Station

Southern Cross Station:


It went millions over budget and years behind schedule. And I think it's ugly. Actually I think that about most of the modern buildings in Melbourne, though I like a lot of the older architecture...

Contests

Some newspaper clippings from my programming contest days:











Good times.

Lavalamps

These are the lights we use at work that come on automatically to tell us that someone has "broken the build" (i.e. added defective software to the group repository):


All three on is not good, but it is the last day of a sprint when everyone's trying to get their changes added.

I used to think of lava lamps as relaxing, before I started here...

Brekkie

Breakfast of champions:


This is my breakfast, more days than not: grilled salami and cheese sandwich with two or three glasses of OJ. I suppose there are healthier ways to go, but at least I have the four food groups covered!

Cockatoo

A great sighting while out on walkies today:


It's a yellow-tailed black-cockatoo, a species we had only previously seen from a distance. There were five of them. Once again, the iPhone camera fails to capture the majesty of Australia's largest cockatoo/parrot.

Cicada

Spotted this discarded cicada husk on a broomstick in our backyard:


Just above was its gorgeous former occupant:


They call them "green grocers" here. His software never booted up, though, apparently: he was dead.

Survey

Today I joined the Friends of Merri Creek for a survey of birds along a short stretch of the creek near our house:


Here's what we saw:

Grocery

This is our little local grocery:


You can see two of the three aisles. Despite the small size they have a lot of interesting gourmet choices. I love having them just around the corner!

Notice the eggs there, unrefrigerated. That's standard practice in Australia. It took a while before we got comfortable with that.

Trivia

Trivia night at the Cornish Arms:


The host there is a former star on Australia's biggest ever soap, Neighbors.

Paddington

Strange sighting out the window while waiting to take off from Adelaide:


Yes, my phone should've been put away at that point...

Moonrise

Moonrise over the boats off Kingscote:

Beach

A secret beach on the north coast of KI, accessible only through a rock cave tunnel:


Though someone had clearly been here before:

Sea lion

This little guy wanted to join our tour group:


Marjorie got some great shots of him too.

Echidna!

That thar's an echidna!


He was being shy but poked his head out after we backed off. Cuteness overload!

Adelaide

Flight to Adelaide:


Adelaide airport:

Flagstaff

Waiting for the train to take me home...

Code

This is the sort of thing I look at on the screen all day:


And yes, it all makes sense to me :-)

Desk

My desk at work:


I've never been a clean-desk kind of guy, but I don't let it get too out of hand.

Pub

The truly local pub (The Royal Rose) that's just around the corner:


We don't go much, as the food isn't all that. They do have a microscopic bottle shop attached with a good selection though. They have trivia once a month that we've been trying to attend as well.

Pong

This is the ping pong table at work, where all the magic happens.


My coworker Yoram and I have gotten really good. We've pretty much outgrown the tight space, but we still have good matches almost daily.

Dexter's

This is our local chill-out bar, Dexter's. Out back:


Out front:

Possums

I was going to caption this picture with something about how possums are never really out in the light of day - it's just the idea of them that gets Laika excited:


But then two trees down we spotted a momma and her babies:

Tram

Morning tram self-portrait, thanks to a well-placed mirror!

Japanese

Dinner tonight at Yu'u with our friends Steve and Trisha.























Missing three other courses too, including their amazing sashimi. I am full to the GILLS.

Thai

This is the Thai food place where I get about half my lunches these days.





Good, cheap, fast, and always packed if you don't get there early enough.

Cafe

A little cafe in our neighborhood that went unnoticed down a side street for over a year until I stumbled across it yesterday.








We ate there this morning. Melbourne is full of hidden gems like this!

Austrian

Dinner at Mutti's Austrian just now. Me: goulash mit spatzle. Marjorie: pork belly.





Marjorie's comment: "It's a good thing Laika doesn't taste this good."

Bay view

The view out a different office window. In the background is the bay that we used to live four blocks from.






Weird -- the sky looks all blue for some reason!

Dreary

My street. We're sick of this weather! It's been a particularly grey spring.






I call the trees "broccoli trees" for obvious reasons.

Games at lunch

The daily post-lunch gaming session, with Guitar Hero and MAME box.




Featuring Tom, Simon, Dan, Owen, John, Mark P, and Sean.

Elvis

Saw Elvis Costello perform solo tonight. Great show. He had to work hard to win over a crowd of sober forty- and fifty-somethings and he succeeded.




This was the playbill out front:

Clifton Hill station

Waiting for the train, Clifton Hill, like every morning...




It's ten minutes to the city if I catch the express; otherwise, fifteen. Then ten minutes of walking or tramming. Sometimes I think the ride isn't long enough!

Walkies video

A bonus today: here's a quick video from our walk the other day.

Webmasters

The other night I met the guy who took over the Elvis Costello web page from me lo those many years ago.




John is a really nice guy, and it's nice to put a face on the name. We're going to see him again on Tuesday night for Elvis's second show in town.

Boathouse

Took a walk down to the Fairfield Boathouse on the Yarra today.




They rent canoes and kayaks here, and it's a short paddle down to see the bats. We were actually looking out for the black cockatoos we'd seen a few times here but no sightings today.

River

We miss the beach we had at our old place, but the new place has the river which is quite idyllic.




Lots of birds! I'm going to go do some volunteer work for the Friends of Merri Creek in a few weeks (pulling weeds most likely).

Window

Trying something a little different. I've found an iPhone app that lets me blog from anywhere, and include pictures, so maybe I can breathe a little life back into the blog by making it more of a photo blog of our life down here.





As a start, here's the view out my office window, down William St in the heart of Melbourne. This is where I stand and look when my brain gets full.

A few months back I entered some of my family tree information, as tracked down by my Uncle Bill, into the website Geni. So just the other day I was contacted by someone who apparently has some Schnitzius blood in him, and we've been chatting a bit. He was able to supply me with a few details my uncle missed, including some whole matriarchal lines - one that takes me back as far as 1585 (my father's father's father's father's mother's mother's father's father's parents, Nicolas and Catherine Roemer, both born 1585 in Germany). He's pointed me at some other online resources that can be used to trace family trees, so I might have a go at trying to follow up my mother's line of Tomaszewicz's and Gasiors and such, especially considering we might do a trip to Poland before long. Here's a limit view of my tree - you'll have to sign up with their site to see more. Click on it and drag to scroll around, or use the slider to zoom in and out:

View more of Mark's tree  |  
Get your own family tree at Geni.com

New toy. My boss authorized us all to get new iPhones, so I ordered a new iPhone 3GS online before he changed his mind. I haven't always been the biggest lover of Apple products, but I have to admit this is a pretty sweet little device. I've been playing with it now for a week - I've had a few problems, but I know I'm going to end up using the heck out of this thing.

I "jailbroke" it straight away, which means I can install applications ("apps") other than the approved Apple ones. It's technically against the license agreement, but is pretty much decriminalized. My favorite apps are the ones that help me get around - the built-in Maps (very handy), another based on that that uses the built in GPS to show where I am, and Metlink and TramTracker for the local train and tram lines. Stanza is a pretty cool ebook reader (plenty of good public domain books out there now - I've started one by Dashiell Hammett). I FaceBook and Twitter on it, read news, check the weather, listen to music and podcasts (yay, NPR) and keep a lot of notes.

Already had a problem where none of my applications would open after I synced with iTunes, that kept me stymied for a couple of days, but I managed to fix that just now. All in all, it still seems like a device that was dropped here from ten years or so in the future.

When we became citizens here the very first form they made us fill out was a jury duty signup form. So, this week I got called. It was right up the street from my work, and I had often seen barristers in white wigs walking about, so I was pretty much just excited to get to go and see how things worked under the Australian system.

I was told that it involved a lot of waiting around, but it didn't for me. After an orientation talk and video for the 250 or so of us who were asked to come, they had a ballot for the first case, which I wasn't selected for, and then a second case that I was. They took about thirty of us into the courtroom, in order to choose twelve. Before we went in the tipstaff told us that the charges were "sexual in nature", and there was a chance to make a plea to be excluded if we didn't think we could handle it (several people went this route). In the courtroom they had another ballot to select the twelve, and so if we got picked we had to stand up and walk by the plaintiff (he was there the whole time) on the way to the jury box. He was allowed to exclude up to six people as they walked by, just based on their name, profession, or looks. Anyway, I got selected, and walked by him - kind of nerve wracking - and he didn't say anything.

So the twelve of us were sworn in, had some more orientation, and broke for lunch. After lunch we watched a videotaped deposition from the alleged victim, that took up the remainder of the afternoon. It was during this that I realized that all the shine had come off the experience, and I really didn't want to decided this man's fate. We only saw a tiny part of the evidence, but it seemed like there was a good chance that it would boil down to a he-said, she-said sort of situation.

This morning we all met again and were escorted to a different courtroom. While we congregated in the jury chambers, one of the jurors was called into the courtroom. The appointed start time came and went while we all wondered what was going on. When the juror returned we were told to leave all our materials there and come into the courtroom.

It turned out that our mysterious juror remembered a former coworker talking about the arrest of the plaintiff (or a case very similar), and that the coworker had called the guy a scumbag or something. He was duty-bound to report this, and though the prosecution wanted to proceed anyway, the defense felt this was sufficient grounds to ask for a new jury. And so we were all dismissed. The relief for everyone was palpable. I commented another juror that it felt like we got a pardon from the governor. I feel bad that another jury will still have to decide the case, but I'm mostly just glad to have escaped.

In the end I was glad to have the experience, and now I have a three-year exemption from having to serve again. And a check for $78 for my trouble.

We're back from our trip to South Africa. The term "best trip ever" has come up a few times - see our pictures. The trip I took there alone ten years ago was what I used to call my best trip ever, so clearly I think it's a pretty amazing place. This was Marjorie's first trip to the continent.

Cape Town: I'd been here before, so I got to show Marjorie around, at least to the extent I could remember. Still one of the most beautiful cities in the world. See the photos. Highlights were Table Mountain (though Marjorie was bummed that there weren't any hyraxes this time!), climbing Lion's Head, Camps Bay, Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, Cape of Good Hope, Boulders Beach, Rondevlei nature preserve...

Stellenbosch: We stayed in this wine region town for a few nights, which was nice. Highlight was petting the cheetah at Spier winery. I tried to recreate a great experience I had there at the De Akker pub ten years ago but of course you can never go back.

Kruger National Park: What an amazing place. We stayed two nights at the Pretoriuskop camp and two nights at Lower Sabi. In both camps we were in little huts without heat or toilets but we were fine. We did a lot of driving around on our own, but also did a morning safari, a night safari, and a walking(!) tour. We wrote down our sightings, and came up with 32 different mammal species (including most of the big ones), plus scores of birds and a few reptiles. I'll post our list in a separate blog.

The walking tour started a short ways from camp, so they drove us there, starting at 5:30 am, before the sunrise. They told us that this trip was about walking, so we wouldn't stop on the drive unless there was something really extraordinary. Almost immediately after we left camp we heard a big angry lion roar, just up the road! So we tore off, and came across some hyenas patrolling around. Apparently the kill was just behind the trees - we never saw it, despite the best efforts of our guide shining his "sport light" out into the darkness. It was really, really exciting - we hung out for ten or fifteen minutes to watch the action. Apparently hyenas can eventually outnumber lions and chase them off the kill, but our guide told us that if there's a big male lion there, the hyenas will hold back, which is what they did. Eventually a female lion also came out and chased them off. Our guide radioed to another tour group, who eventually showed as we were leaving.

As we drove on, the sun came up, and as we rounded a turn, there ahead of us were another three lions. We watched them for a bit, then rode off to get ahead of them in the direction they were traveling, down a different road, so we got to watch them pass again. Turns out these wasn't terribly far at all from where our walking safari was to start! So we were definitely looking over our shoulders much of the time. Our guides, Irving and Marrrrta, not surprisingly, toted guns, and we weren't allowed to talk while we walked. It was fascinating to watch how they tracked, using wind direction and bird calls. Our only encounter with a big animal was with a buffalo, which was still pretty intense - he spotted us and snorted, and we weren't sure if he was going to charge or not. Eventually he moved along.

Driving: I'm a lot more used to driving on the left side of the road than on my last visit, so driving was a breeze. In fact, we both think the driving is better there than here in Australia.

Safety: From past experience I knew not to stay in the city centers; beyond that, everything was fine and lovely, and we had no problems whatsoever.

Cost: It may cost a bit to get there, but you make up that cost a bit just because things are relatively cheap, thanks to the exchange rate. On our last night in Kruger, we had fancy drinks at the bar in our camp - you'd think with them having you as a captive, and being on safari, that they'd jack up the prices, but they were only around US$3/AU$4.

Wild animals: I had heard people say that it's different seeing these animals in the wild than in the zoo, but I was skeptical. But it really is, and I've come up with a list of reasons why:

Unpredictability - you never know what sort of animal is going to pop out of the trees or cross the road in front of you.

Danger - no moats or electric fences here. We followed the advice about keeping our windows closed.

Animal behavior - you see all sorts of different behaviors that don't happen in zoos, especially concerning the four F's (feeding, fighting, fleeing, and mating :-).

Animal interactions - again, without fences separating them, you get all sorts of interactions you would otherwise never see.

Smell - nothing is sanitized, so there's a lot more poo. But it's an earthy smell. Also, the smell at the kill we came across was unforgettable, once the animals intestines are opened up. Marjorie described it as a mixture of "[poop] and fear" :-)

Soccer: South Africa is gearing up for the World Cup, of course, and had the Confederations Cup going on as a warm up while we were there. Lots of t-shirts and memorabilia on sale. I only watched the USA play Brazil on TV. But there's such a great spirit there that I think the World Cup will be fantastic.

Last night I dragged Marjorie out on a chilly June night (a work night, no less) to watch Australia play Japan in a World Cup (soccer) qualifying match. Both teams have already qualified, but I of course didn't know that's what the situation would be when I bought the tickets back in February or something.

The game was at the MCG, which is Australia's biggest stadium, and actually can hold more than 100,000 people(!). There were just under 70,000 there last night, which is just about the biggest event I've ever been to. After Japan scored in the first half, we were treated to a great comeback win as our superstar Tim Cahill scored two in the second half. Here's a video of the second goal from a fan's cell phone - we were in the level just above this.

My final exam in Graph Theory was this morning, in Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building. I showed up to find an absolute throng of people waiting to get in. It turns out that they do group exams here - there must've been a thousand students, each of us assigned a desk among the rows and rows spread across the gigantic floor. The ceiling, too, is pretty pretty impressive.

So how would you heat such a large space? The answer is, you can't. Is was cold enough to see your breath. I took the exam wearing a thermal shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, and a leather jacket. And leather gloves, that I put on occasionally to warm up. I had to get up to pee three times in three hours.

I may have aced the exam - eight questions, and I only had to tapdance around half of one of them. We'll see.

Tonight my work had a social function where we hired the special viewing room at a local theater and watched "Terminator Salvation". Marjorie came along. We came up with the proper summation of it on the way home: the main point of the movie was how it is our humanity that sets us apart from the machine - so why was it so lacking in humanity? This one could've been filmed by Skynet.

We went to a cool new pub on Friday called the Lambsgo Bar with our friends Viv and Maurice. When I first saw the name I didn't realize it was a play on words - but only if you have an Australian accent. "Lambs Go Baa", you see?

Reminds me of an incident at Marjorie's workplace that she told me about. The name "Nora Bone" came up in some context, and one of her coworkers started laughing. Marjorie asked, "What's so funny?" "Oh, Nora Bone. Like a dog." Marjorie: "Huh?" "You know, like a dog nors on a bone." Marjorie: "Oooh, you mean gnaws."

A typical homework problem from my Graph Theory course:

There are 12 people applying to a company which has 15 different jobs available. Each person is qualified for at least 6 of the jobs. No two people are qualified for the same three jobs. Also, every job has at least two people qualified for it. Prove that it is possible to assign all twelve people to twelve different jobs such that each is qualified for the job assigned.

Three months ago I would have no idea how to solve it. In fact, I still don't, but I have to figure it out by Monday. I love problems where I can sit and ponder them at random moments during the day, and in fact, that's when I usually figure them out.

Yes yes, no updates in a long time. [Insert standard apology here.] Not a lot to report.

Soccer season has started again. I feel pretty good so far, though am having some issues with my heels. So far we've tied two games 0-0, then lost the last one, but we're still missing some key players.

The weather is getting colder, but we're being better about being social these days. We're still pretty much only dating other couples though :-)

Work is going well - we've just won a HUGE contract which pretty much guarantees me work for a couple of years, should we decide to stay. My coworkers are still at an intelligence level such that I still feel pretty stupid and unproductive much of the time, but I have nothing to really complain about.

Got some good news at my university math(s) course today, where we found out that our usual (boring, slow) professor is leaving the country and being replaced by someone much better.

We've still got our big trip to Africa coming up next month, which I'm sure you'll hear lots about here. In the meanwhile I've been getting big kicks reading the blogs of my sister-in-law and niece, who are visiting Europe for the first time right now.

Last Sunday I had an awesome experience kayaking with my boss and three other guys from work down the Yarra River. I'd never really been kayaking before, but I've been canoeing a fair bit, so I fared pretty well. This was definitely my first time being skirted into the kayak, and dealing with rapids. There were a few close calls, but I managed to stay upright for the whole trip. Once while nearly tipping I put my hand down - a mistake - and scraped my wrist on a rock. At one point I managed to hit a stove that someone had abandoned in the river (beyond that, it was fairly pristine, though the water is murky from farm runoff). I also had a seriously dopey fall, just after finishing, climbing the rocks up to the carpark, where lost my balance, pirhouetted dramatically in my thongs, fell and scraped my knee and arm.

The wildlife consisted most of ducks, but a few cockatoos and kookaburras as well. My boss said he's seen platypi there, but we were a noisy bunch so no surprise we didn't see one.

He said to expect it to take about five hours; I didn't really believe him - but we were indeed on the river for five hours and five minutes (with two ten minute breaks), covering 19.16 km; here's the route.

Laika's leg lumps weren't getting any smaller, so we took her in yesterday to have them removed and biopsied. We picked her up in the evening. She was happy to see us but still wound up whimpering for six hours straight when we got her home. She kept wanting to go out back, we thought to go pee, but then would get there, whimper a bit, and want to come straight back in. She would sleep a few hours but then wake us up, whimpering. It was heartbreaking. I don't know how parents put up with colicky babies who cry for months.

She had been leaving the bandage alone for the most part, so we didn't put her in her Elizabethan collar overnight, but then she snuck off at some point and chewed half of it off. So we took her back to the vet this morning, and now she gets to have the bandage off but definitely needs to wear her collar. For good or ill, though, her demeanor is back to normal, meaning she's full of beans and not wanting to take it easy like she needs to. Stupid pea-brain dog.

My maths class is... proceeding, but far too slowly, by the consensus of my two coworkers (Tom, Yoram) and I. The professor is explaining obvious things, and re-explaining, and re-explaining... It's painful at times, and we've all taken to sitting in class and doing our homework or reading ahead in the book. Still, I'm enjoying it.

The routine of getting there and back has been the hard part, considering our Car-Free Lifestyle, and the fact that I also like to bring my work laptop home, which I can't really do on a bike. So the routine goes something like this:

Monday: Train to work, with laptop. Train home at night, without it.

Tuesday: Bike to work, work one hour, then bike to uni for class, and back. Leave bike at work and train home with laptop.

Wednesday: Train to work, with laptop. Bike home without.

Thursday: Bike directly to class, which is a 9 a.m. on Thursday. Bike to work from there. Train home in the evening.

Friday: Train in, bike to class in the afternoon, bike back to work. Then the hard part: getting home with bike, laptop, and backpack. I typically work a little late, then take the whole mess with me on the train (bikes at rush hour are frowned upon).

A car wouldn't even be much help, as the commute into the city would be hell, and there's virtually no parking around the university.

Back to school. I've enrolled in a math(s) class down here at the University of Melbourne - actually, I missed the first week of it while in Japan. The course is graph theory, and work is paying for it. I'm taking it through the Community Access Program, which means I'm not officially a student at the university, but the course could count for credit if I later become one.

It'll be a big time commitment, however I look at it; three hours of courses during the week (during work hours), with two optional practice sessions, plus an extra half hour commute to and from it each time, plus homework and study. I'm a little apprehensive about that, but I've committed, and also managed to convince two coworkers to do it with me (which should actually help).

Why? I'm not doing it to advance my career, actually - I've just had a growing interest in mathematics lately. I've actually decided that the real appeal of my chosen profession in computers is only the extent to which it relates to mathematics, and so I've been reading a fair bit about recent mathematical discoveries and fundamentals. They say it used to be possible to know "all" of mathematics, but that this is now no longer achievable - so much has been done now that a human brain could not contain it all. This is a relief, really, as it takes the pressure off. But I'm setting my sights not on learning what has been done so far, but on actually contributing something new and original. Honestly I don't know if I have the ability - certainly I am not one of those naturally gifted geniuses that have contributed so much to mathematics - but I think if I apply myself, I may be able to make a small contribution to a tiny corner of an obscure mathematical subfield, and that by itself would satisfy me.

We are back from our trip to Japan, which I would describe as "fabulous". A recap:

Arrival: Our flight on JetStar was largely uneventful. We would recommend the $30 upgrade for meals and entertainment; they bring you a portable device that plays movies, TV shows, and music, which makes the time fly by. After landing, we took the shuttle to our hotel, which is more expensive, but much easier. Got to our hotel late in the evening, and crashed.

Day one: Marjorie decided that our Japan trip would start with a jog, so she woke my lazy self and made me go out with her in the near-freezing rain. My hairy, exposed legs cause some schoolgirls to point and laugh, covering their mouths. We grab an easy breakfast at Starbucks (sad, I know) and head out to the district known for sumo wrestling. When we arrive, it is snowing, which is very pretty, but also fairly miserable, as it is a wet snow. The plan was something of a bust as it is the off season for sumo wrestling, but there are some nice temples. We head back to Shibuya for lunch and shopping, and have lunch at a place where everything was fried. Tooled around, and almost had dinner at a beer hall that had safe, boring Western choices, but decide to bail and so, remembering that our best food experiences on previous trips were always the result of bravery, we charge into a back-street yakitori restaurant with nary an English word out front. It is predictably awesome.

Day two: We board the Shinkansen for Kyoto. This is our first time seeing any part of Japan other than Tokyo. It was amazingly smooth and fast. Unfortunately it was too hazy to see Mount Fuji, but we did see other big things, as well as some of the countryside. Kyoto is not as big as Tokyo, but is still pretty big in its own right. It is somewhat more laid back, lacking skyscrapers and high fashion, and has many more shrines, temples, and castles, and people walking around in traditional dress. With only a partial day to work with, we decided to just do some more shopping. We did wander out to the Gion district, famous for geishas. Dinner was at Don Guri, where the table was a heated grill, and everything was delicious. We didn't realize it at the time, but Don Guri is a chain restaurant.

Day three: We buy bus/subway passes and head out to Ryōan-ji, a temple famous for their rock garden. It was underwhelming to our Western eyes, and we do not pause to contemplate it. We lunch at a small restaurant where we sit at very low tables. A man at a nearby table is amused by my struggles to fit my legs underneath - I am just not built to sit cross-legged. But he assures me, in excellent English, that "it is a problem for us as well". This was in the Arashiyama district, which we proceeded to explore. We climb the hill at Iwatayama and take lots of pictures of the macaques, and of the view out over Kyoto. Back at our hotel we meet up with our friends Corrinne and Matt who are also visiting (they're the ones who tipped us off to the great airfare). We consider trying a Chanko restaurant - serving traditional sumo wrestler food - but decide instead to try a steamboat-style restaurant down an interesting alley near Gion. This was the only place where we were not made to feel particularly welcome, but the food was decent (despite our waiter's advice that we must dip our food into raw egg). Drinks afterward at a much friendlier bar, where the waiter brought us homemade chocolates to try.

Day four: We visit Nijo castle, and take a tour run by a young girl who didn't speak the best English and provided not much insight, but it was fun to hear her try. This is the castle that is surrounded by hardwood walkways that were deliberately designed to squeak, to prevent attacks by ninjas! Afterward we bused out to the lovely Kinkaku-ji. For dinner we went out near Gion again to find a place recommended in Lonely Planet for their gyoza, which are delicious. We topped it off with a trip to a British-style pub, recommended by our concierge when we asked for a place to have edamame. I also order some buffalo wings, just because they don't have them in Australia!

Day five: We take the train down to the ancient city of Nara. It is snowing again by the time we arrive. Tame deer - formerly considered sacred - wander through the town, looking for food handouts from tourists. They have also learned to bow their heads when asking for food! While Marjorie is fumbling with her camera, one tried to eat the map out of my back pocket. Later we buy some deer biscuits from a vendor, at which point the mostly docile deer become a bloodthirsty mob. The main temple at Nara, Tōdai-ji, is stunning; the best we have seen so far. After a pizza lunch, the snow has turned to a miserable rain, and so we head back to Kyoto. We dine again at Don Guri.

Day six: Shopped a bit more in Kyoto then took the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. This time we stay in the Shinjuku area, and our room has an awesome view of lots of neon signs, huge government buildings, and a busy crosswalk. We dine at another awesome yakatori place, and then come back to the room and just sit on the bed and look out the window like it's a TV for about an hour.

Day seven: Only a few hours to kill before we head for the airport, so we go raid another department store basement food court, which we have learned are AMAZING on the trip. So much interesting and delicious food, and always beautifully arranged. On our trip out to the airport we get on the express train by mistake and end up having to pay an additional $32, but we get to the airport in plenty of time, and have a largely uneventful flight home.

All in all, an amazing trip, and our love for Japan only increased. It's fascinating to see a country that has modernized without Westernizing. The Japanese want everything to be beautiful and perfect, especially in how they dress and prepare food, and are almost always friendly and polite. We failed to have a bad meal the whole trip.

Despite finding a great deal on the flight there, the exchange rate was, shall we say, not favorable. For all the shopping we did, we didn't buy much, just because of the prices. At one point I bought a black-and-tan to drink, and paid something like $18 for it. We never dropped $100 per person on a meal, but came awfully close a couple of times.

Lastly: I was both a little scared and a little excited about the prospect of being in an earthquake while we were there, but none was forthcoming. However, the very night we got home, we rented Lost In Translation (what else) from the video store, and were halfway through it when our house started rumbling. We ran outside, and I half expected to see smoke from a nearby explosion or something, but it turns out it was an earthquake - my first!

Everyone here knows somebody who knows somebody who was affected by the brush fires. Horror stories abound. One guy I worked with at my last job spent the day with his parents trying to save their house - but couldn't; it was burnt to the ground (and he was lucky not to get killed). Even worse, a guy I work with now sent out this: A friend of ours lost her two daughters – 20 & 23 – they were running in to what they thought has a “safe-house” - it blew up as they ran in. Their mother (our friend) was right behind them as she saw it happen. I can't even get my head around that.

That was all on the day from hell (last Saturday). The fires are still going, but fortunately the wind has died somewhat. I could see the smoke on the horizon on my way home today. I think they're getting on top of it, but we have friends that live near the area where it seems to be encroaching on; we're hoping for the best.

The newspapers were calling it our "worst day in history". Highs in the 40's (Celsius) and strong winds made it feel like a convection oven outside. A firefighter's nightmare, of course; the skies were pinkish gray from the fires. We had a massage scheduled for today which Marjorie almost wanted to cancel, as our little backyard digital thermometer put the temperature at 109.8. But we went anyway, taking a nice air-conditioned cab, the massages were good. Afterwards we went into a grocery store, and when we came out, the cool change that Melbourne is famous for had come. When we got home the temperature was only 82.7. Our thermometer recorded the daily high temperature, though: 110.5.

In keeping with my usual paranoia about assorted criminals figuring out that I'm away by reading my blog, I've waited until now to post about my recent trip(s). Foiled you again, bad guys!

Last week I went to Hobart for the Linux conference, which is kind of funny considering that I'm now working for Microsoft. But it was interesting and at least somewhat useful. In the conference program they had a list of participants, and I noticed the name Linus Torvalds among them. He's basically the inventor of this Linux operating system that many people believe can kill Windows, although he's largely relinquished control. I didn't think he would actually show, but during the Q&A after one session by a guy from Google (talking about svn), the speaker handed the microphone over to a guy sitting off to the sides -- and I didn't realize until I was told afterwards that it was Linus. They held a banquet dinner the first night I was there, which finished with an auction to benefit an association fighting Tasmanian devil facial cancer. I left before the end, but one of the things offered up was that Linus would shave another Linux bigwig if the bid got over a certain amount, and it did. Nutty!

Immediately after I got back Marjorie and I headed out to meet some friends camping, pretty much right here. The campsite for some reason is the center for cockatoo activity, with scores of them gadding about during all daylight hours, and they are LOUD. But it was really good fun. Marjorie and I rented a surfboard and I gave her (or tried to give her) her first surfing lesson. After pushing her into too big of a wave, she did a face plant into the sand, and announced she was done. But instead she came back out ten minutes later, sans encumbering wetsuit, and gave it another go, managing to catch a few more reasonably sized waves and making it to her knees at least.

On the way back we took a detour to the Otway Fly tree canopy walk, which was pretty impressive, I thought. Good to be home now though.

American Idol:
Today is a very good day to be an American living overseas (or anywhere). Especially after the past 8 years of embarrassment. Mark posted on Facebook that he's been singing "ding dong the witch is dead" and that seems about right. Good riddance Mr. Bush. You will be remembered as the WORST President of all time.
Obama's got a hell of a lot of work to do now, but he seems like the right man for the challenge. I'm continuously amazed at how gracious and unifying he is. After so many years of divisive "hater" politics this is so tremendously welcome.
And in case you can't feel it within the USA, let me reassure you that this is the world's victory. Australia has totally embraced Obama, and a friend of mine who just returned from Indonesia said Obama-mania had most definitely taken hold there (understandable as he lived in Jakarta as a child).
What a day, and what a relief to finally be able to hold up my head proudly when asked where I'm from. Now I need to come up with another reason for moving overseas as the old joke of "I'm a Bush refugee" no longer cuts it.

The year in review:

2008 seemed to fly by. The cliche that time speeds up as you get older seems painfully true.

The highlight of the year was definitely our trip back to the States. The most memorable day for me was a day we spent in San Francisco where we biked across the Golden Gate Bridge in order have a nice lunch in Sausalito before taking the ferry back to the city. We were joined on our venture by my very good friend Alison, who had driven down from Oregon to spend the day with us. The weather was perfect, the setting was fabulous, and the company couldn't be beat.

Of course, it was also really lovely to spend time with all the family, and even though covering the distance to see everyone was a bit exhausting, the visits were really nice and confirmed our
suspicion that we are really missing out on something special by not seeing our nieces and nephews more often.

The other highlights of the year included:

OBAMA- Yes we did!

Taking Laika to a sheep herding clinic - we discovered she's more wolf than Shepard.

Seeing Rufus Wainwright and Billy Bragg again (though separately).

Seeing Paul Weller (first time for me). He was in fantastic voice. Great show.

Seeing Jet in a tiny venue in Brunswick, exactly as you should see a local band.

Visiting Northern Queensland and seeing lots of new birds and mammals, including a platypus. The whole trip was lovely and relaxing.

Best movie I saw in 2008:

"The Visitor" I highly recommend you see it.

"Man on Wire" was also really good.

Favourite new music from 2008:

P.J. Harvey's White Chalk. I f**king love PJ Harvey and this cd is just further proof of her genius.

Personal low lights of the year-

Even though I like my job, this year was unnecessarily stressful, and the past 6 months seem to have been dominated by work. I will work on this, as I'd like to say this won't happen again in 2009. Work and home should be wholly separate (like Church and State).

Having to move from Albert Park after four years of loving the place. Our house was auctioned from under us (not really our house, but...). Luckily Clifton Hill is nice, my commute is much shorter (and greener because I walk or ride my bike everyday) and we now live near the best cinema in Melbourne the Palace Westgarth so will see a lot more movies on the big screen then we have in years past.

Mark and I have big plans for 2009 already. Hopefully will be able to make them happen. We have a trip to Japan scheduled in the next few months, and we're seriously talking about going to Africa this year. We had initially talked about moving back to the USA in 2009, but that now seems highly unlikely as we both have stable employment and the world is about to enter into a possibly serious recession. Maybe 2010. We really liked the Bay area and could definitely be happy living there. In the mean time, if you've been planning a trip to Australia (or another trip) you've still got at least a year to visit us here.

Christmas roundup. Had a typical low-key Christmas. On Christmas eve, the tradition in my family is to gorge yourself on pierogies at my grandmother's house. Couldn't make it back home this year, so we stuffed ourselves instead at Borscht, Vodka, and Tears, ordering three mains worth of pierogies for the two of us (and I could've eaten another).

Christmas, we just exchanged presents and did the turkey dinner thing.

Boxing Day, we skyped our families, which was really great, and didn't do a whole lot else.

Saturday, biked down to Johnson Street to exchange a present. In the evening we went and saw Slumdog Millionaire, which is highly recommended. Not exactly an advertisement for visiting India though.

Today, we went canoeing down on the Yarra, and are just hanging out again, back yard, perfect weather, rosé, internet music. Salut!

I promise that this blog won't become a repository for funny animal videos, but this one had Marjorie and I in tears. We have these birds locally in the wild - we saw some just last night. The interesting thing is, this video has been the subject of scientific study - before, it was thought that only humans had a sense of rhythm.

At work we now have Guitar Hero World Tour, which adds drums and singing to the previous dueling guitar simulation. It's just about the funnest thing ever. At times it's hard to keep going because my cow orkers and I are laughing so hard. Hugely recommended if you're still looking for an Xmas gift, and it hasn't sold out in your area...

Last night, though, was a night for the real thing. I was a fan of the rock band Jet before we ever thought of moving to Melbourne, but they've only played a few festivals since we've been here, and I was despairing that I'd never see them in any kind of intimate setting, as they're now pretty huge. But I was browsing around on Facebook the other day and came across a link that said, "Are you Jet fan in Melbourne? Click here!" Behind the link was an invitation to a private show. Score! They have a new album out and wanted to debut their new songs to a crowd of true fans. I hadn't been to the venue before, but it turns out there were only around 250 people there. They gave us all posters, and had us fill out cards with our addresses so they could mail us their new CD when it's finished. Very cool!

Here's a clip I shot with my cell phone camera. Sorry about the sound quality - trust me, they sounded a lot better live!

Update: Here's an article about the show from the local paper.

You've been waiting in dread, I know, for Mark's musical year in review. But people, it's just like pulling off a band aid; read quickly and it'll be done before you know.

Personally, it was actually a great year for me, musically. Not because I discovered so many new bands, or so many of my current favorite bands put out killer albums. Rather, the internet has brought me a whole host of ways to discover new music, and to play music I already own. It has really made a qualitative difference in my music enjoyment, and promises to get even better. The internet innovations that have transformed my music listening experience, in no particular order:

• last.fm - their streaming radio in particular. Love the ability to create a radio station based on a particular artist.



• Songbird music player - a great player for all the music on your hard disk, plus links to hundreds of internet radio stations. Includes band information and ratings, and with option add-ons, will show song lyrics, similar artist recommendations, and will even tell you when your favorite bands are coming to town in concert.



• Playlist - a great site for queuing up a list of almost any song and streaming it back instantly. We amazed some house guests by being able to play a song by any artist they could name within seconds.



• uTorrent - a program for downloading BitTorrents, which I've been a little behind the curve on, but finally got into this recently. Great way to download almost any CD, and TV shows as well (haven't had the patience to attempt a movie). Combined with a CD/DVD burner, and it's a piece of cake to inflict share your music with friends, which we've done a lot of this year.



• StreamZap PC Remote - actually, this just arrived from ThinkGeek, and I haven't hooked it up yet. But I'm looking forward to it enhancing our champagne Sundays in conjunction with all the aforementioned technologies.

And now, onto the music itself. Nothing really jumped out as a top album this year, but I came across a lot that I've enjoyed, including:

• Fleet Foxes - A great soundtrack for driving through desolate Queensland woodlands.


• Cibelle - The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves - modern Brazilian for getting your chill on


• Elbow - The Seldom-Seen Kid - dark and beautiful


• Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Primary Colours - local garage band does good


• Vampire Weekend - good fun


• M. Ward - Post-War - lovely stuff

I have new albums by Paul Weller, Lucinda Williams, Beck, and Weezer that I haven't really digested yet as well.

Concerts this year include:

• Paul Weller - brilliant


• Billy Bragg - good


• From The Jam - great fun


• Polyphonic Spree - good


• Rufus Wainwright - really good


• Jet - actually, this is next week; I scored tickets to see them in a private show, which I'm very excited about.

We have tickets to see Lucinda Williams as well, but that's not until April! So it'll have to go on next year's list.

On a final note: despite all the new sources of music, the album I listened to probably more than any other this year is "Dry" by PJ Harvey, which dates back sixteen years...

Five minutes away by bike is the Fairfield boathouse. So today I rode up and rented a kayak. Though the Yarra River there is wide and calm and unchallenging, the experience was really quite excellent, and much different than walking or riding alongside the river. Serene, scenic, and lots of wildlife. Towards the end I rounded a bend and came across the flying fox bat colony, which I didn't realize was so close. As I watched I noticed that many of the bats were carrying their babies on their chest - must be breeding season! Here's a bad shot of me in action by the bats. (Hey, cell phone photos are grainy enough even when you're not worried about dropping the phone in the water.) I'll definitely be going back.

This time of year I miss eggnog lattes from Stateside Starbucks (I know sounds gross, but try one, they're yummy!). We have Starbucks here, but they don't have eggnog lattes (I never generally go to Starbucks here because coffee in Melbourne is the bomb, and Starbucks is blah). Australia doesn't mass produce eggnog (and really, do you want to drink eggnog when it's hot?). I also miss the holiday lights extravaganza that occurs in every neighbourhood in the States. People don't generally decorate the outside of their homes for the holidays here. It's summer, so lights wouldn't show up as much anyway, but I miss them nonetheless.
Australia's great, don't get me wrong. But between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I always get a little homesick for the the States.

Our cable TV has been shut off due to a comedy of errors, so we're without it for the weekend. We've become a two-laptop family anyway, so that's how we're spending our Friday night -- next to each other on the couch, with our faces lit by an eery glow. Sad, I know. We just finished some pretty awesome take away Indian food from a new restaurant in our neighborhood, which is more than a welcome addition.

Today was kind of stressful at work -- I've been working on a major code revision for a few weeks and I finally sprung it on everyone late yesterday. It basically breaks everything for everyone and makes them have to rewrite large chunks of their code. It's for the best in the end and actually seems to be really well received, so far. The drama will continue next week.

Before then, on Sunday, is our office Christmas party. Luckily it's about a ten minute bike ride away, at the Studley Park Boathouse. Nice place.

We miss Thanksgiving back in States; it's always been my favorite holiday. Even at this distance it's a good occasion to sit back and take stock of your life. And by any standard, things are pretty great right now.

Two new Aussie-isms:

Good value - the literal meaning is accurate, but it's used frequently here to apply to people, not sarcastically, but kind of ironically; e.g. "He's good value."

Sook - a person who becomes overly sensitive or whiney when ill.

Deliberately, I've tried to keep politics off this blog. Can I let out a small woohoo though?

From the perspective of an expat and a traveler, too often I am asked, how did the US ever elect this Bush character? And I never know what to tell them, because I never got it either. The difference I've felt already since Obama surged ahead is palpable. There is a new respectability for the US in Australia and, from everything I can discern, the world. It's not an illusion, because I've surrounded myself with like-thinking people or anything; look at any opinion poll from outside the US.

I can only hope this is the end of Atwatery politics. It was a joy to see it fail, this time. Was it because of the internet? I think so, maybe. It was a joy to see it fail, and a shame to see McCain to give into those influences. In the end, if his concession speech was any indicator, he was a better man than many of his supporters.

It's not hard to predict what happens next. Obama will glide into office with a huge wave of optimism. After a few months it will be tempered by reality as he begins to take on the difficult problems he's up against. He will make some mistakes, and galvanize the right, who will find plenty of reasons to villify him. And then, the character issue comes in. We'll see what happens then, but I'm hopeful.

If you're worried, he's not going to steal your money and give it to the poor -- that was a lie told and repeated in an effort to win an election. The truth is, though, that the US has joined the rest of the Western world, by electing a man who is, by all accounts, a reasonable, intelligent consensus builder. And for tonight, it feels mighty good.

We did indeed go check out guerrilla gardening today. Here's some pics:

Guerilla gardening

And an article.

Practice random kindness and senseless acts of gardening!

I've recently become a fan of guerrilla gardening, after discovering its existence by stumbling across some broad beans planted on a tiny spot of green in the midst of an otherwise totally paved area. There are apparently several more examples in the local area and we are going to scout them out tonight. There just seems to be everything good about this, and nothing bad. And it's so lovely to come across it in the middle of the city.

I've noticed recently that my happiness seems to be mainly tied to my circumstances improving, as opposed to a comfortable steadiness. I know that's not really sustainable in the long run, and will probably have to figure out how to just be happy being at some point.

But it does explain my recent happiness. And my lifestyle improvements are mostly due to technology:

I've been bringing home my wireless laptop from work, and it's letting us surf the net from anywhere in the house. Marjorie's getting one of her own for her birthday, too.

We bought some speakers for the laptop, and are streaming internet radio through it, mainly from last.fm and Yahoo Launchcast. This is great for Champagne Sunday.

I finally got BitTorrents going, which means I've been able to download and burn tons of old music and TV shows. Everyone at work downloads and trades TV shows, but I don't know how much my taste overlaps -- my first grab was all all four seasons of Home Movies.

Facebook is putting me in touch with more and more old friends.

Skype is old news, but it's still great to be able to talk to people overseas.

There's rumors at work that we'll all be getting iPhones for Christmas!

We finally found some decent (albeit expensive) Thai food in town, a really nice place in a dire neighborhood a few train stops up from us. We had dinner there last night with our friends Viv and Maurice. Interestingly, we found out that he was bit by a snake two weeks back, while weed-whacking his lawn. It seems that his thick socks prevented a deep penetration, and so he was not given antivenin (which often causes more problems than the original snakebite), although he had to tolerate several days worth of intense pain. He never saw the snake, but figures it was probably a tiger snake like we saw the other weekend. Laika will not be getting a lot of off-leash time this summer!

While the occasionally error creeps in here, I think my brain came out wired in such a way that spelling, grammar, and punctuation come pretty naturally to me. Don't know if it's genetic or learned, but I don't consider this as having anything in particular to do with intelligence. Still, I have my peeves, because often it's just that people were never taught the rules.

Commas -- there are lots of situations where they're used, but my peeve is when people to use commas to separate two clauses (consisting of a subject and a verb). For example, "Don't separate clauses with a comma, it's not good practice." If you were to replace the comma with a period, you'd have two perfectly good sentences; therefore, the comma is the wrong choice. Use a semicolon or a dash instead. I fixed about a dozen of these in a document today.

It's versus its. I'll give you a rule, so that you'll never get it wrong again. I've used this since childhood. Picture the apostrophe in "it's" as the dot on a letter "i". This makes "it's" into "itis", or "it is". Now ask, does the sentence still make sense? If it does, leave the apostrophe. If it doesn't, get rid of it. Now, don't let me catch you doing it again.

Atlanta and Singapore, as airline hubs, were among the two greatest places to live in the world if you're into travel. I don't think we appreciated them while we were living there - because Melbourne, for all its charms, is not. Trips back to the United States, Europe, or South America, will cost you over $2000 at a minimum, and probably more like $2500. The only real options for under $1000 are within Australia or New Zealand, or maybe some of the Pacific islands. Which are nice enough, but we've been craving some strange.

Qantas has had a monopoly down here, which means they've had no real incentive to lower their fares. That has been changing of late though. Now we have JetStar, Virgin Blue, and Tiger as cut-rate carriers, who are starting to make things more interesting. Still, good deals to cool international destinations just are not found that often.

So when Marjorie found a deal for return trip tickets for $750 (Australian), well, we just had to jump on them. And so we say, hello Tokyo! In February.

We've been there before, but love it, and have really only scratched the surface. We're determined to get out of the city, too, to either Kyoto (cultural center of Japan) or to Nagano (skiing and snow monkeys).

In our recent trip up to northern Queensland, we liked having a specific quest that, by design I guess, was relatively trivial (to see the riflebird dance). This time, I think the quest will be to try "real" wasabi. Supposedly, the wasabi you get in Japanese restaurants is horshradish, mustard, and food coloring; the "real" wasabi does not ship well, and is only served locally.

Picnicked yesterday down where the Yarra River and Merri Creek meet. Here's some pictures:

2008-10-11 Picnic

It was fine and lovely until a woman nearby started freaking out -- I looked over and her two little bite-sized pomeranians were chasing a large black snake off of a rock (probably a tiger snake). There are a number of signs up warning about the snakes; now we know to take them seriously!

Some pictures and video of our wildlife safari can be found here.

The two videos of the Victoria's Riflebird were shot by holding our digital camera up to a pair of binoculars and the guide's tripoded telephoto lens, respectively. I thought I invented that trick but our guide told me that other people did it too. Though, another woman on the tour with us was left wondering why she spent so much on a telephoto lens for her camera!

Home safe now...

Score! Last night we stayed in a cabin near Lake Eacham. The man there gave us a tip on where to spot platypuses (platypi?) in nearby Yungaburra. So we hopped in the car and hightailed it down there, as light was running out. Sure enough, right where he directed us -- well, I don't know who was more startled, the platypus or us. Marjorie even got pictures and a video, which I will post soon.

Our quest on this trip was to spot a Victoria's Riflebird, doing its mating dance. (What can I say, we like the birds.) We did spot one on our birdwatching tour, but no dance. We tried again this morning, and managed to spot another in the carpark of Lake Barrine, but again no dance. This was a better viewing, though, and we got some more footage of him as well.

We're at an internet cafe in Cairns now, killing time until our flight home...

Two amazing days so far up here in northern Queensland.

Sunday we took a birdwatching tour and ended up seeing 76 different species of birds! Probably more, actually, but we didn't count the common ones that we have down in Melbourne. We also spent a fair bit of time trying to track down a Victoria'a Riflebird, which, if you're ever seen David Attenborough's "Life of Birds" "Trials of Life", you know has the craziest dance in the animal kingdom. We did manage to spot one, but didn't catch the dance.

Today we took a tour out to the Great Barrier Reef. A beautiful day, weather-wise, and more than a few interesting sightings. I remain kind of bummed, though, because by now I've had to have been snorkeling at least 100 times, and still have yet to see a shark. I think I exude some sort of natural repellent.

Tomorrow: well, life is pretty good if all you have planned for the day is "massage". They'll have to be careful, though, since we both got a fair sunburn...

Yesterday was Marjorie's birthday, which we spent pretty much in transit up here to Port Douglas on the northeast coast of Australia. Portents were bad when:

We found out the day before that our dog sitter we had arranged months in advance through Top Dog had no idea we were coming, and we had to find someone else

We received an email from Virgin Blue the day before asking us to confirm our flight to a different city, at a different time

Mark went to get money from the ATM, and ended up leaving the money in the machine and just taking his card. D'oh! Still trying to work out whether the money got sucked back in or I made someone's night.
But we're here now, and it's lovely. We were awoken this morning by huge flocks of (some sort of) parrots flying over our bungalow. We ended up taking a stroll down the street at 6 am a scoring about five new species, including a satin bowerbird (we think (update: this one was actually a black butcherbird)). Tomorrow we're doing a major bird tour, then snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef later in the week.