I have no idea if anyone still looks at this blog site on occasion, just to see if I am still posting anything. If not, no big deal. But, in the rare chance that someone might be checking, I just wanted to add a little something.
I was trying to find an updated photo of me, and was looking at the photos I have posted on Picasa to see if anything there would help out. It didn't, but I started looking through the pictures that I posted, and I noticed the dates. I absolutely cannot believe that one year ago, I was starting on this crazy adventure in Australia. I still have people asking me about it. And I still tell them that it was the most interesting adventure of my life - so far...
Since I have so much free time this summer (yeah, right), I promise that I will spend the next few weeks and will fulfill the promise I made back in September... I will get some photos and blogs posted to let everyone know about the post-secondment vacation that I took back in early October. Mostly because I will forget all about it if I don't do it soon!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
There's No Place Like Home...
Long story short: I was terrified of the movie “The Wizard of Oz” as a kid. I always wondered why you hear the same thing from parents: “Oh that movie scared me when I was little. Here, Junior, you should watch it!” And, sure enough, it scared Junior, who is now probably showing it to his/her kids, making the same comment about being scared.
But as much as I dislike the movie, I could not think of a better way to end my blog posts here than to say, “There’s no place like home.” For those of you who don’t know, Australia is often referred to as “Oz.” So it just seems to be quite fitting, really. (I really just wanted to show off my creativity. Accountants don’t get to refer to their work as “creative” very often, without getting into legal trouble.)
It has been quite a journey. Thinking back to arriving here in mid-June, it never crossed my mind that I would one day be saying the following: 98 total days, 70 work days, and approximately 60 peanut butter sandwiches later, I am returning to Charlotte. And if you extend the tally until the time when I actually leave here on 07 October, it will be 111 days spent overseas. I will be just 10 days short of being gone for four months. All I can say is wow.
I don’t know where the time has gone! There is still a lot that I have yet to see and do over here. As you all know, I will be traveling for the next 10 days or so, trying to take in as much as I possibly can. But I know that I will definitely be up for a trip back here in the next couple of years. So if any of you are up for it, let me know!
I have said it before, but just to make sure everyone’s question is answered: Yes, I have had a wonderful time over here. But yes, I am ready to come home. I have met some great people, and I now have friends from several countries around the world. And yes, I am really going to miss all of them. Hopefully I will meet up with some of them later in life. At the same time, I know there are several of these new friends that I will probably never see again. And that’s fine. I guess in some way, I have plenty of people who were friends from years ago back in the US that I will probably never see again. Sometimes we run across them on a fluke, but not very often. So I will just hold out hope that I will stay connected with all of my friends from Australia through email, and maybe I will see them again soon.
With all of that said, I can easily say that I have really missed all of you who are reading this blog. Maybe a month ago, a friend of mine asked me what some of the things were that I missed most from back home. Now, I told her that the friends and family thing was an obvious, so I wasn’t going to include that one. And, of course, I miss my cats. It’s not quite the same to go to sleep at night without JJ trying to curl up either on my legs or pawing at my face, trying to get my attention. (Although I will say that I have been stretching out like crazy across the bed here, since I have no cats to share it with!)
Other than friends and family, I’d say an obvious thing I have missed is also some of the food. I fully intend to hit the Bojangles on my way home from the airport for a biscuit and some sweet tea. And Lupie’s will be one of my first restaurant stops the week I get back. Absolutely, I have been missing the food I am used to having full access to back home. I have yet to see a green bean over here, which is my number one favorite. (When cooked in fatback, of course.)
But aside from what I would say are the things I am “expected” to miss, there are still some of the little things that I have really missed over here that I can’t wait to get back home to. For example, I come home from work at night, and half of the time I end up talking out loud to myself, just out of habit. (Talking is the habit; not talking to myself. Although I do talk to myself some at work, usually using expletives. Those of you who have worked with me can probably attest to hearing it.) But being able to come home and either talk to Sally about my day or to call one of you is something I just can’t do over here. The time difference makes for either very late night or early morning phone calls. I can’t think of a word to describe it. Not so much lonely, as I always have stuff to do to keep me occupied. Maybe just "quiet." And you all know that I’m not one who would be described as “quiet.”
What else? I miss my recliner back home where I fall asleep on the couch on Sunday afternoons while watching football. Wait, who am I kidding? I fall asleep pretty much every night at 9.00 for 30 minutes. I miss doing that. (The couch here is just flat out uncomfortable. It is physically impossible for me to nap on it. And trust me, I have tried.)
I miss going out to lunch or going to the grocery store and running into people I know. I can’t think of many weeks that go by where I don’t bump into someone and spend a few minutes catching up at some random place in Charlotte. Or walking into a restaurant and having the waiter/waitress or the owner know you.
And speaking of lunch, I miss going out to lunch with people. As I mentioned before, I have had my fill of peanut butter sandwiches. (I have had my fill of Asian food and chicken and rice dinners, as well.) One of the things I have mentioned about the Sydney office is that most people bring their lunch and rarely go out. I have gone out to lunch a handful of times with some people here, but for the most part, I have my lunch packed and ready to go when I leave in the mornings. While I admit that I am probably saving a good bit of cash by making my lunch every day, I am ready to go out to lunch with friends and enjoying an hour away from the office. Just a little break to chat and laugh before getting back into the grind.
I mentioned saving money by eating in… One of the things I miss is the low cost of living! I am ready to stop paying $2 for a bottle of water, a coke, or a candy bar. And $7 a pound (okay, $15 a kilogram) for chicken is killing me! Not to mention $20 for a pizza for one or an uncooked steak, $20 for a dozen KK assorted doughnuts (I refuse to pay that), $6 for a side of fries, and $6 for a beer? Whatever I saved in lunch, I am sure I blew through in dinners and nights out. I can’t wait to get back to the land of blue plate specials!
It might sound a little silly, but I also miss walking through the office back home, and having just about everyone say hello. As I mentioned to you guys before, this office is a bit less social than back home. Not that I expect everyone to be chatty. But a simple “Hello” when passing in the hall would be nice. (It happens some here, don’t get me wrong. But typically only if you really know the person you are passing.) In the Charlotte office, I tend to be more social, and end up stopping and talking to at least one person as I pass through the office at any given time. And I kind of miss it. The smaller office where I know everyone and can have random discussions with anyone who works there is probably a big thing that I have missed while being over here. I have friends here, but it’s just not the same. I think it’s that comfortable feel that you really can’t get in an office with 200 people who take up two floors of a large office building.
Hopefully everyone understands what I mean now when I say I have missed a lot of things. Things that I probably took for granted while living in Charlotte. Things it took my being apart from for me to realize how important they were to me in my day-to-day routine. Which means that I have clearly missed all of you!
So now that I have gotten through all of the sappy stuff, I guess I should start wrapping this final post up. But I have one final entertaining story (to me, anyway) to share with you as I go:
As I was walking to the train station last night, I saw that there were new banners up in downtown Sydney. It is a new social campaign for the month of October, I think. I can’t decide if the banner was funny because it was insensitive or because someone just clearly didn’t think through what was written. But in big letters, attached to light poles throughout the city, are the words: “Remember… Dementia Awareness Week.” Very nice. Remember about dementia. Why don’t we also put banners up that say something like “Run to your local support group for people with prosthetic legs” or “When you’re hot this summer, let’s remember burn victims.” Terrible. But I have to admit, it made me laugh…
All right. I really am winding up now. I think Kim is going to come for my computer soon! I have my exit interview in a few minutes, so I might be told to just hit the road when it is over and done.
Okay, here’s the deal. Once I turn in my computer this afternoon, I am pretty much cut off of Internet access. So I doubt I will have any more posts for you guys until I get back to the US. I will make sure Sally and I take a lot of pictures from New Zealand, Melbourne, and the Reef. And I will put up some stories and pictures of our vacation adventures once I get back home and can access my blog site.
Several people have asked me to keep this blog page going once I get back, just for entertaining stories. I have told everyone that the only reason these stories are funny is because I am in another country. But we’ll see, I guess. With that in mind, here’s the deal: I will try to continue to keep the blog site going for a little while after I get back home. Mostly because I am sure you all want to hear the funny stories of my looking the wrong way when crossing the street or trying to get used to driving on the right side of the road again. So I will keep the posts sporadically updated for a little while when I get back. We’ll see how long it lasts…
All right, everyone! I am wrapping up. I’ll be out of pocket for the next two weeks (although you can still try to catch me on email throughout the trip). The next time I talk to you guys, I will be back in the US! WOO HOO!
So I guess I’ll close out the same way I started this incredible journey: I will talk to you all “on the flip side!”
But as much as I dislike the movie, I could not think of a better way to end my blog posts here than to say, “There’s no place like home.” For those of you who don’t know, Australia is often referred to as “Oz.” So it just seems to be quite fitting, really. (I really just wanted to show off my creativity. Accountants don’t get to refer to their work as “creative” very often, without getting into legal trouble.)
It has been quite a journey. Thinking back to arriving here in mid-June, it never crossed my mind that I would one day be saying the following: 98 total days, 70 work days, and approximately 60 peanut butter sandwiches later, I am returning to Charlotte. And if you extend the tally until the time when I actually leave here on 07 October, it will be 111 days spent overseas. I will be just 10 days short of being gone for four months. All I can say is wow.
I don’t know where the time has gone! There is still a lot that I have yet to see and do over here. As you all know, I will be traveling for the next 10 days or so, trying to take in as much as I possibly can. But I know that I will definitely be up for a trip back here in the next couple of years. So if any of you are up for it, let me know!
I have said it before, but just to make sure everyone’s question is answered: Yes, I have had a wonderful time over here. But yes, I am ready to come home. I have met some great people, and I now have friends from several countries around the world. And yes, I am really going to miss all of them. Hopefully I will meet up with some of them later in life. At the same time, I know there are several of these new friends that I will probably never see again. And that’s fine. I guess in some way, I have plenty of people who were friends from years ago back in the US that I will probably never see again. Sometimes we run across them on a fluke, but not very often. So I will just hold out hope that I will stay connected with all of my friends from Australia through email, and maybe I will see them again soon.
With all of that said, I can easily say that I have really missed all of you who are reading this blog. Maybe a month ago, a friend of mine asked me what some of the things were that I missed most from back home. Now, I told her that the friends and family thing was an obvious, so I wasn’t going to include that one. And, of course, I miss my cats. It’s not quite the same to go to sleep at night without JJ trying to curl up either on my legs or pawing at my face, trying to get my attention. (Although I will say that I have been stretching out like crazy across the bed here, since I have no cats to share it with!)
Other than friends and family, I’d say an obvious thing I have missed is also some of the food. I fully intend to hit the Bojangles on my way home from the airport for a biscuit and some sweet tea. And Lupie’s will be one of my first restaurant stops the week I get back. Absolutely, I have been missing the food I am used to having full access to back home. I have yet to see a green bean over here, which is my number one favorite. (When cooked in fatback, of course.)
But aside from what I would say are the things I am “expected” to miss, there are still some of the little things that I have really missed over here that I can’t wait to get back home to. For example, I come home from work at night, and half of the time I end up talking out loud to myself, just out of habit. (Talking is the habit; not talking to myself. Although I do talk to myself some at work, usually using expletives. Those of you who have worked with me can probably attest to hearing it.) But being able to come home and either talk to Sally about my day or to call one of you is something I just can’t do over here. The time difference makes for either very late night or early morning phone calls. I can’t think of a word to describe it. Not so much lonely, as I always have stuff to do to keep me occupied. Maybe just "quiet." And you all know that I’m not one who would be described as “quiet.”
What else? I miss my recliner back home where I fall asleep on the couch on Sunday afternoons while watching football. Wait, who am I kidding? I fall asleep pretty much every night at 9.00 for 30 minutes. I miss doing that. (The couch here is just flat out uncomfortable. It is physically impossible for me to nap on it. And trust me, I have tried.)
I miss going out to lunch or going to the grocery store and running into people I know. I can’t think of many weeks that go by where I don’t bump into someone and spend a few minutes catching up at some random place in Charlotte. Or walking into a restaurant and having the waiter/waitress or the owner know you.
And speaking of lunch, I miss going out to lunch with people. As I mentioned before, I have had my fill of peanut butter sandwiches. (I have had my fill of Asian food and chicken and rice dinners, as well.) One of the things I have mentioned about the Sydney office is that most people bring their lunch and rarely go out. I have gone out to lunch a handful of times with some people here, but for the most part, I have my lunch packed and ready to go when I leave in the mornings. While I admit that I am probably saving a good bit of cash by making my lunch every day, I am ready to go out to lunch with friends and enjoying an hour away from the office. Just a little break to chat and laugh before getting back into the grind.
I mentioned saving money by eating in… One of the things I miss is the low cost of living! I am ready to stop paying $2 for a bottle of water, a coke, or a candy bar. And $7 a pound (okay, $15 a kilogram) for chicken is killing me! Not to mention $20 for a pizza for one or an uncooked steak, $20 for a dozen KK assorted doughnuts (I refuse to pay that), $6 for a side of fries, and $6 for a beer? Whatever I saved in lunch, I am sure I blew through in dinners and nights out. I can’t wait to get back to the land of blue plate specials!
It might sound a little silly, but I also miss walking through the office back home, and having just about everyone say hello. As I mentioned to you guys before, this office is a bit less social than back home. Not that I expect everyone to be chatty. But a simple “Hello” when passing in the hall would be nice. (It happens some here, don’t get me wrong. But typically only if you really know the person you are passing.) In the Charlotte office, I tend to be more social, and end up stopping and talking to at least one person as I pass through the office at any given time. And I kind of miss it. The smaller office where I know everyone and can have random discussions with anyone who works there is probably a big thing that I have missed while being over here. I have friends here, but it’s just not the same. I think it’s that comfortable feel that you really can’t get in an office with 200 people who take up two floors of a large office building.
Hopefully everyone understands what I mean now when I say I have missed a lot of things. Things that I probably took for granted while living in Charlotte. Things it took my being apart from for me to realize how important they were to me in my day-to-day routine. Which means that I have clearly missed all of you!
So now that I have gotten through all of the sappy stuff, I guess I should start wrapping this final post up. But I have one final entertaining story (to me, anyway) to share with you as I go:
As I was walking to the train station last night, I saw that there were new banners up in downtown Sydney. It is a new social campaign for the month of October, I think. I can’t decide if the banner was funny because it was insensitive or because someone just clearly didn’t think through what was written. But in big letters, attached to light poles throughout the city, are the words: “Remember… Dementia Awareness Week.” Very nice. Remember about dementia. Why don’t we also put banners up that say something like “Run to your local support group for people with prosthetic legs” or “When you’re hot this summer, let’s remember burn victims.” Terrible. But I have to admit, it made me laugh…
All right. I really am winding up now. I think Kim is going to come for my computer soon! I have my exit interview in a few minutes, so I might be told to just hit the road when it is over and done.
Okay, here’s the deal. Once I turn in my computer this afternoon, I am pretty much cut off of Internet access. So I doubt I will have any more posts for you guys until I get back to the US. I will make sure Sally and I take a lot of pictures from New Zealand, Melbourne, and the Reef. And I will put up some stories and pictures of our vacation adventures once I get back home and can access my blog site.
Several people have asked me to keep this blog page going once I get back, just for entertaining stories. I have told everyone that the only reason these stories are funny is because I am in another country. But we’ll see, I guess. With that in mind, here’s the deal: I will try to continue to keep the blog site going for a little while after I get back home. Mostly because I am sure you all want to hear the funny stories of my looking the wrong way when crossing the street or trying to get used to driving on the right side of the road again. So I will keep the posts sporadically updated for a little while when I get back. We’ll see how long it lasts…
All right, everyone! I am wrapping up. I’ll be out of pocket for the next two weeks (although you can still try to catch me on email throughout the trip). The next time I talk to you guys, I will be back in the US! WOO HOO!
So I guess I’ll close out the same way I started this incredible journey: I will talk to you all “on the flip side!”
And Then There Was One...
Well, I think I only have about two more posts left in me. I know, I know. You guys want your free entertainment. I did what I could. Of course, before too long, I’ll be back to provide the entertainment in person. Even better than having to read it, right?
So the past two days have been interesting. Not in an “I-Have-Lots-Of-Entertaining-Stories-From-The-Past-Two-Days” kind of way. But more in the way things have gone in general.
I have had more people come hunt me down and stop by my desk in the last two days than I think have come by in total during the past three months. Everyone wants to know when my last day is, make sure that I will be at the office send-off drinks on Friday night, and to see what I have planned when I am done here. And everyone wants to make sure that I will give them my US email address before I go. I think I’m all set with that kind of stuff.
Kim, our office coordinator, just stopped by 10 minutes ago and asked if I wanted to stay longer. It’s kind of nice to hear that people want me to hang around. Of course, I have places to go and things to see. Plus I have it set in my mind that tomorrow is my last day of work here. So I really don’t think that there is much that could convince me to stay through the end of the week, much less any longer.
Kim also wanted to tell me that we would have my “exit interview” tomorrow afternoon. I have some forms to fill out tomorrow, and some questions to answer. (They really appear to be directed more towards someone who is resigning, not someone who is here on temporary work visas. But at least the form will give me something to do tomorrow.) I think the exit interview is really just going over a checklist to make sure I’m not taking and good stuff home with me. Rats. There goes my plan to take home a really awesome two-hole punch. That’s right – you read correctly. Two hole punch. What in the hell I would do with that thing, I’m not sure. I guess I would have to steal a two-hole binder to store whatever paper I punch two holes in, since it wouldn’t work with anything back in the US.
But I digress… It has been nice to have people popping by my desk to talk to me and wish me well. And to have people come by and see how I have enjoyed living here. I really like the people here, and I really like working here. But I’ll tell you what… I need a vacation! I think the last vacation I had was a day and a half off for my sister’s wedding. And prior to that, I’m not sure I remember my last vacation. I think it was the weekend of Cooper River Bridge Run back in early April. So, needless to say, there’s not a whole lot that will be coming in between me and my time off!
As I had a little free time today, I got online to make sure I had all of the directions and addresses I need for my upcoming trips. I also jumped online to find the best way to get to the airport on Thursday morning to pick Sally up. I come to find that the trip takes about an hour. Yikes! No, an hour is not a big deal. The fact that Sally’s plane arrives at 6.30 am is the big deal! But no worries… With having to get her bag and deal with customs, I am shooting for 7.30, assuming her flight is on time. So as long as I am at the bus stop by 6.40, I’ll be doing okay. I already told her, “If you’re early, I won’t be. Just sit and wait.” My butt doesn’t get out of bed before 6 for much of anything.
Of course, on the flip side, I imagine that I’ll be pretty excited that morning about seeing her (it’s the first time in three months that I have seen anyone from back home), so maybe I’ll be easily motivated to get out of bed early. I mean, I’m really excited about it right now, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t do mornings. So I am just hoping I don’t fall asleep on the bus or the train on Thursday morning. I can’t imagine there will be all that many people on the public transport with me at 7 am. Luckily, the couple of times I dozed off on the bus or the ferry, the people were pretty loud when they were getting up, so I managed to get off at the right stops. (I tend to be one of the last stops on most modes of transportation, when everyone has to clear off the bus or the ferry.) But I’m sure all will be fine.
In the big events of the week, I will be finishing up my book on the commute home tonight. I think. (If not, I will finish it while sitting in my apartment tonight.) Why is it such a big deal? Because I have been reading this damn book for almost a year now. (I’m not much of a reader in my “spare” time.) I was sure that I would have lots of down time to read while I was over here. But I rarely get to sit down on the bus, and it’s not very easy to read while standing up. Plus I usually spend the morning commute checking my home emails, since I have 25-30 to go through each morning before I get into the office here. So I have reached a major milestone while wrapping up here. Take it as a sign. I guess. I finish my book, and it’s time to go.
With that said, it really is time for me to go. I want to go catch the ferry while it is still light out, since I only have two more nights of this commute! (Of course, I missed the bus this morning by literally two minutes. I watched it drive past as I stood at the crosswalk waiting for the light to turn. So no ferry commute this morning into work. I swear I’m going to catch that ferry tomorrow!)
To close, what just might be your final mX Update:
TEXT VENTS:
“Tanya S of Penrith, 709 to Central, did I have a gym bag?” – Maybe me, Penrith
“We should rename the North Shore train line to the Not Sure line so that we do not worry about delays.” – Patil, Mt Colah
“I’m sitting on an intercity express to Newcastle. The train hasn’t moved for 15 minutes. CityRail, get new trains and use them.” – L, Hornsby
“My train driver was using a hilarious tone when she made the announcements. People in my carriage laughed.” – Sarah, North Sydney (Why don’t I get to ride on those trains!?)
STORY OF THE DAY:
I stumbled across an article in mX about a guy who formed a band called “Carolina Liar.” The band is based here in Sydney, and is this one guy from the US and 5 other guys from Sweden. The name of the band came from this guy, who used to tell stories of his life (for example, neighbors practicing target shooting inside their mobile home), and one guy called him “Carolina Liar.” “He used to say I was the biggest liar he’d ever met because I was constantly telling him crazy stories of what people did down south in Carolina.”
Now, I’m going to call bull on this story. Actually, I’m going to suggest that “Carolina Liar” is an accurate name for him in some ways. The liar part. I don’t think he’s really from “Carolina.” Why? Because no one from either North or South Carolina call it “Carolina.” We like the true distinction of exactly which state we are from. (Because, regardless of which side you are on, the other “Carolina” is low class compared to yours.) Dork. Plus the stories he’s telling (that I read in the article) could easily be topped by any 6-year-old who attends public school in NC.
One last story for you guys: There is a hotel on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast that had to make a massive change in its hiring policy. The hotel has fired all of its male employees. The 27-room hotel now only employs female staff. The manager of the hotel is quoted as saying, “The last straw was when I saw our bartender… walk out of the bathroom with a British tourist.” Apparently the male employees have repeatedly been having affairs with the foreign female guests.
Now explain to me… How does this new policy help things? I would think that if I were a guy who was traveling to Turkey, an all-female hotel might be my #1 pick for my hotel stay! Brilliant!
So the past two days have been interesting. Not in an “I-Have-Lots-Of-Entertaining-Stories-From-The-Past-Two-Days” kind of way. But more in the way things have gone in general.
I have had more people come hunt me down and stop by my desk in the last two days than I think have come by in total during the past three months. Everyone wants to know when my last day is, make sure that I will be at the office send-off drinks on Friday night, and to see what I have planned when I am done here. And everyone wants to make sure that I will give them my US email address before I go. I think I’m all set with that kind of stuff.
Kim, our office coordinator, just stopped by 10 minutes ago and asked if I wanted to stay longer. It’s kind of nice to hear that people want me to hang around. Of course, I have places to go and things to see. Plus I have it set in my mind that tomorrow is my last day of work here. So I really don’t think that there is much that could convince me to stay through the end of the week, much less any longer.
Kim also wanted to tell me that we would have my “exit interview” tomorrow afternoon. I have some forms to fill out tomorrow, and some questions to answer. (They really appear to be directed more towards someone who is resigning, not someone who is here on temporary work visas. But at least the form will give me something to do tomorrow.) I think the exit interview is really just going over a checklist to make sure I’m not taking and good stuff home with me. Rats. There goes my plan to take home a really awesome two-hole punch. That’s right – you read correctly. Two hole punch. What in the hell I would do with that thing, I’m not sure. I guess I would have to steal a two-hole binder to store whatever paper I punch two holes in, since it wouldn’t work with anything back in the US.
But I digress… It has been nice to have people popping by my desk to talk to me and wish me well. And to have people come by and see how I have enjoyed living here. I really like the people here, and I really like working here. But I’ll tell you what… I need a vacation! I think the last vacation I had was a day and a half off for my sister’s wedding. And prior to that, I’m not sure I remember my last vacation. I think it was the weekend of Cooper River Bridge Run back in early April. So, needless to say, there’s not a whole lot that will be coming in between me and my time off!
As I had a little free time today, I got online to make sure I had all of the directions and addresses I need for my upcoming trips. I also jumped online to find the best way to get to the airport on Thursday morning to pick Sally up. I come to find that the trip takes about an hour. Yikes! No, an hour is not a big deal. The fact that Sally’s plane arrives at 6.30 am is the big deal! But no worries… With having to get her bag and deal with customs, I am shooting for 7.30, assuming her flight is on time. So as long as I am at the bus stop by 6.40, I’ll be doing okay. I already told her, “If you’re early, I won’t be. Just sit and wait.” My butt doesn’t get out of bed before 6 for much of anything.
Of course, on the flip side, I imagine that I’ll be pretty excited that morning about seeing her (it’s the first time in three months that I have seen anyone from back home), so maybe I’ll be easily motivated to get out of bed early. I mean, I’m really excited about it right now, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t do mornings. So I am just hoping I don’t fall asleep on the bus or the train on Thursday morning. I can’t imagine there will be all that many people on the public transport with me at 7 am. Luckily, the couple of times I dozed off on the bus or the ferry, the people were pretty loud when they were getting up, so I managed to get off at the right stops. (I tend to be one of the last stops on most modes of transportation, when everyone has to clear off the bus or the ferry.) But I’m sure all will be fine.
In the big events of the week, I will be finishing up my book on the commute home tonight. I think. (If not, I will finish it while sitting in my apartment tonight.) Why is it such a big deal? Because I have been reading this damn book for almost a year now. (I’m not much of a reader in my “spare” time.) I was sure that I would have lots of down time to read while I was over here. But I rarely get to sit down on the bus, and it’s not very easy to read while standing up. Plus I usually spend the morning commute checking my home emails, since I have 25-30 to go through each morning before I get into the office here. So I have reached a major milestone while wrapping up here. Take it as a sign. I guess. I finish my book, and it’s time to go.
With that said, it really is time for me to go. I want to go catch the ferry while it is still light out, since I only have two more nights of this commute! (Of course, I missed the bus this morning by literally two minutes. I watched it drive past as I stood at the crosswalk waiting for the light to turn. So no ferry commute this morning into work. I swear I’m going to catch that ferry tomorrow!)
To close, what just might be your final mX Update:
TEXT VENTS:
“Tanya S of Penrith, 709 to Central, did I have a gym bag?” – Maybe me, Penrith
“We should rename the North Shore train line to the Not Sure line so that we do not worry about delays.” – Patil, Mt Colah
“I’m sitting on an intercity express to Newcastle. The train hasn’t moved for 15 minutes. CityRail, get new trains and use them.” – L, Hornsby
“My train driver was using a hilarious tone when she made the announcements. People in my carriage laughed.” – Sarah, North Sydney (Why don’t I get to ride on those trains!?)
STORY OF THE DAY:
I stumbled across an article in mX about a guy who formed a band called “Carolina Liar.” The band is based here in Sydney, and is this one guy from the US and 5 other guys from Sweden. The name of the band came from this guy, who used to tell stories of his life (for example, neighbors practicing target shooting inside their mobile home), and one guy called him “Carolina Liar.” “He used to say I was the biggest liar he’d ever met because I was constantly telling him crazy stories of what people did down south in Carolina.”
Now, I’m going to call bull on this story. Actually, I’m going to suggest that “Carolina Liar” is an accurate name for him in some ways. The liar part. I don’t think he’s really from “Carolina.” Why? Because no one from either North or South Carolina call it “Carolina.” We like the true distinction of exactly which state we are from. (Because, regardless of which side you are on, the other “Carolina” is low class compared to yours.) Dork. Plus the stories he’s telling (that I read in the article) could easily be topped by any 6-year-old who attends public school in NC.
One last story for you guys: There is a hotel on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast that had to make a massive change in its hiring policy. The hotel has fired all of its male employees. The 27-room hotel now only employs female staff. The manager of the hotel is quoted as saying, “The last straw was when I saw our bartender… walk out of the bathroom with a British tourist.” Apparently the male employees have repeatedly been having affairs with the foreign female guests.
Now explain to me… How does this new policy help things? I would think that if I were a guy who was traveling to Turkey, an all-female hotel might be my #1 pick for my hotel stay! Brilliant!
Monday, September 22, 2008
13 Down, 1 To Go!
Another weekend has come and gone, which means that I only have one more week left to work here. Holy crap!
It has been interesting… People keep talking about my leaving. It came up Thursday night at dinner, as everyone was trying to figure out what kind of get-together we should have to send me off. I told them I didn’t need anything, but they wouldn’t hear it. So next week we will do the usual Thursday night diner group. And on Friday night, the office is hosting lunch (which I will not be going to) and drinks (which I will be going to) to send off Nate, me, and another woman who is leaving the office. It should be fun. Kim, the office coordinator, is quite excited that I will be bringing Sally with me on Friday night. She says that she’s going to get the good dirt on me now. I think I’m a pretty open book; she just hasn’t figured it out enough to start asking me the good questions!
I took it pretty easy on Friday night. Going out Thursday night and Saturday night are about enough for me now. I’m getting old…
Saturday night was a lot of fun. We had about 25 people show up for my friend Charlotte’s birthday party. We played laser skirmish (laser tag), with Great Britain versus the rest of the world. It was about an even split, with 11 or 12 on each side. After we got done, they posted our scores. The rest of the world kicked Great Britain’s butt! Although the funny part was when someone noticed that it said that the Rest of the Word team had something like 41 people on it. One of the English guys started giving us a hard time. I told him it was funny – all you have to do is tell people you’re skirmishing with Great Britain, and they all show up to help out.
So we did the laser tag thing and then headed over to a seafood place at Darling Harbour for a nice dinner. The food was great, and we had two big tables of people. Charlotte really liked her present from all of us, and she seemed to have a really good time. After dinner, we took her around the Harbour to a pub for some drinks. Of course, none of us had realized that it was midnight when we were leaving the restaurant. But no matter – the pubs keep going pretty late here.
So we went to a pub called Bungalow 8, which is pretty popular. I had been there once, for drinks after work one of the first Fridays I was over here. The crowd was a little different this time, but it was still fun.
A couple of entertaining stories from the night for you guys: The first was when I was walking into the club. They were checking IDs, but I’m not too sure why. I turned to one girl next to me and said, “Watch the bouncer get a little freaked by my license.” He didn’t really. But he looked at it, looked at me, and smiled really big. Then he opened his arm to invite me into the club and said, “Miss North Carolina, come on down!” I laughed at that one. Random, random guy, but still very nice for it being late in the night, and there was a long line forming behind us to get in.
Later in the night, a couple of us were walking back from a couple of rounds at the bar, and were walking back towards our group. We were out on the covered patio, which runs from the front of the bar to the back (along the Harbour waterfront). When I was walking up, I see I guy about 10 yards away run by at full speed, followed by a bouncer. Then a guy comes tearing across, and plowed right into me. He bounced off me and took off after the guy. I, in the meantime, got a brief round of applause. I managed to only spill a sip of my full beer when the guy slammed into me. Not that I had paid for it, anyway, but it was still the principle of the thing. Then we watch and see the guy jump over the fence at the back of the pub, and just stop. About that time, the bouncers grabbed him and escorted him off.
I don’t know what this guy did, but he should be arrested just for being stupid. He was way ahead of the bouncers when he jumped the fence, and had so many directions he could have headed after getting out of the pub. There are lots of other clubs and bars around there, so he could have ducked into one of those, or just run around the Harbour. Nope. He stopped and let himself get caught. Brilliant!
I spent Sunday hanging out at home. Later in the afternoon I went for a run, thinking that I brought my running shoes and clothes over here for a reason, so I should use them while it was so nice out! It was a short run, but it was kind of a final spin around the neighborhood, as I doubt I will get out much to see it after this weekend. Sunday was also the Sydney Marathon. I had debated running the 10-K portion of it. But when I looked online a few weeks ago, it was something like $75 to run, and you didn’t even get a t-shirt. Well, that’s stupid to run for nothing, so I decided against doing the race. Besides, maybe I’ll get in shape in the next year or two and come back to run the full marathon. May as well make it worth it, right?
I was going to run on Saturday, but holy crap, it was hot that day. I think it was somewhere around 88. No way I[m running in that heat! Besides, I had some errands to run on Saturday. One of which was probably my most crowning achievement of the past three months. I had to go buy a new travel pass (bus, train, ferry) for next week. The one I have had was a three month pass, and it officially expired out on Saturday.
Now, the three-month pass running out is not really my crowning achievement. The fact that with all of the places I have gone, all of the pubs I have visited, all of the things I have done here, I managed to hold onto that little card for three months. I almost washed it only once. (I managed to shut off the washing machine quickly when I realized where it was. Not even wet, yet!) I left it in coat pockets a few times, but I always figured it out by the next morning. So all in all, I am quite proud of myself! I was sure I was going to lost that thing somewhere during the course of my stay. I can’t hang on to car keys back home, but I manage to keep a stupid little swipe card for three months. Crazy…
Okay, this post is going to be pretty short. I have some stuff to go take care of. At some point in time, I need to clean up my apartment and start thinking about the monster packing job I have to do in the next few days. Yuck.
So I don’t have any kind of mX update for you guys. Sorry. I really don’t even have a good story to share. (I know, I know. What good am I?) But what I can give you is a reply to Tony’s post a while back about the annoying Wiggles. Tony, The Wiggles have been officially named the top Australian entertainer for the year ended 30 June 2008. They had $45 million in earnings in 2008. On the up side, that’s $5 million less than last year. Although they are blaming it on currency conversion differences. (It’s sad when you can just lose $5 million to currency conversion…) Kylie Minogue is #2 with $40 million, and Russell Crowe is #3 with $36 million.
However, I am offering a ray of hope for those of you subjected to these freaks. (Which I still say is your own fault for having kids, but whatever.) The comments in this release about the top paid Aussie entertainers states that The Wiggles have made most of their money while touring in the US this year. The good news? The group is planning to cut back its overseas shows next year and focus on touring Australia. The lesson here? If you value your sanity, don’t come to Australia next year.
It has been interesting… People keep talking about my leaving. It came up Thursday night at dinner, as everyone was trying to figure out what kind of get-together we should have to send me off. I told them I didn’t need anything, but they wouldn’t hear it. So next week we will do the usual Thursday night diner group. And on Friday night, the office is hosting lunch (which I will not be going to) and drinks (which I will be going to) to send off Nate, me, and another woman who is leaving the office. It should be fun. Kim, the office coordinator, is quite excited that I will be bringing Sally with me on Friday night. She says that she’s going to get the good dirt on me now. I think I’m a pretty open book; she just hasn’t figured it out enough to start asking me the good questions!
I took it pretty easy on Friday night. Going out Thursday night and Saturday night are about enough for me now. I’m getting old…
Saturday night was a lot of fun. We had about 25 people show up for my friend Charlotte’s birthday party. We played laser skirmish (laser tag), with Great Britain versus the rest of the world. It was about an even split, with 11 or 12 on each side. After we got done, they posted our scores. The rest of the world kicked Great Britain’s butt! Although the funny part was when someone noticed that it said that the Rest of the Word team had something like 41 people on it. One of the English guys started giving us a hard time. I told him it was funny – all you have to do is tell people you’re skirmishing with Great Britain, and they all show up to help out.
So we did the laser tag thing and then headed over to a seafood place at Darling Harbour for a nice dinner. The food was great, and we had two big tables of people. Charlotte really liked her present from all of us, and she seemed to have a really good time. After dinner, we took her around the Harbour to a pub for some drinks. Of course, none of us had realized that it was midnight when we were leaving the restaurant. But no matter – the pubs keep going pretty late here.
So we went to a pub called Bungalow 8, which is pretty popular. I had been there once, for drinks after work one of the first Fridays I was over here. The crowd was a little different this time, but it was still fun.
A couple of entertaining stories from the night for you guys: The first was when I was walking into the club. They were checking IDs, but I’m not too sure why. I turned to one girl next to me and said, “Watch the bouncer get a little freaked by my license.” He didn’t really. But he looked at it, looked at me, and smiled really big. Then he opened his arm to invite me into the club and said, “Miss North Carolina, come on down!” I laughed at that one. Random, random guy, but still very nice for it being late in the night, and there was a long line forming behind us to get in.
Later in the night, a couple of us were walking back from a couple of rounds at the bar, and were walking back towards our group. We were out on the covered patio, which runs from the front of the bar to the back (along the Harbour waterfront). When I was walking up, I see I guy about 10 yards away run by at full speed, followed by a bouncer. Then a guy comes tearing across, and plowed right into me. He bounced off me and took off after the guy. I, in the meantime, got a brief round of applause. I managed to only spill a sip of my full beer when the guy slammed into me. Not that I had paid for it, anyway, but it was still the principle of the thing. Then we watch and see the guy jump over the fence at the back of the pub, and just stop. About that time, the bouncers grabbed him and escorted him off.
I don’t know what this guy did, but he should be arrested just for being stupid. He was way ahead of the bouncers when he jumped the fence, and had so many directions he could have headed after getting out of the pub. There are lots of other clubs and bars around there, so he could have ducked into one of those, or just run around the Harbour. Nope. He stopped and let himself get caught. Brilliant!
I spent Sunday hanging out at home. Later in the afternoon I went for a run, thinking that I brought my running shoes and clothes over here for a reason, so I should use them while it was so nice out! It was a short run, but it was kind of a final spin around the neighborhood, as I doubt I will get out much to see it after this weekend. Sunday was also the Sydney Marathon. I had debated running the 10-K portion of it. But when I looked online a few weeks ago, it was something like $75 to run, and you didn’t even get a t-shirt. Well, that’s stupid to run for nothing, so I decided against doing the race. Besides, maybe I’ll get in shape in the next year or two and come back to run the full marathon. May as well make it worth it, right?
I was going to run on Saturday, but holy crap, it was hot that day. I think it was somewhere around 88. No way I[m running in that heat! Besides, I had some errands to run on Saturday. One of which was probably my most crowning achievement of the past three months. I had to go buy a new travel pass (bus, train, ferry) for next week. The one I have had was a three month pass, and it officially expired out on Saturday.
Now, the three-month pass running out is not really my crowning achievement. The fact that with all of the places I have gone, all of the pubs I have visited, all of the things I have done here, I managed to hold onto that little card for three months. I almost washed it only once. (I managed to shut off the washing machine quickly when I realized where it was. Not even wet, yet!) I left it in coat pockets a few times, but I always figured it out by the next morning. So all in all, I am quite proud of myself! I was sure I was going to lost that thing somewhere during the course of my stay. I can’t hang on to car keys back home, but I manage to keep a stupid little swipe card for three months. Crazy…
Okay, this post is going to be pretty short. I have some stuff to go take care of. At some point in time, I need to clean up my apartment and start thinking about the monster packing job I have to do in the next few days. Yuck.
So I don’t have any kind of mX update for you guys. Sorry. I really don’t even have a good story to share. (I know, I know. What good am I?) But what I can give you is a reply to Tony’s post a while back about the annoying Wiggles. Tony, The Wiggles have been officially named the top Australian entertainer for the year ended 30 June 2008. They had $45 million in earnings in 2008. On the up side, that’s $5 million less than last year. Although they are blaming it on currency conversion differences. (It’s sad when you can just lose $5 million to currency conversion…) Kylie Minogue is #2 with $40 million, and Russell Crowe is #3 with $36 million.
However, I am offering a ray of hope for those of you subjected to these freaks. (Which I still say is your own fault for having kids, but whatever.) The comments in this release about the top paid Aussie entertainers states that The Wiggles have made most of their money while touring in the US this year. The good news? The group is planning to cut back its overseas shows next year and focus on touring Australia. The lesson here? If you value your sanity, don’t come to Australia next year.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Only 1 Week of Work Left? Really?
Oops! Okay… So the week is once again flying by, and I have missed out on several days of posts here. Sorry about that.
Things here have pretty much been same-old, same-old. I don’t have a whole lot to provide in the way of stories this week. My week has pretty much been about work. And, still hard to believe, but one week from yesterday (Wednesday) is my last day working here!
I was at a new client this week, which is located up in North Sydney. Of course, with traffic, it takes me almost as long to ride the bus from my flat to the client as it does for me to get into town. (North Sydney is on the same side of the Bridge as me, but on the other side of the highway. In other words, I am northeast of downtown, and North Sydney is northwest.) But North Sydney is a pretty nice area of town. I only really get to see it when I am coming and going from the client’s office. But it is still a pretty cool area. There are lots of buildings, pubs, shops, whatever. And there are always a ton of people out and about.
My job this week has been to get an audit done in one week, reports and everything. And, believe it or not, it is Thursday and I am just about finished. I will spend a couple of hours out there tomorrow, but hopefully only half a day. And then I am out of work! On the down side, having to go out to the client tomorrow means that I don’t get to spend my last Friday here in jeans. Crud. Oh well, I guess it is a good thing. Mostly because I need to get out of that habit for when I get back to the Charlotte office.
Actually, I have some stuff I am going to do to help with the cab company I was working on for the few weeks before. But I don’t expect that work will take very long. So I think I am going to be at a point where I have very little to do next week as I wrap up the secondment. Maybe a little cleanup work on the current client, but that’s about it. So maybe I will be able to do a better job posting blogs and updating photos next week.
As I said, today is Thursday. So tonight I am going out with all the folks from work for our weekly dinner group. I am getting close here: I will have dinner with these guys tonight and next Thursday, and that will be it for me. Kind of sad, but it has been great getting to know these guys. Oh, and I am sure that I will have some stories to tell after dinner tonight, so hopefully I will be back in good stride with the entertainment very soon.
So here are a couple of random stories for you guys from the week so far. Sorry, but these really are all that I have:
There has been some construction going on the past couple of weeks in the Queen Victoria Building (QVB), which I cut through to get to the Town Hall station. Apparently the construction included putting these big supports throughout the middle of the building. You know, the big square pillars that provide support braces. Anyway, these things are pretty big, and are right in the middle of the halls. They are white, and kind of blend in to the rest of the decorations there. So the construction crew put red tape around the support beams, I guess to make them stand out. First off, they look like giant candy canes. Kind of tacky. But the tape really doesn’t help all that much. I mean, I guess you notice them, but only when you get right there.
So I have to ask: I wonder if the tape was put on before or after someone ran into these beams. I am quite positive someone ran into one. It is kind of funny to watch people only halfway pay attention and then kind of jump when they get close to one. So I am almost certain that someone took one of these things on. I am debating spending a little time next week just standing and watching people react to these things. It has to be entertaining!
On Wednesday morning, I took the bus to the ferry to the train to get into work. Even though the bus is a little quicker, I am going back to my beginnings and doing the old route some. (I didn’t do it today, because I needed the extra 15 minutes of sleep, thanks to a random caller on my cell phone last night.) But it was nice to do the trip again. I haven’t taken that route in quite a while. And for some reason, we pulled into a different ferry dock than usual. I guess it goes to show that you shouldn’t get used to things, because they can change, even in just a 4-month period of time! I think it was a fluke that it was a slightly different route, but it still threw me! At the same time, I have pretty much decided that I’ll be taking this longer commute all of next week. I only have three days left next week to enjoy traveling by ferry to work, so I definitely have to take advantage!
On Saturday night, a huge group of us will be going out for my friend Charlotte’s birthday. It’s on Monday, so we’re taking her out to celebrate Saturday night. She decided that she wants to go to laser skirmish. I don’t know what a skirmish is (aside from those you hear about in the Middle East), but you would know it as laser quest. How fun, right? A bunch of 30-year-olds running around shooting each other. (Actually, I am probably the oldest in the group. How scary is that?) Afterwards, we are all going out to dinner in Darling Harbour, so that one should be really nice. And then, if Charlotte wants, we will go out to whatever pub or club she wants to go to. So I think it is going to be a fun night. I took care of organizing it all, and I think we have about 23 people who are going to be there. (Basically 12-13 people, plus significant others.) Man, what a big birthday party!
Charlotte wanted to combine it with a going-away thing for me, but I wouldn’t let her. I told her it was her birthday, and that’s what we are going to celebrate. So I think she is trying to figure out what to do for me next week as a send-off thing. I have had a couple of other people in the office ask, as well, so we will see if anything comes up. I’m just as happy doing the Thursday night thins next week and being done with it. But we’ll see what happens…
Okay, to wrap these ramblings up, I will give you an interesting thing I have noticed while I have been over here: Kids. Actually, not so much the kids, but the parents. Almost every time I see little kids, they are with their fathers. Dads are taking the pee wees on the bus in the mornings, I assume to drop them off at day care. There are several cars with only dads and kids in them. Even on weekends, fathers are pushing the kids around in strollers, taking them to soccer or rugby practice, whatever. It is just a lot different, since I am so used to moms being the primary transportation back in the US.
Which leads to one of two possibilities:
1. Day cares are always stationed around where the fathers work.
2. Men here are whipped.
Based on the amount of high-maintenance outfits, the European style and attitudes (read: very metrosexual), and the massive amount of hair product worn by men here (I think we could patch the hole in the ozone with all of the gel worn by men here on any given day), I am picking what is behind door #2…
All right, I am out of stories for you guys. So I’ll close with the mX update for you. Have a great day, everyone, and I’ll try to give you some new posts this weekend. I promise, I’m looking for stories to tell!
TEXT VENTS:
These vents all deal with a previous text from a guy asking for some advice about dumping his girlfriend …
“Bruce, if she’s been with eight guys you are number nine. Once a player, always a player. You are not wrong to give her the dump.” – Nafiz, Minto
“Bruce, if she said eight, that really means 16 and if you said eight, it really means four.” – Funny, The Shire
Okay, so nice advice. But here’s my favorite response:
“Bruce, I’ve been with five and I’m four years younger than your girlfriend. It’s normal these days.” – J, South Coast
Oh my God, thank you, J, for just admitting to being easy in a paper that has thousands of readers! And qualifying it with the “it’s normal these days” comment (rather than saying she has been in five serious relationships that just didn’t work out). I am so hoping to read in the next day or so all the guys send in texts and ask this girl out! HA!
Things here have pretty much been same-old, same-old. I don’t have a whole lot to provide in the way of stories this week. My week has pretty much been about work. And, still hard to believe, but one week from yesterday (Wednesday) is my last day working here!
I was at a new client this week, which is located up in North Sydney. Of course, with traffic, it takes me almost as long to ride the bus from my flat to the client as it does for me to get into town. (North Sydney is on the same side of the Bridge as me, but on the other side of the highway. In other words, I am northeast of downtown, and North Sydney is northwest.) But North Sydney is a pretty nice area of town. I only really get to see it when I am coming and going from the client’s office. But it is still a pretty cool area. There are lots of buildings, pubs, shops, whatever. And there are always a ton of people out and about.
My job this week has been to get an audit done in one week, reports and everything. And, believe it or not, it is Thursday and I am just about finished. I will spend a couple of hours out there tomorrow, but hopefully only half a day. And then I am out of work! On the down side, having to go out to the client tomorrow means that I don’t get to spend my last Friday here in jeans. Crud. Oh well, I guess it is a good thing. Mostly because I need to get out of that habit for when I get back to the Charlotte office.
Actually, I have some stuff I am going to do to help with the cab company I was working on for the few weeks before. But I don’t expect that work will take very long. So I think I am going to be at a point where I have very little to do next week as I wrap up the secondment. Maybe a little cleanup work on the current client, but that’s about it. So maybe I will be able to do a better job posting blogs and updating photos next week.
As I said, today is Thursday. So tonight I am going out with all the folks from work for our weekly dinner group. I am getting close here: I will have dinner with these guys tonight and next Thursday, and that will be it for me. Kind of sad, but it has been great getting to know these guys. Oh, and I am sure that I will have some stories to tell after dinner tonight, so hopefully I will be back in good stride with the entertainment very soon.
So here are a couple of random stories for you guys from the week so far. Sorry, but these really are all that I have:
There has been some construction going on the past couple of weeks in the Queen Victoria Building (QVB), which I cut through to get to the Town Hall station. Apparently the construction included putting these big supports throughout the middle of the building. You know, the big square pillars that provide support braces. Anyway, these things are pretty big, and are right in the middle of the halls. They are white, and kind of blend in to the rest of the decorations there. So the construction crew put red tape around the support beams, I guess to make them stand out. First off, they look like giant candy canes. Kind of tacky. But the tape really doesn’t help all that much. I mean, I guess you notice them, but only when you get right there.
So I have to ask: I wonder if the tape was put on before or after someone ran into these beams. I am quite positive someone ran into one. It is kind of funny to watch people only halfway pay attention and then kind of jump when they get close to one. So I am almost certain that someone took one of these things on. I am debating spending a little time next week just standing and watching people react to these things. It has to be entertaining!
On Wednesday morning, I took the bus to the ferry to the train to get into work. Even though the bus is a little quicker, I am going back to my beginnings and doing the old route some. (I didn’t do it today, because I needed the extra 15 minutes of sleep, thanks to a random caller on my cell phone last night.) But it was nice to do the trip again. I haven’t taken that route in quite a while. And for some reason, we pulled into a different ferry dock than usual. I guess it goes to show that you shouldn’t get used to things, because they can change, even in just a 4-month period of time! I think it was a fluke that it was a slightly different route, but it still threw me! At the same time, I have pretty much decided that I’ll be taking this longer commute all of next week. I only have three days left next week to enjoy traveling by ferry to work, so I definitely have to take advantage!
On Saturday night, a huge group of us will be going out for my friend Charlotte’s birthday. It’s on Monday, so we’re taking her out to celebrate Saturday night. She decided that she wants to go to laser skirmish. I don’t know what a skirmish is (aside from those you hear about in the Middle East), but you would know it as laser quest. How fun, right? A bunch of 30-year-olds running around shooting each other. (Actually, I am probably the oldest in the group. How scary is that?) Afterwards, we are all going out to dinner in Darling Harbour, so that one should be really nice. And then, if Charlotte wants, we will go out to whatever pub or club she wants to go to. So I think it is going to be a fun night. I took care of organizing it all, and I think we have about 23 people who are going to be there. (Basically 12-13 people, plus significant others.) Man, what a big birthday party!
Charlotte wanted to combine it with a going-away thing for me, but I wouldn’t let her. I told her it was her birthday, and that’s what we are going to celebrate. So I think she is trying to figure out what to do for me next week as a send-off thing. I have had a couple of other people in the office ask, as well, so we will see if anything comes up. I’m just as happy doing the Thursday night thins next week and being done with it. But we’ll see what happens…
Okay, to wrap these ramblings up, I will give you an interesting thing I have noticed while I have been over here: Kids. Actually, not so much the kids, but the parents. Almost every time I see little kids, they are with their fathers. Dads are taking the pee wees on the bus in the mornings, I assume to drop them off at day care. There are several cars with only dads and kids in them. Even on weekends, fathers are pushing the kids around in strollers, taking them to soccer or rugby practice, whatever. It is just a lot different, since I am so used to moms being the primary transportation back in the US.
Which leads to one of two possibilities:
1. Day cares are always stationed around where the fathers work.
2. Men here are whipped.
Based on the amount of high-maintenance outfits, the European style and attitudes (read: very metrosexual), and the massive amount of hair product worn by men here (I think we could patch the hole in the ozone with all of the gel worn by men here on any given day), I am picking what is behind door #2…
All right, I am out of stories for you guys. So I’ll close with the mX update for you. Have a great day, everyone, and I’ll try to give you some new posts this weekend. I promise, I’m looking for stories to tell!
TEXT VENTS:
These vents all deal with a previous text from a guy asking for some advice about dumping his girlfriend …
“Bruce, if she’s been with eight guys you are number nine. Once a player, always a player. You are not wrong to give her the dump.” – Nafiz, Minto
“Bruce, if she said eight, that really means 16 and if you said eight, it really means four.” – Funny, The Shire
Okay, so nice advice. But here’s my favorite response:
“Bruce, I’ve been with five and I’m four years younger than your girlfriend. It’s normal these days.” – J, South Coast
Oh my God, thank you, J, for just admitting to being easy in a paper that has thousands of readers! And qualifying it with the “it’s normal these days” comment (rather than saying she has been in five serious relationships that just didn’t work out). I am so hoping to read in the next day or so all the guys send in texts and ask this girl out! HA!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Are We There, Yet?
Wow. Another weekend has passed! This one went by pretty fast. I am still not quite sure how it is Sunday night already. The weekend was absolutely beautiful for most of the weekend. It got up to 25 yesterday, which is around 77 degrees. I didn’t realize it was so warm until I went outside. So I was a bit toasty in my jeans, but there were some insane people still walking around in sweatshirts. Holy crap, I don’t know how they were doing it. But I came back to the apartment in the afternoon, and the weather was so nice that I opened up the window and took a nap on the couch with the warm breeze blowing in. It was kind of like being at the beach, which felt awesome. Although it was starting to get cool, and I eventually had to close the window and get back to the “real world.” Today was a decent day, although he rain came in a couple of times throughout the day. However, it was nice enough that I finally got to wear shorts over here! Woo hoo! I was one of few people, but it was so nice to be able to experience spring after the long wait!
So tomorrow morning, I will meet the audit team in the office, and then head to North Sydney (my side of the Bridge) to work on my final audit client here for the Sydney office. It sounds like a pretty easy job. In fact, it is going to be so easy, I don’t think it is going to take the entire week to finish it. So I guess there is a chance that I might end up rolling on to another job to help out for a few of days to close out my secondment. But right now, it looks like I’ll get to spend the last couple of days in the office, wrapping up my position here.
I have to say – I have some mixed feelings. On the one hand, over the course of three months, I have made some pretty good friends here. It is a little sad to leave them behind, knowing that there is a good chance I might not see them again. And there are things here I really like and enjoy, and it will be hard to break away from those things that I have grown used to here. On the other hand, it is absolutely incredible to type that I am wrapping up here. There is a big part of me that is ready to be back home in my own house doing the things I am a little more accustomed to. I am excited about getting to see everyone back in the US, as you all know that the hardest thing over here has been that I am too far away to spend time with anyone from back home, aside from a phone call for a few minutes. And, as silly as it may sound, I am also ready to get home to the cats, JJ and Hobbes. (Sally tells me JJ has pawed at my picture, but I think she’s just trying to make me feel better.) So it really is quite thrilling to think that I will be headed home soon. At the same time, it is a little overwhelming to think that I only have a week and a half left to work here before Sally and I spend some time traveling around the hemisphere.
Speaking of travel, I pretty much spent the weekend planning my holiday. So I apologize that I don’t have any big adventures to share with you guys from the weekend. No pictures or anything. Sorry about that. But I promise that I will spend a little time next weekend, getting some final pictures from some area of town where I haven’t taken you guys, yet. So if anyone has any final requests for next weekend’s adventure, please let me know. Next weekend will be the final weekend that “we” will be going out together before I sign off of the blog for my vacation trip. So I want to make sure that I have done everything you guys want me to do!
Now, speaking of vacation plans, I have had a lot of you ask me what Sally and I will be doing once she gets over here. I booked all of the plane tickets yesterday, and I booked all of the tour packages today. So everything is pretty much planned. Sally arrives on Thursday morning, and we will spend a couple of days here in the City, so that I can show off Mosman and parts of Sydney. From what I have heard, we will probably go out to dinner with my friends on Thursday night (the Supper Club), and these guys were talking about taking me out Friday night for kind of a send-off party.
I will move out of my apartment on Friday afternoon, and we are going to head over to an airport hotel for the night. We have to be up quite early Saturday morning to catch a plane to Christchurch, New Zealand. We will hire a car and drive around a little bit. Sally is in charge of planning the NZ trip, but we will spend most of our time in Queenstown, which is both the tourist and extreme sport capital of NZ. Sweet! So I don’t know for sure what we will be doing, but I know it will be awesome.
On Tuesday night, we will fly back to Sydney and jump on a connecting plane to Melbourne to arrive late Tuesday night. On Wednesday, we will take some time in the morning to tour around and see some parts of the city. Mid-day, I found a brewery tour that we are going to go do. Those of you who know me well know that I have been on most of the major brewery tours in the US. So when I found a tour here in Australia, I had to jump on it! And, for those of you who have to know, yes, it is a Foster’s brewery. But they don’t brew Foster’s there. They brew other brands that people here actually drink. (“Foster’s… Australian for crap.”) On Wednesday night, I have a surprise tour for Sally, so I don’t want to post here what we will be doing since she reads my blog posts. Plus she told me she wants me to keep it a surprise. But I’m pretty excited about it; it is an awesome thing I found to do. So if you want to know what it is, drop me and email, and I’ll let you know. Thursday morning we will get up bright and early to do a tour of the city. We’ll grab a quick lunch, and then we will head over to the Rod Laver Arena to do an official tour of the tennis centre there. Since Sally and I have already see Wimbledon, and have gone to the US Open a couple of years with Amy and Hughlene, it will be really cool to see where they host the Australia Open. Cool.
Thursday night we fly back to Sydney. We will probably stay the night with my friends Ollie and Louise, who are also nice enough to let me park a couple of my bags at their flat while I travel around. Friday morning, if Sally wants to, we might to the Bridge Climb. Other than that, we don’t have much planned for the day.
Friday night, we are going to fly up to Cairns, which is in the tropic north, for a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We get in late Friday night, then get up early Saturday morning for an excursion to the Reef. The tour I booked looks pretty cool. Right now, we will both snorkel in a couple of reef locations. Although there is the option of doing a dive, and you don’t have to be certified. So I’m not planning on it, but you never know – I might decide to try out scuba diving while I’m here. We’ll get back, enjoy a nice dinner out in Cairns, and probably go to bed early, because we have to get up early again on Sunday to head out to do a tour to the rain forest. For those of you who don’t know, Cairns is popular for two things: The Reef and the Rain forest. So we have managed to book trips to both. After the Rain forest tour, we get back just in time to grab our bags and head to the airport to fly back to Sydney on Sunday afternoon, in time to pick up our bags from my friends and head over to a hotel near Hyde Park for a couple of nights. Whew! Although I will say that the best part about these trips is that Sally and I managed to come up with enough points between my Hilton points and both of our American Express card points that we will be staying in hotels for free every night while we are out of town. You all know me – I don’t go anywhere big unless I have something for free. So this trip has my name all over it!
But wait, we’re not done. On Monday morning, we will get up kind of early yet again for a trip out to the Blue Mountains. This trip is one I have been wanting to do, but have been waiting for Sally to get here. The Blue Mountains is awesome, and has lots of cool stuff. Hiking, waterfalls, rain forest, you name it. On the way back, we will stop at Featherdale Wildlife Park where you get to go in and pet koalas. Yeah, yeah, koala. But I am more excited about feeding the kangaroos and wallabies! These things are like little dogs, and you get to get up close and personal with them. Sweet! The trip closes out with a cruise around the Harbour.
By the way, if I don’t make it home, it’s because I tried to smuggle a little kangaroo home. (The ones in the park are the small little wallabies. They’re quite cute!) I’m sure Hobbes and JJ would be super excited about that one! I leave for four months and come back with a little roo. Yeah, I have a good feeling that the cat pee on my personal stuff would never end if I try that one.
Tuesday morning I will probably be on the mad scramble to get last-minute souvenirs. And then, after lunch, Sally and I jump on a plane to come back home to the US! Something tells me that we will have absolutely no trouble sleeping on the flight home…
Okay, now that I have made everyone jealous, I guess you all understand why I didn’t get to do much else aside from planning these trips. Although I did go out last night to my local pub to watch the last Wallabies-New Zealand All Blacks rugby match. (If the Wallabies won the match, they could win the Bledisloe Cup this year, which is a big deal to beat NZ for the Cup.) I walked in wearing my Wallabies jersey, and had a guy come over to me, all excited, showing off his scarf, saying our guys were going to win it tonight. (Yes, scarf. They all have them over here, and will wear them even though is it not cold.)
Then the guy standing next to me then leaned over and said, “So which team are you backing tonight?” I laughed and said, “Oh, you can’t tell?” He laughed and then said, “Wait, do I hear an accent?” I told him I was from the US, and he pointed at the TV and said, “So do you understand this game?” I told him I had most of the rules after three months of watching, and we started talking. His name was Lawrence, and he was a really nice guy, offering to answer any questions I had about rugby. I had a couple, one of which almost stumped him, so I felt pretty good about that one. An older couple sitting at the table we were standing behind got up towards the end of the first half and left. So we sat down and hung out the rest of the night, watching rugby together. It was a great way to kind of wrap up my social nights out on my own. Although I have talked to some nice people here, it was good to have someone show up and really be social, spending time talking during the rugby match. So it was a good night, and I headed home for bed so that I could get up the next morning for church.
This morning I went to the Scots Presbyterian Kirk (Scottish for “church”) here in Mosman. It was a nice service, and there were a ton of people there. A couple had their baby baptized, and a bunch of their friends came along. But the church was nice, and the message was good. Although the funniest part of the service was that there was a guy with the baptism group who I kept calling “Ace, your Ship’s Photographer.” In my head, of course. Although I debated saying it out loud a couple of times. The guy looked a little like Jeff Goldblum, so he was totally giving off the “I spend all of my money at the electronics section” vibe, and probably walks around with a fanny pack full of electronic equipment on his vacations. (Yeah, you all have a perfect picture of this guy in your head now, don’t you?)
Anyway, the guy had both a digital camera and a video camera. So before the service, he was taking a ton of pictures. Then came the time for the baptism, and the guy was all over it. Literally. He turned on the video camera, stood at the top of the aisle, right near where the baptism was happening, and started filming the service. That part wasn’t the strange part. When the minister took the baby to put the water on his head, the guy walked up the steps behind the couple and the minister, and started video taping, right there in the front of the church. You know, he had to get the “perfect shot” of the minister at the baptismal font. It was a bit odd, only because I got the feeling that this guy wasn’t one who went to church often, and he saw it more as a social event where he was in charge. If you can picture it at all, hopefully it was make you laugh a little. I was trying hard not to laugh at Ace.
After the service, I walked out and spoke to the minister. He said hello and I said, “Good morning.” He immediately asked, “Now where are you from?” Wow, I think those two words just might be a record to spur that question... When I told him the US, he started chatting with me a little bit, even though there was a line of his congregants behind me. But he was telling me that he had watched “the Memorial Service” one night last week. It took me a minute to figure it out, but he eventually said something about September 11th, so I figured it out. (I didn’t know it was on TV here, to tell you the truth!) But he was very complementary of the service and the speeches that everyone made. So now I’m sorry I missed seeing it! But, as I said in an earlier post, his comments were the first that I heard anything about 9/11 over here. It was nice of him to say something, though, and he told me to come back to the church any time, that I was always welcome there. Nice guy.
Okay, I am going to wind this post up now. I hope everyone had a great weekend. I know you are all excited to be back at work today. Hopefully the mX updates from last Friday will help give you a little boost to get through your Monday... So I'll leave you with the best of what I could find.
TEXT VENTS:
These are less funny than usual, but I thought it was interesting to point out some of the finer qualities of the people here in Sydney, rather than just bashing on some of the stupidity.
"On Wednesday afternoon I saw a female CityRail employee at Hornsby down on the tracks on her knees looking for a passenger's lost jewellery. And she found it. Well done." - T, Waltara. (This one takes guts, folks. You can get fried if you touch the electric rail when a train is approaching. Nevermind the fact that a train could approach, and there is no way it is stopping in time for anyone to get out of the tracks in time to survive. Man, I hope it was some nice diamonds she was looking for...)
"Sometimes there are decent, good-hearted people in this world. Pat on the back for the man who saved a man tumbling down Wynyard escalators despite everyone else watching. He dropped his lunch and jumped for the man. Pleased he only got few cuts and scratches." - Glenn, Castle Hill. (I have to say, I have often wondered what would happen if someone fell, because I have seen several people trip or stumble. Glad to hear someone out there is watching out.)
And, just to prove that the old hostility is still there:
"Bloody commuters. I miss the people from World Youth Day. You were all complaining about them, but I want them back." - Gilbert, Glebe. (Glad to see it's not all sappy stuff this week. At last, someone in true Sydney form shows up for our entertainment!)
STORY OF THE DAY:
There is a pub just wet of London called Windsor Castle Pub. It is clearly named for the area, approximate 8 km from Windsor Castle. So a delivery guy with 12 barrels of beer (it would pour about 2,000 pints) tried to deliver them to the Queen at Windsor Castle instead of Windsor Castle Pub, just ahead of England's World Cup soccer qualifying match against Croatia. I have to say, I think this story is great, but only because the delivery guy truly has to be the dumbest person around. I mean, I realize that the Queen has probably had to turn to booze to deal with her family. (Look how well Charles turned out.) But unless her grandsons are in town for a killer keg party, I really doubt Her Highness would be able to down 2,000 pints on her own.
So tomorrow morning, I will meet the audit team in the office, and then head to North Sydney (my side of the Bridge) to work on my final audit client here for the Sydney office. It sounds like a pretty easy job. In fact, it is going to be so easy, I don’t think it is going to take the entire week to finish it. So I guess there is a chance that I might end up rolling on to another job to help out for a few of days to close out my secondment. But right now, it looks like I’ll get to spend the last couple of days in the office, wrapping up my position here.
I have to say – I have some mixed feelings. On the one hand, over the course of three months, I have made some pretty good friends here. It is a little sad to leave them behind, knowing that there is a good chance I might not see them again. And there are things here I really like and enjoy, and it will be hard to break away from those things that I have grown used to here. On the other hand, it is absolutely incredible to type that I am wrapping up here. There is a big part of me that is ready to be back home in my own house doing the things I am a little more accustomed to. I am excited about getting to see everyone back in the US, as you all know that the hardest thing over here has been that I am too far away to spend time with anyone from back home, aside from a phone call for a few minutes. And, as silly as it may sound, I am also ready to get home to the cats, JJ and Hobbes. (Sally tells me JJ has pawed at my picture, but I think she’s just trying to make me feel better.) So it really is quite thrilling to think that I will be headed home soon. At the same time, it is a little overwhelming to think that I only have a week and a half left to work here before Sally and I spend some time traveling around the hemisphere.
Speaking of travel, I pretty much spent the weekend planning my holiday. So I apologize that I don’t have any big adventures to share with you guys from the weekend. No pictures or anything. Sorry about that. But I promise that I will spend a little time next weekend, getting some final pictures from some area of town where I haven’t taken you guys, yet. So if anyone has any final requests for next weekend’s adventure, please let me know. Next weekend will be the final weekend that “we” will be going out together before I sign off of the blog for my vacation trip. So I want to make sure that I have done everything you guys want me to do!
Now, speaking of vacation plans, I have had a lot of you ask me what Sally and I will be doing once she gets over here. I booked all of the plane tickets yesterday, and I booked all of the tour packages today. So everything is pretty much planned. Sally arrives on Thursday morning, and we will spend a couple of days here in the City, so that I can show off Mosman and parts of Sydney. From what I have heard, we will probably go out to dinner with my friends on Thursday night (the Supper Club), and these guys were talking about taking me out Friday night for kind of a send-off party.
I will move out of my apartment on Friday afternoon, and we are going to head over to an airport hotel for the night. We have to be up quite early Saturday morning to catch a plane to Christchurch, New Zealand. We will hire a car and drive around a little bit. Sally is in charge of planning the NZ trip, but we will spend most of our time in Queenstown, which is both the tourist and extreme sport capital of NZ. Sweet! So I don’t know for sure what we will be doing, but I know it will be awesome.
On Tuesday night, we will fly back to Sydney and jump on a connecting plane to Melbourne to arrive late Tuesday night. On Wednesday, we will take some time in the morning to tour around and see some parts of the city. Mid-day, I found a brewery tour that we are going to go do. Those of you who know me well know that I have been on most of the major brewery tours in the US. So when I found a tour here in Australia, I had to jump on it! And, for those of you who have to know, yes, it is a Foster’s brewery. But they don’t brew Foster’s there. They brew other brands that people here actually drink. (“Foster’s… Australian for crap.”) On Wednesday night, I have a surprise tour for Sally, so I don’t want to post here what we will be doing since she reads my blog posts. Plus she told me she wants me to keep it a surprise. But I’m pretty excited about it; it is an awesome thing I found to do. So if you want to know what it is, drop me and email, and I’ll let you know. Thursday morning we will get up bright and early to do a tour of the city. We’ll grab a quick lunch, and then we will head over to the Rod Laver Arena to do an official tour of the tennis centre there. Since Sally and I have already see Wimbledon, and have gone to the US Open a couple of years with Amy and Hughlene, it will be really cool to see where they host the Australia Open. Cool.
Thursday night we fly back to Sydney. We will probably stay the night with my friends Ollie and Louise, who are also nice enough to let me park a couple of my bags at their flat while I travel around. Friday morning, if Sally wants to, we might to the Bridge Climb. Other than that, we don’t have much planned for the day.
Friday night, we are going to fly up to Cairns, which is in the tropic north, for a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We get in late Friday night, then get up early Saturday morning for an excursion to the Reef. The tour I booked looks pretty cool. Right now, we will both snorkel in a couple of reef locations. Although there is the option of doing a dive, and you don’t have to be certified. So I’m not planning on it, but you never know – I might decide to try out scuba diving while I’m here. We’ll get back, enjoy a nice dinner out in Cairns, and probably go to bed early, because we have to get up early again on Sunday to head out to do a tour to the rain forest. For those of you who don’t know, Cairns is popular for two things: The Reef and the Rain forest. So we have managed to book trips to both. After the Rain forest tour, we get back just in time to grab our bags and head to the airport to fly back to Sydney on Sunday afternoon, in time to pick up our bags from my friends and head over to a hotel near Hyde Park for a couple of nights. Whew! Although I will say that the best part about these trips is that Sally and I managed to come up with enough points between my Hilton points and both of our American Express card points that we will be staying in hotels for free every night while we are out of town. You all know me – I don’t go anywhere big unless I have something for free. So this trip has my name all over it!
But wait, we’re not done. On Monday morning, we will get up kind of early yet again for a trip out to the Blue Mountains. This trip is one I have been wanting to do, but have been waiting for Sally to get here. The Blue Mountains is awesome, and has lots of cool stuff. Hiking, waterfalls, rain forest, you name it. On the way back, we will stop at Featherdale Wildlife Park where you get to go in and pet koalas. Yeah, yeah, koala. But I am more excited about feeding the kangaroos and wallabies! These things are like little dogs, and you get to get up close and personal with them. Sweet! The trip closes out with a cruise around the Harbour.
By the way, if I don’t make it home, it’s because I tried to smuggle a little kangaroo home. (The ones in the park are the small little wallabies. They’re quite cute!) I’m sure Hobbes and JJ would be super excited about that one! I leave for four months and come back with a little roo. Yeah, I have a good feeling that the cat pee on my personal stuff would never end if I try that one.
Tuesday morning I will probably be on the mad scramble to get last-minute souvenirs. And then, after lunch, Sally and I jump on a plane to come back home to the US! Something tells me that we will have absolutely no trouble sleeping on the flight home…
Okay, now that I have made everyone jealous, I guess you all understand why I didn’t get to do much else aside from planning these trips. Although I did go out last night to my local pub to watch the last Wallabies-New Zealand All Blacks rugby match. (If the Wallabies won the match, they could win the Bledisloe Cup this year, which is a big deal to beat NZ for the Cup.) I walked in wearing my Wallabies jersey, and had a guy come over to me, all excited, showing off his scarf, saying our guys were going to win it tonight. (Yes, scarf. They all have them over here, and will wear them even though is it not cold.)
Then the guy standing next to me then leaned over and said, “So which team are you backing tonight?” I laughed and said, “Oh, you can’t tell?” He laughed and then said, “Wait, do I hear an accent?” I told him I was from the US, and he pointed at the TV and said, “So do you understand this game?” I told him I had most of the rules after three months of watching, and we started talking. His name was Lawrence, and he was a really nice guy, offering to answer any questions I had about rugby. I had a couple, one of which almost stumped him, so I felt pretty good about that one. An older couple sitting at the table we were standing behind got up towards the end of the first half and left. So we sat down and hung out the rest of the night, watching rugby together. It was a great way to kind of wrap up my social nights out on my own. Although I have talked to some nice people here, it was good to have someone show up and really be social, spending time talking during the rugby match. So it was a good night, and I headed home for bed so that I could get up the next morning for church.
This morning I went to the Scots Presbyterian Kirk (Scottish for “church”) here in Mosman. It was a nice service, and there were a ton of people there. A couple had their baby baptized, and a bunch of their friends came along. But the church was nice, and the message was good. Although the funniest part of the service was that there was a guy with the baptism group who I kept calling “Ace, your Ship’s Photographer.” In my head, of course. Although I debated saying it out loud a couple of times. The guy looked a little like Jeff Goldblum, so he was totally giving off the “I spend all of my money at the electronics section” vibe, and probably walks around with a fanny pack full of electronic equipment on his vacations. (Yeah, you all have a perfect picture of this guy in your head now, don’t you?)
Anyway, the guy had both a digital camera and a video camera. So before the service, he was taking a ton of pictures. Then came the time for the baptism, and the guy was all over it. Literally. He turned on the video camera, stood at the top of the aisle, right near where the baptism was happening, and started filming the service. That part wasn’t the strange part. When the minister took the baby to put the water on his head, the guy walked up the steps behind the couple and the minister, and started video taping, right there in the front of the church. You know, he had to get the “perfect shot” of the minister at the baptismal font. It was a bit odd, only because I got the feeling that this guy wasn’t one who went to church often, and he saw it more as a social event where he was in charge. If you can picture it at all, hopefully it was make you laugh a little. I was trying hard not to laugh at Ace.
After the service, I walked out and spoke to the minister. He said hello and I said, “Good morning.” He immediately asked, “Now where are you from?” Wow, I think those two words just might be a record to spur that question... When I told him the US, he started chatting with me a little bit, even though there was a line of his congregants behind me. But he was telling me that he had watched “the Memorial Service” one night last week. It took me a minute to figure it out, but he eventually said something about September 11th, so I figured it out. (I didn’t know it was on TV here, to tell you the truth!) But he was very complementary of the service and the speeches that everyone made. So now I’m sorry I missed seeing it! But, as I said in an earlier post, his comments were the first that I heard anything about 9/11 over here. It was nice of him to say something, though, and he told me to come back to the church any time, that I was always welcome there. Nice guy.
Okay, I am going to wind this post up now. I hope everyone had a great weekend. I know you are all excited to be back at work today. Hopefully the mX updates from last Friday will help give you a little boost to get through your Monday... So I'll leave you with the best of what I could find.
TEXT VENTS:
These are less funny than usual, but I thought it was interesting to point out some of the finer qualities of the people here in Sydney, rather than just bashing on some of the stupidity.
"On Wednesday afternoon I saw a female CityRail employee at Hornsby down on the tracks on her knees looking for a passenger's lost jewellery. And she found it. Well done." - T, Waltara. (This one takes guts, folks. You can get fried if you touch the electric rail when a train is approaching. Nevermind the fact that a train could approach, and there is no way it is stopping in time for anyone to get out of the tracks in time to survive. Man, I hope it was some nice diamonds she was looking for...)
"Sometimes there are decent, good-hearted people in this world. Pat on the back for the man who saved a man tumbling down Wynyard escalators despite everyone else watching. He dropped his lunch and jumped for the man. Pleased he only got few cuts and scratches." - Glenn, Castle Hill. (I have to say, I have often wondered what would happen if someone fell, because I have seen several people trip or stumble. Glad to hear someone out there is watching out.)
And, just to prove that the old hostility is still there:
"Bloody commuters. I miss the people from World Youth Day. You were all complaining about them, but I want them back." - Gilbert, Glebe. (Glad to see it's not all sappy stuff this week. At last, someone in true Sydney form shows up for our entertainment!)
STORY OF THE DAY:
There is a pub just wet of London called Windsor Castle Pub. It is clearly named for the area, approximate 8 km from Windsor Castle. So a delivery guy with 12 barrels of beer (it would pour about 2,000 pints) tried to deliver them to the Queen at Windsor Castle instead of Windsor Castle Pub, just ahead of England's World Cup soccer qualifying match against Croatia. I have to say, I think this story is great, but only because the delivery guy truly has to be the dumbest person around. I mean, I realize that the Queen has probably had to turn to booze to deal with her family. (Look how well Charles turned out.) But unless her grandsons are in town for a killer keg party, I really doubt Her Highness would be able to down 2,000 pints on her own.
Friday, September 12, 2008
12 Down, 2 To Go!
Today is a good day. Spring is officially here. I think. The weather forecast is calling for something like 24 tomorrow, and 23 on Saturday. To convert it for you, it would be 73 and 75, respectively. It will finally break 70 here! Woo hoo! I am getting a little tired of wearing jeans. And this great weather is just in time for my plans to get out and enjoy the neighborhood this weekend, for the little bit of remaining time that I have here!
Two weeks from today, Sally arrives here. I have to say that I am pretty excited about it. I mean, Sally and I have been friends for a long time, and I am excited about spending two weeks of vacation touring around Australia and New Zealand with her. But I think that I am just excited about seeing someone from back home! In just two weeks, I will get to see someone from back home after three months of not seeing anyone. As I said, it is pretty exciting for me!
Now, on a serious note, in some ways, today is not such a good day. It is 11 September over here, which means that it is the 7th Anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. It is strange for me, because the people over here just know it as another day. I have not heard or seen anything yet today that mentions 9/11. I’m sure there is stuff in the paper I don’t get, or on the news I didn’t watch this morning. I did not have a chance to watch the news tonight, but I did not see anything about 9/11 anywhere. I guess it is a bit outside the sad “norm” for me. I am sure that it is being discussed regularly back home in the States. I guess I am just used to the anniversary being a big deal, discussed for the entire week leading up to it.
I have been in the US on 11 September every year since 2001. I was in London in 2002, but the airline changed my flight time “to be safe,” and I ended up flying home on the 10th instead of the 11th. So with it being the first year I have been out of the country for the anniversary date, I guess it is just an interesting perspective here… At the same time, I guess we don’t look back too often at the days where other countries were attacked or suffered significant losses, so maybe I am wrong to think that the day is a big deal to anyone outside of the US.
Okay, enough of the melodrama. I think I am starting to sound like Bob Costas. And after two weeks of hearing him on Olympics coverage, I’m sure melodramatic hooey is the last things you guys want to hear.
On a lighter note, I will share with you the story from this morning that I am sure you will all find funny. I walked into Kim’s office to hand off something to her. When I turned into the door of her office, she looked over, saw me, and said, “Here comes Trouble.” What? Now, I have been here almost three months. During that time, I have had limited contact with Kim. And yet, somehow, she has figured me out. I swear, I thought Michelle, the receptionist in my office back in the US, had emailed Kim and told her to call me Trouble. Michelle tells me “Here comes Trouble” or something to that effect every time I walk past her desk. But, after looking around Kim’s office, I didn’t see anything that looked like a hidden camera, so I figured I was wrong.
I laughed and told Kim, “I hear that a lot.” She laughed and said, “I’ll bet you do. I think it’s the red hair. Everyone I know with red hair is a troublemaker.” Nice. Then she told me that it was her job to keep the people in the audit department out of trouble, and I just grinned at her. I said, “So what? Are you going to follow me back to the US and keep an eye on me?” She proceeded to tell me that she will be emailing me over in the US, just to make sure I am staying out of trouble. I asked her, “Do you really think that will work?” She laughed and shook her head.
So in less than three months, with limited interaction (I have only been in the office maybe three full weeks during that three month period), the office over here has figured me out. I have people emailing me for ideas for random things (contests in the office, plans for nights out, joke ideas, etc.). Well, I always say I’m an open book. I guess Kim just proved me right!
This afternoon, an email went out, inviting some of us on a weekend trip to Newcastle, one of the towns on the east coast of Australia. I replied back and asked if anyone thought they served Newcastle Beer there. That response sparked a long email conversation among the group about beer, and how Newcastle is crap beer to anyone in the UK. (Ollie, one of the guys from UK, referred to it as “cack.” Kid friendly translation = crap.) The conversation then turned to attack American beer. I believe Jamie referred to it as Bud Lite and But Not-So-Lite. Nice. Remember this story…
Thursday Night Supper Club met at a pub in North Sydney. We have gotten quite good at finding places with good, cheap food and pints of beer! And my trip is now officially complete. I had a killer meat pie for dinner – the one thing I wanted to enjoy while I was over here. I can go home happy now!
When I went up to order my food, I noticed a sign on the bar that was Budweiser. Apparently this pub served Bud. I pointed it out to Ollie who laughed. We had to explain the beer email conversation to his girlfriend, but everyone at dinner was laughing about how odd it was that we had picked the one pub in Australia that serves Bud.
As people started leaving, Ollie and Louise wanted to stay for one more beer. Since I had given them a hard time about Budweiser, they were willing to try it. Plus it was on special for $5 a bottle. So I walked up to the bar and ordered three. The bartender looked at me and said, “What?” I said it again, and she got excited. I turned to the random guy standing next to me and said, “Oh, look. She’s excited because someone finally ordered the American crap beer.” The guy started laughing and kept asking me why. Then the guy standing on the other side of jumped into the conversation, telling me American beer was crap. I told them both, “It’s the best we have!” So they finally backed down, and we started talking. As the bartender brought back the beers, she handed me these three forms to enter for some sort of contest. The first guy helped me fill them out. You can win a pretty sweet prize! So the bartender took the forms and put them in a box. The guy helping me fill them out asked her, “Can’t you just go ahead and do the drawing?” I said, “Yeah, I don’t think you will get many more entries.” The bartender laughed and told me that there was some guy who came into the bar regularly and ordered Budweiser because he has some stomach condition, and it is the only beer he can drink. (What a terrible, terrible tragedy.) Probably more than I needed to know, but whatever. Then she said, “I think you have matched his entries though, so you stand a really good chance!” SWEET!
After our drink, Ollie, Louise, and I hopped into a cab and headed home. (They both liked Budweiser, by the way.) I ended up getting out in the same spot as Ollie and Louise, and walked over to the bus stop to catch a bus to my suburb. I had just missed the bus (for the second time tonight), and started walking to the next bus stop to see if another bus would stop there in the next few minutes. Nope.
So I hailed another cab and climbed in, telling the guy, “Spit Junction, please.” The guy took off and then randomly said, “Hey, you’ve got an accent!”
“Yes I do.”
“Where are from?”
“The US.”
This response sparked the most entertaining (and random) discussion of the day. The guy looks at me and says, “So who is going to win the race?”
Let me first explain something: The number one question I get from people is “Where are you from?” (Obviously.) The number two question I get is always something about the Presidential election.
So back to the story… I tell the guy I have no idea. That the media is having a field day over there, and that there is no way to guess how it is all going to turn out. Later in the discussion, the guy informs me that he sees a huge economic collapse coming this year, regardless of who wins the election, because of the baggage that is being inherited. Then he goes on to tell me how he has “researched” all of this information about economic conditions and the state of the US economic affairs, and starts talking about how much the President can screw up the economy. To which I interject and tell the guy that his comment is the whole reason we have the Federal Reserve, and that while the President can have an impact on spending patterns and the overall comfort of the American citizens, I personally do not believe that any President can take full credit or full blame for the state of the economy. At that point, the guy pretty much stopped the conversation, because he knew I wasn’t really buying into his “research.” Plus the cab ride had ended about 5 minutes earlier, and he wasn’t making any more money off of me.
What made my night, though, was this guy telling me that he knew that there was no way Obama was going to win. I thought he might pull out some of his “research” to come up with this one. But apparently it comes from an experience a few months ago, when he figured out that Obama was going to get the nod over Clinton. He told me that he saw that the US was way too conservative for Clinton, and he thinks the US is too conservative for Obama. (Compared to what I have seen over here, I will agree that the US probably is more politically conservative, overall, than Australia.) And how did he come to this conclusion about the election results? “I read it in the tea leaves.” Well I’ll be damned. I guess I don’t need to vote in the election, since the tea leaves have spoken! And yes, this guy was dead serious. I think he repeated the phrase “in the tea leaves” three or four times to emphasize his power of reading tea leaves to determine the future.
Whack job? Perhaps. But I have to say that riding with this guy was probably the most random and entertaining cab ride I have ever had. Well worth the $6 I paid for it!
I want to close with an update for everyone (before the mX update, of course). For anyone reading this blog post that has not gotten an email update, I wanted to let you know that John, Sally’s brother, made it through surgery just fine, and is in recovery for the next 24 hours. For those of you who know my roommate Sally and don’t know the story, her brother had to have bypass surgery Thursday morning. (The doctors said it was mostly genetics that caused these complications at such a “young” age.) They tried to clear the blockage in two arteries with stints, but weren’t able to get the stints in because of the location of the blockage. So John has been in the hospital for the past 5 days, waiting for the blood thinners to get out of his system before the doctors could do the surgery.
John is doing well. The doctors said the surgery went very well, and that there were “no bumps or blips” during the procedure. He is expected to come off the ventilator soon, and I hear that the ventilator is the biggest hurdle to overcome immediately following surgery. So he is ahead of schedule, and will begin the recovery and healing process over the next few weeks.
I want to thank everyone for the prayers and support for John and his family. You all know that John is pretty much my big brother, since I have known him for so long, and it was tough to not be there for John, Sally, and the rest of the family while he was going through all of this mess. But I knew he was in good hands, and that all of his friends and family would be there for him. Now he just has to deal with what I can only imagine as incredible pain and discomfort over the next couple of weeks. Yuck!
Okay, folks… Have a great Friday, and if I don’t get anything posted before then, have a great weekend! And now, without further delay, the mX Update. Drum roll, please…….
TEXT VENTS:
“Chris, personally, I like ratties. Don’t stop growing and bleaching, boys.” – Wendy, Wetherill Park. (We can thank this woman for the end of civilized hair fashion as we know it.)
“To those girls who go after guys with girlfriends to break them up. Some advice: get some self-respect, some integrity and some dignity. People like you don’t get far in the world. Yes, it takes two to tango, so you may get him now, but he’ll do the same thing to you.” – Someone with a future, Sydney. (Oh my…)
STORY OF THE DAY:
Police in Vienna were called to a car crash where they found the driver, sitting behind the wheel on a plastic box. The guy had taken the seat out of his car for cleaning, and replaced it with a plastic carton that he thought would suffice. The problem was that the carton was too short to allow the guy to reach the brake pedal. Now, it is not so much that the guy couldn’t reach the brake pedal that got me on this one. Or even the fact that he was sitting on a plastic box. What really blew me away was the fact that the guy took the seat of his car out to have it cleaned. Dude, I don’t know what you do in your car, but I can honestly say I have never thought it necessary to take out a seat and have it cleaned.
Two weeks from today, Sally arrives here. I have to say that I am pretty excited about it. I mean, Sally and I have been friends for a long time, and I am excited about spending two weeks of vacation touring around Australia and New Zealand with her. But I think that I am just excited about seeing someone from back home! In just two weeks, I will get to see someone from back home after three months of not seeing anyone. As I said, it is pretty exciting for me!
Now, on a serious note, in some ways, today is not such a good day. It is 11 September over here, which means that it is the 7th Anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. It is strange for me, because the people over here just know it as another day. I have not heard or seen anything yet today that mentions 9/11. I’m sure there is stuff in the paper I don’t get, or on the news I didn’t watch this morning. I did not have a chance to watch the news tonight, but I did not see anything about 9/11 anywhere. I guess it is a bit outside the sad “norm” for me. I am sure that it is being discussed regularly back home in the States. I guess I am just used to the anniversary being a big deal, discussed for the entire week leading up to it.
I have been in the US on 11 September every year since 2001. I was in London in 2002, but the airline changed my flight time “to be safe,” and I ended up flying home on the 10th instead of the 11th. So with it being the first year I have been out of the country for the anniversary date, I guess it is just an interesting perspective here… At the same time, I guess we don’t look back too often at the days where other countries were attacked or suffered significant losses, so maybe I am wrong to think that the day is a big deal to anyone outside of the US.
Okay, enough of the melodrama. I think I am starting to sound like Bob Costas. And after two weeks of hearing him on Olympics coverage, I’m sure melodramatic hooey is the last things you guys want to hear.
On a lighter note, I will share with you the story from this morning that I am sure you will all find funny. I walked into Kim’s office to hand off something to her. When I turned into the door of her office, she looked over, saw me, and said, “Here comes Trouble.” What? Now, I have been here almost three months. During that time, I have had limited contact with Kim. And yet, somehow, she has figured me out. I swear, I thought Michelle, the receptionist in my office back in the US, had emailed Kim and told her to call me Trouble. Michelle tells me “Here comes Trouble” or something to that effect every time I walk past her desk. But, after looking around Kim’s office, I didn’t see anything that looked like a hidden camera, so I figured I was wrong.
I laughed and told Kim, “I hear that a lot.” She laughed and said, “I’ll bet you do. I think it’s the red hair. Everyone I know with red hair is a troublemaker.” Nice. Then she told me that it was her job to keep the people in the audit department out of trouble, and I just grinned at her. I said, “So what? Are you going to follow me back to the US and keep an eye on me?” She proceeded to tell me that she will be emailing me over in the US, just to make sure I am staying out of trouble. I asked her, “Do you really think that will work?” She laughed and shook her head.
So in less than three months, with limited interaction (I have only been in the office maybe three full weeks during that three month period), the office over here has figured me out. I have people emailing me for ideas for random things (contests in the office, plans for nights out, joke ideas, etc.). Well, I always say I’m an open book. I guess Kim just proved me right!
This afternoon, an email went out, inviting some of us on a weekend trip to Newcastle, one of the towns on the east coast of Australia. I replied back and asked if anyone thought they served Newcastle Beer there. That response sparked a long email conversation among the group about beer, and how Newcastle is crap beer to anyone in the UK. (Ollie, one of the guys from UK, referred to it as “cack.” Kid friendly translation = crap.) The conversation then turned to attack American beer. I believe Jamie referred to it as Bud Lite and But Not-So-Lite. Nice. Remember this story…
Thursday Night Supper Club met at a pub in North Sydney. We have gotten quite good at finding places with good, cheap food and pints of beer! And my trip is now officially complete. I had a killer meat pie for dinner – the one thing I wanted to enjoy while I was over here. I can go home happy now!
When I went up to order my food, I noticed a sign on the bar that was Budweiser. Apparently this pub served Bud. I pointed it out to Ollie who laughed. We had to explain the beer email conversation to his girlfriend, but everyone at dinner was laughing about how odd it was that we had picked the one pub in Australia that serves Bud.
As people started leaving, Ollie and Louise wanted to stay for one more beer. Since I had given them a hard time about Budweiser, they were willing to try it. Plus it was on special for $5 a bottle. So I walked up to the bar and ordered three. The bartender looked at me and said, “What?” I said it again, and she got excited. I turned to the random guy standing next to me and said, “Oh, look. She’s excited because someone finally ordered the American crap beer.” The guy started laughing and kept asking me why. Then the guy standing on the other side of jumped into the conversation, telling me American beer was crap. I told them both, “It’s the best we have!” So they finally backed down, and we started talking. As the bartender brought back the beers, she handed me these three forms to enter for some sort of contest. The first guy helped me fill them out. You can win a pretty sweet prize! So the bartender took the forms and put them in a box. The guy helping me fill them out asked her, “Can’t you just go ahead and do the drawing?” I said, “Yeah, I don’t think you will get many more entries.” The bartender laughed and told me that there was some guy who came into the bar regularly and ordered Budweiser because he has some stomach condition, and it is the only beer he can drink. (What a terrible, terrible tragedy.) Probably more than I needed to know, but whatever. Then she said, “I think you have matched his entries though, so you stand a really good chance!” SWEET!
After our drink, Ollie, Louise, and I hopped into a cab and headed home. (They both liked Budweiser, by the way.) I ended up getting out in the same spot as Ollie and Louise, and walked over to the bus stop to catch a bus to my suburb. I had just missed the bus (for the second time tonight), and started walking to the next bus stop to see if another bus would stop there in the next few minutes. Nope.
So I hailed another cab and climbed in, telling the guy, “Spit Junction, please.” The guy took off and then randomly said, “Hey, you’ve got an accent!”
“Yes I do.”
“Where are from?”
“The US.”
This response sparked the most entertaining (and random) discussion of the day. The guy looks at me and says, “So who is going to win the race?”
Let me first explain something: The number one question I get from people is “Where are you from?” (Obviously.) The number two question I get is always something about the Presidential election.
So back to the story… I tell the guy I have no idea. That the media is having a field day over there, and that there is no way to guess how it is all going to turn out. Later in the discussion, the guy informs me that he sees a huge economic collapse coming this year, regardless of who wins the election, because of the baggage that is being inherited. Then he goes on to tell me how he has “researched” all of this information about economic conditions and the state of the US economic affairs, and starts talking about how much the President can screw up the economy. To which I interject and tell the guy that his comment is the whole reason we have the Federal Reserve, and that while the President can have an impact on spending patterns and the overall comfort of the American citizens, I personally do not believe that any President can take full credit or full blame for the state of the economy. At that point, the guy pretty much stopped the conversation, because he knew I wasn’t really buying into his “research.” Plus the cab ride had ended about 5 minutes earlier, and he wasn’t making any more money off of me.
What made my night, though, was this guy telling me that he knew that there was no way Obama was going to win. I thought he might pull out some of his “research” to come up with this one. But apparently it comes from an experience a few months ago, when he figured out that Obama was going to get the nod over Clinton. He told me that he saw that the US was way too conservative for Clinton, and he thinks the US is too conservative for Obama. (Compared to what I have seen over here, I will agree that the US probably is more politically conservative, overall, than Australia.) And how did he come to this conclusion about the election results? “I read it in the tea leaves.” Well I’ll be damned. I guess I don’t need to vote in the election, since the tea leaves have spoken! And yes, this guy was dead serious. I think he repeated the phrase “in the tea leaves” three or four times to emphasize his power of reading tea leaves to determine the future.
Whack job? Perhaps. But I have to say that riding with this guy was probably the most random and entertaining cab ride I have ever had. Well worth the $6 I paid for it!
I want to close with an update for everyone (before the mX update, of course). For anyone reading this blog post that has not gotten an email update, I wanted to let you know that John, Sally’s brother, made it through surgery just fine, and is in recovery for the next 24 hours. For those of you who know my roommate Sally and don’t know the story, her brother had to have bypass surgery Thursday morning. (The doctors said it was mostly genetics that caused these complications at such a “young” age.) They tried to clear the blockage in two arteries with stints, but weren’t able to get the stints in because of the location of the blockage. So John has been in the hospital for the past 5 days, waiting for the blood thinners to get out of his system before the doctors could do the surgery.
John is doing well. The doctors said the surgery went very well, and that there were “no bumps or blips” during the procedure. He is expected to come off the ventilator soon, and I hear that the ventilator is the biggest hurdle to overcome immediately following surgery. So he is ahead of schedule, and will begin the recovery and healing process over the next few weeks.
I want to thank everyone for the prayers and support for John and his family. You all know that John is pretty much my big brother, since I have known him for so long, and it was tough to not be there for John, Sally, and the rest of the family while he was going through all of this mess. But I knew he was in good hands, and that all of his friends and family would be there for him. Now he just has to deal with what I can only imagine as incredible pain and discomfort over the next couple of weeks. Yuck!
Okay, folks… Have a great Friday, and if I don’t get anything posted before then, have a great weekend! And now, without further delay, the mX Update. Drum roll, please…….
TEXT VENTS:
“Chris, personally, I like ratties. Don’t stop growing and bleaching, boys.” – Wendy, Wetherill Park. (We can thank this woman for the end of civilized hair fashion as we know it.)
“To those girls who go after guys with girlfriends to break them up. Some advice: get some self-respect, some integrity and some dignity. People like you don’t get far in the world. Yes, it takes two to tango, so you may get him now, but he’ll do the same thing to you.” – Someone with a future, Sydney. (Oh my…)
STORY OF THE DAY:
Police in Vienna were called to a car crash where they found the driver, sitting behind the wheel on a plastic box. The guy had taken the seat out of his car for cleaning, and replaced it with a plastic carton that he thought would suffice. The problem was that the carton was too short to allow the guy to reach the brake pedal. Now, it is not so much that the guy couldn’t reach the brake pedal that got me on this one. Or even the fact that he was sitting on a plastic box. What really blew me away was the fact that the guy took the seat of his car out to have it cleaned. Dude, I don’t know what you do in your car, but I can honestly say I have never thought it necessary to take out a seat and have it cleaned.
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