Well, the weekend passed quickly, and I am back at work to begin Week #12. I spent Monday in the office, trying to get some wrap-up done on the audit I have been working on the past couple of weeks.
There were no big events of the day. Things pretty much went on as usual. Although I did spend a little time working with some folks in the office to get things squared away for my wrapping up this secondment. I only have 2.5 weeks left here, and no one can believe it. People around the office keep stopping by and asking me, because they know I will be leaving soon, but no one believes me when I tell them it is less than three weeks away. It really is kind of hard to believe that things here are coming to an end so soon!
Of course, the funny part about the job is that it appears to be wrapping up the same way it started. I had some folks come around on Monday and ask me US accounting questions. I think they are trying to get in all of their US education in before I leave! I just think it is funny to have directors coming up to me and asking about technical accounting treatments, since my first week on the job was spent reviewing US GAAP financial statements. But I do what I can to help, and at least it makes me look smart. HA!
Monday afternoon, Kim, the coordinator for the audit department, came around with a box of candy that she was selling as a fundraiser. I’m not sure where the money went, but people around the office have these boxes of candy pretty regularly. She had a new staff person with her (who was not assigned on a job that day) doing the money collections and helping her sell candy. Interesting way to earn your salary, right?
So she popped around the corner to convince me to buy some candy. I made some crack about the Girl Scouts coming cube-to-cube to sell cookies. I thought she was going to pee her pants, she was laughing so hard. “COOkies?! CUUUHkies?!” Obviously, she was trying to mimic my accent. (My goal before I leave is to teach her proper Southern English.) But I forgot that cookie is not a very common term over here. So as she was laughing, the staff guy walked around, and Kim had to explain what was so funny. Before I could say anything, she made some comment about Nate (the guy from Texas), and how his accent bleeds through his emails. I told her that Nate didn’t really have an accent, and she started laughing. “Oh, sorry. I mean Southern accent.” The staff guy said, “Oh, yeah. Nate. Yeah, you guys have different accents.” Kim laughed hysterically and said, “Yes, Jenny, you are way out there on your own.” I laughed and said, “My momma will be so proud.” Then she laughed harder and I figured out the Southern drawl had really shone through on that one. So Mom: I done good.
On an accent note, I neglected to tell a story from Sunday. We were ordering drinks while waiting for a couple more folks to show up at brunch. Everyone had ordered some sort of “special” drink (latte, whatever), and all I asked for was a Diet Coke. The waitress looked at me and said, “Mocha latte?” WHAT? I said, “Uh, no. DIET COKE!” She looked at me funny, I said it one more time, and she finally caught it. (I’ll give her credit that it was a tad bit noisy in the restaurant.) She smiled at me and said, “OH! Diet Coke!” I said, “I’m sorry. I know I have a bit of an accent.” She started laughing, along with the rest of the table. Then Jamie, one of the guys with us, said, “Well, I think she got a table full of accents here.” Yeah, we were all foreigners. I just thought it funny that she understood the two Scottish girls, but not the American. Whatever.
Of course, from that point, brunch evolved into a discussion of “weird” things. It stemmed from my ordering pancakes with sausage and eggs. The waitress asked if I wanted tomato sauce on my sausage. “Uhhhh. No thanks.” (Eew!) So I made a comment to Julie (from Scotland), who was sitting next to me about, “Ketchup on sausage? REALLY?” She said, “YES! You don’t eat ketchup on your sausage?” Which I guess it is technically similar to eating ketchup on a hot dog, but I just can’t do ketchup for breakfast. Anyway. Julie said something about how much she liked eating with different nationalities, because everyone has such interesting habits. Charlotte, the other Scot at the table, Julie, and Jamie (from England) started talking about different food habits in the UK. Then Charlotte turned to me and said, “Do you ever eat jam on your sandwich with peanut butter?” I laughed. “Oh God, yes. Peanut butter and jelly is my absolute favorite sandwich!” Charlotte was totally grossed out and couldn’t understand how anyone could eat PB&J. Now that is one I never imagined would be a controversial food habit. Interesting…
But I digress; back to the current week. On Tuesday, I headed back to the client to spend half a day there wrapping up all the loose ends. Half a day turned into all of Tuesday and some spill over into Wednesday morning. I don’t have much in the way of stories for you guys for these two days. The cool part of Monday and Tuesday night are that I figured out that I get the Sunday night and Monday Night Football games here, just a day late. WOO HOO! I am hoping these continue for the next couple of weeks. (I just have to remember not to check the scores.) I am having American sport withdrawal right now. And even though I am missing out on my favorite college football, it has been kind of nice to see some of the American football games instead of just soccer, rugby, and Aussie rules footie!
Wednesday marks the countdown date. Two weeks from today is my last day working here in Sydney. Of course, I still am scrambling to figure out what Sally and I are going to see and do during the 13 days we are on holiday here. But we have a good idea, and I will be spending this weekend finalizing our travel plans. So far, our agenda is pretty packed! But if I can work it out, we are going to see some pretty cool places: New Zealand, Melbourne, and Cairns (the Great Barrier Reef). Jealous? Yeah, you should be! But I promise, I will get some good pictures, fun stories, and I will have them all up on the blog site as soon as I get access!
Okay, so enough about my travel plans. You guys are only here for the mX update, I know! Well, your wish is my command. The stories have finally gotten funny again! And since I this post is covering three days this week, I have three stories of the day for you…
TEXT VENTS:
“When and why did fishnet stockings come into fashion? They still make women look cheap and trashy.” – Brad, Mortdale (Amen. And there are tons of women wearing them over here. Most of which shouldn’t be. Not that anyone should wear them…)
“Big fella, that was the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard.” – Liz, Penrith (Sadly enough, Liz is right. It was a big load of crap.)
“Milk is white because that’s how it comes naturally out of the cow.” – C, Sydney. (Who asked that question???)
“Can someone please tell me who said it was fashionable to grow a rat’s tail. It’s a glorified mullet and you look like a tool. And don’t get me started about bleaching it. How can you seriously ask for that from a hairdresser?” – Chris, Wollongong (Oh dear Lord, the rednecks have followed me over here!)
STORY OF THE DAY:
Apparently England is the toughest place in the world to get a driver’s license. A woman failed her driving test because the examiner cited her for a traffic offense of “careless, and inconsiderate, driving.” The woman claimed that if she had swerved to avoid, she could have caused an accident. But apparently it was more important that the woman stop and exchange details with the man who was “injured” in the accident. What did this driver do, exactly? She drove through a puddle and splashed a pedestrian.
My favorite story of the week comes from caverns outside of Geneva, along the borders of France and Switzerland. If you haven’t heard, there is a group of scientists who are working to recreate the Big Bang using a Large Hadron Collider (“LHC”) to smash protons together at the speed of light, in an effort to recreate a smaller scale of the events that may have occurred during the theoretical dawn of creation. Now, some people are a bit upset about what these scientists are doing, and are afraid that the experiment could create a black hole that destroys the earth. But the test is supposed to occur Wednesday evening in Geneva. However, Physicist Brian Cox, one of the PhDs working on this project, has a reassuring message for everyone, showing his years of knowledge and post-graduate education: “Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat.”
And speaking of brilliant researchers, I wanted to share with you all the results of an important study out of Sussex University. Believe it or not, alcohol affects memory formation. Apparently, this research has found that for people who go out drinking, memories of the good times that occur at the start of the evening are often remembered, while the embarrassing antics once the drinker gets drunk are often forgotten. Therefore, people are more likely to drink heavily the next time they go out because they only remember the good times. Now, what I want to know is who paid for this research and why do they act like the research proved anything new? I mean, I already knew these “facts,” and, if necessary, I could have done the research for free. Just go to a college bar, and there you go. BRILLIANT!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
11 Down, 3 To Go!
Yet another weekend has passed where I couldn’t find time to get a blog post in! But I can’t complain, really. At least I am busy with friends and not with work!
Now I want to make sure everyone understands that you read the title of this post correctly… Yes, I am down to just three more weeks here for work! Honestly, I can’t believe it. I mean, I still remember back to when I was counting down three months, and now I am down to just a few weeks! Pretty soon, I will be down to days! And, of course, no, I have not gotten to see and do everything I wanted. But hopefully my 10 days of vacation here at the end of this trip will let me get in most of the things I want to see. If not, I’ll just have to come back and do a follow-up vacation in another year or two…
Let’s see… Where did I leave off at the last post? Oh, right, it was Thursday. My Thursday was pretty much the norm. On Wednesday night, I got home to find a finisher’s certificate from the City2Surf race in my mailbox. I looked at the time and thought, “That’s weird. It doesn’t look like my time.” On Thursday morning, there was an email from the folks at City2Surf stating that there had been a mix-up, and they put the wrong times on everyone’s certificate. The only reason this whole thing is so funny is because they used the timing chips for the first time this year, just so that everyone could have an accurate race time. Oops! HA!
In other mail news, I got a phone call Thursday morning from my friends at Federal Express. They have been holding a package that Sally mailed to me for about a week now. I think I might be on the blacklist or something, I don’t know. Customs has inspected every package I have received here, because there is always Customs tape all over it, and a note inside that says, “Your package has been opened and inspected.” Duh. Well, Sally was shipping me some medicine that I knew I would run out of while I was over here. But thanks to insurance and prescription rules, I could not get more than a 3-month supply. No big deal – I ordered the refill as early as I could, and told Sally to ship it as soon as she got it. I had 2, almost 3 weeks of overlap, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal.
Wrong. These guys were looking for information about the drug – the ingredients, whatever. I had told the guy that most prescriptions were patented in the US, and that I didn’t think I could get a complete listing for him. When he called me back on Wednesday, he told me that they had already called customs to open the package and go through it. I told the guy to do whatever they want. He could take a pill if he wanted to. (Then I thought better of what I had said and told him, “I mean take it to run tests on it.”) I was curious as to why they couldn’t just call a pharmacist to come look at the medicine for them, but from what I hear, you really shouldn’t mess with customs over here. I decided to let that one go. So on Thursday morning, I got a call that they had cleared my package, and it should be delivered that day. Thank God. It took about three weeks for me to get the stupid thing. I don’t think I will complain about the US postal system any more!
Thursday night, a group of us went out to dinner at the pub near my place. They all wanted to try the $7.90 steak, since steak here is usually $20, and only if you cook it yourself. By the end of the meal, one of the guys announced he would be in the pub every night from now on. It was fun, and there was a good group that showed up. Of course, I had to come home from the pub and get on a conference call with the folks back in the US. Luckily, no one was looking to stay out too late.
On Friday, we had a “Divisional Meeting” here in the office from 4-5. I have not figured these meetings out, yet. I am told that they are not monthly, but there has been on every month that I have been here. Regardless, it is when the firm goes over monthly results, passes along information, whatever. More importantly, it means everyone goes out afterwards for drinks. How unusual, right?
The entertaining part of Friday evening was that Saturday was the date for the Cup of Nations, which is a soccer match for those who work here. It is England vs. Rest of the World. I keep telling you guys that there are no Aussies who work here, and now you can see how true that fact is. The Rest of the World group includes other areas of the UK (Ireland, Scotland, etc.), and then folks from Australia, and everywhere else. So on Friday night, everyone was in full form, talking crap to everyone else about the “football” game the next day.
At one point, I was standing in a group with several people, mostly from the UK. One of them said something about “real football” and looked right at me. I looked around and said, “Oh crap. I’m a total minority right now.” They all laughed because I had sent an email out the day before to a group of people that started up a debate. It started quite innocently (I was trying to get some people together to go to dinner for Charlotte’s birthday in a couple of weeks), and it ended up being a soccer discussion. So Nate, the guy here from Texas, sent an email that said “Football = www.nfl.com.” So I spoke up at that point in time, and it all went downhill from there. There were lots of American insults thrown in there, where I returned the favor, and by the end of it, even the French has been dragged into the conversation, even though there are no French people here. It was pretty funny, and everyone seemed to enjoy having fun with it, especially making fun of American football. Which is why I caught it on Friday night.
So we wrapped up the evening early so that everyone could go home and get ready for the game the next day. Those of us not playing had made the tailgating plans, and were off. (I was trying to make it as much like real football as I could!)
Saturday morning, I got up and got dressed. I put on my football jersey that I have here with me, just to rub in that American football is real football. I got my food and beer all packed up, and got a text message. The game was cancelled due to rain. No! Actually, it was pouring outside. I was kind of wondering if they would call it off. When I turned on the weather, there were reports of flooding. So I guess it was a good thing to cancel! Plus it meant that I could hang out and take care of some things at home that day. I think it stopped raining at 7.00 that night. It was pretty nasty out! But since I have been feeling a little under the weather lately, I guess it was a good thing that the rain kept me in for the day.
Sunday was a good day. I got up and headed down to The Rocks for brunch with some of my friends. Pancakes On The Rocks – it came highly recommended, and I wanted to try it out. I had invited some folks to come along, and everyone who came was pretty excited for whatever reason. We all had been talking about pancakes the entire week, and it was well worth the excitement! We had to wait in line a little while. I get the feeling this place is already packed on weekends. But to add to it, Sunday was Father’s Day over here, so there were a ton of people out for brunch in the City. Luckily we got there ahead of several people. By the time we left, the line was probably three times as long as when we got there.
After brunch, some of us got on a bus and headed up to North Sydney. We went to Spit Bridge (sounds gross, right?) and decided to walk off the syrup by doing the famous walk from Spit Bridge to Manly beach. Manly is supposed to be quite beautiful (beautiful… Manly… sounds kind of funny to me), and the walk is supposed to be really cool.
We got there and found our way to the train. It winds around the shore, and is a 10 km trek. We figured we could be done in 2-2.5 hours. The sign said 4 hours, and we started to wonder who mapped it. Holy crap, what a walk! It was a lot of nature trails, steps, you name it. It was cool to be so entrenched in nature, but it really was quite an adventure. I took plenty of pictures for you guy, and have uploaded them for everyone to see. I will add comments later, but you can check out the views for now.
We got to one point, and were walking along the beach to get to the next part of the trail. We had to race through because the waves were crashing and moving in quickly, and there was a wall built up on the side of the beach. Basically, you could not get past any way but on the sand. Needless to say, we all got wet. Good move in tennis shoes and jeans. But it was funny, and everyone was cool about it.
After an hour, we figured out we were only 1/3 of the way done, we were tired and sweating, wet from the ocean, and we were worried that we would not make it to Manly before the sun set. So there we were, kind of in the middle of nowhere, and we had to figure out how to get anywhere that a bus might come by and take us to Manly. After wandering around a really nice neighborhood, we managed to find a bus stop. There was a guy sitting there, and we asked him if the bus that stopped there went to Manly. He told us that he had been sitting there an hour and just wanted to get on a bus. From the schedule, it was supposed to come in 15 minutes and head to Manly, so we waited. Another bus came from the other direction, so the guy jumped up, ran across the street, and got on it. The dude was pretty strung out. I don’t know what he was smoking, but he had rolled it himself, so we weren’t about to follow him. We sat and waited, and a bus finally came by.
Manly was an awesome beach. It had huge waves, and there were a ton of people out surfing. The restaurants were pretty entertaining, too. “Manly Italian Restaurant,” “Manly Diner,” whatever. One of the guys started making fun of what the pharmacist would recommend in the Manly Pharmacy. “What do you mean you have a headache? What’s the matter with you? Yeah, I can recommend something for you. Grow some hair on your chest and be a man!” So, of course, the jokes continued as we walked by all the “Manly” stores. I announced that I was a little upset that the Ladies Fashion store was not called the “Manly Ladies Fashion.” But it was still funny to walk around.
We stood on the beach a while, and then headed over to a bar to have a drink and sit down for a little while. A little while turned into about 3.5 hours. The place had a band come out and play live music. There are not too many live music places around Sydney, especially for free. So we decided to stay a while longer, and eventually ended up ordering some food. The band was really good, and the atmosphere in the bar was really nice. A very cool way to end the weekend!
Well, I am going to take off now. Sorry to say I don’t have much in the way of entertainment for you guys to close out. I will have mX updates all week, since I will be taking public transit to and from work all week. But let’s see what I can come up with right now for everyone…
Okay, I have one. There is a decent TV show on Sunday nights called Rove that I have started watching. It is like a cross between Saturday Night Live and Jay Leno. You know, interviewing guests, but also having some entertainment built in. Well, one of the funniest parts is the woman (Carrie Bickmore) who comes on and gives the news update. True stories, but with her sarcastic spin. (And people wonder why I like it.) There was on Sunday night that had me laughing pretty hard. To give a little background, if you haven’t heard, Heather Mirren, most famous as the actress from the movie Elizabeth I and The Queen, has admitted that she used to do drugs until she figured out who the proceeds went to. I’ll let Carrie from Rove finish this one up:
Helen Mirren has revealed she only gave up buying cocaine when she discovered the profits went to a drug lord. Before that, Miss Mirren believed the money went to the Make A Wish Foundation.
Now I want to make sure everyone understands that you read the title of this post correctly… Yes, I am down to just three more weeks here for work! Honestly, I can’t believe it. I mean, I still remember back to when I was counting down three months, and now I am down to just a few weeks! Pretty soon, I will be down to days! And, of course, no, I have not gotten to see and do everything I wanted. But hopefully my 10 days of vacation here at the end of this trip will let me get in most of the things I want to see. If not, I’ll just have to come back and do a follow-up vacation in another year or two…
Let’s see… Where did I leave off at the last post? Oh, right, it was Thursday. My Thursday was pretty much the norm. On Wednesday night, I got home to find a finisher’s certificate from the City2Surf race in my mailbox. I looked at the time and thought, “That’s weird. It doesn’t look like my time.” On Thursday morning, there was an email from the folks at City2Surf stating that there had been a mix-up, and they put the wrong times on everyone’s certificate. The only reason this whole thing is so funny is because they used the timing chips for the first time this year, just so that everyone could have an accurate race time. Oops! HA!
In other mail news, I got a phone call Thursday morning from my friends at Federal Express. They have been holding a package that Sally mailed to me for about a week now. I think I might be on the blacklist or something, I don’t know. Customs has inspected every package I have received here, because there is always Customs tape all over it, and a note inside that says, “Your package has been opened and inspected.” Duh. Well, Sally was shipping me some medicine that I knew I would run out of while I was over here. But thanks to insurance and prescription rules, I could not get more than a 3-month supply. No big deal – I ordered the refill as early as I could, and told Sally to ship it as soon as she got it. I had 2, almost 3 weeks of overlap, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal.
Wrong. These guys were looking for information about the drug – the ingredients, whatever. I had told the guy that most prescriptions were patented in the US, and that I didn’t think I could get a complete listing for him. When he called me back on Wednesday, he told me that they had already called customs to open the package and go through it. I told the guy to do whatever they want. He could take a pill if he wanted to. (Then I thought better of what I had said and told him, “I mean take it to run tests on it.”) I was curious as to why they couldn’t just call a pharmacist to come look at the medicine for them, but from what I hear, you really shouldn’t mess with customs over here. I decided to let that one go. So on Thursday morning, I got a call that they had cleared my package, and it should be delivered that day. Thank God. It took about three weeks for me to get the stupid thing. I don’t think I will complain about the US postal system any more!
Thursday night, a group of us went out to dinner at the pub near my place. They all wanted to try the $7.90 steak, since steak here is usually $20, and only if you cook it yourself. By the end of the meal, one of the guys announced he would be in the pub every night from now on. It was fun, and there was a good group that showed up. Of course, I had to come home from the pub and get on a conference call with the folks back in the US. Luckily, no one was looking to stay out too late.
On Friday, we had a “Divisional Meeting” here in the office from 4-5. I have not figured these meetings out, yet. I am told that they are not monthly, but there has been on every month that I have been here. Regardless, it is when the firm goes over monthly results, passes along information, whatever. More importantly, it means everyone goes out afterwards for drinks. How unusual, right?
The entertaining part of Friday evening was that Saturday was the date for the Cup of Nations, which is a soccer match for those who work here. It is England vs. Rest of the World. I keep telling you guys that there are no Aussies who work here, and now you can see how true that fact is. The Rest of the World group includes other areas of the UK (Ireland, Scotland, etc.), and then folks from Australia, and everywhere else. So on Friday night, everyone was in full form, talking crap to everyone else about the “football” game the next day.
At one point, I was standing in a group with several people, mostly from the UK. One of them said something about “real football” and looked right at me. I looked around and said, “Oh crap. I’m a total minority right now.” They all laughed because I had sent an email out the day before to a group of people that started up a debate. It started quite innocently (I was trying to get some people together to go to dinner for Charlotte’s birthday in a couple of weeks), and it ended up being a soccer discussion. So Nate, the guy here from Texas, sent an email that said “Football = www.nfl.com.” So I spoke up at that point in time, and it all went downhill from there. There were lots of American insults thrown in there, where I returned the favor, and by the end of it, even the French has been dragged into the conversation, even though there are no French people here. It was pretty funny, and everyone seemed to enjoy having fun with it, especially making fun of American football. Which is why I caught it on Friday night.
So we wrapped up the evening early so that everyone could go home and get ready for the game the next day. Those of us not playing had made the tailgating plans, and were off. (I was trying to make it as much like real football as I could!)
Saturday morning, I got up and got dressed. I put on my football jersey that I have here with me, just to rub in that American football is real football. I got my food and beer all packed up, and got a text message. The game was cancelled due to rain. No! Actually, it was pouring outside. I was kind of wondering if they would call it off. When I turned on the weather, there were reports of flooding. So I guess it was a good thing to cancel! Plus it meant that I could hang out and take care of some things at home that day. I think it stopped raining at 7.00 that night. It was pretty nasty out! But since I have been feeling a little under the weather lately, I guess it was a good thing that the rain kept me in for the day.
Sunday was a good day. I got up and headed down to The Rocks for brunch with some of my friends. Pancakes On The Rocks – it came highly recommended, and I wanted to try it out. I had invited some folks to come along, and everyone who came was pretty excited for whatever reason. We all had been talking about pancakes the entire week, and it was well worth the excitement! We had to wait in line a little while. I get the feeling this place is already packed on weekends. But to add to it, Sunday was Father’s Day over here, so there were a ton of people out for brunch in the City. Luckily we got there ahead of several people. By the time we left, the line was probably three times as long as when we got there.
After brunch, some of us got on a bus and headed up to North Sydney. We went to Spit Bridge (sounds gross, right?) and decided to walk off the syrup by doing the famous walk from Spit Bridge to Manly beach. Manly is supposed to be quite beautiful (beautiful… Manly… sounds kind of funny to me), and the walk is supposed to be really cool.
We got there and found our way to the train. It winds around the shore, and is a 10 km trek. We figured we could be done in 2-2.5 hours. The sign said 4 hours, and we started to wonder who mapped it. Holy crap, what a walk! It was a lot of nature trails, steps, you name it. It was cool to be so entrenched in nature, but it really was quite an adventure. I took plenty of pictures for you guy, and have uploaded them for everyone to see. I will add comments later, but you can check out the views for now.
We got to one point, and were walking along the beach to get to the next part of the trail. We had to race through because the waves were crashing and moving in quickly, and there was a wall built up on the side of the beach. Basically, you could not get past any way but on the sand. Needless to say, we all got wet. Good move in tennis shoes and jeans. But it was funny, and everyone was cool about it.
After an hour, we figured out we were only 1/3 of the way done, we were tired and sweating, wet from the ocean, and we were worried that we would not make it to Manly before the sun set. So there we were, kind of in the middle of nowhere, and we had to figure out how to get anywhere that a bus might come by and take us to Manly. After wandering around a really nice neighborhood, we managed to find a bus stop. There was a guy sitting there, and we asked him if the bus that stopped there went to Manly. He told us that he had been sitting there an hour and just wanted to get on a bus. From the schedule, it was supposed to come in 15 minutes and head to Manly, so we waited. Another bus came from the other direction, so the guy jumped up, ran across the street, and got on it. The dude was pretty strung out. I don’t know what he was smoking, but he had rolled it himself, so we weren’t about to follow him. We sat and waited, and a bus finally came by.
Manly was an awesome beach. It had huge waves, and there were a ton of people out surfing. The restaurants were pretty entertaining, too. “Manly Italian Restaurant,” “Manly Diner,” whatever. One of the guys started making fun of what the pharmacist would recommend in the Manly Pharmacy. “What do you mean you have a headache? What’s the matter with you? Yeah, I can recommend something for you. Grow some hair on your chest and be a man!” So, of course, the jokes continued as we walked by all the “Manly” stores. I announced that I was a little upset that the Ladies Fashion store was not called the “Manly Ladies Fashion.” But it was still funny to walk around.
We stood on the beach a while, and then headed over to a bar to have a drink and sit down for a little while. A little while turned into about 3.5 hours. The place had a band come out and play live music. There are not too many live music places around Sydney, especially for free. So we decided to stay a while longer, and eventually ended up ordering some food. The band was really good, and the atmosphere in the bar was really nice. A very cool way to end the weekend!
Well, I am going to take off now. Sorry to say I don’t have much in the way of entertainment for you guys to close out. I will have mX updates all week, since I will be taking public transit to and from work all week. But let’s see what I can come up with right now for everyone…
Okay, I have one. There is a decent TV show on Sunday nights called Rove that I have started watching. It is like a cross between Saturday Night Live and Jay Leno. You know, interviewing guests, but also having some entertainment built in. Well, one of the funniest parts is the woman (Carrie Bickmore) who comes on and gives the news update. True stories, but with her sarcastic spin. (And people wonder why I like it.) There was on Sunday night that had me laughing pretty hard. To give a little background, if you haven’t heard, Heather Mirren, most famous as the actress from the movie Elizabeth I and The Queen, has admitted that she used to do drugs until she figured out who the proceeds went to. I’ll let Carrie from Rove finish this one up:
Helen Mirren has revealed she only gave up buying cocaine when she discovered the profits went to a drug lord. Before that, Miss Mirren believed the money went to the Make A Wish Foundation.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
10 Down, 4 To Go!
I realized that I neglected to issue an official countdown email last week. Oops! I have hit the double-digit mark with the number of weeks that I have been working here. In some ways, it is really hard for me to believe that I am down to just four weeks left to work here. And it is a little hard for me to think that I have been working here for ten weeks. Although there is plenty of stuff that I miss from back home that I am ready to return to!
So to start out week number 11, I had the privilege of a 2-hour commute to work on Monday morning. It took a good 90 minutes for me to travel what normally would take about 20 minutes. Apparently the Bridge was closed. Completely shut down. So we sat on Military Road (the main road in North Sydney) for a long time, slowly moving forward. The dispatcher kept coming on, giving updates to the bus driver. They were not letting any buses get onto the Bridge.
The bus driver finally started yelling back to everyone that he wanted to change his route so that we could get out of traffic. Some people got mad and got off of the bus, but the only way we were getting into the City was to get on the train, and this guy was trying to get us to the train. Good for him! He finally got to a road where he could turn off, and we sat in traffic for a little while longer. Eventually, the guy found a break and took off. I think he was going twice the speed limit, because it was tough to hang on while he was whipping around. But again, he got us to the train station as quick as he could, so I’m not going to complain.
We got to the train station, and boy was I glad. I had been standing the entire 90+ minutes while we were waiting on the bus. Of course, I had to stand there and wait through three trains because they were so packed full. With the buses off the Bridge, everyone was riding the train. In fact, if you had a bus pass, they were letting you on the trains for free. (They really weren’t checking – they just opened the gate up for everyone. If I had been one of the suckers who bought a train ticket, I would have been pissed!) So it was jam packed on the platform, and everyone shoved on to the first two trains headed to the City. I stood back and waited, and just my luck, the third train coming through was completely empty. Sometimes patience is a virtue…
When I finally got to Central station, the exit dumped me out on the other side of the station. So I had to walk around the station and figure out how to find the road where my client is located. But I can’t complain. I found the way pretty easy, and I even found $5 on the ground outside the train station. Excellent! At least the $5 covered half of the cost of my lunch that day.
While I was on the bus, I had heard a report that a garbage truck was overturned on the Bridge, and the Bridge was closed while they cleaned up the mess. I looked online when I finally got to work, and I learned that the truck had flipped because the driver was swerving to avoid where two cars had collided head-on on the Bridge. One of the car drivers was pinned in his car for an hour, and the medics had to work to get him out. This accident is honestly the first bad on I have heard about while I have been here. And, in case anyone is wondering, the Bridge is a bunch of open lanes that they designate to go certain ways based on traffic flow. In other words, of the eight lanes, more of them are open headed into the City in the morning and out of the City in the evening. So there are no highway dividers, and the lanes are pretty narrow. Luckily no one died, and from what I hear, the people who were stuck in the traffic mess were pretty considerate about the whole situation, since the accident was so bad.
The rest of the day went by pretty quick. But being an hour late to work makes the day that much shorter, I guess. I had to go into the office for second shift, but the audit was supposed to wrap up on Tuesday, so no more late nights! Hooray! Of course, I ended up going in both Tuesday and Wednesday nights to take care of some other things. Hopefully I will be able to take advantage of the 4.30 client closing on Thursday, since that day will be the last one where I will be at the client. Well, I’ll be there Friday, but I have to go into the office for a meeting Friday evening. Yippee.
Tuesday and Wednesday went pretty smoothly. Although Wednesday morning led to yet another commute adventure. I managed to catch a bus that went all the way from my place to Central Station. Go figure: It takes longer to get there by bus than it does for me to get off at an earlier stop and catch the train. Who knew? However, I have to say that the extra 15 minutes was worth it. The funniest part of my morning was the bus driver. I got on the bus in a crowd, and didn’t really see him at the time. The seat I grabbed faced backwards. So I didn’t notice the guy until I turned around towards the end of the route to see where we were. The bus driver had blue and purple Mohawk. What an awesome sight to see your bus driver sporting the true Mohawk! I got off the bus, and headed through the tunnel that led to the other side of Central station, and there was a guy in the tunnel who was playing the accordion. I can honestly say that I cannot remember ever seeing someone play an accordion in public for money. And the guy was actually pretty good! Well, let me qualify that one. His playing sounded pretty good. But I have no clue what would make a good accordion player versus a bad one. Although something tells me that anyone dropping money in his accordion case probably doesn’t know the difference, either…
So I don’t have much in the way of stories so far this week. Sorry! I hope to have some better stories after Thursday and Friday nights. A group of us is going out tomorrow night at my local pub here. We have the Thursday Night Supper Club, and everyone wanted to try my place out. So I am sure it will be fun, and I should have something to tell after eating with these folks.
For now, you guys will have to settle for the latest mX update! I still have some back issues from last week, but I am holding on to those in case I need some stories over the next couple of weeks. For now, I will provide you with the best of the best from the past three days…
TEXT VENTS:
“In love and hot, who cares how hot Michael Phelps is, he’s American.” – Geoff, The Shire. OUCH! Tell me how you really feel about those of us from the States!
“To Theresa with the big brown eyes. Can I take a picture of you so Santa knows what I want for Christmas?” – Arun, Belmore. Isn’t it a little early to be thinking of Christmas…?
“If you wear a suit to work, how many suits do you need? Is it all right to wear one suit all week, every week” – Kevin, Campbelltown. Who ARE these people?
STORIES OF THE DAY(S):
Four masked men, armed with sticks, threatened the bar staff at a pub in the UK and forced the bar manager to open the safe, taking a substantial amount of cash. As the robbers were leaving, the pub customers started throwing pint glasses at the robbers. The robbers got away, but I have to wonder if the fine UK customers made sure they quickly chugged to empty the glasses before throwing them…
California cops have uncovered (literally) a tunnel used by a drug gang that goes from Mexico into the US. The entrance was 60 meters from the border, went 8 meters deep, and was 120 meters long. But what really gets me about this one is the fact that the tunnel had lighting, ventilation, and air conditioning!
A Chinese man was told that the 3-year-old $85 debt he owed his neighbor would be forgiven if he swore to God that he didn’t owe the money. So this guy swore to God that he didn’t owe the debt. A minute later, the man was hit by lightning. (No worries – he was taken to the hospital and expected to make a full recovery.
QUESTION OF THE DAY:
So I hear that Pamela Anderson and Michael Jackson have been seen together sneaking around in Malibu, as they are rumored to be dating. So I have to ask – What does happen when life-size plastic Barbie and plastic Ken (both true to the exact model and anatomical form of the dolls) get together? I doubt this one is true. They supposedly have hooked up. But with the amount of collagen in her lips, and the amount of plastic surgery on his face, there is no way that the two of them could even move their faces to pull off a kiss! But if they had kids, would the kids look more like Polly Pockets or those little green plastic army men?
So to start out week number 11, I had the privilege of a 2-hour commute to work on Monday morning. It took a good 90 minutes for me to travel what normally would take about 20 minutes. Apparently the Bridge was closed. Completely shut down. So we sat on Military Road (the main road in North Sydney) for a long time, slowly moving forward. The dispatcher kept coming on, giving updates to the bus driver. They were not letting any buses get onto the Bridge.
The bus driver finally started yelling back to everyone that he wanted to change his route so that we could get out of traffic. Some people got mad and got off of the bus, but the only way we were getting into the City was to get on the train, and this guy was trying to get us to the train. Good for him! He finally got to a road where he could turn off, and we sat in traffic for a little while longer. Eventually, the guy found a break and took off. I think he was going twice the speed limit, because it was tough to hang on while he was whipping around. But again, he got us to the train station as quick as he could, so I’m not going to complain.
We got to the train station, and boy was I glad. I had been standing the entire 90+ minutes while we were waiting on the bus. Of course, I had to stand there and wait through three trains because they were so packed full. With the buses off the Bridge, everyone was riding the train. In fact, if you had a bus pass, they were letting you on the trains for free. (They really weren’t checking – they just opened the gate up for everyone. If I had been one of the suckers who bought a train ticket, I would have been pissed!) So it was jam packed on the platform, and everyone shoved on to the first two trains headed to the City. I stood back and waited, and just my luck, the third train coming through was completely empty. Sometimes patience is a virtue…
When I finally got to Central station, the exit dumped me out on the other side of the station. So I had to walk around the station and figure out how to find the road where my client is located. But I can’t complain. I found the way pretty easy, and I even found $5 on the ground outside the train station. Excellent! At least the $5 covered half of the cost of my lunch that day.
While I was on the bus, I had heard a report that a garbage truck was overturned on the Bridge, and the Bridge was closed while they cleaned up the mess. I looked online when I finally got to work, and I learned that the truck had flipped because the driver was swerving to avoid where two cars had collided head-on on the Bridge. One of the car drivers was pinned in his car for an hour, and the medics had to work to get him out. This accident is honestly the first bad on I have heard about while I have been here. And, in case anyone is wondering, the Bridge is a bunch of open lanes that they designate to go certain ways based on traffic flow. In other words, of the eight lanes, more of them are open headed into the City in the morning and out of the City in the evening. So there are no highway dividers, and the lanes are pretty narrow. Luckily no one died, and from what I hear, the people who were stuck in the traffic mess were pretty considerate about the whole situation, since the accident was so bad.
The rest of the day went by pretty quick. But being an hour late to work makes the day that much shorter, I guess. I had to go into the office for second shift, but the audit was supposed to wrap up on Tuesday, so no more late nights! Hooray! Of course, I ended up going in both Tuesday and Wednesday nights to take care of some other things. Hopefully I will be able to take advantage of the 4.30 client closing on Thursday, since that day will be the last one where I will be at the client. Well, I’ll be there Friday, but I have to go into the office for a meeting Friday evening. Yippee.
Tuesday and Wednesday went pretty smoothly. Although Wednesday morning led to yet another commute adventure. I managed to catch a bus that went all the way from my place to Central Station. Go figure: It takes longer to get there by bus than it does for me to get off at an earlier stop and catch the train. Who knew? However, I have to say that the extra 15 minutes was worth it. The funniest part of my morning was the bus driver. I got on the bus in a crowd, and didn’t really see him at the time. The seat I grabbed faced backwards. So I didn’t notice the guy until I turned around towards the end of the route to see where we were. The bus driver had blue and purple Mohawk. What an awesome sight to see your bus driver sporting the true Mohawk! I got off the bus, and headed through the tunnel that led to the other side of Central station, and there was a guy in the tunnel who was playing the accordion. I can honestly say that I cannot remember ever seeing someone play an accordion in public for money. And the guy was actually pretty good! Well, let me qualify that one. His playing sounded pretty good. But I have no clue what would make a good accordion player versus a bad one. Although something tells me that anyone dropping money in his accordion case probably doesn’t know the difference, either…
So I don’t have much in the way of stories so far this week. Sorry! I hope to have some better stories after Thursday and Friday nights. A group of us is going out tomorrow night at my local pub here. We have the Thursday Night Supper Club, and everyone wanted to try my place out. So I am sure it will be fun, and I should have something to tell after eating with these folks.
For now, you guys will have to settle for the latest mX update! I still have some back issues from last week, but I am holding on to those in case I need some stories over the next couple of weeks. For now, I will provide you with the best of the best from the past three days…
TEXT VENTS:
“In love and hot, who cares how hot Michael Phelps is, he’s American.” – Geoff, The Shire. OUCH! Tell me how you really feel about those of us from the States!
“To Theresa with the big brown eyes. Can I take a picture of you so Santa knows what I want for Christmas?” – Arun, Belmore. Isn’t it a little early to be thinking of Christmas…?
“If you wear a suit to work, how many suits do you need? Is it all right to wear one suit all week, every week” – Kevin, Campbelltown. Who ARE these people?
STORIES OF THE DAY(S):
Four masked men, armed with sticks, threatened the bar staff at a pub in the UK and forced the bar manager to open the safe, taking a substantial amount of cash. As the robbers were leaving, the pub customers started throwing pint glasses at the robbers. The robbers got away, but I have to wonder if the fine UK customers made sure they quickly chugged to empty the glasses before throwing them…
California cops have uncovered (literally) a tunnel used by a drug gang that goes from Mexico into the US. The entrance was 60 meters from the border, went 8 meters deep, and was 120 meters long. But what really gets me about this one is the fact that the tunnel had lighting, ventilation, and air conditioning!
A Chinese man was told that the 3-year-old $85 debt he owed his neighbor would be forgiven if he swore to God that he didn’t owe the money. So this guy swore to God that he didn’t owe the debt. A minute later, the man was hit by lightning. (No worries – he was taken to the hospital and expected to make a full recovery.
QUESTION OF THE DAY:
So I hear that Pamela Anderson and Michael Jackson have been seen together sneaking around in Malibu, as they are rumored to be dating. So I have to ask – What does happen when life-size plastic Barbie and plastic Ken (both true to the exact model and anatomical form of the dolls) get together? I doubt this one is true. They supposedly have hooked up. But with the amount of collagen in her lips, and the amount of plastic surgery on his face, there is no way that the two of them could even move their faces to pull off a kiss! But if they had kids, would the kids look more like Polly Pockets or those little green plastic army men?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Those Awesome 80s...
Friday was an absolutely entertaining day for me. Now, I will admit that I was pretty tired, and I hit the snooze button one extra time. So I was running almost 10 minutes later than usual. But it didn’t matter, because I found the one thing I needed to see all week!
As I was exiting the train station to walk to the client’s office, I walked out and there was a guy in an Obama t-shirt, handing out fliers. I headed straight for him. He looked at me, smiled, and held a flier out. I took it, pulled out my earbuds, and told him, “I have a question for you.” He gave me a look like, “What in the hell is going to happen now?” but maybe since I had a little grin on my face was cool with it and said, “Okay…”
I told him something to the effect of: “I’m an American, obviously. And I am really quite curious. You are the second person I have seen this week handing out information on Obama. I am wondering why you guys are handing out this information? What is the benefit here? Why are you targeting Aussies?”
He looked at me and said, “Actually, we’re not targeting Aussies.” Not entirely true, but okay. (He was handing fliers to anyone and everyone who would take one, and the flier is addressed to Aussies.) I think I know what he meant. The guy was an American. He told me that this group he is in believes that there are 50,000 Americans in New South Wales (the state that Sydney is in). And he told me that I might have been the 5th person from the US he had seen today. (As I said before, Central station is the busiest station in the city.) This group that he is a part of is about 5,000 strong. So they are trying to encourage the other Americans in NSW to vote.
The flier: On one side, it asks people to tell any American they know to go vote. On the other side, it tells of all the meetings and rallies they have to support Obama. Not exactly an impartial group, but whatever. Now, I am not sure how effective this little campaign will be. Especially since not one person at the office happy hour Friday night said one thing to me about how I should make sure I vote in November. Not exactly reaching the masses... I still think it is funny that they are campaigning for Obama in Australia, but at least I now know what they are doing, since it was driving me nuts all week.
On Friday afternoon, we walked out of the client’s office and hopped into a taxi to go back into the office for the end of month drinks party. Surprisingly, it was quite easy to find one. (If you haven’t read the prior post, the client is a taxi service.) The taxi driver was pretty entertaining. He started telling us this story about the car he bought. Apparently there was some older woman who he had to keep picking up at her house to take places. He noticed that the lady had a car, and he asked her why she kept calling him. She said she didn’t drive, and that she wanted to sell the car. So the guy said he was interested, and she said she wanted something like $5,000 for it. He told her it was too much, and he offered her $300. They laughed, and a couple of weeks later, he picked the lady up, and ended up buying the car off of her for $500.
Then the guy proceeds to tell us how he got insurance for it, put a new radio in it, and cleaned it up a little. Apparently the car was in great shape. Something like a 2000 model Hyundai with only 14,000 miles on it. He figured out what similar models were going for, bumped it up a little because of the mileage, and ended up selling it for something like $6,000. So Sai, one of the guys I am working with this week, looks over at him and said, “You just ripped off an old lady!” We all were thinking it, but no one had said it. Hilarious!
Once in the office, we walked around to say hello to folks, and eventually wandered into the party. It was pretty fun. It was karaoke night, but they were absolutely blasting music, waiting for people to get up and sing. You had to scream to talk to people. I seriously lost my voice after being there. Ask Sally, Amy, or Hughlene. They had called me Saturday morning and wanted to know what was wrong with me, because I could barely speak.
After a while, they ran out of beer. So a group of us headed to a pub across the street from the office. When we got there, Sai happened to know the vendor out in front of the pub, and we all told the guy hello. We were starving, but headed into the pub, figuring we could get some food in there. Especially since the hot dogs he was selling were $6.50 each. Nope, no food inside. We got our beers and went outside to hang out and talk, as there were several people there with us. It was fun, and eventually, everyone wandered back over to the vendor to get some food. I walked over and ordered one, and one of the guys there said, “I only paid $6, not $6.50. Just so you know.” He was quite proud. I lucked out, though. The guy said, “You’re Sai’s friend, right? $5.” Sweet! A little while later, more people were eating hot dogs, and I was still hungry, so I went back for a second dog. Still $5. Man, I’m good!
A little while later, pretty much everyone had taken off except for a handful of us. So we decided to walk over to another pub. What we didn’t figure was that it was 2 am, and the pub was closed. So one of the guys decided he was done for the night. The two other people I was with were my friends from Canada, and they wanted to go down to Kings Cross – it’s kind of the party area of town. Plus they live on that part of town, so it was a chance to head down their way. So Lara, Tariq, and I grabbed a cab after Tariq grabbed my hand and started pulling me, quite excited that he was going to get to introduce me to Kings Cross.
We got there, got out of the taxi, and started walking down the street to find somewhere to go. The other two pulled me into a line for a pub, but we weren’t able to get in. Oh well. We walked down to another bar, and grabbed a beer. We hung out for a while, and Lara said that she was hungry, and wanted to go to her favorite local spot in Kings Cross. Yep, it’s almost 3.30 am, and we went to some little Indian place. I would say restaurant, but it was seriously like a serving station stuck between two buildings, with a tin sheet as a roof and a tiny table right next to the counter where everyone who came it could sit. There was room for maybe 6 people at this table. But I’ll tell you – the food was really good! I realize that at 3.30 am, after a night at the pubs, most anything might taste good. But this food was seriously some of the better Indian food I have had here!
As we were leaving, Tariq and Lara kept telling me to come stay the night at their place, since the trains weren’t running and a taxi would be expensive. But as we were talking about it, I looked up, and there was a bus that said “Kings Cross-City” across the top. The guy was driving along pretty slow, and I kind of waived at him. Sure enough, he stopped right in front of me, even though I was not near a bus stop. So I thanked the guys, but told them I could get back. I hopped on the bus, and started to pull out my bus ticket. The driver stopped me (thinking I was getting out money) and said, “No, it’s a free ride.” Wow, okay. So they pick up the drunks at 4 am and haul them back into the city. So I jumped off the bus at Town Hall, hailed a cab, and was off. The taxi driver was nice. And, of course, I had to show off what I had learned at my client, and started to talk to him about driving a taxi. He was a super nice guy, gave me his card (he’s an independent driver), and told me that if I wanted to go see any sights, I should call him and he’d take me around. Nice guy.
After the late night out (I think I was home at 4.30), I ended up taking it pretty easy on Saturday. I got going early afternoon, and headed off to run my weekend errands. The number one item on my list was a haircut, since I have been looking kind of shaggy lately. I found a place, and the lady told me to come back in about 45 minutes, so she could finish up a couple people ahead of me. I walked down to another place, and the guy there was pretty much busy all afternoon. So I went to the grocery store, took the stuff home, then headed back out yet again. I went back, and the girl was just finishing up. What timing. So she had me come sit down, and asked me how much I wanted cut off.
Now, I was wanting to cut an inch to 1.5 inches off, but, of course, I had to tell her in centimeters. Huh? I told her I wanted about 3 cm cut (there’s about 2.5 cm in an inch), and held up my fingers to show her how much. She said, “Well, that’s about 5 cm. This is 3” and puts her fingers down to show me. I swear, it was the same thing I was holding up. So I showed her and said, “This much” and she was off.
She asked me where I was from and what I was doing there. (The first question I typically get from everyone.) I told her NC, and let her know where NC was in the US. She told me she was wondering, since she noticed my accent but had only been to NY and Hawaii. So we talked a while, and she was freaking hilarious! I was quite happy that I ended up going to have this girl cut my hair, because it was probably the best 20 minutes I have spent with anyone this week. She was so funny, and asked a ton of questions. It was nice to sit and laugh with her.
After the haircut, I jumped on the bus and headed into town. I had to go get my computer out of my locker at work so that I could give you guys a weekend update post. Well, and so I didn’t have to get up any earlier on Monday to swing by the office on my way out to the client. As I was walking into the office, I saw the ultimate in proof that Australia is still stuck in the 80s. I was standing at a crosswalk with a group of folks, waiting for the light to turn. From the side that had the green light, you could hear a somewhat loud group crossing towards us, and everyone standing near me turned to look at them. The first part of the group was people carrying video cameras and sound equipment. Behind them was the rest of the group, all dressed up in suits with tennis shows (All Stars and Vans, of course). Most people in the group had these green masks on that looked kind of like the Comedy/Tragedy masks. At the back of the group was a guy, in a suit with tennis shoes and a trench coat, carrying a boom box (I swear it was an original from the 80s), blasting Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” They walked through the crowd waiting, and kept walking along the road. I’m not sure where they were headed, but I’m thinking there is some new video recently posted from Australia on YouTube that I probably never want to see… Of course, I would like to thank them for getting that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day. (You’re welcome if you have it in your head now, as well.)
Saturday night was low key, and I stayed in. I got up Sunday morning and went to church, since I had promised the minister last week that I would come back. When I got there, a woman was walking in the door in front of me. We got inside, and she turned and said, “You came to visit last week, didn’t you?” I told her I had, and we had a quick chat about things. She said she was a little disappointed that I was just a short-term visitor. Apparently that church used to be bigger, but a lot of people had left. She said that the new minister had a different style, and that some people didn’t care much for it (he didn’t want to have elders in the church, for example), but that she was hoping that things would pick back up. Apparently the church used to have about 100 members. Much larger than the 21 who were there for today’s service, which included a woman who showed up for the 10 am service at 10.45 (just before the sermon started), and the guy who walked in at the very end of the sermon, around 11.15.
Before the service starts, the minister came in the door and started making his rounds. He came over and said hello to me, and spoke to the three people sitting in front of me, as well, who were also visiting. Pretty nice guy. Then he announced that they were going outside the box and wanted to have a “Passing of the Peace” moment, so everyone got up and started talking to everyone else. Ann, the minister’s wife, came over and said, “Hello, Jenny. Glad you came back to visit again.” How nice of her to remember my name from a week ago. I said, “Hi, Ann. Good to be back.” And we spoke for a few minutes before things started winding down. Of course, there were still 3-4 people who had to work their way all the way around the room to say hello to everyone there. Two guys came over and talked to me while Jason (the minister) was trying to get the service started up again. It was pretty funny, since it was a small room with very few people, and everyone could hear us talking. Oh well…
Overall, the service was nice, and I was glad I went back. Although I think I am going to try to visit a couple other places before I come back home, so I am not sure I will see them again. Jason asked if I was sure I wanted to go back home, that I could just stay and enjoy the spring that would soon be here, and come visit them whenever I liked. Nice guy.
Well, I should probably wrap this post up, since it is getting long. I will tell you all a quick story before I sign off. They have Australian Idol over here, which I have flipped through a couple of times. It has been somewhat interesting, since the judges are pretty similar to the American Idol judges (although still kind of different and a little less harsh than Simon Cowell). But I saw part of the initial audition shows, as they traveled around Australia, which was really just visiting 3 cities. The best was that America was well represented. Naked Cowboy came in and auditioned here in Australia. If you have never seen Naked Cowboy, it is a guy in NYC who hangs out in Times Square in his tighty whitey underwear, also in a cowboy hat and boots. He sings and lets people take pictures with him, and gets money for the songs and the photos. The judges (two guys and a lady) were giving him a hard time about “singing in his skivvies” for money. They asked him if you could really make money doing it. Naked Cowboy said that he was now listed as the #3 sight to see in NYC, and had made about $3 million so far this year. Holy crap! $3 million for singing in your underwear? Really? Of course, the Idol judges jumped up and started taking off their pants as a joke, but I seriously can’t believe that this guy makes that much cash!
But enough ranting about millionaires in their underwear. Before I go, I want to give a big shout out to Paul… Happy Birthday, Paul! I hope it’s a good one!
Okay, to close out, I have a favor to ask you guys who are reading this blog post. My office back home has a Race For The Cure team for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. For those of you who are interested in helping out, I have signed up to be a part of the team, even though the 5-K run/walk is the weekend before I get home. This year is one of very few that I have not been around to run, and I am a little bummed about it. But I still want to support the cause. So I’m asking two things. The first is for those of you who are in the office reading this post and are part of the Race For The Cure team, please feel free to add a comment to the end of this post and provide the link to your site. Hopefully you will get some more visits from the readers of this blog page. For everyone else, if you might be looking to make a charitable donation for a very worthwhile cause, please check out the following link (or any of the links that might be included in the comment posts from my friends in the office):
http://www.komencharlotte.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1020&px=1052742
As I was exiting the train station to walk to the client’s office, I walked out and there was a guy in an Obama t-shirt, handing out fliers. I headed straight for him. He looked at me, smiled, and held a flier out. I took it, pulled out my earbuds, and told him, “I have a question for you.” He gave me a look like, “What in the hell is going to happen now?” but maybe since I had a little grin on my face was cool with it and said, “Okay…”
I told him something to the effect of: “I’m an American, obviously. And I am really quite curious. You are the second person I have seen this week handing out information on Obama. I am wondering why you guys are handing out this information? What is the benefit here? Why are you targeting Aussies?”
He looked at me and said, “Actually, we’re not targeting Aussies.” Not entirely true, but okay. (He was handing fliers to anyone and everyone who would take one, and the flier is addressed to Aussies.) I think I know what he meant. The guy was an American. He told me that this group he is in believes that there are 50,000 Americans in New South Wales (the state that Sydney is in). And he told me that I might have been the 5th person from the US he had seen today. (As I said before, Central station is the busiest station in the city.) This group that he is a part of is about 5,000 strong. So they are trying to encourage the other Americans in NSW to vote.
The flier: On one side, it asks people to tell any American they know to go vote. On the other side, it tells of all the meetings and rallies they have to support Obama. Not exactly an impartial group, but whatever. Now, I am not sure how effective this little campaign will be. Especially since not one person at the office happy hour Friday night said one thing to me about how I should make sure I vote in November. Not exactly reaching the masses... I still think it is funny that they are campaigning for Obama in Australia, but at least I now know what they are doing, since it was driving me nuts all week.
On Friday afternoon, we walked out of the client’s office and hopped into a taxi to go back into the office for the end of month drinks party. Surprisingly, it was quite easy to find one. (If you haven’t read the prior post, the client is a taxi service.) The taxi driver was pretty entertaining. He started telling us this story about the car he bought. Apparently there was some older woman who he had to keep picking up at her house to take places. He noticed that the lady had a car, and he asked her why she kept calling him. She said she didn’t drive, and that she wanted to sell the car. So the guy said he was interested, and she said she wanted something like $5,000 for it. He told her it was too much, and he offered her $300. They laughed, and a couple of weeks later, he picked the lady up, and ended up buying the car off of her for $500.
Then the guy proceeds to tell us how he got insurance for it, put a new radio in it, and cleaned it up a little. Apparently the car was in great shape. Something like a 2000 model Hyundai with only 14,000 miles on it. He figured out what similar models were going for, bumped it up a little because of the mileage, and ended up selling it for something like $6,000. So Sai, one of the guys I am working with this week, looks over at him and said, “You just ripped off an old lady!” We all were thinking it, but no one had said it. Hilarious!
Once in the office, we walked around to say hello to folks, and eventually wandered into the party. It was pretty fun. It was karaoke night, but they were absolutely blasting music, waiting for people to get up and sing. You had to scream to talk to people. I seriously lost my voice after being there. Ask Sally, Amy, or Hughlene. They had called me Saturday morning and wanted to know what was wrong with me, because I could barely speak.
After a while, they ran out of beer. So a group of us headed to a pub across the street from the office. When we got there, Sai happened to know the vendor out in front of the pub, and we all told the guy hello. We were starving, but headed into the pub, figuring we could get some food in there. Especially since the hot dogs he was selling were $6.50 each. Nope, no food inside. We got our beers and went outside to hang out and talk, as there were several people there with us. It was fun, and eventually, everyone wandered back over to the vendor to get some food. I walked over and ordered one, and one of the guys there said, “I only paid $6, not $6.50. Just so you know.” He was quite proud. I lucked out, though. The guy said, “You’re Sai’s friend, right? $5.” Sweet! A little while later, more people were eating hot dogs, and I was still hungry, so I went back for a second dog. Still $5. Man, I’m good!
A little while later, pretty much everyone had taken off except for a handful of us. So we decided to walk over to another pub. What we didn’t figure was that it was 2 am, and the pub was closed. So one of the guys decided he was done for the night. The two other people I was with were my friends from Canada, and they wanted to go down to Kings Cross – it’s kind of the party area of town. Plus they live on that part of town, so it was a chance to head down their way. So Lara, Tariq, and I grabbed a cab after Tariq grabbed my hand and started pulling me, quite excited that he was going to get to introduce me to Kings Cross.
We got there, got out of the taxi, and started walking down the street to find somewhere to go. The other two pulled me into a line for a pub, but we weren’t able to get in. Oh well. We walked down to another bar, and grabbed a beer. We hung out for a while, and Lara said that she was hungry, and wanted to go to her favorite local spot in Kings Cross. Yep, it’s almost 3.30 am, and we went to some little Indian place. I would say restaurant, but it was seriously like a serving station stuck between two buildings, with a tin sheet as a roof and a tiny table right next to the counter where everyone who came it could sit. There was room for maybe 6 people at this table. But I’ll tell you – the food was really good! I realize that at 3.30 am, after a night at the pubs, most anything might taste good. But this food was seriously some of the better Indian food I have had here!
As we were leaving, Tariq and Lara kept telling me to come stay the night at their place, since the trains weren’t running and a taxi would be expensive. But as we were talking about it, I looked up, and there was a bus that said “Kings Cross-City” across the top. The guy was driving along pretty slow, and I kind of waived at him. Sure enough, he stopped right in front of me, even though I was not near a bus stop. So I thanked the guys, but told them I could get back. I hopped on the bus, and started to pull out my bus ticket. The driver stopped me (thinking I was getting out money) and said, “No, it’s a free ride.” Wow, okay. So they pick up the drunks at 4 am and haul them back into the city. So I jumped off the bus at Town Hall, hailed a cab, and was off. The taxi driver was nice. And, of course, I had to show off what I had learned at my client, and started to talk to him about driving a taxi. He was a super nice guy, gave me his card (he’s an independent driver), and told me that if I wanted to go see any sights, I should call him and he’d take me around. Nice guy.
After the late night out (I think I was home at 4.30), I ended up taking it pretty easy on Saturday. I got going early afternoon, and headed off to run my weekend errands. The number one item on my list was a haircut, since I have been looking kind of shaggy lately. I found a place, and the lady told me to come back in about 45 minutes, so she could finish up a couple people ahead of me. I walked down to another place, and the guy there was pretty much busy all afternoon. So I went to the grocery store, took the stuff home, then headed back out yet again. I went back, and the girl was just finishing up. What timing. So she had me come sit down, and asked me how much I wanted cut off.
Now, I was wanting to cut an inch to 1.5 inches off, but, of course, I had to tell her in centimeters. Huh? I told her I wanted about 3 cm cut (there’s about 2.5 cm in an inch), and held up my fingers to show her how much. She said, “Well, that’s about 5 cm. This is 3” and puts her fingers down to show me. I swear, it was the same thing I was holding up. So I showed her and said, “This much” and she was off.
She asked me where I was from and what I was doing there. (The first question I typically get from everyone.) I told her NC, and let her know where NC was in the US. She told me she was wondering, since she noticed my accent but had only been to NY and Hawaii. So we talked a while, and she was freaking hilarious! I was quite happy that I ended up going to have this girl cut my hair, because it was probably the best 20 minutes I have spent with anyone this week. She was so funny, and asked a ton of questions. It was nice to sit and laugh with her.
After the haircut, I jumped on the bus and headed into town. I had to go get my computer out of my locker at work so that I could give you guys a weekend update post. Well, and so I didn’t have to get up any earlier on Monday to swing by the office on my way out to the client. As I was walking into the office, I saw the ultimate in proof that Australia is still stuck in the 80s. I was standing at a crosswalk with a group of folks, waiting for the light to turn. From the side that had the green light, you could hear a somewhat loud group crossing towards us, and everyone standing near me turned to look at them. The first part of the group was people carrying video cameras and sound equipment. Behind them was the rest of the group, all dressed up in suits with tennis shows (All Stars and Vans, of course). Most people in the group had these green masks on that looked kind of like the Comedy/Tragedy masks. At the back of the group was a guy, in a suit with tennis shoes and a trench coat, carrying a boom box (I swear it was an original from the 80s), blasting Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” They walked through the crowd waiting, and kept walking along the road. I’m not sure where they were headed, but I’m thinking there is some new video recently posted from Australia on YouTube that I probably never want to see… Of course, I would like to thank them for getting that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day. (You’re welcome if you have it in your head now, as well.)
Saturday night was low key, and I stayed in. I got up Sunday morning and went to church, since I had promised the minister last week that I would come back. When I got there, a woman was walking in the door in front of me. We got inside, and she turned and said, “You came to visit last week, didn’t you?” I told her I had, and we had a quick chat about things. She said she was a little disappointed that I was just a short-term visitor. Apparently that church used to be bigger, but a lot of people had left. She said that the new minister had a different style, and that some people didn’t care much for it (he didn’t want to have elders in the church, for example), but that she was hoping that things would pick back up. Apparently the church used to have about 100 members. Much larger than the 21 who were there for today’s service, which included a woman who showed up for the 10 am service at 10.45 (just before the sermon started), and the guy who walked in at the very end of the sermon, around 11.15.
Before the service starts, the minister came in the door and started making his rounds. He came over and said hello to me, and spoke to the three people sitting in front of me, as well, who were also visiting. Pretty nice guy. Then he announced that they were going outside the box and wanted to have a “Passing of the Peace” moment, so everyone got up and started talking to everyone else. Ann, the minister’s wife, came over and said, “Hello, Jenny. Glad you came back to visit again.” How nice of her to remember my name from a week ago. I said, “Hi, Ann. Good to be back.” And we spoke for a few minutes before things started winding down. Of course, there were still 3-4 people who had to work their way all the way around the room to say hello to everyone there. Two guys came over and talked to me while Jason (the minister) was trying to get the service started up again. It was pretty funny, since it was a small room with very few people, and everyone could hear us talking. Oh well…
Overall, the service was nice, and I was glad I went back. Although I think I am going to try to visit a couple other places before I come back home, so I am not sure I will see them again. Jason asked if I was sure I wanted to go back home, that I could just stay and enjoy the spring that would soon be here, and come visit them whenever I liked. Nice guy.
Well, I should probably wrap this post up, since it is getting long. I will tell you all a quick story before I sign off. They have Australian Idol over here, which I have flipped through a couple of times. It has been somewhat interesting, since the judges are pretty similar to the American Idol judges (although still kind of different and a little less harsh than Simon Cowell). But I saw part of the initial audition shows, as they traveled around Australia, which was really just visiting 3 cities. The best was that America was well represented. Naked Cowboy came in and auditioned here in Australia. If you have never seen Naked Cowboy, it is a guy in NYC who hangs out in Times Square in his tighty whitey underwear, also in a cowboy hat and boots. He sings and lets people take pictures with him, and gets money for the songs and the photos. The judges (two guys and a lady) were giving him a hard time about “singing in his skivvies” for money. They asked him if you could really make money doing it. Naked Cowboy said that he was now listed as the #3 sight to see in NYC, and had made about $3 million so far this year. Holy crap! $3 million for singing in your underwear? Really? Of course, the Idol judges jumped up and started taking off their pants as a joke, but I seriously can’t believe that this guy makes that much cash!
But enough ranting about millionaires in their underwear. Before I go, I want to give a big shout out to Paul… Happy Birthday, Paul! I hope it’s a good one!
Okay, to close out, I have a favor to ask you guys who are reading this blog post. My office back home has a Race For The Cure team for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. For those of you who are interested in helping out, I have signed up to be a part of the team, even though the 5-K run/walk is the weekend before I get home. This year is one of very few that I have not been around to run, and I am a little bummed about it. But I still want to support the cause. So I’m asking two things. The first is for those of you who are in the office reading this post and are part of the Race For The Cure team, please feel free to add a comment to the end of this post and provide the link to your site. Hopefully you will get some more visits from the readers of this blog page. For everyone else, if you might be looking to make a charitable donation for a very worthwhile cause, please check out the following link (or any of the links that might be included in the comment posts from my friends in the office):
http://www.komencharlotte.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1020&px=1052742
Thursday, August 28, 2008
I'm Losing Track Of Time!
So I just hit my official anniversary for work on the 23rd. I have been working here for two months. Only month one to go. In fact, I think my official end date for work is 24 September (a Wednesday), so I am really and truly down to the final month here. An even stranger thought is that six weeks from this past Tuesday, I will be boarding a plane to fly home. Now, I have no idea what day I am landing back in the US, between the time changes and the 24 hours it will take to get home once I leave here, but I know I take off for home in just six short weeks!
I keep thinking back to my first few days here, and how hard it was to believe at the time that this secondment would fly by. I thought it was pick up. In fact, I think if you went back to some of my early posts, you would see where I said I expected things to pick up a little once busy season started up. I really had no idea time would start flying by this quickly!
This week has been pretty busy, obviously. I know I have not done a very good job the past two weeks in keeping up with blog posts, but I think things will get better starting next week. Right now, I am losing track of time and working late, so when I get home, I pretty much eat dinner and go to bed. I am still doing the “second shift” thing in the office at night. Alex, the guy who is running the current job I am on, has an office that faces the new cube where I sit. In fact, he is usually sitting there when I come in the evenings, and pops out to talk. Usually he says something like, “Oh, is it already time for the second shift?” Tonight, I was a few minutes “late” getting in, and he told me he was getting worried, since I hadn’t made it in at my usually time. Funny guy. Actually, on a random note, he is a pretty funny guy. He has a son who is a few months old. There is a picture of his son in his office where his son has on a shirt that says (in big black letters) “iPood.” (Come on. Think through it. You can figure it out.) Hilarious!
Although the week has been busy, it has really been all about work. Lucky me, right? Nothing huge and exciting has happened this week. But I do have some random stories that I have pieced together from throughout the week to share with you. Hopefully you guys will think they are entertaining. So here you go:
There is a guy who sits in an office across from my cube (next to Alex). Every night, he picks up the phone and calls his wife just before he leaves. I swear the guy is the Australian version of Mr. Mackey from the show "South Park." Every time he hangs up with his wife, he says, “Mmm kaaaaaay.” I figured out the connection tonight and tried very hard not to laugh out loud. The interesting part of this story is that this guy probably hasn’t said one word to me the entire time I have been here. Until I moved desks. Well, maybe he told me hello on occasion, but only after I said it to him first. (I seriously moved one row over and two cubes up. It's not the other side of the office or anything.) But now, as he closes his office door, he turns and tells me goodnight every night. Random.
Speaking of my desk relocation, I noticed on Tuesday that I actually have a nameplate. It appeared since I moved desks. I didn’t have a nameplate when I was sitting at the other desk, since I was using someone’s desk who was on leave. But I get relocated, have four weeks left, and they stick my name on my desk. I don’t know why – I just find it a little strange that they waited until I was leaving to let people know who I am!
Now, aside from the name plate, there are some great perks in the office. People have gotten to know me, so I can usually spark off a random email conversation when I need some entertainment during the day. (Who, me? Go figure!) So on Tuesday afternoon, an email went out that one of the directors had stopped for some Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and brought a couple dozen into the office for everyone. One of the girls in the office sent an email around to the department to let people know, and to tell folks to hurry, since they will go fast! I emailed her back and let her know that she was being quite cruel, since those of us out in the field don’t need to know about the good stuff that we were missing out on in the office. Especially when it is the middle of the afternoon and we are all hungry. She wrote back and made some crack to me about missing out. I told her that aside from me, Krispy Kreme was the best thing that has come out of NC. Apparently she thought it was funny, and ended up walking over and snagging me a doughnut. I didn’t know about it until I came into the office that night, when she sent me an email to let me know. She had dropped the doughnut off at my desk when I was getting a glass of water from the kitchen. When I walked back to my desk, one of the girls who sits near me told me that I had a doughnut at my desk. So I went to find Kim and thank her for it, but I just missed her, as she had headed into the kitchen. The girl who sits in front of her office told me that I had just missed her, but she was coming back. So I started to walk away, when the manager in the office next to Kim said, “Oh! There is a doughnut for you somewhere!” Someone else nearby said something about it, too. So apparently there was some sort of story about me and my doughnut going around the office that afternoon… I really could care less what the story was. The doughnut was freaking tasty and well worth it. And it’s pretty cool to get this rockstar treatment here!
So doughnuts are pretty tasty – they pretty much taste the same as they do back in the US. (Although for the $20 per dozen, I think they actually make them in the US and fly them over!) But I have mentioned before that there are little things that are different about the food here. For example, I think I have had one salad in the three months that I have been here. (Aside from any I make myself.) Well, I think I figured out why… I noticed a sign tonight while walking through the Wynyard train station. It said, “Wynyard Salad Bar – Hot Food!” Really?
It is things like this sign that have helped me to realize that Wynyard is an interesting little place to see things. It is mostly a train station, but there is a grocery store, some coffee shops, a news stand, and some other little stores throughout the building, and the train station is at the bottom (two floors below the street level). My favorite story of the week happened on Monday morning in Wynyard. I was coming down the escalator to the train station, and there was a woman standing in the hall area, leading towards the trains. I was heading the opposite direction, but I just happened to see her shirt as I was stepping off the escalator and turning towards the train I needed to catch. Her shirt said “Obama ’08.” She was handing out something to people walking by. Now, I was a bit perplexed by this woman. I didn’t get to walk by her, but I am really quite curious as to what she was handing out to people. Even more than that, I really want to know why she was handing stuff out to people in Wynyard train station. I mean, is she looking to swing the popular vote for the American president in Australia? “Hey! Vote for Obama… In the pretend election that we will be holding in the corner over there on a random day... Just because I am curious to see who Australians would vote for…” I really cannot understand the point of that one. I would wager a bet that of all the people who she could have approached that day, I was probably the only one who is eligible to vote in the November election. I have looked for this woman every day since Monday, but I have not seen her again. I really want to ask her what she is trying to accomplish. It is driving me nuts to find out!
So after seeing the random salad sign, I had to run to catch the bus tonight. Of course, I spent the first half of the ride standing up. (There are a lot more people who ride the bus at 9 pm than you would think!) When we got across the Harbour Bridge and got to the first stop, a seat freed up. The woman behind me was talking on the phone, and I noticed that she had an American accent. So when she got off of the phone, I turned to her and said, “I apologize for eavesdropping, but where are you from?” She started to tell me where she lived, and then figured out where I was asking. She smiled and said, “I live here, but I am originally from Texas.” (I can assure you, she did not sounds like the typical Texan.) I told her I don’t hear American accents too often, and she laughed and asked where I was from. There were a couple of people from Texas sitting behind her, who were over here visiting. Very nice people, and it was funny that I just happened to run into her on the bus ride home tonight!
And while I am talking about bus rides, I have just a little piece of advice I would like to pass out to everyone. It may seem like an obvious thing, but apparently not as obvious as I thought it would be… My public service announcement, for the benefit those of us who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time: If you are wearing low-rise pants, and you are standing on a crowded bus, there is absolutely no need for you to ever, ever bend over.
Okay, one last thing: Someone keeps calling me. In the middle of the night. I think the calls come in at something like 2 am. I have yet to hear it soon enough to get out of bed to answer it. (It is usually on the last right when I figure out what is going on.) It’s not that I mind getting a phone call from back home. I mean, if it is important enough that you want to call me, it’s fine. But the problem is that I have no idea who is calling me. My caller ID does not pick it up, I think because I am overseas. And whoever it is does not leave me a message. For the love of God, if you are the one calling me, please leave me a message. I swear I will call you back! Especially if it will stop the 2 am almost-nightly phone calls! And if it is a telemarketer of some sort, well... I very rarely get short with people on the phone. But if they call tonight, and I manage to get out of bed, it is on like Donkey Kong!
Okay, I am out of stories. Actually, I think I had promised some insights from the Olympics Closing Ceremonies, but I am going to defer those until this weekend. I was up really late last night, and it is getting late yet again. I need some sleep! Especially since tomorrow night is the End of Month Drinks Party in the office, which means we will probably go out afterwards.
To close out tonight, rather than giving an mX update, I have my own Story Of The Day to share. It might have been one of those “You Had To Be There” stories, but I am hoping that I can be descriptive enough that you guys will see the humor:
So I got off of the bus this morning, and was walking across the sidewalk to go down the stairs and into the train station. There was a guy walking next to me, kind of cutting over, and there was an older lady, I would venture a guess and say she was at least 70, who was walking from the other direction. I saw the lady coming, so I stopped to let her pass so that we didn’t run into each other. But the guy next to me just kept blowing through the people and ran into the woman. Not hard, but he definitely bumped her. Then he kept on walking. I know he saw her, because of the angle he was coming from when he ran into her. This whole encounter took maybe five seconds, but it seemed like a lot longer! Why? Because I looked at the woman, and she was just staring at the guy. She might have said something to him, but I didn’t see her mouth move. Or maybe someone else said something to him. I had my iPod on, so I couldn’t hear anything. But obviously someone made a comment, because the guy got to the train station stairs, reached for the handrail with one hand, and, without turning around or acknowledging anything behind him, he proceeded to raise his other hand into the air and give the lady the finger. Classy. If you are going to hell for anything, I would guess that flipping off an older woman after you tried to plow her over is surely a fast track to get there.
Good times…
I keep thinking back to my first few days here, and how hard it was to believe at the time that this secondment would fly by. I thought it was pick up. In fact, I think if you went back to some of my early posts, you would see where I said I expected things to pick up a little once busy season started up. I really had no idea time would start flying by this quickly!
This week has been pretty busy, obviously. I know I have not done a very good job the past two weeks in keeping up with blog posts, but I think things will get better starting next week. Right now, I am losing track of time and working late, so when I get home, I pretty much eat dinner and go to bed. I am still doing the “second shift” thing in the office at night. Alex, the guy who is running the current job I am on, has an office that faces the new cube where I sit. In fact, he is usually sitting there when I come in the evenings, and pops out to talk. Usually he says something like, “Oh, is it already time for the second shift?” Tonight, I was a few minutes “late” getting in, and he told me he was getting worried, since I hadn’t made it in at my usually time. Funny guy. Actually, on a random note, he is a pretty funny guy. He has a son who is a few months old. There is a picture of his son in his office where his son has on a shirt that says (in big black letters) “iPood.” (Come on. Think through it. You can figure it out.) Hilarious!
Although the week has been busy, it has really been all about work. Lucky me, right? Nothing huge and exciting has happened this week. But I do have some random stories that I have pieced together from throughout the week to share with you. Hopefully you guys will think they are entertaining. So here you go:
There is a guy who sits in an office across from my cube (next to Alex). Every night, he picks up the phone and calls his wife just before he leaves. I swear the guy is the Australian version of Mr. Mackey from the show "South Park." Every time he hangs up with his wife, he says, “Mmm kaaaaaay.” I figured out the connection tonight and tried very hard not to laugh out loud. The interesting part of this story is that this guy probably hasn’t said one word to me the entire time I have been here. Until I moved desks. Well, maybe he told me hello on occasion, but only after I said it to him first. (I seriously moved one row over and two cubes up. It's not the other side of the office or anything.) But now, as he closes his office door, he turns and tells me goodnight every night. Random.
Speaking of my desk relocation, I noticed on Tuesday that I actually have a nameplate. It appeared since I moved desks. I didn’t have a nameplate when I was sitting at the other desk, since I was using someone’s desk who was on leave. But I get relocated, have four weeks left, and they stick my name on my desk. I don’t know why – I just find it a little strange that they waited until I was leaving to let people know who I am!
Now, aside from the name plate, there are some great perks in the office. People have gotten to know me, so I can usually spark off a random email conversation when I need some entertainment during the day. (Who, me? Go figure!) So on Tuesday afternoon, an email went out that one of the directors had stopped for some Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and brought a couple dozen into the office for everyone. One of the girls in the office sent an email around to the department to let people know, and to tell folks to hurry, since they will go fast! I emailed her back and let her know that she was being quite cruel, since those of us out in the field don’t need to know about the good stuff that we were missing out on in the office. Especially when it is the middle of the afternoon and we are all hungry. She wrote back and made some crack to me about missing out. I told her that aside from me, Krispy Kreme was the best thing that has come out of NC. Apparently she thought it was funny, and ended up walking over and snagging me a doughnut. I didn’t know about it until I came into the office that night, when she sent me an email to let me know. She had dropped the doughnut off at my desk when I was getting a glass of water from the kitchen. When I walked back to my desk, one of the girls who sits near me told me that I had a doughnut at my desk. So I went to find Kim and thank her for it, but I just missed her, as she had headed into the kitchen. The girl who sits in front of her office told me that I had just missed her, but she was coming back. So I started to walk away, when the manager in the office next to Kim said, “Oh! There is a doughnut for you somewhere!” Someone else nearby said something about it, too. So apparently there was some sort of story about me and my doughnut going around the office that afternoon… I really could care less what the story was. The doughnut was freaking tasty and well worth it. And it’s pretty cool to get this rockstar treatment here!
So doughnuts are pretty tasty – they pretty much taste the same as they do back in the US. (Although for the $20 per dozen, I think they actually make them in the US and fly them over!) But I have mentioned before that there are little things that are different about the food here. For example, I think I have had one salad in the three months that I have been here. (Aside from any I make myself.) Well, I think I figured out why… I noticed a sign tonight while walking through the Wynyard train station. It said, “Wynyard Salad Bar – Hot Food!” Really?
It is things like this sign that have helped me to realize that Wynyard is an interesting little place to see things. It is mostly a train station, but there is a grocery store, some coffee shops, a news stand, and some other little stores throughout the building, and the train station is at the bottom (two floors below the street level). My favorite story of the week happened on Monday morning in Wynyard. I was coming down the escalator to the train station, and there was a woman standing in the hall area, leading towards the trains. I was heading the opposite direction, but I just happened to see her shirt as I was stepping off the escalator and turning towards the train I needed to catch. Her shirt said “Obama ’08.” She was handing out something to people walking by. Now, I was a bit perplexed by this woman. I didn’t get to walk by her, but I am really quite curious as to what she was handing out to people. Even more than that, I really want to know why she was handing stuff out to people in Wynyard train station. I mean, is she looking to swing the popular vote for the American president in Australia? “Hey! Vote for Obama… In the pretend election that we will be holding in the corner over there on a random day... Just because I am curious to see who Australians would vote for…” I really cannot understand the point of that one. I would wager a bet that of all the people who she could have approached that day, I was probably the only one who is eligible to vote in the November election. I have looked for this woman every day since Monday, but I have not seen her again. I really want to ask her what she is trying to accomplish. It is driving me nuts to find out!
So after seeing the random salad sign, I had to run to catch the bus tonight. Of course, I spent the first half of the ride standing up. (There are a lot more people who ride the bus at 9 pm than you would think!) When we got across the Harbour Bridge and got to the first stop, a seat freed up. The woman behind me was talking on the phone, and I noticed that she had an American accent. So when she got off of the phone, I turned to her and said, “I apologize for eavesdropping, but where are you from?” She started to tell me where she lived, and then figured out where I was asking. She smiled and said, “I live here, but I am originally from Texas.” (I can assure you, she did not sounds like the typical Texan.) I told her I don’t hear American accents too often, and she laughed and asked where I was from. There were a couple of people from Texas sitting behind her, who were over here visiting. Very nice people, and it was funny that I just happened to run into her on the bus ride home tonight!
And while I am talking about bus rides, I have just a little piece of advice I would like to pass out to everyone. It may seem like an obvious thing, but apparently not as obvious as I thought it would be… My public service announcement, for the benefit those of us who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time: If you are wearing low-rise pants, and you are standing on a crowded bus, there is absolutely no need for you to ever, ever bend over.
Okay, one last thing: Someone keeps calling me. In the middle of the night. I think the calls come in at something like 2 am. I have yet to hear it soon enough to get out of bed to answer it. (It is usually on the last right when I figure out what is going on.) It’s not that I mind getting a phone call from back home. I mean, if it is important enough that you want to call me, it’s fine. But the problem is that I have no idea who is calling me. My caller ID does not pick it up, I think because I am overseas. And whoever it is does not leave me a message. For the love of God, if you are the one calling me, please leave me a message. I swear I will call you back! Especially if it will stop the 2 am almost-nightly phone calls! And if it is a telemarketer of some sort, well... I very rarely get short with people on the phone. But if they call tonight, and I manage to get out of bed, it is on like Donkey Kong!
Okay, I am out of stories. Actually, I think I had promised some insights from the Olympics Closing Ceremonies, but I am going to defer those until this weekend. I was up really late last night, and it is getting late yet again. I need some sleep! Especially since tomorrow night is the End of Month Drinks Party in the office, which means we will probably go out afterwards.
To close out tonight, rather than giving an mX update, I have my own Story Of The Day to share. It might have been one of those “You Had To Be There” stories, but I am hoping that I can be descriptive enough that you guys will see the humor:
So I got off of the bus this morning, and was walking across the sidewalk to go down the stairs and into the train station. There was a guy walking next to me, kind of cutting over, and there was an older lady, I would venture a guess and say she was at least 70, who was walking from the other direction. I saw the lady coming, so I stopped to let her pass so that we didn’t run into each other. But the guy next to me just kept blowing through the people and ran into the woman. Not hard, but he definitely bumped her. Then he kept on walking. I know he saw her, because of the angle he was coming from when he ran into her. This whole encounter took maybe five seconds, but it seemed like a lot longer! Why? Because I looked at the woman, and she was just staring at the guy. She might have said something to him, but I didn’t see her mouth move. Or maybe someone else said something to him. I had my iPod on, so I couldn’t hear anything. But obviously someone made a comment, because the guy got to the train station stairs, reached for the handrail with one hand, and, without turning around or acknowledging anything behind him, he proceeded to raise his other hand into the air and give the lady the finger. Classy. If you are going to hell for anything, I would guess that flipping off an older woman after you tried to plow her over is surely a fast track to get there.
Good times…
Monday, August 25, 2008
Another One Bites The Dust (Weekend, That Is...)
I know everyone has been waiting for it. And I have finally come through for all of you. That’s right – I had a big adventure on Saturday. Drum roll, please… I tried Vegemite! My Saturday morning breakfast consisted of toast with Vegemite spread on it. Now, those of you who know me know that I will try anything once. I seriously had to choke the Vegemite toast down. Luckily I only ate it on one piece of toast and was smart enough to save the jelly toast for the second piece. What’s it like? I really can’t describe it, other than to say it tastes like crap. Salty crap. So I can say I tried it, and I can warn each of you: Stay the hell away from it! It only proves that the Aussies here are missing out on the good things in life. Like jelly biscuits. Mmm…
After breakfast, I went out and wandered around. I spent most of Saturday walking around Mosman, Cremorne, and Neutral Bay, also known as the North Sydney suburbs. My biggest task of the day was to go get a haircut. I have been starting to look pretty shaggy. So I walked through these suburbs, and absolutely could not find a place for a haircut. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There was one place: Ménagé A Trois. Based on the things here that are legal, I think I will pass on that place!
While I was down in the other suburbs, I decided to try out a different grocery store, as I thought it would have more selection that the one by me. Let it be a lesson to me: Change is bad. Okay, not really. But all this time when I thought my grocery store had limited selection (it is really small, and I actually have to go to two stores each week – one for bread, fruits, and vegetables, and one for everything else), I can admit I was wrong. In fact, I still had to go to my regular grocery store on Sunday for some of the things I needed. Weird.
After going to the store, I finished off some chores around the house.
Which leads me into the latest episode of “Good Idea, Bad Idea.” I have had a light out above my kitchen/dining room/living room/they’re-all-the-same-room table for almost two weeks now. And without this light, the flat is pretty dark at night. So on Saturday, I decided it was time to replace the light bulb. Pretty basic thing, right? Well, under normal circumstances in which I might have access to a ladder, yes, it would be basic. But in my little world (Tony can insert a leprechaun joke now), this task was not as easy as it sounds. So in order to change the light bulb, I had to move my whatever-room table underneath the light, and climb up onto the table to reach the light fixture which is flush mounted to the 8-foot ceiling. (I’m sure it’s really in meters…) It is one of those wobbly pedestal tables. So I think you now see why this little task might be a bad idea…
Actually, I didn’t fall. I did wobble a lot, but I’m pretty quick on my feet, so it wasn’t too bad. The problem was that the light bulb had to go in a certain way, apparently. So I screwed it in, got down, turned on the light, nothing. Turned off the light, climbed back up, screwed it in again, climbed down, turned the light on, nothing. Here’s where the bad idea came into play. I left the light on, climbed up, and played with the light bulb. I think you see where I am going here, but to foreshadow a little bit, I will add a comment that the voltage here in Australia is just about double that of the US. I have already been indirectly warned that the switches on the plugs are there for a reason. (Yes, there are little switches above every plug I have seen over here. The GM of my current client was plugging something in the other day and made some crack about “I shouldn’t let the American see me doing this.”) So I climbed back up on the table with the light switch on. I’ll tell you what – it wasn’t as bad as you might think, but the sparks were kind of like little fireworks. Pretty cool!
The rest of the afternoon was just finishing up some other chores around the apartment. For dinner, I headed over to my local pub, since I hadn’t been there in a while. I figured it was a good night to go. It was the last night of the Olympics here, aside from the closing stuff on Sunday, so it would be fun to go to the pub and watch with some other people.
Now, I have had several people as me about the Olympics over here. Yes, it is kind of weird to watch and cheer for the US from here. And, I will admit that I find myself cheering for a lot of Aussies. I think it is mostly because all I get to see are the Aussies over here. In fact, I think I know more of the Aussie Olympians than the Americans. Take it for what you will. But once the swimming wrapped up here, the Olympic spirit really kind of faded. I mean, people still talk about it, but swimming really was a huge buzz for everyone here! I think I mentioned that there were emails sent out about certain swim events being shows on the TV in the office lobby. But I have not seen any emails about watching the kayaking or the track and field events. The Aussies have done pretty well in those (gold in kayaking and skull, silver in hurdles, and a gold in pole vaulting, which was the first gold medal in a field event here in 60 years), but the excitement just isn’t there any more.
My trip to the pub sort of exemplifies my ramblings. The men’s field hockey was on, and the Aussies were playing for a bronze medal. I honestly think I was the only person in the pub watching the game. It’s kind of sad, since Australia was playing really well (and ended up winning). Although I have to wonder what the pub was like on the nights of the swimming events!
Sunday was a pretty laid-back day. I decided to try out a new church this week. I am somewhat ashamed to say I have only been to church twice since I have been here. Although I think City2Surf should count as a day of worship, too. So I headed down to the Mosman Baptist Church (MBC). I really was curious what “Baptist” here meant. The sign on the outside of the church said it was an “OPEN” church: Outreach, Praise, Encouragement, Nurture. So it looked like a decent place. Plus it didn’t start until 10 – Aside from the Catholic mass, it’s the latest service in the neighborhood!
I walked in and sat down towards the back. It was a more contemporary church, with chairs, the big screen with PowerPoint going, and a “band” warming up. Actually, it was just a woman playing the keyboard and singing with another guy. There were drums, too, but no one played those. The song that the two were singing when I walked in was a contemporary praise song, so I figured out that this service was going to be pretty laid back. I found a seat and barely had time to put down my purse and take off my jacket before one of the women sitting in front of me got up, walked back, put her arm around me, and told me how nice it was for me to come visit. Okay… Thanks!
After the musicians were done warming up, the lady came back and walked through the congregation, shaking everyone’s hand and saying hello. She introduced herself (Ann), and asked me about where I was from, etc. She told me she’d catch me after the service, and then she moved on to the folks down the row from me.
As Ann walked away, a woman on the row in front of me turned around and said, “Where are you from?” I told her the US, which she knew, and she said, “Where?” I told her NC, and I started to explain to her where it was. She said, “Oh, I’ve been there! I have some friends from back in the UK who moved there, and we have been to see them a few times. I went to, uh, is it Charlotte?” I laughed and told her that was where I was from. She told me what a wonderful city it was (go Charlotte!), and how much she likes visiting there. Apparently her friends went to State and ended up in Charlotte. Small world, huh?
After talking to her, I read through the bulletin. Actually, it was more an informational thing, not really a bulletin. (The service was pretty much directed by the minister, and all the stuff you needed was up on the overhead screen.) But I figured out that Ann was the pastor’s wife. And that the church service lasted about 90 minutes. Yikes! The more interesting part was the discussion of the staff: The ministers were listed as "All Christians at MBC." The Pastor was the only true church "staff." I thought it was kind of a neat thing to have out there for everyone to see. A couple of minutes later, a guy walked into the room, and headed right towards me. (I was obviously the only visitor.) I figured out he was the preacher before he got to me. “Hi, I’m Jeff. Believe it or not, I’m the minister here.” I introduced myself, talked to him for a couple of minutes, then he walked up to the front and got the service started.
It was a pretty good service. There were only about 20 people there, but it was nice. (Again, I don’t think people around here go to church.) This congregation was younger than the other church I went to. In fact, the people on my row were about my age. They had a little girl with them. Her name was Emma, and Sunday was her second birthday. She was hilarious. She ran around like she was all hopped up on sugar babies and Mountain Dew. She was fun to watch.
The music at the service was… interesting. In some ways, it was terrible. At the same time, it was absolutely wonderful. Ann, the main singer, had a really strong voice, but she kept singing harmony. The guy who sang with her was really quiet and not sure of his notes. So it was almost impossible to follow the melody to the music. Overall, it was not the kind of music that anyone would pay money to hear. But everyone there was really trying, and really into it. So it was absolutely wonderful to hear. It actually made me really miss playing at the 9 am services at my old church back home. I guess I could associate – I know I am not a very good guitar player, but it is so great to be a part of that time of the service. So to watch these two up there was really a great thing to be a part of.
The sermon was pretty good, and after the service, I walked out the front door where I was greeted by Jeff and Ann. Ann called my by name at least three times. You could tell she was really making an effort at it, which was nice. They both talked to me about where I was from, what I was doing there, etc. Jeff asked about my church life back home, and was happy to hear that I went to church almost every week. He told me to come back and visit any time. He also told me his work and home phone numbers were in the bulletin, and he asked me to call him any time, if there was anything I needed while I was here. Nice people. Before I could think about it, I told him I was sure I would be back next week. Now, I was thinking about visiting a couple of other churches while I am here. But I guess I will have to wait another week before I can go somewhere else. Since Jeff’s sermon was about Christian hypocrisy, and about standing up for what you believe and being true to your word, I think I should go back, since I promised. Besides, I am not one to say something and then go back on it, anyway. So I will have to wait a couple of weeks to go to the Catholic church where I plan to take communion and then run out screaming, “IT BURNS! IT BURNS!” I’m kidding!
I was pretty tired after church, and decided to stay in for the day. I had thought about doing the walk up to Manly Beach (one of the more famous ones around here). But it is a 10-K walk out (about 6 miles), then I'd have to walk back, and it was a little cold out. So I decided that I will wait for that little adventure until next week. Besides, I wanted to watch the final Olympic events, since Sunday was the last day for it.
Interesting enough, I was watching the men’s gold medal basketball game in the afternoon. With about nine minutes to go, in the middle of this close game, an announcement came over to announce that Eastern Australia would be cutting away for the news. What? Seriously? Yep, sure enough, they cut away to the news broadcast, promising to show the end of the game when the news was over. 30 minutes later, the coverage went back to the Olympics, and the game was over. So instead of showing the last nine minutes (which obviously would have been less than a 30-minute thing), they showed a five minute quick-and-dirty highlight reel of the last nine minutes of the game. Insane.
Sunday night was the closing ceremony of the Olympics. I am going to wait to talk about that one in the next blog post. This one is getting too long, and it is getting late! I need to go to bed so I can get seven hours in tonight!
So goodnight to you all, and I will be back tomorrow with some good stories, I promise!
After breakfast, I went out and wandered around. I spent most of Saturday walking around Mosman, Cremorne, and Neutral Bay, also known as the North Sydney suburbs. My biggest task of the day was to go get a haircut. I have been starting to look pretty shaggy. So I walked through these suburbs, and absolutely could not find a place for a haircut. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There was one place: Ménagé A Trois. Based on the things here that are legal, I think I will pass on that place!
While I was down in the other suburbs, I decided to try out a different grocery store, as I thought it would have more selection that the one by me. Let it be a lesson to me: Change is bad. Okay, not really. But all this time when I thought my grocery store had limited selection (it is really small, and I actually have to go to two stores each week – one for bread, fruits, and vegetables, and one for everything else), I can admit I was wrong. In fact, I still had to go to my regular grocery store on Sunday for some of the things I needed. Weird.
After going to the store, I finished off some chores around the house.
Which leads me into the latest episode of “Good Idea, Bad Idea.” I have had a light out above my kitchen/dining room/living room/they’re-all-the-same-room table for almost two weeks now. And without this light, the flat is pretty dark at night. So on Saturday, I decided it was time to replace the light bulb. Pretty basic thing, right? Well, under normal circumstances in which I might have access to a ladder, yes, it would be basic. But in my little world (Tony can insert a leprechaun joke now), this task was not as easy as it sounds. So in order to change the light bulb, I had to move my whatever-room table underneath the light, and climb up onto the table to reach the light fixture which is flush mounted to the 8-foot ceiling. (I’m sure it’s really in meters…) It is one of those wobbly pedestal tables. So I think you now see why this little task might be a bad idea…
Actually, I didn’t fall. I did wobble a lot, but I’m pretty quick on my feet, so it wasn’t too bad. The problem was that the light bulb had to go in a certain way, apparently. So I screwed it in, got down, turned on the light, nothing. Turned off the light, climbed back up, screwed it in again, climbed down, turned the light on, nothing. Here’s where the bad idea came into play. I left the light on, climbed up, and played with the light bulb. I think you see where I am going here, but to foreshadow a little bit, I will add a comment that the voltage here in Australia is just about double that of the US. I have already been indirectly warned that the switches on the plugs are there for a reason. (Yes, there are little switches above every plug I have seen over here. The GM of my current client was plugging something in the other day and made some crack about “I shouldn’t let the American see me doing this.”) So I climbed back up on the table with the light switch on. I’ll tell you what – it wasn’t as bad as you might think, but the sparks were kind of like little fireworks. Pretty cool!
The rest of the afternoon was just finishing up some other chores around the apartment. For dinner, I headed over to my local pub, since I hadn’t been there in a while. I figured it was a good night to go. It was the last night of the Olympics here, aside from the closing stuff on Sunday, so it would be fun to go to the pub and watch with some other people.
Now, I have had several people as me about the Olympics over here. Yes, it is kind of weird to watch and cheer for the US from here. And, I will admit that I find myself cheering for a lot of Aussies. I think it is mostly because all I get to see are the Aussies over here. In fact, I think I know more of the Aussie Olympians than the Americans. Take it for what you will. But once the swimming wrapped up here, the Olympic spirit really kind of faded. I mean, people still talk about it, but swimming really was a huge buzz for everyone here! I think I mentioned that there were emails sent out about certain swim events being shows on the TV in the office lobby. But I have not seen any emails about watching the kayaking or the track and field events. The Aussies have done pretty well in those (gold in kayaking and skull, silver in hurdles, and a gold in pole vaulting, which was the first gold medal in a field event here in 60 years), but the excitement just isn’t there any more.
My trip to the pub sort of exemplifies my ramblings. The men’s field hockey was on, and the Aussies were playing for a bronze medal. I honestly think I was the only person in the pub watching the game. It’s kind of sad, since Australia was playing really well (and ended up winning). Although I have to wonder what the pub was like on the nights of the swimming events!
Sunday was a pretty laid-back day. I decided to try out a new church this week. I am somewhat ashamed to say I have only been to church twice since I have been here. Although I think City2Surf should count as a day of worship, too. So I headed down to the Mosman Baptist Church (MBC). I really was curious what “Baptist” here meant. The sign on the outside of the church said it was an “OPEN” church: Outreach, Praise, Encouragement, Nurture. So it looked like a decent place. Plus it didn’t start until 10 – Aside from the Catholic mass, it’s the latest service in the neighborhood!
I walked in and sat down towards the back. It was a more contemporary church, with chairs, the big screen with PowerPoint going, and a “band” warming up. Actually, it was just a woman playing the keyboard and singing with another guy. There were drums, too, but no one played those. The song that the two were singing when I walked in was a contemporary praise song, so I figured out that this service was going to be pretty laid back. I found a seat and barely had time to put down my purse and take off my jacket before one of the women sitting in front of me got up, walked back, put her arm around me, and told me how nice it was for me to come visit. Okay… Thanks!
After the musicians were done warming up, the lady came back and walked through the congregation, shaking everyone’s hand and saying hello. She introduced herself (Ann), and asked me about where I was from, etc. She told me she’d catch me after the service, and then she moved on to the folks down the row from me.
As Ann walked away, a woman on the row in front of me turned around and said, “Where are you from?” I told her the US, which she knew, and she said, “Where?” I told her NC, and I started to explain to her where it was. She said, “Oh, I’ve been there! I have some friends from back in the UK who moved there, and we have been to see them a few times. I went to, uh, is it Charlotte?” I laughed and told her that was where I was from. She told me what a wonderful city it was (go Charlotte!), and how much she likes visiting there. Apparently her friends went to State and ended up in Charlotte. Small world, huh?
After talking to her, I read through the bulletin. Actually, it was more an informational thing, not really a bulletin. (The service was pretty much directed by the minister, and all the stuff you needed was up on the overhead screen.) But I figured out that Ann was the pastor’s wife. And that the church service lasted about 90 minutes. Yikes! The more interesting part was the discussion of the staff: The ministers were listed as "All Christians at MBC." The Pastor was the only true church "staff." I thought it was kind of a neat thing to have out there for everyone to see. A couple of minutes later, a guy walked into the room, and headed right towards me. (I was obviously the only visitor.) I figured out he was the preacher before he got to me. “Hi, I’m Jeff. Believe it or not, I’m the minister here.” I introduced myself, talked to him for a couple of minutes, then he walked up to the front and got the service started.
It was a pretty good service. There were only about 20 people there, but it was nice. (Again, I don’t think people around here go to church.) This congregation was younger than the other church I went to. In fact, the people on my row were about my age. They had a little girl with them. Her name was Emma, and Sunday was her second birthday. She was hilarious. She ran around like she was all hopped up on sugar babies and Mountain Dew. She was fun to watch.
The music at the service was… interesting. In some ways, it was terrible. At the same time, it was absolutely wonderful. Ann, the main singer, had a really strong voice, but she kept singing harmony. The guy who sang with her was really quiet and not sure of his notes. So it was almost impossible to follow the melody to the music. Overall, it was not the kind of music that anyone would pay money to hear. But everyone there was really trying, and really into it. So it was absolutely wonderful to hear. It actually made me really miss playing at the 9 am services at my old church back home. I guess I could associate – I know I am not a very good guitar player, but it is so great to be a part of that time of the service. So to watch these two up there was really a great thing to be a part of.
The sermon was pretty good, and after the service, I walked out the front door where I was greeted by Jeff and Ann. Ann called my by name at least three times. You could tell she was really making an effort at it, which was nice. They both talked to me about where I was from, what I was doing there, etc. Jeff asked about my church life back home, and was happy to hear that I went to church almost every week. He told me to come back and visit any time. He also told me his work and home phone numbers were in the bulletin, and he asked me to call him any time, if there was anything I needed while I was here. Nice people. Before I could think about it, I told him I was sure I would be back next week. Now, I was thinking about visiting a couple of other churches while I am here. But I guess I will have to wait another week before I can go somewhere else. Since Jeff’s sermon was about Christian hypocrisy, and about standing up for what you believe and being true to your word, I think I should go back, since I promised. Besides, I am not one to say something and then go back on it, anyway. So I will have to wait a couple of weeks to go to the Catholic church where I plan to take communion and then run out screaming, “IT BURNS! IT BURNS!” I’m kidding!
I was pretty tired after church, and decided to stay in for the day. I had thought about doing the walk up to Manly Beach (one of the more famous ones around here). But it is a 10-K walk out (about 6 miles), then I'd have to walk back, and it was a little cold out. So I decided that I will wait for that little adventure until next week. Besides, I wanted to watch the final Olympic events, since Sunday was the last day for it.
Interesting enough, I was watching the men’s gold medal basketball game in the afternoon. With about nine minutes to go, in the middle of this close game, an announcement came over to announce that Eastern Australia would be cutting away for the news. What? Seriously? Yep, sure enough, they cut away to the news broadcast, promising to show the end of the game when the news was over. 30 minutes later, the coverage went back to the Olympics, and the game was over. So instead of showing the last nine minutes (which obviously would have been less than a 30-minute thing), they showed a five minute quick-and-dirty highlight reel of the last nine minutes of the game. Insane.
Sunday night was the closing ceremony of the Olympics. I am going to wait to talk about that one in the next blog post. This one is getting too long, and it is getting late! I need to go to bed so I can get seven hours in tonight!
So goodnight to you all, and I will be back tomorrow with some good stories, I promise!
Friday, August 22, 2008
9 Down, 5 To Go!
Holy crap, what a fast week! I apologize to everyone who was looking for more posts this week. I honestly just could not find the time to type up anything for you guys! But I did keep a running list of stories, so hopefully I can give everyone a quick update on the events of week #9.
So without further delay, here’s the story of my week: I worked. A lot.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But work really is why I didn’t have time to post anything for you guys this week. Even though my current client kicks us out at 4.30 every day, it has been a busy week. Now, let me explain something first. I say we get kicked out at 4.30, but we still put in a full day, before you guys start giving my crap for my "slack" workdays. We get in as early as possible in the morning (8.15, since no one from the client really gets in the office before that time). We work through lunch. So we still put in almost 8.5 hours every day. From what I understand, that’s about what busy season is supposed to be like here.
Of course, my days have been more like 10-11 hours. I have been going into the office to work on my other client, in an attempt to get that audit completely signed off by the end of next week. The guy who is the main manager on the other job has been giving me a hard time about coming in and working “second shift.” But they don’t require Saturday workdays here for busy season, so in some ways, busy season here feels a lot like my regular work schedule back home. Of course, I was starting to get used to the 7.5-hour days! HA! But the work load is not too bad. It’s just that after working until 8.30 and then having a 45-minute commute home and having to cook dinner, well, I just haven’t had time to deal with the blog!
So other than work, not too much has happened this week. I do have some random stories for you guys:
On Tuesday, I was walking from the train station to the office (second shift). I had my iPod on, but I heard this weird sound coming up the road behind me. Then there was a weird smell. I figured out that the smell was like a lawnmower. Sure enough, this guy came blowing past me on his bicycle. The sound and smell were coming from the bike. This guy had a regular old bicycle, but he had put what I think was a lawnmower engine on the bike. I’m not sure why. I mean, he was riding on the sidewalk, so it’s not like he was going all that fast. But it was pretty funny to see the little cloud of smoke following him on his bike!
Wednesday was a little more interesting. Well, to me it was not so much interesting. The day started off really crappy. But things got better, so whatever. I got up, took a shower, and was getting ready when I had a phone call from Sally. Nothing big, and I was glad she called to say hello and ask me a couple of questions. But I was running a little late, and was scrambling to get out the door on time to make the bus. I have a habit as I am leaving to check my purse and make sure I have both my keys and my bus/train pass. The transit pass was there, but I could not find my keys. I dug through my purse three times. I looked in every place in the apartment when I might have set them down. (Because there are so many places in my apartment where these keys could be!)
As a note, I knew I had them somewhere in the flat, because I was inside. I mean, I had to have my keys to get in the night before. I checked the door to make sure I pulled them out of the lock when I got home. Not there. Still not in my purse (I checked two more times.) Nope, they were gone. So, in utter disgrace, I called the apartment management service to see what I needed to do to get a replacement set.
Now, to add to my bad mood for the morning, I picked up the phone to call, and I couldn’t get the phone to dial out. My apartment phone is still not working after a week of dealing with this crap. I can get income calls, but I cannot make outgoing calls. Yet another thing to add to my list of crap to deal with later this week. So I grab my mobile and call the apartment service, who then tells me that I have to call the apartment manager. I am picturing Schneider from One Day At A Time (I might have just dated myself there), but this guy is really just the one who deals with all the complaints and problems. I called and left him a message that I had lost my keys, and asked him to call me back. Then I picked up my stuff and started to walk out the door. I really didn’t want to lock the door behind me, so I decided I would do one more quick check. Sure enough, I found the damn keys tucked into my computer bag. I have no idea why I put them there. It was a pocket where I only keep my access card for the office, but at least I found them! I started to call the apartment manager back and tell him to ignore the message, but decided to wait until I got to work. But he actually called me right then, so it worked out okay. I think he was laughing at me, but whatever. I had my keys!
Of course, I was now running way behind for work, and I have the key to get into the conference room where we are sitting. Oh, and I don’t have the number for the staff I am working with or the client. Oops. But I got there, and the receptionist had let them into the room, so it all worked out okay. And I was only about 20 minutes late, so it could have been a lot worse! The rest of Wednesday went a lot better… Although I had an interesting ride home. The bus was packed at 8.40. I don’t know why; I think the people in the back just weren’t standing very close to one another. But there were three of us crowded around the driver in the front. I was standing and had nothing to hold on to. The poor lady beside me was holding on to the window frame. And the lady on the other side was trying not to swing around and run into the door. So I stood there and just tried to balance, while holding onto my computer bag. At one point, I was thinking that there was a good chance, the way the guy was driving, that I could tip over into the lady standing on the other side of the aisle. Sure enough, the bus driver takes a sharp curve, and off I go. Luckily, I had thought through it ahead of time, and managed to catch myself on a bar next to this lady to keep from falling over on her. She smiled at me, and the lady by the door laughed. I think she was worried about swinging into the door and flying out, based on how tightly she was holding onto the bar! I get the feeling the driver was trying to turn as hard as possible just to see if he could get someone to fall over… I mean, if I were driving the bus, that’s what I would do!
Thursday was pretty much the same – just work. One of the guys working with me was giving us a hard time. He is still in school part-time. The office over here has some sweet deal for Uni students. Apparently you get to leave in time to make your evening classes. But you also get 4 hours off each week to study. So this guy got to leave at 1.00 for the day! I told him I was going to try to take a class at one of the local schools, just so I could get that kind of deal! I think I could talk them into it. Take some sort of car maintenance class, and tell them that it will save them money later, because I won’t have to take any time away from work to deal with car service repairs. Hmm…
After job #1, I headed into the office. The train was pretty packed, and people kept bumping into each other. When I got to the office, I put my bag down, and realized that one of the pockets on my bag was open. Crap! I was carrying my camera around so that I could upload some photos while I was in the office! (No, I did not get them uploaded, yet.) Now, it ended up that nothing was missing, and I think I accidentally left it open from when I pulled my lunch out earlier that day. But I have to say that today was the first time I had really even thought about the threat of having something stolen. I have felt perfectly safe while I have been over here, and there have been no threats of people picking pockets or anything like that. So while it was a quick search to make sure I had everything, it was also a nice reminder that Sydney really is a pretty safe place!
I wrapped up my work on client #2 and headed home. I decided to walk to the bus station, instead of taking the train over, just so I could get some exercise in, since it is not too far of a walk. (Not only have I been unable to write any blog posts this week, but my attempts at exercise have suffered, as well.) On the way to the bus, I hit a milestone. I got to the end of my iPod. I have officially listened to every one of the songs, at least once. Kind of scary that in just over a month, I can blow through that many songs during my travel time!
But today is finally Friday. And, of course, it is a bit colder and is raining. And, since I was going to go walk around tomorrow on a new little adventure for you guys, the rain is supposed to continue tomorrow. I guess my trek will have to wait until Sunday, and tomorrow will be errand and cleaning day. Yippee! I took it as a bad sign this morning when I hit the snooze button on my alarm, and the alarm did not go back off. Then I got off of the bus to catch the train, turned and looked back at the bus, and figured out that it went all the way to Central station, so I should have just stayed on. (I get on a different bus to the city pretty much every day, depending on which one shows up at my bus stop first.) Oh well. At least the train breaks the trip up a little. Plus it gave me a chance to see Daffodil Day in action. Daffodil Day is some national thing. There are volunteers in yellow and blue everywhere (mostly teens) who are selling little trinkets in exchange for a donation. The money goes to some sort of cancer research group. Of course, I didn’t know about this stuff until I got into work and asked. Plus there were emails about it going around the office. But it was interesting to see all the people putting down money to buy some cheap little teddy bear or flowers or a football. At least it all goes to a good cause, even though the sales tables took up a ton of room in every public transport station!After work at job #1, I headed back into the city, but did not have to go into the office for job #2. (Hooray!) So I decided to take advantage of the early evening, and I walked around the city a little bit. It was kind of scary to see how much I am getting to know the downtown area. I walked from Town Hall to Circular Quay, and saw some new places of the city. It was a nice walk, and a good end to my week. The ferry ride was pretty smooth, and it was a perfect time of day to be out on the water, just as the sun was setting. Wow… I only have 5 weeks of this commute left!
So without further delay, here’s the story of my week: I worked. A lot.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But work really is why I didn’t have time to post anything for you guys this week. Even though my current client kicks us out at 4.30 every day, it has been a busy week. Now, let me explain something first. I say we get kicked out at 4.30, but we still put in a full day, before you guys start giving my crap for my "slack" workdays. We get in as early as possible in the morning (8.15, since no one from the client really gets in the office before that time). We work through lunch. So we still put in almost 8.5 hours every day. From what I understand, that’s about what busy season is supposed to be like here.
Of course, my days have been more like 10-11 hours. I have been going into the office to work on my other client, in an attempt to get that audit completely signed off by the end of next week. The guy who is the main manager on the other job has been giving me a hard time about coming in and working “second shift.” But they don’t require Saturday workdays here for busy season, so in some ways, busy season here feels a lot like my regular work schedule back home. Of course, I was starting to get used to the 7.5-hour days! HA! But the work load is not too bad. It’s just that after working until 8.30 and then having a 45-minute commute home and having to cook dinner, well, I just haven’t had time to deal with the blog!
So other than work, not too much has happened this week. I do have some random stories for you guys:
On Tuesday, I was walking from the train station to the office (second shift). I had my iPod on, but I heard this weird sound coming up the road behind me. Then there was a weird smell. I figured out that the smell was like a lawnmower. Sure enough, this guy came blowing past me on his bicycle. The sound and smell were coming from the bike. This guy had a regular old bicycle, but he had put what I think was a lawnmower engine on the bike. I’m not sure why. I mean, he was riding on the sidewalk, so it’s not like he was going all that fast. But it was pretty funny to see the little cloud of smoke following him on his bike!
Wednesday was a little more interesting. Well, to me it was not so much interesting. The day started off really crappy. But things got better, so whatever. I got up, took a shower, and was getting ready when I had a phone call from Sally. Nothing big, and I was glad she called to say hello and ask me a couple of questions. But I was running a little late, and was scrambling to get out the door on time to make the bus. I have a habit as I am leaving to check my purse and make sure I have both my keys and my bus/train pass. The transit pass was there, but I could not find my keys. I dug through my purse three times. I looked in every place in the apartment when I might have set them down. (Because there are so many places in my apartment where these keys could be!)
As a note, I knew I had them somewhere in the flat, because I was inside. I mean, I had to have my keys to get in the night before. I checked the door to make sure I pulled them out of the lock when I got home. Not there. Still not in my purse (I checked two more times.) Nope, they were gone. So, in utter disgrace, I called the apartment management service to see what I needed to do to get a replacement set.
Now, to add to my bad mood for the morning, I picked up the phone to call, and I couldn’t get the phone to dial out. My apartment phone is still not working after a week of dealing with this crap. I can get income calls, but I cannot make outgoing calls. Yet another thing to add to my list of crap to deal with later this week. So I grab my mobile and call the apartment service, who then tells me that I have to call the apartment manager. I am picturing Schneider from One Day At A Time (I might have just dated myself there), but this guy is really just the one who deals with all the complaints and problems. I called and left him a message that I had lost my keys, and asked him to call me back. Then I picked up my stuff and started to walk out the door. I really didn’t want to lock the door behind me, so I decided I would do one more quick check. Sure enough, I found the damn keys tucked into my computer bag. I have no idea why I put them there. It was a pocket where I only keep my access card for the office, but at least I found them! I started to call the apartment manager back and tell him to ignore the message, but decided to wait until I got to work. But he actually called me right then, so it worked out okay. I think he was laughing at me, but whatever. I had my keys!
Of course, I was now running way behind for work, and I have the key to get into the conference room where we are sitting. Oh, and I don’t have the number for the staff I am working with or the client. Oops. But I got there, and the receptionist had let them into the room, so it all worked out okay. And I was only about 20 minutes late, so it could have been a lot worse! The rest of Wednesday went a lot better… Although I had an interesting ride home. The bus was packed at 8.40. I don’t know why; I think the people in the back just weren’t standing very close to one another. But there were three of us crowded around the driver in the front. I was standing and had nothing to hold on to. The poor lady beside me was holding on to the window frame. And the lady on the other side was trying not to swing around and run into the door. So I stood there and just tried to balance, while holding onto my computer bag. At one point, I was thinking that there was a good chance, the way the guy was driving, that I could tip over into the lady standing on the other side of the aisle. Sure enough, the bus driver takes a sharp curve, and off I go. Luckily, I had thought through it ahead of time, and managed to catch myself on a bar next to this lady to keep from falling over on her. She smiled at me, and the lady by the door laughed. I think she was worried about swinging into the door and flying out, based on how tightly she was holding onto the bar! I get the feeling the driver was trying to turn as hard as possible just to see if he could get someone to fall over… I mean, if I were driving the bus, that’s what I would do!
Thursday was pretty much the same – just work. One of the guys working with me was giving us a hard time. He is still in school part-time. The office over here has some sweet deal for Uni students. Apparently you get to leave in time to make your evening classes. But you also get 4 hours off each week to study. So this guy got to leave at 1.00 for the day! I told him I was going to try to take a class at one of the local schools, just so I could get that kind of deal! I think I could talk them into it. Take some sort of car maintenance class, and tell them that it will save them money later, because I won’t have to take any time away from work to deal with car service repairs. Hmm…
After job #1, I headed into the office. The train was pretty packed, and people kept bumping into each other. When I got to the office, I put my bag down, and realized that one of the pockets on my bag was open. Crap! I was carrying my camera around so that I could upload some photos while I was in the office! (No, I did not get them uploaded, yet.) Now, it ended up that nothing was missing, and I think I accidentally left it open from when I pulled my lunch out earlier that day. But I have to say that today was the first time I had really even thought about the threat of having something stolen. I have felt perfectly safe while I have been over here, and there have been no threats of people picking pockets or anything like that. So while it was a quick search to make sure I had everything, it was also a nice reminder that Sydney really is a pretty safe place!
I wrapped up my work on client #2 and headed home. I decided to walk to the bus station, instead of taking the train over, just so I could get some exercise in, since it is not too far of a walk. (Not only have I been unable to write any blog posts this week, but my attempts at exercise have suffered, as well.) On the way to the bus, I hit a milestone. I got to the end of my iPod. I have officially listened to every one of the songs, at least once. Kind of scary that in just over a month, I can blow through that many songs during my travel time!
But today is finally Friday. And, of course, it is a bit colder and is raining. And, since I was going to go walk around tomorrow on a new little adventure for you guys, the rain is supposed to continue tomorrow. I guess my trek will have to wait until Sunday, and tomorrow will be errand and cleaning day. Yippee! I took it as a bad sign this morning when I hit the snooze button on my alarm, and the alarm did not go back off. Then I got off of the bus to catch the train, turned and looked back at the bus, and figured out that it went all the way to Central station, so I should have just stayed on. (I get on a different bus to the city pretty much every day, depending on which one shows up at my bus stop first.) Oh well. At least the train breaks the trip up a little. Plus it gave me a chance to see Daffodil Day in action. Daffodil Day is some national thing. There are volunteers in yellow and blue everywhere (mostly teens) who are selling little trinkets in exchange for a donation. The money goes to some sort of cancer research group. Of course, I didn’t know about this stuff until I got into work and asked. Plus there were emails about it going around the office. But it was interesting to see all the people putting down money to buy some cheap little teddy bear or flowers or a football. At least it all goes to a good cause, even though the sales tables took up a ton of room in every public transport station!After work at job #1, I headed back into the city, but did not have to go into the office for job #2. (Hooray!) So I decided to take advantage of the early evening, and I walked around the city a little bit. It was kind of scary to see how much I am getting to know the downtown area. I walked from Town Hall to Circular Quay, and saw some new places of the city. It was a nice walk, and a good end to my week. The ferry ride was pretty smooth, and it was a perfect time of day to be out on the water, just as the sun was setting. Wow… I only have 5 weeks of this commute left!
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