Unbelievably, my parents and pretty much all of my extended family are busy dodging their fourth hurricane in a month.

My theory is that it's a warning from God not to let the state go Republican again.

Where we've been. No internet access at home means no regular updates. We'll have it hooked up soon, though, I hope.

We're just trying to set up house at the moment. It'll be another two months before our stuff arrives from the states, but in the meanwhile, we have to make the place more livable. It's a great house in a great neighborhood.

Job is going exceedingly well. I've managed to solve some problems that had been plaguing them for weeks, and it looks like there's every chance I'll be hired on at the end of it. We're building an application that ambulance drivers ("ambos", in the local parlance) will run on their tablet computers to enter all the information about the vital signs, treatments, and procedures followed for each case.

I had a good Friday night happy hour last week with about thirty people from work, and chatted with just about everybody. Good buncha folk.

Today the AFL (footy) Grand Final is going on, which is the equivalent of Super Bowl Sunday back home. Strange, but they only had about an hour of pre-game shows. Still, it is quite obvious a HUGE deal here. The town was overrun with people from Adelaide and Brisbane, all wearing their colors. I suppose we should have watched, just as part of our cultural indoctrination.

Camping. The house is empty and cold, and not because there's no furniture. Where is that girl o' mine? I'm hoping for a big strong tailwind for her flight home.

My time at home passes either sleeping on an air mattress on the floor, or huddling on a tiny little canvas chair in front of the TV. There's no point in unpacking our Singapore boxes, since there's no furniture to put anything in. I've turned on the oven once, to toast some bread.

I'm in LA again. Today, walking around the neighborhood where my friends live, I saw Sydney Pottier pulling onto Melrose Avenue (he was driving a black Mercedes sedan). How cool is that?