Maybe in Oz

A week ago I made the trip up to Katherine to check on the progress of the big project I've been working on for the last few months.  Katherine is a 3.5 hour drive from Darwin, and to get to Darwin I had to take a flight through Alice Springs because there are only direct flights from Melbourne to Darwin two days a week.  There is not much to look at on the flight from Alice Springs to Darwin - the center of the continent (and actually anything more than 100 km inland) is very barren and desolate. The drive to Katherine is pleasant, at least for the first few minutes.  Then I find myself chewing on gummy bears, crackers, gum, and anything else I can to keep myself awake because the scenery does not change.  Red dirt, trees, and that's about it.  Every once in awhile there's a road train to spice things up a bit.  Road trains are trucks pulling 3-4 trailers, and are not much fun to pass on one lane roads.  The termite hills are pretty neat to ...

After a fifteen hour flight across the Pacific, it felt really good to be home.  My flight landed half an hour early, I didn't get grilled by quarantine, life was pretty damn good.  I wasn't having fun juggling my 49.5 lb and 50.5 lb suitcases (that took a lot of strategic packing and a luggage scale), so when I finally saw Phil pull up with the car I was relieved to have his help.  He grabbed the cart, I carried the remaining suitcase, and we went to the car to load them up.  And that, my friends, is where today's adventure began. When Phil headed over to help me, I heard the car make a strange honking sound.  I thought it was odd - was the same sound it makes if you try to lock the car and a door is open.  But it wasn't until we got back to the car that I connected the pieced.  Phil had left the car running when he got out.  Maybe, in her excitement to see me, had climbed up on the console to look out the window.  This also happens t...

There I was, sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Old Town surrounded by 50 project managers (as usual, 95% men) from all over the world - San Diego, Mabank, Belgium, Switzerland, Egypt, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia of course.  It's fairly normal for mariachi bands to wander around singing songs, but for some reason tonight it was a little old white man with a guitar.  This guy didn't sing the normal Spanish songs.  No.  Of all the songs in the world, he decided to sing 'Oh, Susana.'  Little did he know there was a Suzannah in the room.  Now clearly from the spelling these are two different names, but no one else seemed to mind the obvious difference and everyone started staring at me.  This of course made me turn bright red.  Then they all joined in, a room full of coworkers singing to me that I shouldn't cry for them.  This is my cross to bare.  I have always hated this song - almost as much as I have always disliked people sta...

A fifteen-hour plane ride is bound to make anyone cranky.  Throw in screaming babies and super fidgety passengers that keep slamming the bin lids, and even with earplugs and sleeping drugs sleep is impossible.  So go figure- last night, as exhausted as I was from the long flight and lack of sleep, I couldn't fall asleep until after 1 am.  This would be ok if I got to sleep in, but given that I have limited time to meet with coworkers while in San Diego this was not an option.  Jet lag is so much fun.  When I get back it's pretty much inevitable that I will be wide awake for an hour sometime between 2-4 in the morning.  The world should probably cut me some slack for the next few days so I don't have to introduce them to Crankypants Richardson.  Wish me luck tomorrow at the outlet malls - may no one get in between me and a good bargain!

Last weekend we set our clocks back an hour for daylight savings time.  I will acknowledge that this is not exactly a momentous occassion, but Phil and I have both realized that with the change of the clock we were both mentally preparing for summer.  Now a long Easter weekend is upon us, the weather has been gorgeous the last few days, and we are ready for some warmer weather.  Except that it is autumn (fall), the leaves are changing colors, it gets dark at 6 pm, and cold weather is inevitable.  It's going to be a cool, cool summer for us.

I thought we had finally learned how to communicate with the Aussies, but we still get caught off guard once in awhile.  Today I was looking for a coworker, and another coworker told me he was in the toilet.  I laughed and asked if he needed any help getting out - because to my American brain, that meant he was literally INSIDE the toilet.  In my head I pictured a giant toilet bowl and my coworker treading inside the bowl, struggling to climb out.  But no.  Here, toilet just means restroom.  On Sunday Phil and I took a customer to the footy.  Phil went to get himself a beer and came back with two.  It wasn't intentional - he had asked for a blonde draft.  So he got one cup of blonde beer, and one cup of draught beer - apparently he should have asked for a blonde from the tap.  And after you are handed two beers, you can hardly say no to either of them.  I suppose I should probably just be happy he didn't end up with a blonde ...

The week started out with my sister Jamie flying in from the US and showing her around Melbourne. During this time we had typical Melbourne weather, where it was nice one day and then the rain would start. This was of some concern as the runoff goes into the bay and can cause some nasty pollution for the swim. A few of my sprint races this year had the swim cancelled due to bad weather/water quality.  My biggest fear leading up to the race however was the wind. There has been many a day where the winds made riding a bike near impossible. On Friday a cold front moved through and brought with it wind and rain. My friend Peter and I tried to do a practice swim at the pier where the race started, but the waves were so large we couldn’t get out past the breakers. The fishermen on the pier were laughing at us for even attempting to swim. It was rather comical. We met a gentleman from Israel after we washed up on shore who was racing and was really concerned ab...