... I mean for Hober and Julie's wedding in Colorado. Of course I knew about this wedding before I was sent to Australia so it was a 'condition of assignment' that I needed to return to the US in March. In reality my bosses are pretty cool and would have let me go regardless. So I boarded that enormous plane out of Melbourne on the 10th of March, through LA, and down into Detroit for a 2 week work trip / holiday, which would bring me to Detroit, CO, and Boston.

Most of the readers of this blog were there so I can just fill this in with little stories and a good outline. Detroit was the first stop, my company decided to bring me in to the office to hang out for a bit before my week-long holiday - they were paying for the trip so why not? I landed in Detroit and I'm sure it was cold, I had to drive on the right side of the road and the left side of the car and I'm sure I hit the windshield wipers instead of the directional a few times and drove in the middle of the lane because I didn't know where the sides of the car were. After check-in and finding out what life is like without a cell phone some people were nice enough to meet up with me at Stan's in AH and it wasn't difficult to revert back to Michigan life.

The next day was running in the Corktown Race in Detroit - this is the St Patrick's Day race that I've done a few times before. It's really a great race to jog in - I wouldn't run it. And with that I got to run with Dina and talk to her while we ran through the streets of Detroit. Our time was pretty good and then we both fought through the crowd to get our free beer - I got mine first and when Dina saw that I had one in each hand she turned around to leave until I said, "No, Dina, these are mine, you have to get your own." I seem to remember one of those being spilled so I guess kharma beat me on that one too. A bunch more people showed up for the longest parade that you will never see - we just hang out off to the side and never see any of the parade but it's good time to be down there anyway.

The rest of the week was a bit of the same, meeting up with friends each day to catch up, it felt as if I've been gone for years and not months but it's easy to fall back into the groove with this group. We've been together since college and even when we try we can't get rid of each other and actually that makes us realize even more that we don't want to. This is my second time away from my MI friends (first was when I lived in Boston) and I'm sure it won't be my last but they're certainly a group that I don't want to lose - if I could, I'd move the all down here with me (that would be sweet).

Oh, let's tell the story about getting to the airport - I have a problem with being late for stuff but missing this flight was not an option so I packed up and left early. I walked up to the front desk of the hotel and no one was there.. strange.. they did leave a number to call though, which I did (at this point I was thinking of just leaving), and it seems that I had terribly inconvenienced the lady that had to come out front to check me out. This was also the longest check out ever - what does she need to do? "Yes, he left." Next was gas for the rental car, which took time, and the Detroit airport is just far enough to inconvenience everyone and make it impossible to make it on time for a 6:30 flight. I was driving and driving and driving and it seemed that I was never going to get there. Finally, I get there but need to turn in my rental car - I pulled into the lot at 5:40 (for a 6:30 flight) and there was a line of people and a bus just sitting right there but they had to go through the check out and print my receipt and ask questions and.. "I gave you your stinking car, let me leave." Now I had to contend with the bus and I was thinking that there's no way that I'm not going to make it because I have to go to the "other" terminal and I know that they're not going to go to that one first - but the nicest lady ever announces that we are going to the "other" terminal first. Hell yeah. That doesn't change the fact that I am freaking late and have a snowboard bag and a suitcase that I need to check in (can you fit a snowboard in the overhead compartment?) and now I have some dude asking me where I'm going - it's 6am, I'm going to miss my flight, and I don't remember Dunkin Donuts being open so I am not in the mood. I get out of there as fast as I can to check my bags and I think this terminal is mainly for people that have never seen an airport before because people are just wandering around with no direction. But I jump through line, fly through security, and walk right onto the plane. Yikes.

And the wedding - it was a great wedding. Of course, Hober knows how to throw a party and that he did. We won't get into that part of the trip too much but congratulations etc etc.

Alright, as stated in a previous post, I'm sick and I'm starting to have a sneezing fit so I'm going to bed. But at least I got through some of it like I said I would. To be continued...

Monday Morning

2007-05-14T08:37:00.000+10:00

it's Monday morning and I haven't had any coffee yet but let's throw up a post just for fun.

To answer Jed's question:

"Can you learn how to play the dirigidoo thing? I think Shut Up Robert could use that in the near future..."

I suppose in theory I could - they sell playable didgeridoos in the market for somewhere between $100 and $200 and then they have 'how to play' books and tapes and they even have CDs that you can listen to other people play with. But I know that Jed is just being facetious and Shut Up Robert is not looking for that sound in the near future, not to mention that I won't even be there in the near future. So the best I can do is ship one over to you (at your expense of course).

The post about my trip to the States will be up this afternoon but right now I have to get through the work day. I am a bit sick today - it started on Saturday - soar throat, sneezing, tired. This is the first time that I've been sick since I moved here. Really, I blame Kelly because she has been sick like crazy for last couple of weeks. Of course, I haven't seen her since October but I blame her nonetheless. Kelly, by the way, is moving to Hawaii today - Honolulu to be exact. Now I'm sure she'll be getting plenty of calls from people that she doesn't know for visits.

Talk to you in a bit...

An Update!

2007-05-13T22:11:00.000+10:00

Ok people, here are some updates. And no, it's not because of Hober's threats - how do you protest a blog that isn't updated anyway? Let's see what I have for pictures and stories and whatever else.

And then I promise(!) to keep this A LOT better updated... maybe even every day. Yeah right. But I'll try.

But to start out, expect entries each of the next few days on these:
Mon - A very quick recap on my trip to the States (yes, that was in March)

Tues - My trip to the mountains of Vicotria

Wed - A crazy trail run that I did a couple of weeks ago

Thurs - A race against a train from last weekend

Fri - My trip to Wilson's Prom this weekend

Also,We'll talk about running and the Sox, I'll give you an update on other people, and just general stuff that I have going on, books I'm reading, stuff I want to complain about. If you have any requests, such as, a photo tour of Melbourne or of St Kilda (where I live) or you saw this thing about a giant koala near the Grampians (been there) or want to see me climb a particular mountain or general Australian questions or places here that I should go to then let me know.

I guess I have more than I thought.

Upcoming stuff:

I have a marathon this weekend http://www.greatoceanroadmarathon.com.au/

I'm going to Tasmania at the beginning of June

A half marathon in the middle of June http://www.theageruntotheg.com.au/

A trip to Sydney at the end of June

And another trip to Sydney in October

So, keep me going on this so I don't fall behind and feel free to tell everyone about it. Talk to you soon... that means tomorrow.

Haley and Robbie watching the Aussie countryside from the train

Where am I?

2007-03-29T10:04:00.000+10:00

I'm here (Melbourne)... I'll post something soon. Just got back from MI, CO, and MA and I just need to get organized.

What's in store for this week?

2007-02-19T18:22:00.000+11:00

For some reason a lot of people like to hear what I'm doing down here on normal days as if my life is more exciting than theirs just because I'm in Australia. But it's not just my locale, let's face it, I'm a walking party, baby, come on. So here's a recap of last week:

Normal days consist of me working until 5:30 or 6 coming home, eating, then going for a run, and probably working some more. Fun, I know. But that takes care of the days that I don't mention.

Wednesday was Valentine's Day, which is popular here, although I must say not as commercially disgusting as it is in the US. And in the spirit of the holiday I decided to celebrate with my only love that hasn't turned on me yet - beer (aside from one or two "incidents" but she can be forgiven). So, I met up with a friend at one of my favorite bars in the city - Riverland on the banks of the Yarra and had a few pints waiting for a free outdoor concert by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. We met a few other friends there, sat on the grass, and enjoyed the concert, which was really good. Then it was off to home for me.

Friday I joined a bunch of American expats and short-timers at the Belgian Beer Gardens on St. Kilda Rd. They have great Belgian beer and it's an outdoor bar and it has a great atmosphere. A bunch of Hoegaardens and stories later a few people decided to go home, some went wherever, and a group of us went down to St. Kilda to hit the Elephant and Wheelbarrow - an English pub with Guinness, outside tables, and a live band inside. Some Guinness and a lot of music later we decided to get some food and that was it for us - I walked into my apartment around 3:30am.

The late Friday night kind of killed my Saturday but I was able to bring my bike into the shop and attempted to go to the beach but one step on the sand with bare feet had me swearing out loud. It was hot this weekend, by the way, up to 38 on Sunday. I walked along the beach (in the water) for a bit but never parked myself anywhere so I decided to walk up to the CBD, I found some dinner and took it to another free outdoor MSO concert. Some friends showed up for the concert as well and afterwards we walked up to Hardware Lane for some dinner at an Italian restaurant - I had already eaten so I was only drinking wine. This place had outside seating and an outside DJ playing Italian music and it turned into a dance party. I didn't join in because A) I didn't have that much wine and B) I was quite disgusting from walking around in the 38 degree heat all day. And the night ended early.

Early Sunday I got a call to go surfing down on Phillip Island - the surf report didn't look very good but it was worth the try. We tried one beach, got in the water, and paddled around trying to catch some waves. Some of the waves weren't too bad but they were inconsistent and there were quite a few people trying to grab them so I didn't accomplish much. But it was fun anyway. We grabbed some lunch on the island and checked another beach but everything was flat so we headed back to the city.

This week:

I have a birthday dinner in about an hour not too far from here. Wednesday I think I'm running in an 8k (hopefully it cools down). And this weekend looks like either hiking, biking, or surfing. I'm sure some people will want to hit some restaurant/bar type places as well.

Wilson's Prom 2

2007-02-19T17:55:00.000+11:00

The hiking route

Emus on the side of the road

Last weekend was my first camping experience in Australia. Since I was going by myself and it was my first time here I decided to go to a place that I've already done a day hike - Wilson's Prom. The hike was going to be about 35 miles over 3 days but as the time got closer I realized that it became apparent that I just didn't have the time to do that. So now I'm down to 2 days and we'll see what I'll do for mileage.

I left early Saturday morning and right away noticed that something wasn't right - umm, it was raining. I'm in Victoria and we're in the middle of the worst drought in recorded history and it's raining on the day that I decide to go camping? That's ok because it's early and the storm will blow over soon. But as I drove closer to the Prom the rain got worse, and worse, and worse. It got to the point that I couldn't see and I had the wipers going full tilt. Should I cancel? Should I go back? No. I'm going, I'm at least going to make it to the trailhead and decide from there. Then about 10kms from the gate it just stopped.

I pull up to the gate, tell the girl my plans because you need a permit to hike overnight - "Have you heard about the high wind advisory?" "Uhh, sure. What about the rain?" "Oh, we're going to have some showers. You need to check in with the office at Tidal River." And that's where I met the ranger from hell - it's not completely her fault, I'm sure she doesn't want to drag my dead body out of the woods but she just asked question after question and reminded me time and time again that there was going to be rain and wind and thunder and lightening. Yes yes yes, I'll be fine.

And I'm off, a quick 10 miles down to South Point. There wasn't too much to see on the way down because the track goes right through the forest and then there wasn't much to see once I got there because the storm was coming in. I had decided that I was going to camp at Little Waterloo Bay so I had some miles to do. Came back from South Point, headed towards the lighthouse but couldn't see a thing and that's when the rain started.

Wilson's Prom has very beautiful coastline and some nice mountains for their size. The views are amazing but today I had visibility of about 25 meters and at this point I was walking around with my tent's rain fly over my pack and myself. It was mile after mile, the bush grew thick, and the rain didn't stop. When I was fixed on just walking, 30 feet in front of me, a kangaroo jumped right across the track and scared the crap out of me. As I kept walking kangaroos would run around in the brush around me; sometimes i would see them and sometimes not. I felt like I was being hunted. And then I rounded a corner and had a kangaroo standing there looking right at me. He let me get closer but soon ran away.. or I guess I should say hopped away.

Then the thunder and lightening started. The hill that I was on became exposed and I had to dodge lightening bolts and cover my ears for thunder. I moved quickly and finally got back into the cover of the forest. The storm was huge and was quite impressive over the ocean. Then the trail dumped me out on the beach - "You've got to be kidding me" (that's not actually what I said but I'm trying to keep this clean) - now I had almost a kilometer of very exposed beach to cover before I could get back into the trees. The surf was huge, the rip looked like it would suck you in and spit you out somewhere around Antarctica before you could even think about sharks, and the lightening kept coming but I had no choice but to keep moving.

Finally I walked into camp and quickly set up my tent and got in. Everything was drenched and the rain started coming down stronger. I slept through the rain, thunder, lightening, and a river rushing under my tent. Later I found out that the Prom got 4 inches of rain that night.

I woke up to water everywhere but the rain had stopped. The plan was to take the quick track back to the carpark so that I could make it home for the St. Kilda music festival that night. I moved south from camp and immediately hit a tidal river that wasn't very difficult to cross the night before but now - it must be high tide - it was next to impossible. I kept looking for a safe area to cross but the water was at least waist deep and I had visions of myself being quickly swept out to sea. Normally it is possible to cross this river even at high tide but the storm was still offshore and preventing me from an easy walk home. I did some bushwhacking and headed into a swamp but that required a river crossing too. It wasn't as deep but the second step sunk my foot 4 inches into mud and now I was afraid that I would lose my shoe but I made it to the other side. But now I'm in the swamp and another river needs to be crossed and this one is deeper, faster, and probably has the same mud as the last. Now I'm stuck, I can't get to the trail, I can't cross the tidal river and I have two choices: wait for the tide to go down or take the long way through Refuge Cove and Sealer's Cove. I decided to go the long way but first that meant crossing the first river again and once I was across I took off north.

It wasn't long after that that I lost the track because it was so overgrown and I found myself bushwhacking through some very sharp bushes. But I found a stream and was able to painfully follow it to the track and then I just took off. Going up and down mountains, along the coast, and across beaches. I turned onto the last trail and hoofed it through the swamp, over flooded trail, and then a long climb up Mt. Oberon. Hours later I jumped into the carpark on top of Mt. Oberon and took the shuttle back to my car.

Overall the trip was a success. Despite the rain, the waterlogged clothes and gear, the unbelievable blisters that I got, and missing the festival; I was able to make my first hiking trip here in Australia, I was able to collect my thoughts and push out some of the craziness that's been driving me, well, crazy, and I met some cool people along the way. I will be doing this hike again but let's hope that next time it's a little drier.

Pictures with comments:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=s8e95zp.9nt7tqal&Uy=is6k9u&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=1&UV=750231889911_492224744109

Adelaide for Australia Day

2007-02-14T13:55:00.000+11:00

January 26 is Australia Day. Similar to the 4th of July in the US in that it is their national day and that it is celebrated on the actual day. This year the 26 fell on a Friday, which gave us a 3 day weekend and an excuse to get out of town for the weekend. I travel quite a bit and have since I moved to Australia but not only have I not been on a plane or boat or long distance train since November 3rd, I haven't even been out of the state of Victoria. To my credit, Victoria is huge.. but enough with the excuses, let's get out of Victoria and head to South Australia and its capital city, Adelaide.

I had a very well thought out plan for my Adelaide weekend: Adelaide is west so come Friday morning I will point my car west and eventually I will run into Adelaide. But then Adam and Melanie jumped on board for this trip and they wanted a little more planning. So we had to get a hotel before we got there. And we had to look at a map. And we had to have an idea of what we were going to do. But Adam was offering up his car and they were sharing the cost of gas and hotel so I let them in.

The big question everyone asks you in late January is, "So, what are you doing for Australia Day?" And my answer of, "Adelaide," was always returned with, "Why?" But sending the same question of what they were doing for Australia Day usually resulted in, "Nothing." So Adelaide gets a bad rap with Melbournians - probably because it's not Melbourne but few cities in this world are. But a guy I work with goes there often and he was able to give some places to go to.

What's the best thing to do the night before a road trip that starts at 6am the next day? Why, get some sleep and pack - but I didn't do either, I went to the pub and packed Friday morning. But I was able to get out of bed, into the car, and make it to the Docklands to meet Adam and Melanie by 6. We jumped in the car and we were on our way.

This is a roadtrip so we took the scenic route; past Ballarat, south of the Grampians, and stopped in Hamilton for breakfast at Subway (EVERYTHING was closed). From there we headed to Mt. Gambier, which was a nice little town with some good restaurants and a cool downtown. We weren't quite ready for lunch so we took a look at some sinkholes that they have in the area. These things were pretty big, one of them was made into a garden and the other was literally right across the street from the restaurant that we had lunch in. The reason that we were in Mt. Gambier was because on the second day that I was here I met this old English lady who was asking for directions (even though she's lived in Melbourne for 26 years) and when I told her that I just moved here she told me about a bunch of places to visit and one of them was Blue Lake in Mt. Gambier. This lake is quite grey in the winter but turns a brilliant blue in the summer. And they're not kidding this thing was blue - we were concerned about the color not showing up in the pictures but it does look pretty cool and I think seeing it in person is worth the long drive from Melbourne. Why is it blue you ask? Good question. We have one source - a postcard from the giftshop - that said that it's "a scientific mystery" and another - the sign outside of the giftshop - that said that all of the wavelengths except for blue are absorbed because of the temperature of the water - did I mention that this is a crater in a volcano? It is but you can't really tell - or at least I couldn't. And to finish of the tour of Mt. Gambier we had lunch at Sorento's, which was really good.

And we're off again rolling along and seeing absolutely nothing.. and I mean nothing. Well, maybe some sheep. And on and on it went until we pulled into Kingston and saw the biggest lobster ever - yeah it was fake but it was big. That was about 3 minutes of fun and then we were back on the road again and saw just nothing and nothing until we until we pulled into Adelaide around 7pm.

At this point I was driving in the city and, I tell you, these people can't drive, they just can't. They're horrible. We found the hotel (Stamford Hotel on North Terrace), checked in, it was very fancy, and out the door again to find some food and drink. We walked down Rundle St, which is the place for food in Adelaide and found the Exeter Hotel, which was recommended to us as a place to drink. And a place to drink it was but not so much to eat but they had steel tip darts so we had to stay for a few pints. Dinner ended up being pizza and then it was time to get some sleep.

Saturday. The first trick was getting around the city - I just wanted to do a quick loop of the city to get a feel for where everything is. of course, they had a free shuttle that took us around the city, the driver announced where everything was and when we stopped for a short time for the driver to have a cigarette we got out and talked to him and he told us some stories and pointed out som parts of town. We got off at the botanical gardens, walked through there, saw the rose garden and the Palm House. Now that we're walking we headed north past some parks and to a big church that you could see from our hotel room - but once you got up next to it it seemed so much less grand that we actually questioned whether or not that was the same church. But we were able to tour the inside, which was cool. Off again - past the oval and back to the center of town, we split up for a short time, and met up again for the art museum.

The art museum was good - the international stuff wasn't bad but I was very impressed with the Australian landscape paintings. I'm sure the landscape itself lent a bit of inspiration but these were very well done nonetheless. On some days I may even say that Adelaide's is better than Melbourne's - and free, all of the art museums in this country seem to be free to get into the main exhibition halls.

Walking all day so we now had to find some food and drink - back to Rundle St. What are we feeling? Mexican. of course there's not much for Mexican on Rundle St so a quick stop at the bookstore tells us to head up to Melbourne St to eat at Montezumas - not too bad, they had Dos Equis, good food. We walked through some rich neighbourhoods to get to O'Connell St. where we were supposed to find some more pubs but we really couldn't find any. We stopped at one that was pretty packed, took a table upstairs but that place was full of high school kids (the drinking age is 18) that came from the rich neighbourhoods that we had just walked through - kind of irritating. And that was Saturday night.

Sunday was just the long and boring ride home except for the giant koala that we ran into just north of the Grampians.

To recap, Adelaide is a nice city but if you're coming down here for a week or two don't feel too bad about skipping it. Picture link below:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=s8e95zp.c5bp03t9&Uy=fswkwq&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=1&UV=253925476438_908126334109

This Week

2007-01-23T23:07:00.000+11:00

So, what have I been up to this past week? Not a whole lot. On Thursday I drove out to Ferntree Gulley to do some running on the trails - I had hiked there a bit when I first got here and I thought it would be a nice place to do some hill running. I was a little late leaving work and agreed to give someone a ride home, which got me to the trail around 7:30 but I wasn't going to run far. From my hike a few months ago, I remembered one hill in particular right at the start, it was about a mile long and straight up so I headed up that and, man, it was tough. But at the same time it was great - living in MI for two years always had me dying for some elevation gain - these things aren't what I would call mountains but they're close and not bad. A few more times on these and I'll be ready for Mt. Washington '09.

But what would running in a new place be without getting lost in the bush with the dark coming oh so fast? So, my 4 tops run turned into a 9 with some road, big deal. In my defense, the last map that I saw had me hitting 5 different trails and I just forgot the name of one and headed off in the wrong direction. It was fun and I made it out alive and that's all that matters.

On to Friday. One thing that I learned in college was to close the bar. That doesn't easily translate to Australia since the bars close around the time that the sun comes up. So if you ever go to the Melbourne CBD you may run into these bars like I did that night: James Squire, Hard Rock Cafe, James Squire again (I got a t-shirt), get refused at the door at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow (someone was wearing sandals), Lounge (is that what it was called?), Exford Hotel, and Puggs Mahone. Add in a little walk down to St Kilda (4 miles) at 4am and that was my Friday night.

Saturday I went to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) to see the Juan Davila exhibit. He's a Chilean born, now Aussie, social and political commentary artist. It was quite good, I was very impressed although it was tough to catch all of the symolism, who some of the people were, and the history of some. Although I did think it would be funny if John Howard (the prime minister of Australia - come on people, pick up a newspaper) toured this exhibit and saw a caricature of himself as a dog being held on a leash by big business. I'm sure he's used to political cartoons but this is a 6ft by 6ft painting in the major art museum of the second biggest city in Australia.

Saturday night - a guy from work was playing in a band at a bar called the Barley Corn Hotel in Collingwood. He was concerned that the bar may be a bit rough for me but I thought it was kind of nice - I went to school in Flint, MI for the love of god. The band was awesome and I got to play some pool so it was a good night. We got a call from someone that had already left to tell us that the last tram from that stop was leaving at 12:38 - we checked the time and our beers and it was going to be close. What to do? Finish the beers and go to another bar. We walked up towards Brunswick St, found the Night Cat that had a band playing and was packed so we stayed there for a couple of hours. Luckily, I was able to get a cab home this time because it was a bit further and I got home around 3:30am.

Sunday - yeah, I didn't do too much.

This week? All work, man (that one was for you, Card). Oh, and this weekend is Australia Day (a fleet of ships landed near Sydney on 26 Jan 1788 - thank you wikipedia) so we get Friday off from work. I was invited to a barbecue with beer and cricket, which was very tempting, but I'm heading over to Adelaide instead, despite the criticism of some Aussies.

Aussie Roadtrip

2007-01-16T21:44:00.000+11:00

Sometime in December I took a roadtrip east of Melbourne - I had no idea where I was going, I was just going to drive until I got somewhere. I started out going the same way as I went to get to Wilson's Prom but kept going east once I got to Foster. It was after that town that I realized that this was a boring, boring drive. I looked at the map and there was nothing there - Sydney was a world away, there may be fires up in the mountains, and nothing along the coast looked interesting. But there was a road called Grand Ridge Rd that was supposed to a cool place for a drive so I decided to loop to the end of that and start at the end of the road and head back towards the city.

I just kept driving and driving in the middle of nowhere until I came upon the town of Sale, which is pretty stinking huge. It's not a city by any means but a sizeable town where it seems all of mideastern Victoria does its shopping. While there I had to fill up with petrol and found what must be the only pay-at-the-pump gas station in Australia - yeah, I couldn't get it to work.

After a turnaround or two I finally found the Grand Ridge Road, which is "shared with logging trucks." Not fun usually considering how fast these guys probably drive on these roads but to add to that the road might be wide enough for another lane and a lot of it was dirt or gravel. And I have to drive this for 135km?

The road itself was cool - it ran along a ridge (hence the name) and had amazing views; of course there was no way I was going to stop and take a picture. But I found a reserve called Tarra-Bulga National Park and that's where our picture show begins.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1&Uc=s8e95zp.26mhuolh&Uy=yy7q5e&Ux=1

1) These little hikes were short - here I'm walking through a cold weather rain forests that you can find in the gullies between mountains.

2) Looking out into the valley.

3) Very tall trees.

4) A suspension bridge in the forest. They actually moved it from another town a long time ago to bring tourists up here. I think this is a rebuilt one.

5) The bridge with zoom.

6) The bridge without zoom.

7) This tree was huge and one of the oldest trees in Victoria.

8) The top of the tree.

9) Oh, we're getting to the bridge.

10) We're on the bridge.

11) The forest from the bridge.

12) Looking back on the bridge.

13) One of the weird shaped trees.

14) Yeah, going down Tarra Valley Road - they ain't kidding. There were some tourists up here and the road was so narrow that I was literaly going 5mph around corners in case I met someone coming the other way.

15) Although at times you could really hit the accelerator. You're not allowed to dial your mobile when you're driving, how about taking pictures? I mean I was stopped.. yeah.

16) Cyathea Falls - not as impressive as the brochure. We'll blame the drought. How do you have a drought in a rain forest?

17) Maybe if I zoom in... nope.

18) A valley taken from the car.

19) More of the valley.

20) Valley.

21) Ok - I was driving along and saw a sign that said "Historic tree stump, 1km". How can I turn that down? And this is what I see. There were two of them and they're actually what all of the trees were in that area until it was cleared out for settling in the yearly 1900s. So, they cut down all of these beautiful, enormous trees to settle the area and guess what - NOBODY LIVES THERE!! It's in the middle of nowhere!

22) The other one - I must say that it's pretty convenient that two of the only remaining stumps just happen to be next to each other and off the main road.

23) Hey, that's me! Just to show scale. My head looks little in that picture.

24) Uhh, just some trail - I actually took the picture so that I could remember where it was. I'm not sure why I uploaded it.

25) More valley.

26) Logging the side of the hill - that's gotta be good for erosion.

27) It's the same damn valley - what was I thinking?

And that's my little roadtrip. I should probably point out that I never finished the Grand Ridge Road, I made my way north to M1 after about 30km. This weekend I'm going to try for a tour of Melbourne. We'll see how that goes.

Wilson's Promontory

2007-01-14T13:57:00.000+11:00

Or "Wilson's Prom" or "The Prom". The Prom is a National Park about 200km southeast of Melbourne with some smaller mountains, a lot of hiking, a lot of wild space, beaches, wildlife, and campgrounds. It is the southernmost point on mainland Australia and to get to the actual southern most point you have to hike about 13km in. I didn't make it all the way to the southern point, I went along the foreshore instead. I took this daytrip in December during the break. It was a great trip and I'll definitely be back for some hiking and camping and to make it down to that point. And, yes, this is where I saw my first wild kangaroo and first wild wombat.

Here's a website for The Prom
http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/1park_display.cfm?park=217

Here's the link to my pictures - open up the pictures and follow along with the commentary below (shift+click to open in a different window).
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=s8e95zp.367jcnx1&Uy=-a062ya&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=1&UV=90606688563_318801173109

1) I drove into the park and parked near the Tidal River campground. This is a picture of Norman Bay from the beach near the carpark.

2) Mt Oberon (558m - 1,831ft) from the same beach.

3) Smaller hill towards the ocean.

4) Looking back at the beach heading back to the carpark.

5) Trying to get a closer look at the rocks/islands just offshore.

6) This guy is the first wombat that I've seen in the wild and he was hanging very close to the campground and, as you can see, not too far from where I was walking on the trail. He's at least a foot long and is a bit bigger than a cat.

7) The strange trees that cover part of the trail.

8) Trying to show what the bushfires did to this area a year or two ago - a big problem throughout Victoria.

9) More bushfire remnants.

10) The beach on Norman Bay from the trail - all of the first 10 pictures were taken within the first half hour of the hike.

11) Same beach.

12) A couple of huge boulders just sitting on the side of the mountain. These mountains were covered with some very strange boulders.

13) Islands in Norman Bay.

14) I think these are the same boulders just from the other side.

15) Looking down into Little Oberon Bay - the color of the water was amazing but it was still very cold.

16) Looking across Oberon Bay to Mt Norgate (419m - 1,375ft).

17) A white sand beach on Little Oberon Bay and boulders on the side of Mt Oberon.

18) Rocks on the side of the mountain.

19) The same white sand beach - you can tell that there's no one there.

20) I'm the only one on this white sand beach.

21) Same.

22) Mt Norgate from the beach looking across Little Oberon Bay and Oberon Bay.

23) The beach - the trail markings weren't very good, at times it seemed like the trail just ended. Here I was able (or forced to) do some bushwhacking to find the trail.

24) Boulders.

25) Rocks on the beach.

26) The boulders were huge.

27) This beach is on Oberon Bay, it was a lot bigger than the white sand beach.

28) Mt Norgate.

29) A tidal river just off the trail. I had to jump over it to get to the rest of the beach.

30) This beach, which was also empty except for me, was covered in jellyfish left of the beach by the waves.

31) The enormous, empty beach.

32) More jellyfish.

33) They're all over the place.

34) I was just coming off the beach and turned the corner when I saw this guy eating his lunch. He was a little over 4ft tall and was only about 30ft away from me. I had to sit around and wait for him to finish because I could pass him and I didn't want to disturb him. So, I watched him eat for about 10mins and he watched me watch him eat.

35) Still eating.

36) Come on, buddy, I gotta keep walking.

37) Typical Australian - just wants to hang around even if he's done eating.

38) Going back for more.

39) "Are you still watching me eat?"

40) I tried to get a little closer.

41) Once I got past the kangaroo I ran into these trees covering the trail.

42) You have to look closely but I'm taking a picure of the flies that are covering my backpack. And when the pack is on me, yes, so are the flies, they were everywhere.

43) An anthill? This thing was 4ft high and there were a few of them in the bush.

44) Tall, burnt trees with vegetation regrowing on them.

45) Mt Oberon from trail heading back to a carpark not too far from where my car was. I took the trail along the foreshore but took the direct trail out but the map didn't tell me that this carpark that I was heading to was on top of a mountain. Topo maps people, come on, help me out here. I was able to take a shuttle back to my carpark though - sweet.

46) The surrounding scenery.

47) This kangaroo was just hanging out on the road, probably wondering what I was doing in his backyard.

48) I'm getting closer.

49) Still just sitting there.

50) And he didn't really feel like talking.

51) I did get to see him hop down the hill in the bush.

52) Mountains along the ocean.

53) More mountains. These may look very short and they are, you have to go to northeaster Victoria to see the big ones.

54) Ahh, yes, the Squeaky Beach. This beach squeaks when you walk on it because of the type of sand on it. It's just like Singing Beach in Manchester-By-The-Sea, Massachusetts except that I didn't have to pay $35 to park, show that my salary has 6 or more figures, or prove that my family came over on the Mayflower. If you've ever been to Manchester-By-The-Sea you know what I mean.

55) More of the Squeaky Beach.

56) And one more time, the Squeaky Beach.

There you have it, my trip to Wilson's Prom. Let me know what you think of this format of showing pictures and I'll change around to make it easier.

The Cricket

2007-01-13T16:23:00.000+11:00

On Friday 8 of us went to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) on the Yarra River to watch Australia take on England in an ODI (one day international). Now, the English team has been in Australia playing The Ashes series, which is a tournament between England and Australia that takes place in alternating countries every year and a half (to coincide with the summer of the host country). This year they were playing in Australia, starting in Brisbane on November 23 and then they went to Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, and finsihed off in Sydney earlier this month.

Now, The Ashes is a series of 5-day test matches, meaning at each location they'll play for 5 days or the end of the test, whichever comes first and even though it is a best of 3 they still play all 5 tests. In test cricket, Australia is #1 in the world and England is #2 but England just got spanked by Australia; it was no contest. They won all 5 tests, some of them wrapped up days early.

So after being disgraced by Australia, does England get to go home and cry for a bit before they rebuild? No, they have to play a Twenty20 against Australia in Sydney and then start a series of ODIs against Australia and New Zealand and I was able to go to the first match; Australia v England at the MCG.

A quick lesson in cricket. Cricket has been around forever but it's current form is an English creation and they spread it throughout the world. Most countries play or played cricket (the first international match was between the US and Canada in 1844) but now seems to be played mostly in countries that were once part of the British Empire. It was even big in the US until baseball took its place in the 1800s and baseball is based off of Rounders, which is based on cricket. So, if you watch a lot of baseball then cricket makes sense and once you learn the rules and the intricacies of the game then it can be fun to watch.

Basic idea - defend your wicket with a bat as someone bowls a ball at it. And if you hit the ball away then you and your partner can run between the wickets and score runs.

Number of players on the field - 11

Innings - each player on each team bats until they are out (caught ball, bowler hits the wicket, batter blocked ball with body and it would have hit the wicket, wicket is knocked over before runner reaches line, etc)

Number of outs per innings - 10 (there are 11 batters but since you need a partner there are only 10 outs)

Oval - the field that they play onPitch - the bowling surface

Score Notation - Outs/Runs (e.g. 2/203 means there are 2 outs and they have 203 runs and is read 2 for 203)

Bowl - thowing the ball off of the ground at the batter's wicket

Over - 6 bowls

Types of cricket:

Test cricket - 5 days, 2 innings

ODI - they play 100 overs, each team bats for 50 overs, not everyone has to bat

Twenty20 - a new type of cricket to make it more exciting, each team bats for 20 overs

Finally, onto my first cricket match.. I've been watching The Ashes so I'm starting to understand the game and the guy that got the tickets, Pete, knows everything about cricket so I'm doing ok. We went to an ODI - 100 overs, much shorter than a test match but we were still there for 7 1/2 hours. And what do you do at a cricket match? Just like baseball - you drink - for 7 1/2 hours. The match was fun to watch, although I'm told that it wasn't very good since Australia killed them.

What I thought about the experience - it was fun, I had no problems sitting through the match for that long. There was a lot of beer and everyone was drinking, towards the end it was getting a little rowdy - we saw 2 fights, 2 guys run out on the field, a lot of chanting and yelling, some impressive waves, and just a lot of people having a lot of fun. I was impressed, the MCG is the largest cricket ground in the world and holds 100k people, last night there were 78k people and everyone stayed for the entire match - for 7 1/2 hours.

The MCG from Federation Square

New statue of Dennis Lillee - one Australia's best fast bowlers

The Oval

Still a packed house at the end of the match

Some dude ran on the field and was tackled by security

The same dude being escorted off - the fine's only $6k

Look at the time in the bottom left - this match started at 2:15 in the afternoon

Riding the waves...

2007-01-10T23:52:00.000+11:00

... Well, sort of. Today, after work (actually it was, we were trying to get out of there early but didn't end up leaving until 5) a few of us headed down to Smith's Beach on Philip Island to get in our first bit of surfing. We had 4 riders and 2 boards but no worries because we can just take turns. Unfortunately, Smith's Beach was PACKED and FLAT and there was no reason to stay around there, which brought us a little east to Woolamai Beach (still on Philip Island). This place was not packed at all and had some big surf. So after a quick lesson and putting on the wet suit (needed in Victoria, even when it's 36C like it was today) we got in the water. The first bit was just riding the wave in while lying down, which wasn't so bad but it can be tough to keep your balance with rushing water all around you. Then came trying to stand up.

So can I do it? Well, I didn't. I got up to my feet once or twice but then my board would go flying through the air. One of the problems is getting out to the waves - this surf was big (for me) and I don't know the most efficient way to get out to where I'm supposed to be. I also can't duck-dive so the big waves would push me back quite a ways and I'd have to start again. So by the time I pick a wave to ride I was too tired to push myself up.

What have I learned? Paddle hard.. oh, for the love of God, paddle hard. I was trying to get up on the board while I was on top of the wave instead of in front of it. But when I was paddling it felt like I wasn't going anywhere. But I think I picked it up when I was bodysurfing and I'll get it next time I go out.

Do I have pictures? I don't think so. There's video but I don't have it - maybe I can get some stills off of that.

I will be buying a board and I will be doing that soon. Pretty soon I won't be showing up to work and become an official beach bum. I'm liking it.

People, people people people... I know what it means to be left alone

2007-01-10T09:49:00.000+11:00

Dig, I know I've been out for a while - I've just been blowing my mind too much. But I miss ya - I really do. But I'll get back in the game soon. I've got 2 sets of pictures uploaded and ready to go; I just need to type up some commentary on those and I have a bunch of other junk that I've been up to that may interest cats like you. So hold off a bit and I'll get to you, don't worry about that. Until we meet again.

Peace

Running for the week of 3/12

2006-12-11T10:56:00.000+11:00

Date - Scheduled - Actual
9/12/06 - 3.00mi - 3.00mi
8/12/06 - 0.00mi - 0.00mi
7/12/06 - 4.00mi - 5.00mi sprints
6/12/06 - 3.00mi - 3.00mi
5/12/06 - 4.00mi - 5.00mi
4/12/06 - 0.00mi - 0.00mi
3/12/06 - 6.00mi - 5.50mi
Week Totals - 20.0mi - 21.5mi
Year Total (since Nov 1) - 72.25mi

The Grampians

2006-12-07T18:23:00.000+11:00

As I said earlier, I needed to get outside and take a walk through the trees. So, I had a plan to go over to the Grampians west of the city to do some hiking and get relax a bit. A couple problems with this plan - A) I was exhausted from the week and I went to the pub Friday night, which caused me to get out of the city a little later than I would have liked and B) I had no idea where I was going. My thinking was that I was heading towards the mountains, they have to have trails, and there are information buildings everywhere and signs and whatever else I need.

I did have a map, although a very general one, and an idea of what the area is like. So, I drove down the Western Highway, past Ballarat, and into Ararat where I grabbed some lunch (yes it was that late) and gas. Ararat is a pretty big town for being in the middle of nowhere and not having much around it aside from the Grampians.

Next, I drove a back road to Hall's Gap, which was a pretty small town. There was a sign for some falls so I took a quick right heading up a mountain and quickly realized that I was in the middle of a recent bushfire. All of the trees were black from burning but the forest was very green from all of the vegetation that had started to come back. I found the trail that led to the falls but it was closed because of what the fire had done to it.

I drove further down the road and stopped at a huge information center where I bought a hiking book that I hope will come in handy in the near future. My next stop was at another waterfall but the trail for this one was open. I met some people from New Zealand on the trail, they pointed out a lizard to me but shared in my frustration of not seeing a wild kangaroo. We also talked about traveling and they gave me some places to go in New Zealand. We went our separate directions and I found the falls, which were strange because the there was no river or pond at the bottom (see pics on link), the water went into the ground and then became a river further downhill.

It was a long drive and I constantly see signs that say to watch out for kangaroos or koalas or whatever but I still never see anything no matter how hard I look - a sheep can look a lot like a hunched over kangaroo out of the corner of your eye when you're hopeful. But I passed a sign that said to watch out for the kangaroos and emus - now your talking. The mountains were on my right and fields were to my left and I was going a bit fast to see anything but off in the distance and through the trees I saw it and said, "that was an emu". I turned the car around and went back, he was far away and I didn't get a really good picture but it was certainly an emu. The only problem? It was on the other side of a fence. But there weren't any others that I could see and it didn't seem to be an emu farm. There was also a sign nearby that said treefarm but I can't be sure if it was wild so I gave myself half a point.

I got out of the mountains and back into farmland - mostly cows and sheep - the trees on the farms are amazing, I think I could take a picture of every tree in Australia because they are all so different and bend in every direction. I started hitting small towns, in one a guy on a 4-wheeler was herding sheep across the road in front of me. And I noticed in one town a small stone church that seemed a bit too expensive for such a small congregation but it was a nice church. Then I noticed other towns had the same thing so I took pictures of a couple of them. They were very interesting and if I knew how to take good pictures I could make a hobby out of taking pictures of small town churches and Australian trees - certainly not wild kangaroos because they obviously don't exist.

For pictures see link below:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=s8e95zp.bv6k0yx9&Uy=3j328w&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=365107020026_338993492109