In case you missed it, Australia elected a new prime minister a few weeks back.

The election was, to us new citizens, fascinating. Australia uses instant runoff voting, which essentially means that we had to rank all the candidates from one to sixty-eight. Each candidate was listed in a column under their party's name, and there are lots and lots of parties, so it was a very long sheet. They have some interesting parties, too:

Senator On-line

Shooters Party

Citizens Electoral Council

One Nation

The Fishing Party

Conservatives for Climate and Environment

There were so many we had to take a cheat sheet in. But I think it's a great system; if your first choice doesn't get a majority of the votes, your vote goes to your second, then your third, etc., so that it's actually possible to vote for alternate parties without "throwing away" your vote. The whole world needs to adopt this.

The other great thing about the election was that it was announced, and then held just a month and a half later. America is killing itself with its year-long (plus) multi-billion dollar debacle that leaves the candidates all covered with mud and everyone feeling acrimonious.

Another quiet Christmas but it was nice. The day consisted of opening presents, champers, snacks, and a nap.

We also caught part of the Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire movie Holiday Inn. A happy little holiday romp, until -- Bing comes out in blackface. He starts singing a song about Abraham Lincoln. Cut to the band, all in blackface. Cut to large black maid singing, "When black folks lived in slavery/Who was it set the darkie free? Abrahaaaaam..." Enter the female lead, dressed as a pickaninny. Cut to Marjorie and Mark, sitting out the couch with our mouths agape. How the times have changed. They apparently edit this part out when they show this movie in the States. They sell golliwogs in a shop up the street here, so I'm not surprised we see it unedited.

The Summer of Mark. By a bit of bad luck I'm going to have two weeks off over the holidays.

I say "bad luck" because I wanted to work so as not to go into the negative on vacation days when we go back to the States in a few months. But there's just no work in my office to justify it.

Marjorie has to work, though. So I've been coming up with a plan for how to spend my time. The plan includes:

Bringing my techie website back on line

Updating my CV

Finishing up some personal programming projects

Tracking down some books for a certain relative

Sorting out our various frequent flier miles

Starting some kind of exercise program

Keep studying my Spanish

There's a distinct danger, though, that it might end up like:

Sleeping until noon, then surfing the internet all day in my underwear

Stumbling towards Christmas we are. Marjorie's parents just left, after a big long crazy visit involving planes, trains, more trains, helicopters, more helicopters, and automobiles. The only excursion I took with them for was the Puffing Billy one, which was a disappointment for all of us Americans who are used to at least some animatronics with their tourist traps. Anyway, my father-in-law Rob spent lots of time writing up a great account of their adventures, and hopefully I can convince him to start a blog instead of emailing it around.

Christmas, though, will be a quiet one again for us this year, but that's okay. We do sometimes pine for the good proper cold-weather, never-ending consumerist nightmare that is Christmas in America but I think in the end it's just the family part that we miss.

What a long strange trip it's been. Right this moment marks almost exactly five years since we got on the plane and left the States behind. At the time we had no idea whether we would be gone for six months, or forever. The plan was originally for five years, I think, but now we've reached that and still only have tentative plans to move back to the States in a year or two. Or sooner, or later. To some as yet unidentified city. Or to Europe. Who knows.

It's funny how fast the romantic notions of living overseas got replaced by the day-to-day reality. But it's still not an experience I would have traded for the world.

Hooray for Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. Shared it with the in-laws this year, which means nicer company but fewer leftovers. That's okay, they're heading off tomorrow on their big Australian adventure before the turkey carcass got picked fully clean...

By my mother-in-law's request, here's the story of my trip to South Africa from 2001(?). You can read this same text, but with pictures, on the Virtual Tourist website.


My decision to go to South Africa came about while sitting in an East Atlanta restaurant, The Heaping Bowl and Brew. This restaurant features a giant map across one wall; we were seated directly under Africa. Gazing at the map, I thought about what an interesting place South Africa always seemed to me; I remembered wondering about it at a young age, looking through my parents’ atlas. Not only was it on the other side of the world, it was the southernmost place in Africa, and entirely contained two other whole countries (Lesotho and Swaziland). Then, through the 1980’s, I would hear about it on the news all the time, in reports about the breakup of apartheid. When I did some research and discovered how scenic and beautiful it was as well, my mind was made up.

When Americans think of Africa, they tend to think of safaris and big game. And while South Africa has several safari parks, to be honest, this sort of thing didn’t really interest me too much. I have seen enough elephants and tigers in zoos. I know it’s another thing altogether to witness them in the wild, but I’ll save that for a trip to the Serengeti someday.

The fact that English is widely spoken there made my decision to go by myself much easier; I didn’t want to be all alone in a place where I couldn’t communicate well. And thanks to a friend’s recommendation of a travel web site, I was able to find a (relatively) cheap ticket down there.

My trip down involved a layover in London, which I could extend as long as I liked. Since I had never been there, I decided to spend a couple of days. I latched onto the city quite well; I could easily see moving there someday. Did a lot of shopping, sightseeing, and pub hopping.

My South Africa trip was everything I was hoping it would be and more. I can highly recommend it as a travel destination; while it may cost a bit to get there, I estimate I saved $100 per day over what I would have spent for similar experiences in Europe, thanks to the strong dollar. In the future, I’m going to remember to factor in the day-to-day costs when considering a place that may be expensive to fly to.

Coming home, I resolved to make a trip by myself somewhere every year (next year I’m thinking Greenland by way of Iceland). Travel, it’s said, doesn’t cure wanderlust; it only makes it worse. I have it in a bad way now.

I love going places where every tree, every plant, every car, rock, bird, or insect is just a little bit different than you’re used to. I love hearing young kids speak another language, and stupidly thinking for a moment, “Wow, that kid’s a genius; I could only speak English at that age!” I love spending the Monopoly money that foreign currency seems to be. I love seeing people work a mundane job in a distant part of the world and wondering what their everyday life must be like. I love telling people about where I’m from, and seeing how it differs from their perceptions. I love finding out how my perceptions about a place were wrong. I love visiting a famous place, and having your mind go “I’m here! I’m really here!” And I love having a real memory to associate with a place, when you hear about it later in conversation or in the news.

As it turns out, I recently had an opportunity to experience this last thing in a particularly poignant way. Last week, a terrorist bomb exploded in a pizzeria that was practically adjacent to the Bay Hotel I had stayed at in Camps Bay. I don’t let these sorts of things bother me, though; the odds are much, much greater that you’ll die in a car crash on the way to the airport than as a victim of a terrorist incident. Not that it ever hurts to be aware of your surroundings and keep your wits about you.

Lastly, I have to mention this. I had long heard that toilets that flush counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere actually flush clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, due to the centrifugal force of the Earth spinning. Then I heard that this was a bunch of malarkey. So I had resolved to test this out while I was visiting. Unfortunately, I got so wrapped up in things, that during the nine days I was there, I never once remembered to check. So it will have to remain a mystery.

Arrival

I managed to sleep most of the way from London to Cape Town, passing over the equator for my first time some time in the middle of the night. I awoke as we were about to land, dipping out of the clouds to a magnificent view of the jagged coastline.

One of the delights of travel for me is the delicious nervousness of arrival in a new culture. Customs seemed a blur for me in my excited state.

The thing I was most nervous about for this trip was the driving. Public transit isn't very much of an option in South Africa; any guidebook you read will tell you to rent a car. What’s scary is that they drive on the other side of the road there, and all the cars have a stick shift that you must operate with your left hand.

After practicing in the parking lot for ten minutes or so I felt I was ready to hit the road. It didn't really seem all that hard. I drilled it into my brain that I must just continually keep to the left. And after a nervous encounter with a traffic circle in my first few minutes on the road, things went just fine. Only once during my whole trip there did I find myself going the wrong way, and that was in a relatively tame parking lot situation. My biggest problem was that I kept getting into the passenger side of my rental car. The standard procedure was to sit down, momentarily wonder what happened to the steering wheel, realize what an idiot I am, and then sheepishly pretend I was just getting into the passenger side to retrieve some small article or other. I must've done this a dozen times.

The only really peculiar driving habit there I noticed was that you are expected to pull over onto the shoulder to let faster cars pass you. Everywhere the roads had wide, clean berms for just this purpose.

Parking in Cape Town was something I wished the guidebooks had warned me about. The way it works is this. Every block has a single meter box for all its parking spots. However, you don't put money into it yourself; you give your money to one of the seedy looking characters that hangs out there and helps you park. He will put money in the meter box for you, but only if the parking ticketers come around. If not, he pockets the money. It seems like a racket, but it's really not a bad system. You pay as much as you would normally, and sometimes you can park in a spot for a lot longer than you're really allowed to.

Of course, I knew none of this pulling into Cape Town on my first day. I gave the guy not nearly enough money and got some dirty looks. Fortunately the hotel owner explained the drill to me and I went out and moved my car. (My male ego requires that I mention that I'm a good parallel parker even on the opposite side of the street.)

I can't really recommend staying in town, especially if you're planning to go out or return at night. There were some very nervous moments walking down the street; the guys hanging out on most street corners would not leave you alone. Everywhere else I stayed seemed much safer.

First Day

I was worried that, because I was visiting during their rainy season, I would not get a clear day to visit South Africa's main tourist destination, Table Mountain, but the first day I awoke to bright, clear skies (as I did nearly every day, as it turned out). Table Mountain is the rocky plateau that looms over Cape Town like a wave about to break. The way to the top is by an astounding cable car ride. Atop there are pleasant walking trails, magnificent views, and interesting wildlife.

Also on top there is a small business set up to allow adventure seekers to "abseil" (rappel) down the mountain. They claimed to be the highest public abseil operation in the world. I scoffed internally at the idea at first, but then I got to thinking. I was here for the adventure. Could I convince myself to go? I sat a while and thought about it. Well, I probably didn't have enough money on me to do it. I went and checked, and it only cost about $30; I did have enough on me, and probably would never find a cheaper place to do it. But, they didn't seem to have a photographic operation set up. Why do it if I couldn't even prove that I did it to the folks back home? No problem, the man assured me. We can take a picture with your camera and give it back to you when you walk back up. I went and thought some more. Finally I went back and asked the guy, "Um, are these shoes okay for this?"

"Yes, they're perfectly fine."

"Rats. That was my last excuse."

I think I was pretty green as he was explaining the procedure to me; he had to repeat some questions to me. I willed myself over the edge and began working my way down. I soon realized I was in danger of hyperventilating so I had to really concentrate on breathing steadily. I worked my way down about a hundred feet or so, then abruptly ran out of wall. The remaining 200+ feet were a straight drop, as the wall bends in from there on down. The instructor had warned me about this, I think, but it didn't really register at the time. I sat there a minute or two just trying to will myself to continue down without anything for my feet to push against. Finally I began inching down. The part that makes it even more fun is that you aren't allowed to grab hold of the rope above you with your free hand, as it gets too hot. About halfway down, I swung around to where I could see my tiny shadow against the massive cliff face. I considered the fact that I was half a world a way from anyone whose name I even knew, dangling like a fool off a massive chunk of rock. That was the most alone I'd ever felt or probably ever will. But it was an amazing experience.

Wine Country

After Cape Town I headed inland toward the wine country town of Stellenbosch. As this is also a university town, I figured it would also be a good place to try to meet up with some locals out at the bars at night.

I did an excellent wine tasting at a local winery and enjoyed the surrounding scenery, venturing into the charming nearby town of Franschoek. That night I tried out a few local bars, and finally found myself in a cozy little wood-framed tavern known as Der Acker, a hangout for the post-college crowd. I struck up a conversation with a regular, who introduced me to the bartenders, who introduced me to more people... Soon I found myself sitting in a booth with ten people, chatting about next to everything. They taught me my only phrase of Afrikaans that I picked up (and I’m going to mangle the spelling of it here): “Kann ech anochre bier krey asseblief” (“Can I have another beer please?”). One of my new friends kept trying to lubricate the conversation with rounds of shots of grapefruit schnapps. As the night wore on everyone was rolling their eyes as new rounds appeared, but as I was warned, this was a heavy drinking town in a heavy drinking country, and no one refused their shot. I'm pretty sure I had a really good time.

Cape Agulhas

My next destination was the southernmost point of Africa, Cape Agulhas (not the Cape of Good Hope as is often claimed). I had been advised by one of my new Stellenbosch mates to drive along the coast for the magnificent view, and I wasn't disappointed. What they didn't warn me is that this route would, as I got close to the cape, take me over thirty or so miles of dirt road. It was relatively smooth dirt; still, I began to worry what would happen if my car broke down there. This was as far removed from the civilization I'm used to as I came on my trip. Birdwatching camps, native schoolchildren, and farms fringed my route.

I picked up the pavement again close to the cape. It was pretty much deserted when I arrived. I had to wait a while to have someone take my picture among the surf-pounded rocks. Cape Agulhas is really just a geographical curiosity, but as good a destination as any when the whole country is foreign and strange and beautiful.

I stayed the next night in a town up the coast, Hermanus, which is a tourist draw in that whales came up to within scores of feet from the water's rocky edge to spawn. Thanks to the strong dollar, my room that night which looked directly down into the bay cost only about $40. No whales, unfortunately; it was only the very beginning of whale season.

Boulders Beach

The next day I headed back towards the Cape of Good Hope. Along the way I stopped at Boulders Beach to see the jackasses. Jackass penguins, that is; that's what they're really called. They are (I think) year round visitors on this beach. The brush that rises above the beach is lousy with penguin nests and baby penguins. It's all fenced in, so even the babies had only the sluggish half-wariness that comes with having no real predators to worry about.

Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope itself is better described with pictures than words.

Final Days

My last few days I decided to splurge, and stay in a five-star hotel; the Bay Hotel in Camps Bay. This decision was made easier by the fact that, with the exchange rates at the time, it was only $82 a night.

I made some other forays into the nightlife, checking out such clubs as the nearby La Med. Home for the beautiful white people who dance badly -- it was like the opening credits to Friends. Much better was the Observatory district, a narrow little street near Cape Town's university. Friendly little bars line the streets. At one of these I had a long, friendly conversation about racism with a "colored" woman.

In South Africa, everyone was considered either "white", "black", or "colored" under apartheid; the latter category is a catch-all that includes mulattos, Indians, Arabs, and even, I believe, Chinese. These distinctions no longer hold the force of law, but they are still in effect on a much subtler level. South Africa now has the most liberal constitution in the world, guaranteeing equal rights regardless of race, gender, nationality, age, economic status or sexual orientation, and though everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law now, in practice there is still a wide gulf between the "haves" and the "have nots". Most of the u unpleasant jobs are still staffed by blacks or colored people. Nowhere was this de facto separation more apparent than a scene I came across while driving out of Cape Town one day; twenty or so white golfers were lined up at a driving range, while a black man with a helmet as his only real protection retrieved the golf balls into a bucket out on the range.

Anyway, the woman I chatted with, I was surprised to learn, had grown up in an integrated school. Because of the sensational nature of the news reports I had heard throughout the 80's, I had assumed that every school down there was segregated by race but this was not the case. She had encountered some incidents of racism during her life, but all in all her experience didn't seem all that much different than someone living in the United States.

My flight back involved nine hours back to London, a three-hour layover (during which I had to make my way from Gatwick airport to Heathrow airport), and another nine hours back to Atlanta. It wasn’t at all as bad as it sounds, thanks to the portable TV sets that everyone gets onboard British Airways international flights. They are a godsend for making a trip fly by like nothing.

What's been going on:

Instead of going to the races this year, we just went up to the Transport Bar and watched the people come and go. Some were even undead.

Saw Crowded House last week; very good. The show ended with a touching tribute to their former drummer who killed himself here in Melbourne a year or two back.

Am playing soccer in the corporate games again this year, but am having trouble finding a pair of soccer boots that fit me. I swear, sometimes the businesses in this country make it hard for you to give them your money.

We are culture floozies. This weekend we hit the Hispanic festival (which had some really good food) on Saturday and the Polish festival (which had some really long lines for some decent food) today. We passed on the Turkish festival. Multiculturalism is the bomb!

Marjorie's parents are in the country and on their way here. They'll be heading off to even more places we've never been, and we'll be trying not to resent them for it. :-)

While we like all of our nieces' and nephews' names, sometimes you still hear of some people who name their children in ways that make you think, "What were they thinking?" (Frank Zappa and Gwyneth Paltrow spring to mind.)

Anyway, so as not to deny you all the pleasure of laughing at the names we would give the children that we're never going to have, here they are:

Girls:

Imogene Frances

Esme Matilda

Boys:

Hamish

Noah

We're still working on the middle names for the boys. The last names are all fluid too. It's all moot anyway, but I thought you might have a laugh.

I was admonished on Friday in front of my office: "Don't kill anyone today!" The hippies were again protesting BHP Billiton, who share our building with us, over uranium mining or something. I was going to counter with, "I work for Deloitte, moron!" but I decided I kind of like being thought the bad guy, and I don't honestly know if they have legitimate reason to protest or not.

I've hired a costume for our work Halloween party this Friday -- I'm going as the Grim Reaper. I better not put it on before I get to work, though -- they might think I'm a protester.

Dog update. She's recovering. Still limping a bit, but she's gotten used to the new routine, which involves no off-leash time. She's back to making danger-runs past the vacuum cleaner every time we turn it on. Our dog's a freak.

She also still doesn't like it when we dance in her presence. Other dogs mind their own business.

Wednesday was National Ride To Work Day, and as our workplace coordinator, I kind of had to do it. The weather was perfect -- sunny and cool. The cool thing about it was discovering that it's actually quicker than taking the tram. In fact, Marjorie left the house ten minutes before I did, but then when I got into the city, who should get off the tram right in front of me but her. And that's with me briefly stopping by the courtesy breakfast, too. I'm going to try to start riding in once a week, I think.

I just stumbled across an account I wrote up a long time ago, that I thought I lost, of a trip I took to Germany for work in 1994. I post it here so I won't lose it. Man, those food descriptions make me hungry still.

Oddly, I can find no mention of the "Rabenleitte reservoir" I mention, anywhere else on the web except in this report.

Sometimes You Have To Tough It Out
For those of you who didn't hear, I traveled to Germany on business a few weeks back. It came about by a lucky "break" -- my project lead hit a patch of gravel while bicycling and broke his collar bone, leaving me to go in his place (the voodoo doll seemed to do the trick nicely). What follows is the complete trip report, in full boring detail. Because I ate and drank so well during the trip, I even decided to include a complete reporting of my meals.

*** Saturday, Oct 29 *** "More of anything?" "More of everything!"
Because my company travels by plane so much, we routinely get upgrades to first class. The beautiful thing here was, I *was* the first class section. That's right, I had all of first class to myself, including my own private (and rather comely) flight attendant, for eight hours. I was even offered any movie I wanted to watch. It's the only way to fly.

It seemed a crime to be getting paid for all this. Although, it soon dawned on me that figuring out the breakdown of work hours between Saturday and Sunday would be no easy chore -- flying across midnight over six time zones on the day they set back the clocks for daylight savings time. Oh well, sometimes you have to tough it out.

(The meal: Some sort of duck appetizer, greens salad, chicken in apricot glaze, heated raspberry tart, topped off with a whole bottle of German riesling.)

*** Sunday, Oct 30 *** In which Mark falls in love 37 times in the airport
I arrive in Munich, rent a car and drive two hours north to the US Army base at Grafenwohr, arriving at 11AM. The exercise our company's software was supporting was being run out of a large Oktoberfest tent there. I was unable to sleep on the flight, so I just decide to stick it out and stay up as late as I can to get over the jet lag. I put in a nine hour shift.

Hotels and guesthouses in the area are booked solid for the exercise, so the guesthouse (Gastof Weich) I end up in was a half hour drive away, in Hirschau. My room was a converted attic, very cool.

(Lunch: Schweinenschnitzel with potato balls. Dinner: Jaeger Schnitzel mit Spatzle, and a Pils. This was the meal I had been salivating for since two years ago, when I visited Bavaria for a couple of days.)

*** Monday, Oct 31 *** In which Mark visits Amberg
I visit the city of Amberg in the morning, just to walk around. Other than that, just a long day of work.

(I am forced to eat on base. Lunch: ChiChi's, taco and enchilada. Dinner: Hamburger from Burger King [the Burger Fuhrer, as it is known].)

*** Tuesday, Nov 1 *** In which Mark almost visits Czech
Drove out to the Czech border in the morning. The car rental place made me sign an agreement that I wouldn't take the car into any of the former Eastern Bloc countries, so I was hoping to just walk across the border. Nothing doing -- there is a very long line of trucks and cars waiting to get across.

(Lunch: The Burger Fuhrer again [sigh]. Dinner: Josefshaus [Hirschau] -- Jager Schnitzel again, plus several Thurn and Taris Pilsners.)

*** Wednesday, Nov 2 *** In which Mark enjoys the night sky
Long work day again.

At night, while driving back to Hirschau I notice how clear the sky is. I stop for about twenty minutes to lie on my hood and look at the stars. It is so quiet that the only car that drove past the whole time I am stopped is audible two miles away. Not for the last time on this trip, I think "life is good".

(Lunch: Fig newton from the PX. Dinner: Rahmschnitzel with noodles [excellent] and several Patrizier braus at the Gasthof Specht in Grafenwohr.)

*** Thursday, Nov 3 *** "My hovercraft is full of eels."
Long work day yet again, nothing terribly noteworthy, so let me wax philosophic on the subject of the German language and German phrasebooks.

German, at first blush, seems like it would be simple to learn. It is typically spoken loudly and clearly, and shares many words with my native English. I had in fact vowed to learn to speak it passably in time for the Schnitzius family reunion (which will be taking place in June 1995 [in Krov on the Mosel river in southwest Germany]), such was my confidence. Looking into the matter some, though, it seems that the German language is a nightmare of genders, declension, odd cases, and strange word orders (worse than English, from what I can tell). I will still be taking a course in it, but I am no hopeful of achieving anything close to fluency.

I tried to use as much German as I knew in every situation, figuring that was the only way to learn it. Also, it really is true that the locals will treat you better if you at least make an effort to communicate on their level. I had a German phrasebook which came in handy, sometimes. Most phrases in the book, however, such as those for asking directions, generated only a flurry of incomprehensible German in response. At this point I would always have to interrupt with a phrase I grew to know and love: "Ich spreche wenig Deutsche" ("I speak little German"). So the phrasebook was for the most part useless, except as a vocabulary builder.

(Lunch: I satisfy my chronic pizza addiction at the food court on base. Dinner: Jaegerbraten mit bratkartoffelen, "Eis und Heiss" for desert, plus several excellent beers.)

*** Friday, Nov 4 *** In which Mark meets an old German man by accident
Work is slow in the middle of the day, so I take off to find Rabenleitte reservoir, a place recommended in the tourist guidebooks that happens to be relatively close by. I soon discover that driving the back roads during the daytime can be a harrowing experience, due to the combination of slow- moving farm vehicles and impatient drivers more used to the autobahn. The reservoir was pretty interesting, as far as reservoirs go.

On the way back I make a wrong turn and end up having to make a U-turn in a parking lot. An old German man in a big beat-up van backs into my front end. We both get out of our respective vehicles but can do little more than point and shrug, since neither knows the other's language. Fortunately there is no damage. I was afraid I would have to dig into a certain section of my phrasebook that I was hoping I would never have to.

*** Saturday, Nov 5 *** In which Joe and Mark are the Ugly Americans
Long work day again.

This evening, after dinner in Grafenwohr, Joe (a cow orker) and I decide to drive back to Hirschau where we are staying and have a couple more beers.

(First, a quick word about the pubs in Germany. At least in Bavaria, all the pubs I went to were exceedingly similar, always consisting of the following ingredients:

they are part of a guesthouse;
they serve excellent food, consisting mostly of pork dishes;
wooden fixtures everywhere;
the feature beer of only a single brand from a nearby brewery, mentioned on a lit sign visible from the street; each brand, though, has several different varieties (pils, weiss, dunkels, etc.);
a gambling machine;
a long table at which the regulars sit
The German solution to drunk driving seems to be to always have one of these places within walking distance.)

Joe and I make our way to one such pub (Goldenes Lamm) just down the street from our guesthouse. We are the only ones there, except for the long table of regulars (who were eyeing us suspiciously). Eventually, though, they wave us over to their table.

In the ensuing mayhem, we manage some level of communication, despite the language barrier and copious quantities of beer. At one point I think we played darts, but I could be wrong. I do remember Joe teasing the waitress several times during the evening, and her successfully communi- cating her response through the effective use of sign language, if you catch my drift.

(Lunch: Fig newtons from the PX. Dinner: [Gasthof Specht] Rahmgeschnetze- something.)

*** Sunday, Nov 6 *** In which Mark recovers
Had a beer-free day today. The resulting sore throat I develop could just be coincidence.

(Lunch: Mexican food at ChiChi's on base. No dinner.)

*** Monday, Nov 7 *** In which the Tailhook Incident is relived
During dinner at a guesthouse in Grafenwohr, we are sitting at the long locals table because of the size of our group. A young GI approaches Mike (a member of our entourage) and out of the blue says "I think you're a scumbag. I saw what you did to that waitress, and I don't appreciate it." and walks away.

We sit in stunned silence for several seconds. We eventually figured out what happened: at one point earlier, Mike had turned around suddenly in his chair, and accidentally elbowed the waitress; he had to reach around her quickly to keep from falling over. The GI at the next table saw this and interpreted it as a grope.

We explained this to the old man that was sitting next to me at the locals table. With a dismissive wave of his hand, he said "Dvink more bier" (this guy was cool). "She can take care of herself." As several in our party were getting steamed, we leave before there is any incident.

(Dinner: Gasthof Specht, Rahmschnitzel again.)

*** Tuesday, Nov 9 *** In which Mark sees a musical god up close
During the week the military newspaper Stars and Stripes had mentioned a concert scheduled for this day in Munich that I desperately wanted to see -- Paul Weller (for the unlearned heathens, he was front man for the Jam and the Style Council). Since the excercise wrapped up early, I check out of my room and head down towards Munich again. Not knowing where exactly to go, where to buy tickets, or even how to speak the language, I am non- theless successful.

Paul was absolutely brilliant. Hairs were standing up on the back of my neck at several points. The only down side of the concert is that I am now addicted to secondhand menthol cigarette smoke. Muncheners are like chimneys.

Driving back to my guesthouse in Starnberg (outside Munich) I come to several disheartening realizations:

I have only just enough money to pay for my room;
There are supposedly a couple of teller machines in Munich that take American bank cards, but I have no idea where they are
The instructions for how to call back to the states are safely locked in Joe's head, which was now rapidly traveling westward.
I sleep fitfully.

(Lunch: Bavarian pretzel on streets of Munich [tough and stale]. Dinner: schweinenbraten and Hacker-Pschorrs at the guesthouse in Starnberg.)

*** Wednesday, Nov 10 *** In which Mark breathes a sigh of relief
I eat a big breakfast, because I do not know when I'll be able to eat again.

I manage to figure out how to dial the American Express emergency travel number; they inform me that there is an AmEx travel office in Munich that would let me essentially forge a check from my bank for cash. After getting lost several times I manage to find it. When I finally get the cash in my hand, I guess the relief is evident on my face, because the cashier says "You can eat now, yes?"

I head out to Ottobeuren, which features a Benedictine abbey that is really phenomenal. It is supposedly the crowning achievement of the Baroque period; so incredibly detailed that it is almost tiring to look at.

I then decide to head down and spend the night in the Alps. I find a guesthouse in Tiefenberg, outside of Oberstdorf, that has a nice view of the Alps from my balcony of my room. As it is nearly winter but skiing season is not yet in swing, I am the only guest.

[Breakfast: standard German fruhstuck with big spread of meats, breads, and cheeses. Dinner: [Oberstdorf] Chicken heine-something mit brat- kartoffelen. I discover why Germany is not famous for their chicken dishes.]

*** Thursday, Nov 11 *** In which Mark visits the Royal Castles
After getting desperately lost in the Alps, I make my way to two of the Royal Castles of King Ludwig II, Neuschwannstein and Hohenschwangau. Hohenschwangau is impressive but I would have enjoyed it more if I could understand a word the tour guide was saying. Fortunately, Neuschwanstein has a tour in English (Neuschwannstein, by the way, is the one that the Cinderella castle at Disney World is modelled after).

After these castles I dip down into Austria. I blow just about a whole roll of film in the vicinity of Plansee, at a beautiful emerald-green lake nestled in the Alps.

I return to Germany and check into a hotel in Oberammergau, which incidentally is the city where a massive world-famous Passion Play is performed every ten years. They apparently do a massive business of selling crucifixes and other religious knick-knacks here.

(Breakfast: basically the same spread as before, only with addition of a bowl of cold cereal in what appears to be curdled milk. Not wanted to offend my hosts, I try some, and am relieved to find out it is just peach yogurt. Dinner: Rinderschmorrbraten, with several Paulaners, in Oberammergau.)

*** Friday, Nov 12 *** In which Mark castles again
I set out for yet another Ludwig castle -- Linderhof. While smaller than the other two, Linderhof is nontheless very impressive inside.

The rest of the day I had just set aside to wander around through the Alps some more. Some cities I travel through: Garmisch-Partenkchn., Mittenwald, Walchensee, Bad Tolz, Gmund, Bad Weissee, Tegernsee, Schliersee.

I plan on just sleeping at the airport my last night so I head back into Munich. After pizza dinner (I was Jonesing again) I wander the streets in search of a bar to kill some time; I settle on a little French restaurant that has two beautiful women working the bar. Flirting in an odd mixture of German, French and English, I discover my favorite beer yet (Wiehanstephan Export Dunkels); after a few of these, I buy a couple to go and head for the airport.

(Breakfast: usual. Denied lunch because of the idiotic German law where all businesses close from 2PM to 5PM. Dinner: pizza in Munich.)

*** Saturday, Nov 13 *** In which Mark flies home
I sleep well in the airport, and board the plane in the morning. The flight home didn't quite compare with the flight out -- I was stuck back in Business class with the common folk. Oh well, sometimes you have to tough it out.

Some photos from the Perth trip here.

Marjorie didn't mention another nice thing about the trip, which was listening to CDs we burned of Fresh Air, Prairie Home Companion, All Things Considered, and What'Ya Know?. We miss NPR!

The cloud hanging over my trip to West Australia was the fact that I have to give a speech tomorrow at work, to a big group of invited clients, on the subject of Web 2.0 as it relates to content management. Surely the biggest such speech in my career, and all the scheduled practice sessions and feedback from partners of the firm really bring home what a big deal it is. It's also really making me face up to my limitations as a speaker. I simply can't speak extemporaneously, and so I'm memorizing as much of it as I can, and relying on my notes much more than the two other speakers. I only have to speak for 15 minutes, but it may seem like an eternity, and I'm still worried that I'm going to get flustered or something, as I still sometimes do. But oddly I'm not really nervous. I just want it to be done with at this point.

Update: It went about as expected. I was a bit nervous, certainly noticeably so, but not debilitatingly so, and got through it okay. The last talk I blogged about I mentioned liking public speaking, but this one seemed more like a chore, and I'm just glad it's over.

This weekend we went to Western Australia to celebrate my birthday. We spent a brief moment in Perth, which I thought was surprisingly cosmopolitan given how remote it is, and then drove to the Margaret River and Augusta. I was surprised at how lush, grassy, and green it was out there, and reminded of how serious the drought in Victoria has been. The wildflowers in Augusta were lovely and apparently at their peak during the time of our visit.
Other highlights of the trip included driving throught the Karri forests and seeing wild Calla Lillies growing between the trees, and spotting the occasional kangaroo and several new species of birds; visiting the Mammoth cave (where we saw a new species of bat); and dropping in on a few Margaret River wineries including Cape Mentelle, and Voyager Estate, and Eagle Vale Wines. The wine discovery of the trip was Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc blends, which we didn't know we liked but ended up purchasing two bottles at different vineyards.
Overall it was a lovely trip, and probably my favourite side trip so far in Australia (though Hamilton Island is very tough competition). Hopefully we'll be able to add some pics soon.

You'll notice I have updated the Computronium blog in a while. I did take a couple of weeks off, but when I came back, I couldn't seem to log in, and so put off debugging the problem for another night. Well, it looks like the reason I couldn't log in was because the site was hacked. You'll notice that now all the posts are signed "Mazhar_Fashist", who is not me, and is probably a team of guys.

I'm steaming mad right now. Guys who do this sort of thing are like bombers at 30,000 feet who don't see the damage they do. Or worse, they know and don't care.

I'm having a hard time finding a description of how the hack was done (probably some sort of SQL injection) so I haven't fixed things yet. Fortunately it looks like their only goal is defacement. I'll probably have to reinstall the whole mess, but even if I do, how will I know it won't happen again? Wordpress, which the blog is run on, is a nice slick piece of software, but suffers from its own popularity, and thus is a target for hackers. I could try something less popular but there's always a tradeoff between popularity and slickness. Bugger!

Weekend wrap-up.

Thursday night: The Hoodoo Gurus concert was fabbo. I forgot how many great songs they have, and left wishing they'd played for another couple of hours. Quick set list, from memory: I Want You Back, Leilani, I Was A Kamikaze Pilot, Bittersweet, In The Wild, Like Wow - Wipeout, Out That Door, What's My Scene, Come Anytime, Miss Free Love '69, 1000 Miles Away, Form A Circle, and a lot of newer stuff I wasn't familiar with. Oddly, they didn't sound as tight as they did when I saw them (cough) eighteen years ago, but they were still great. Opening act was Radio Birdman -- one of Australia's very first punk groups -- and Marjorie bought the t-shirt.

Friday: My soccer team's "vote count" night, where they tallied all the votes we'd been submitting after each game for top three players. As I knew, this was an off year for me, and I wasn't even in the top three vote getters for any individual game. But I finished tenth overall, which is not bad. Fun night though.

Saturday: Watched the first three installments of the "Up" Series, which chronicles the lives of a group of Britons from different classes, starting at age 7 and revisiting them every seven years. I highly recommend it; it's thoroughly engrossing. We'll probably watch the next three tonight, which will only leave the most recent episode which just came out (49 Up).

Today: Laika's getting a house call from the vet. Who makes house calls anymore?

Marji votes and Marky votes and little dogs need surg'ry.

After taking Laika to another vet and confirming that she needs surgery (worse still, her other leg is likely to come down with the same issue), we went off to vote for the first time since becoming Australia citizens. It's a local election, and seemed pretty similar to voting in America, except 1) it's mandatory, and 2) we had to fill in a number for each candidate, from one to nine, in the order of our preference. It's an interesting system -- if my first choice isn't in the running, my vote goes to my second choice, then on to my third, etc... I think it's a brilliant system, much needed in America, but will probably never fly, due to those with a vested interest in keeping the system two-party.

Then we went and saw Ratatouille, which gets my vote.

Our broken family. Marjorie: sprained ankle from rolling it off of our too-high welcome mat.

Mark: Two sprained ribs from a vicious kick to the chest. The discomfort didn't manifest itself for a week though.

Laika: Ligament damage to left rear leg, which will require surgery. The answer to your next question is "lots and lots of money".

Everybody out of the water. Marjorie is an expert on sharks, despite or because of being somewhat phobic about them, but her famous meltdown on a reef in Cancun is a story for another day.

For some reason, I've never seen a shark while snorkeling, and I've done a lot of snorkeling. I must emit a natural repellent. But being in and around the ocean much of my life, I've definitely seen a few.

The topper was one day out surfing in Melbourne (the Florida one) with my friends Earl and Mike just after high school. The conditions were perfect; warm sun, clear water, good sized waves, glassy conditions. There were probably thirty guys out, but there was no peak spot so everyone was getting a lot of waves. Things were fine and carefree until a school of sharks, each probably six to eight feet long, decided to mingle with us.

Things can get exaggerated in memory, but I'm sure there were at least twenty of them. The weird thing is, only a couple of guys went in to the beach. The conditions were so nice, and the sharks were swimming about so lazily, that it was hard to believe that these sharks would want to spoil the party.

They definitely added a nervous tension though, like bikers crashing your keg party. You could see that, where surfers normally sit on their board waiting for waves, a number of guys were lying prone instead, so their feet weren't quite so dangly. To make the sharks seem less dangerous we started naming them. One in particular (who I think we named "Fred" for some reason) popped his dorsal fin up right in the middle of the triangle formed by myself and my two friends, as we were sitting only twenty feet apart or so.

There's no exciting ending to this story, fortunately or unfortunately; we just shared the water with them for a while without incident, and came in, a little bit exhilarated and maybe a little bit relieved.

Marjorie and I both cracked up over this New Yorker article.

I had pretty much given up on social networking websites, after efforts on Friendster and MySpace, but I've been convinced by workmates to give Facebook a go. It does seem a good bit livelier in general on first blush. So come join.

The days are just packed. On Saturday, golf with my soccer mates; I shot a 76. Okay, that was thanks to Calloway scoring; in the real world, I shot a miserable 110, and that's parring 3 holes. It's like, I'm playing at least once a year, but for some reason am not improving. Still lots of fun.

Sunday, our soccer match was an absolute classic, and reminded me why I still play. Fought back from 3-0 down against a bunch of prats; took a 4-3 lead, let them tie it again, then won the day with a late goal.

Last night we saw Ryan Adams from a far closer to the ceiling of the venue than the stage. Unfortunately he's still going through his tortured artist phase and played in near darkness all night; for the first two songs, I even thought the black silhouette of his backup guitarist was him. But they at least sounded amazing.

My trip home today took a little longer than usual.

I was leaving on our office elevator when it decided it didn't want to go any further. It clunked to a stop and the digital readout switched off. I looked at the clock on my phone: 5:35pm. There were five other people stuck with me; we called the emergency line and settled in for a long wait. One woman had just talked to her husband who was waiting by the curb. Another was on his way to a movie. Nervous jokes were made about how much air we had, how high up we were, etc. Everyone had cell phones and could connect out, fortunately, so there wasn't a lot to fret about. We weren't sure where exactly we were stuck, but had guessed in the basement carpark level, because we were only hearing noises above us. The repair guys made it there relatively quickly and the doors finally opened at 6:20. Turns out we were on the 14th floor. Not fun, but without plans for the evening, I figured I was better off than some of the others stuck with me. Forty-five minutes can't be too bad for elevator repair time.

We have a new nephew! Wesley was born to Marjorie's sister last night our time. A little before predicted, but well within the drop zone. Weighing in at 5.8 pounds. Huzzah!

Regular readers of this forum know that I occasionally use it to geek out a bit.

But I usually hold back. So for my birthday this year I bought myself a new website, with the primary purpose being to start a blog where I have free reign to geek out. I've spent a couple of weeks setting it up, and now it's pretty much ready to go. I also spent some time just writing down topics that I want to blog about -- I came up with about sixty-five, plus another dozen or so that could be attempted with a little investigation, so I'll have no shortage of things to write about!

The main theme will be computer programming, with occasional asides into astronomy, math, and physics. So I hereby announce Computronium: the blog. Let me know what you think!

Took a nice long walk around Albert Park Lake today. Saw a rakali, which was cool; I've never seen a rat dive before!

During a stop for lunch Laika escaped and bolted off to confront a black swan. Bad idea. Luckily Marjorie was able to grab her lead, but not before Laika crashed into the water. The lady serving us lunch told us that these swans have a tendency to drown dogs by sitting on top of them while they're trying to swim.

Through a combination of nature shows and personal experience, we have learned that you NEVER mess with swans, badgers, hippos, cassowaries, or hyenas (besides the obvious poisonous critters).

Thanks for not smoking. I think. So, Melbourne just implemented its no-smoking-in-pubs law.

I have nothing but cognitive dissonance over the issue. I believe people should have the right -- not just to smoke, but to own and operate a pub where people are allowed to.

But man, it's nice to come home from a night out not reeking of smoke.

I so wish that market forces would have resulted in having some pubs that decreed no smoking, and that smokers could go off to their own pubs and mentholate their lungs to their hearts' content. In every city I've lived in, though, that never seems to happen. And so we get these laws.

A right has been lost here. And as horrible as smoking is, and as despicable as tobacco companies are, I don't want to say I'm glad about it just because I don't partake of that right.

There's a tradition in my family that whenever we would move somewhere new, I was always the first family member to need to visit the emergency room.

I kept this tradition alive since marrying, too -- in Singapore I had to go in for kidney stones. Well, today I got to visit my first Melbourne emergency room. Nothing serious -- I knocked heads with a guy on the soccer pitch and lost. Three stitches in my hairline at the very top middle of my forehead, and an ugly abrasion on my cheek. I think it's the first time in soccer that I ever went down and stopped caring about the run of play. Head wounds bleed, big time, so I as soon as I put my hand to my head, it came away covered in blood.

Luckily there's a guy on our team that used to do facial surgery. He set me up right, and got me on my way. I was in and out of the emergency room in just over an hour, and all covered by Medicare. I even was back to work the bar for the first team three hours later.

Today for my birthday Marjorie stayed home from work and cooked me a Thanksgiving dinner. How good is that? I skipped lunch just so I could make a bigger pig of myself. Turkeys are pricey down here but we get a lot of meals out of one bird. She invented a new dessert for the occasion, too -- she blended vanilla ice cream with Maltesers in the food processor and refroze. Yum!

Friday night we invited people from our respective workplaces out for drinks to celebrate citizenship. It was good fun, especially now that the pubs are smoke free. Marjorie led a quick "Aussie Aussie Aussie!" ("Oi Oi Oi!") cheer during a toast.

Sudden citizenship realization: we have a queen!

Aussie Aussie Aussie! Our nationality is now officially hyphenated. We had our Australian citizenship ceremony last night. Check out some random photos (sorry about the random ordering, but Flickr stupidly allows you to only create three photo sets for free, so those are retrieved by tag).

It started with the mayor reading a huge list of apologies from elected officials that couldn't make it. Then there were speeches from the two (besides the mayor) that did attend; one was Aborigine and talked about her ancestors, which was interesting. Then we did the swearing in, and the handing out of certificates. They pronounced my name as "Schitznius". *Sigh* We also got plants to plant, and a pin. Finally we sang the national anthem (badly).

There were maybe thirty of us who were getting sworn in, and surprisingly, twenty-one different countries represented. The ones I remember are: Vietnam, New Zealand, UK, Samoa, Poland, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa. I think we were the only Americans this time around.

They signed us up to vote straight away. There were tea and sandwiches afterwards, but we went out for a nice dinner at The Dogs Bar (sans dog) instead.

To infinity and beyond! I never understand people who denigrate anything modern, and pine for an earlier time, when art was better. They miss out on so much. I'm sure people like that will have ancestors who will look back on our time as a golden age, and continue to ignore the great works produced in their own future time.

Today we checked out the Pixar exhibit at the ACMI. I'm a big fan of all the Pixar movies I've seen (and am looking forward to Ratatouille). Even without the animated exhibits, this would have been worth attending, just for the artwork. The skill involved in their storyboards, color sketches, and close up studies is plainly evident. Add in the brilliant characterizations, story lines, dialog, and world-building, and it's clear that these movies will be timeless. It's amazing also to see how much work they do and later discard. One quote they had posted gave an idea of what it must be like to work on one of these movies; they describe it as everyone involved holding hands and jumping from an airplane, and then building the parachute on the way down.

The highlight, though, was the zoetrope. This video doesn't quite do it justice but you get the idea.

Back in my old hometown of Atlanta, they're tearing down the old party district, Buckhead. While I long ago outgrew it -- well before I even left Atlanta -- I must admit I had some excellent times there, back in my post-college, new in town, swinging bachelor days.

But now is not a time for talk of such things. Today marks the nine-year anniversary of Marjorie and I's [*] first date. Happy anniversary, baby! She's all sickly though so it doesn't look like we'll be doing much.

[*] Surely "Marjorie and I's" is wrong? But "Marjorie and my" doesn't sound right either.

My company had its end-of-the-fiscal-year party Friday night, which I had an excellent time at (well, I'm almost certain I did). It was held at the bowling alley downstairs from our office, and we had a tournament. I bowled out of my skin all night (136, 148, 144, and 115) and ended up finishing fourth. It was won by our resident Olympian (he actually has a gold medal for playing on the field hockey team for Australia) who was a no better bowler than anyone but turned it on at the end, finishing the final round with three consecutive strikes in the final frame. I guess that's why he's an Olympian.

There was a company bar tab, which I overindulged on, shall we say. Marjorie came to join me later in the evening but pretty much had to just rescue me.

Bummed! I just went to buy myself an internet domain, only to find that it's already been taken. I had the perfect name -- schnitzi.us -- not least so that my email could have been mark@schnitzi.us, but someone just snagged it, only one month ago. That was my one and only idea for an internet domain. Phooey.

Weekend roundup: Friday night -- karaoke with some of Marjorie's work people. We signed up to sing The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" which probably wasn't the best choice for the crowd we were in (who were doing all sorts of cheesy 80's songs). Fortunately or unfortunately, they couldn't find the song, so instead we ended up singing Pat Benatar's "Love Is A Battlefield" (complete with shoulder shakes like the video), which had more of the proper cheesiness. Good fun, and we even stayed out past one (shocking).

Saturday night Marjorie indulged my current Gilbert and Sullivan obsession by going with me to see The Mikado. Despite being a small production, we thought they put on a damn good show. Of course, they had to modernize it a touch -- Ko-ko's version of I've Got A Little List was sung about a list he was keeping on his palm pilot, and the words were modified to talk about people talking loudly on cellphones, for instance -- but all in all it was a very good production.

Middle Park's soccer woes continued again this morning as we dropped yet another game. We played very well but couldn't score as usual, and we allowed a late goal on a perfectly struck free kick to lose it 1-0.

Clean joke.

A talking dog goes into a hardware store and says, "I'd like to apply for a job."

The owner says, "Um, we're not really hiring right now. Why don't you try the circus?"

The dog says, "Why would the circus need a plumber?"

How eccentric was my last Saturday? I went and saw The Pirates of Penzance by myself, then went shopping for ukuleles, and finished the day drinking port and playing Balderdash at some friends' house.

The next day we went on an organized lagoon around Aitutaki's lagoon with Aitutaki Adventures. Part of the tour was showing us all the places where Survivor: Cook Islands was filmed. We never watched the show, but by the accounts we heard, the Survivor people were very conscientious and everyone there was happy to have them. (The tourists, maybe not so much, because they took every free room on the island.) The tour even started from a jetty that the Survivor people built for the show and left for the islanders.

The tour itself was quite amazing. We started just by stopping out in the middle of the channel, where very large turtles (not sure what breed) were popping their heads up left and right. There was no wind, and the water was exceeding clear, so we could see them swim by with no problem. We could also identify fish species easily twenty feet down, and also saw a number of giant clams. The lagoon is full of patches of coral that come up and almost reach the surface, so one must be careful navigating.

We stopped by some of the outer islands, and saw some nesting birds (red-tailed terns) that are apparently very rare. The snorkeling was great; we stopped in four different places, and it was all just a big tropical fish tank. The coolest sighting was probably a spotted eel. They had a big spread of lunch for us too, which was very nice.

We headed back to Rarotonga the next day, and rented a car. I had a tip that the place to buy a ukulele there is at the prison; apparently the prisoners make them. So we tracked it down -- it's not that big of an island -- and Marjorie sent me in by myself to inquire (how could she not be curious about a prison on an island in the middle of the Pacific?). But it was a bad tip; all they had was cheap touristy ukes. There was another beautiful one I wanted to buy that I saw on our first trip through at the music store, but we came back through for Saturday and Sunday only, when all the stores were closed. Phoo.

We did a brief hike up into the hard-to-find Takitumu conservation area. If ever there's a place to spot dinosaurs, this was it, but instead we only maybe spotted the rare Rarotonga Flycatcher that's endemic there; we never got a good look at it though. Actually, if you see anything other than a mynah bird or a chicken on the Cook Islands, you're doing okay; the birding was disappointing.

We had another great snorkel experience on our last full day, just picking a spot off the side of the road. For some strange reason, I had a posse of fish that followed me around the whole time, and swam in a circle around me. It was really bizarre. We have pictures of it, which we'll post eventually.

Arriving back in Melbourne airport, we checked our messages to discover that the repairs on our toilet were far from finished. Lovely. Just what you want to hear after an eight hour flight; that you don't even have a working toilet to go home to. That killed any happy island buzz that we had accumulated, in an instant. Our landlord arranged a hotel for us, that we soon came to realize was the dingy Bukowski-esque down the street from our first short term apartment here, that we used to walk by and make fun of. To give you an idea -- our dog Laika likes to roll in dead birds and fish on the beach. When we took her by the hotel she immediately keyed on one spot on the floor and started rolling in it. Presumably that was where they found the dead junkie. We ended up staying only one night there, but keeping the keys just to have a place to run to for a working bathroom.

It was Tuesday night we arrived back home; they finally finished our bathroom on Saturday evening. Do you know how great it is to have a working bathroom again? One of the many things we take for granted.

After the last post, things went from bad to worse, as the next day the rain just, did not, stop. We had planned to get up early but ended up sleeping in past noon because we could hear it pouring down. There was no let-up all day. Even the lagoon filled up with silty run-off. We just putzed around in town again the whole day, and went to bed with a combination of depression and antzy stir-craziness.

The next day we flew to Aitutaki. More rain was scheduled, but from the moment we landed there was nothing but clear blue skies and bright sun. (Cue choir of angels.) Our resort, Etu Moana, is gorgeous and lovely, and we're right on the water. They have free bikes and sea kayaks for us to tool around on. The lagoon is turquoise and clear and full of fish.

The air is so clear here that at sunset you could even see the clouds that were partway over the horizon. After it went down I could see the Milky Way for the first time in as long as I can remember. We went to dinner at an outdoor cafe, and a cricket landed on Marjorie. Her shriek was relatively mild, but I'm still counting it. That's four down, three plagues to go.

We went for a (hot) jog this morning and now Marjorie is getting a massage, while I'm blogging from here down the street. (My massage is later.) Tomorrow we are going on an organised lagoon tour. Our spirits, as you might imagine, are much improved.

Kia orana from Rarotonga! This is supposed to be the driest month of the year but it's been nothing but gray skies and intermittent rain for the day and a half we've been here. Luckily the place we're staying has internet.

On the way out we spent a night in Auckland, which wasn't enough to see much (especially since it was Sunday night and everywhere was dead). So we just had dinner at (this is sad) Wendy's (hey, they don't have them in Melbourne, and there's nothing particularly notable about New Zealand cuisine) and a drink at some back alley bar. I was glad that Auckland seemed to have a very different vibe than Melbourne, or anywhere else I've been for that matter; it's hard to characterise, and I don't know if it's particular to Auckland or NZ in general. We'll be back before long though I'm sure to give it a proper visit.

Rarotonga, even when sopping wet, is pretty cool. It's completely surrounded by a reef, and huge waves have been crashing into it as long as we've been here. There's a mountain peak overlooking us that we may try to hike up to. The Cook Islanders look just like you'd expect Polynesian people to look; the women in colorful dresses with flowers in their hair, and the men big and strapping. Sadly, the only birds we've seen are mynahs and chickens.

Today we took the bus to Avarua, which is the only town on the island, and the closest thing to a metropolis for 1000 miles in any direction. Shopped, ate, drank, had ice cream, and befriended a local dog who followed us around through the rain (so I had to name him Tom). Saw the ukelele I want to buy, which I'll get on the trip back. The stores here sell coconut bikini tops like from the musical South Pacific; I've told Marjorie that when we get to Aitutaki, that's all I want her wearing. She thinks I'm kidding.

Hopefully things will be clearer tomorrow so we can get our feet wet and see some proper fish.

Marjorie's not the skittish type, but three times already this month, she's screamed.

First there was the mouse incident recounted earlier.

Then, last weekend, she found a dead rat in the backyard. We don't know if Laika killed it or not, but of course it was me that had to dispose of it. At least it was dead and required no hammer.

This morning, on her way out, she discovered a large centipede in her purse.

That's three down, four plagues to go. Who knows what we'll encounter in the Cook Islands?

A murder took place in our kitchen last night: I was getting Laika's kibble out of the pantry when Laika lurched across the room, caught a little brown mouse in her mouth and shook him to death, all in about the span of 3 seconds. And while I'm not overjoyed that we had a mouse in our kitchen (our house is over a hundred years old, and I've never seen droppings anywhere) I was significantly more upset by Laika's hunting prowess. Mark and I were traumatised by the poor dead mouse and necessary disposal (including ensuring the poor animal was indeed dead, and not just suffering, which required a bag and a hammer). We're a catch and release family here, even with the big hairy huntsman spiders we find (though roaches, moths, and mosquitoes are shown no mercy). Now we're just hoping that Laika never manages to get a hold of a possum, as clearly she's not quite as inept a hunter as I used to think.

Down the street from us is the Rats of Tobruk House. Such an unusual name; of course I had to look up what this means soon after I noticed it.

Well, last month a big "Auction" sign went up on the house, which I thought was sad. But the story has a happy ending.

I had been so dreading the return to work on our company's contract with a certain maker of tourist guidebooks. The people were nice, but the project infrastructure was hell, and the commute was a total pain (especially with winter coming on). But now it looks like, due to an increasingly acrimonious dispute between our companies, that the contract is dead in the water. Deliverance!

Everyone still has a few personal effects out on their work site. The running joke is that this is like a breakup, and we're going to go out there to find all of our stuff thrown out on the lawn. All we have to worry about now is our company finding a "rebound" contract, or making drunken phone calls to them at 2 a.m....

Everyone in blogville is commenting on Vonnegut's death. Who am I to be different? I've only read three of his -- Slaughterhouse Five, Sirens of Titan, and Galapagos. But I had been meaning to hunt down some others. Sad to lose such a brilliant and original voice.

"We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!"

Night bears. Our dog Laika dreams, which probably means that dreams date back at least to our common ancestor, which is a long long time ago. You can always tell -- her paws start twitching, and she whimpers. One time she even howled, which we can't even get her to do when we're awake. But I've always wondered whether they're happy dreams, or scary ones.

Usually she sleeps on her side. But last night, she fell asleep on the couch with me in an unusual position -- on her back. The practical effect of this was that her tail was freed up, and sure enough, when she started dreaming, her tail wagged. That can only mean that the dream, at least at the start, was happy. Isn't that sweet?

So my niece is into anime. This seems to be a trend that passed me by. For the most part, I don't get it. I'm sure that like anything else, though, there's good and bad.

But even comic books, I was never into as a kid, at all. I only ever owned one, and it was a birthday present from a neighborhood kid. I still remember it -- it was from The Witching Hour series, but I'd be hard pressed to say which one of those it was. I thought it was kind of dumb.

Which is all a prelude to saying that I just finished the first of Neil Gaiman's critically acclaimed "graphic novels", The Sandman: Preludes Nocturnes. And guess what, it seemed like just a comic book to me, and I found it very much like every other comic book I've ever read. I don't get what the fuss is all about. But in it he did name-check a lot of older comics, I noticed -- including The Witching Hour.

My review of the Pixies show the other night can be found on my MOG.

In other news, it's about Easter, and I haven't gotten a call back from The Rich List, so I guess it's not going to happen. Alas.

The new CD by The Shins came with a sticker to promote the band. Marjorie asked, "Where should we stick it?". We both thought a minute, and didn't come up with any place.

I think maybe that one's maturity level can be measured by the number of places one has to put stickers.

Wow. These kinetic sculptures are really cool. Watch the video.

In an exercise of self-indulgence, these are a few of the things that I'm enjoying lately:

Go Fug Yourself

Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke - this site kills me, but not one for the little ones.

Mimi Smartypants, again not for those easily offended, but generally very funny.

Rose wines, a new varietal for us, but one we are both enjoying muchly. We're also still enjoying sparkling wines, though I'm guessing that our ritual of "champagne Sundays" will be put on hold now that the Soccer season has re-started for Mark.

Running- Laika and I have been running anywhere from twice to five times a week for over a year now. I keep expecting myself to get lazy, but it's surprisingly addictive. That said, I need to get more serious about it and start running in some local fun-runs. I'd be very pleased with myself if I trained enough to run a marathon by the year I turn 40, but won't commit myself to it at this point. I currently run anywhere on average from 3 km's to 7 km's so a marathon would be a huge leap.

Music swapping- I've been trading favorite cd's with another expat (French) in an effort to move past our music doldrums. We were introduced to Phoenix this way, a band we both really like, and recently obtained a Ry Cooder CD that we really like too.

I wish I could add my new job to this list, but at the moment I don't feel expert enough to find it enjoyable, and instead feel depressed at being deskilled. I'm hoping to be illuminated in the near future, because at the moment nothing is making sense to me. My colleagues have reassured me that I just need to give it some more time. I'm definitely enjoying the new paycheck though.

The audition for The Rich List was today. They held it in the function room at the local German cultural center, and a LOT more people showed up than I was expecting -- maybe 120. The first part was a standard trivia quiz. There were forty questions; I started really strong, but stumbled a bit at the end. No matter -- I scored a 24, and the cut off was 18. Everyone under that was out. That whittled us down to sixty people or so.

They took a Polaroid picture of us next, that they attached to our questionnaires. (Of course, I blinked at just the wrong time.) Then the guy running it forebodingly asked if we had ever seen Australia's Got Talent. The thing was, each of us remaining had to get up and demonstrate a talent for thirty seconds or so, "or you can just talk about yourself, but that would be boring." We were given a raffle ticket, and we were called up in random order. I was thinking, "Please, please, give me time to consider this a bit." Luckily I wasn't called until about half way, so I had time to plan my shtick. Some people told off-color jokes, and some sang nursery rhymes, but lots of other people were just talking about interesting experiences they had, so I just did the same. It went basically:

Hi, I'm Mark, and I'm American, as you can probably tell by my accent. Or as I like to think of it, my lack of accent. [Mark pauses for laughter, *cough*] One interesting experience I had was that last year I participated in a naked group calendar photo shoot for charity, down along the Yarra River. The Age did an article about it, and of course they chose the one picture where my naked bum was directly in the front row. Do, uh, any of you recognize it? [Mark turns around and shows backside.]

Shrug. People laughed, but I stumbled over my words a bit, as I'm prone to doing, but it could have gone worse.

Then it was off to the one-on-one interview with the assistants. They asked a bunch of wacky questions, like, if you could pick a superpower, what would it be? I babbled something about super speed so I could avoid all the recent train delays, blah blah blah. There were a few others along those lines. I don't know, it seemed to go reasonably okay for the most part. That was the end of it; we just wait for a callback from here. I don't rate my chances as excellent. But it's possible. They promise to contact their selections by Easter. So, no news will be bad news.

As Mark stated, my friend Kristina was with us the week back. It was lovely to have her here, and like all the people who come to visit us, she's now seen parts of Australia that are still unexplored by us. We did take a trip up to the Yarra Valley together to taste some of the wines grown there, and discovered a lovely dairy farm as well. The highlight of the trip was the Yering Farm vineyard, which was just lovely, and served us a fantastic tasting platter, which sent us in search of the previously mentioned dairy farm to track down a remarkable fetta.
The whole week was a bit of a wine fest, which was fun, but left us all feeling a bit over-indulgent. To top it all off Kristina and I went on a search for the best chocolate bars in Melbourne (this city is a chocolate lovers dream, with over five specialty chocolate bars and many other "lolli-shops", add in the ncredible italian and greek bakeries and you could seriously indulge) though by Sunday we were excessed out and I feel our attempt at binging on chocolate was half-hearted.
On the whole it was a nice visit, and good to be able to play host(s) to Kristina, who has repeatedly been a very gracious hostess to us on our trips back to the States.

Questions from The Rich List's contestant profile questionnaire:

1. List some of the unusual/quirky/interesting experiences of your life so far?
2. What is your greatest achievement and why?
3. Would you describe yourself as a gambler? What is the biggest bet you have made?
4. Are you a member of any clubs (sporting, academic, social)?
5. What would you describe as your best and worst character / personality traits?
6. Do you read newspapers, magazines, books? Which kind and how often?
7. Do you watch quiz shows? If so what shows?
8. Do you attend trivia nights regularly? [note: bing!]
9. What are your interests? (Please list as many as possible and be specific):
10. List your 5 top movies of all time
11. List your favourite bands/artists of all time
12. List the 5 TV shows you can’t miss
13. Who is your favourite actor/actress celebrity?
14. List the sports you love to play and/or watch
15. What book series and/or author do you read?
16. Where have you previously travelled in the World? Where would you like to travel to?

Audition is Monday at 2pm, which is a bloody inconvenient time. (If I'm going to appear on an Australian TV show, I can use words like "bloody".)

C'mon, big money! To heck with hard work. I've signed up to be a contestant on an Australian game show called The Rich List, after a friend of a friend walked away with $250,000 dollars (pre-tax, natch, but still). I figure it suits me because I like lists and am generally a cesspool of useless information. We watched this evening's show -- the contestants had to name as many countries as possible that were formerly part of the Soviet Union but were now independent countries. Naming all fifteen would have gotten them $250,000, but I'm pretty certain I could have gotten twelve, which would be a cool $150,000.

In other news, Marjorie's friend Kristina is on her way back home after a lovely visit. I'll let Marjorie blog about that though.

See? We're not freaks -- we're at the forefront of a trend.

I've got a killer idea for the internet that's too much work for me to build alone. I'm trying to decide what to do with it. The more I think about it, the better it sounds, too. Let me see if I can describe it well enough to convince you.

There are lots and lots of forums around the internet where you can sign on and discuss all sorts of things. And lots and lots of sites -- like this blog -- let you add comments.

The idea is a thing that will let you comment on any site on the internet, and to see comments left by others. It would be a browser "plug in", which means that it would just be an extra button on your Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer. The button would turn redder the more recently comments have been made. You click the button to pop up the comments/forum. The comments themselves would be hosted on my (hypothetical) company's server.

The advantages as I see them:

1. Instead of having to have separate accounts on separate websites, you would only need a single login. I already have trouble remembering all my passwords.

2. Similarly, you'd only ever have to deal with a single unified style of comment forum.

3. Because the comment forum attaches itself to web sites but is not affiliated with them, you are free to say anything you want. So go on over to that local politician's web site and let everyone know what a schmuck he is. If a dodgy company tries to rip you off, go tell everyone about it, right on their own website (essentially). You can say nice things, too. Comment on any news article in any online newspaper. Sports, politics, religion, books, movies, shopping -- really, anything that has a web page, you can hold a discussion.

There are still some functional issues to resolve, but I don't see any technical roadblocks. There's a few other ideas I have for it, but that's the gist. It's a fairly straightforward idea, and I think it has the potential to give all of the internet a more populated feel, as you surf around and see what everyone is commenting on.

I used to be a good tipper -- twenty percent in restaurants, and usually a dollar on a pint of beer. Australia has ruined me. I still tip ten percent at nice restaurants -- they say that's expected, but no one seems to mind if you don't. But most restaurants we go these days, I tip bupkis. Bars, too.

Everyone from down here (or England) really hates that part about visiting the States. I don't think the service in the US is that much better for it. If we ever move back, that's going to be a hard thing to readjust to.

In the spirit of the weekly blog:
Observation at work- Head Office if frequently referred to as "Town" as it's in the centre of Melbourne. It always amuses me when I hear someone say it.
If I get another tattoo, it's going to be a finger moustache. Makes me grin just thinking about it.

You'd think we missed the whole Texas Hold 'Em craze, but no, it struck here too. Many pubs have Texas Hold 'Em nights, and they show the competitions (celebrity and not) on TV frequently.

I've skipped it, because I've never been particularly adept at poker, preferring euchre, hearts, spades, or (very novice) bridge. But tomorrow our company is having a poker party, so tonight I'm hitting Yahoo Games to at least learn the rules.

Not much else new. I've started soccer practice again; the hip is not perfect but I'm easing into it. Lonely Planet work is going. I've discovered where they put the books you're allowed to take (seconds and old editions) so our bookshelf has been swelling. Um, and Extras is the best show on TV right now.

Update. I made it through the first round, but got lousy cards the second round. Still, if I was any good, I could've bluffed my way through a while longer. I don't have that instinct. I'd like to give it a go down at the casino though.

"New Leaf":
I''m going to make an effort to blog more. The goal is to write something at least once a week, as my contribution for the last year has been piss-poor. Things have been happening. It's not for lack of news that I don't write, just ..... who knows. Anyway, new leaf.

I started a new job this week. I'm now a "Partnership and Service Advisor" which means that now my responsibilities are to monitor agencies, not individuals. At the moment I don't have a clue but I'm hoping the job will become clearer in the weeks to come.

The other exciting event this week was the exploratory "cardiac catheterization" my Dad had scheduled on Monday, which might have lead to Angioplasty if any blockage had been found. Luckily, nothing was found and he is in good health. Scary though, and exactly the type of thing that makes living so far away difficult. It's hard to be as supportive as I'd like to be from another continent.

As requested, the "flooded tent" story:
When I was five my parents decided to take my sister and I on a hiking/camping trip to Kauai, Hawaii (we lived in Oahu at the time). The trip over was taken on a speed boat, and unfortunately I did not have my sea legs. I ended up having to wear a garbage bag to disembark from the boat as I had vomited all over myself (and probably my poor mom and sister). I think the trip back was slightly better.
My parents had been to Kauai without us kids at an earlier part of the year and wanted to bring us back to this amazing spot they found. Unfortunately it was December (or January, it was right after Christmas) and the rainy season. We hiked into a very remote area on the island, carrying in our tents and supplies. On the first night there (I think) we experienced a very heavy rain storm that practically washed mine and Susan's supposedly "waterproof" tent away. I remember we set up camp near the beach, and it felt like we were going to be washed out to sea, though that's probably a false memory. Susan and I ended up abandoning our tent and going to sleep in the bigger, actually waterproof tent with our parents. The other really memorable things about the trip, beyond the camping, hiking, and getting rained out, are the incredibly vivid memory of burnt pancakes, flowers that could be used as soap and shampoo, befriending a feral cat we called "Katherine" (who benefited when Susan and I abandoned our tent), and losing all four of my front teeth at different parts of the journey (at least one was lost eating what I remember as my first Kitkat bar). By the time we got home I had a huge gap in my mouth.
I have positive memories of the trip overall, though the storm was definitely scary for both myself and Susan. It was hardly the last family camping trip we took, as we camped about once a year until I was in high school.
Dad, Mom, Susan, is this how you guys remember the trip? Did I leave anything important out?

We're back from part two of our experimental vacation week. This time, instead of asking "Can we survive camping?", we asked, "Can we vacation with the dog?" So we bought her a car harness (for her protection and ours) and drove down with her to a nice little cottage we booked in Rye, where we passed four days visiting wineries, padding through tide pools, and generally making gluttons of ourselves. All was lovely but the dog's not too keen on being left alone in an unfamiliar place. Not that she destroyed anything, but she was very clingy when we came back from our excursions.

Back now from our first ever camping trip. I knew that sleeping bag I got Marjorie for Christmas eight years ago would come in handy some day.

We headed down to Wilsons Prom, and had a loverly time.

The beach just off our camp site, Norman Beach, was maybe the nicest beach I've ever been on. The sand was like it was filtered, it was so soft; the water was crystal clear, the setting beautiful, and there was hardly anybody there. We also took a hike over the tidal river to Squeaky Beach.

I'm too bony to even sit on hard ground, much less sleep on it, so I had trouble with just a foam pad and sleeping bag. The first night I couldn't sleep so I got up to look at stars. There weren't that many visible, just because the full moon was too big and bright, but I was still treated to the incredible view of a low blanket cloud streaming over a distant mountain range directly under the full moon. When I came back to our site, one of these guys was sniffing around the space between the car and the tent. I woke Marjorie and we went chasing it through the woods.

A few new birds spotted, most notably a number of swift parrots.

Scary coincidence -- the people at the next site started playing some music, and straight away I recognized it as my funeral song that I just mogged about. As another data point that there's no such thing as omens, I wasn't eaten by a great white the next day.

We'll go back at some point, I'm sure.

We saw the Pretenders over the weekend at nice venue. We were supposed to see Paul Kelly and The Church as well, but we FORGOT THAT WE HAD TICKETS to this show until we got a call from the outing organizer at around 4:30.

I blame early onset senility. Anyway, they were really good. Chrissie was in fine voice, and looking damn good, too. At one point she played a song I didn't recognize, what I thought was a good song, and said that it was "for the two people who bought our last album". I was going to post a link to it but I can't find much reference to any recent album by them since like 2003. What gives?

What, another? I've got a new myspace-y kind of deal going on over at mog.com, which is (yet another) social networking site, this one for music geeks. I'm even blogging there a bunch, at least for the moment, so if you'd like to watch me take a metaphorical bubble bath in front of you while nattering on about bands you probably have no interest in, drop on by.

The music fairy visited us, apparently. I was thinking of tracking down some of Phoenix's earlier albums, since I liked their recent one so much. Today I was looking through our collection and found a burned copy of their album "United" that neither I nor Marjorie had ever listened to, or even noticed. And neither of us has any idea where it came from.

Was this a gift from any of you that we somehow just shelved and never played?

The Sea Dragon was very cool to see indeed(I only saw one, Mark says he saw two). The truly amazing thing was that we were literally snorkeling right around the Portsea Pier, where we could have walked in from the shore. Who would have thought these amazing animals would be so easy to find?! I feel very grateful to have seen one, as Southern Australia is the only place in the world were these animals live.
We had such a good time on Saturday that we've decided we'll go back for a longer trip to the Mornington Peninsula soon, with the dingo in tow. I'm looking forward to visiting a few wineries as well.

Here there be dragons. Another nice bit of novelty on Saturday as we went for a snorkeling trip in Port Phillip bay, two hours south of the city. Animals that actually touched my hand included:

• A weedy sea dragon, which is what we went down there to see
  
• A black-lipped abalone (worth about $40-$50)
  
• A sea urchin
  
• A puffer fish, caught by the guide and actually puffed out like this
  

Fun day. Fortunately, the seal and penguin colonies are around the other side of the peninsula, and these guys don't really ever wander into the bay.