Steph's Adventures in Oz

Oh The Humanity!

2008-05-03T16:47:00.004-06:00

The May 1 march to Chicago's Federal Plaza caused quite the stir downtown, and while we didn't exactly have front seat to the action, the view from the 16th floor was pretty interesting. The news the next day said that the rally was significantly smaller than in years past, but the cheering and chanting passed our offices for more than 30 minutes, so I'm thinking the marchers were still able to make a point.

Here's the parade as it made its way down Jackson Boulevard:

I Felt The Earth Move Under My Feet

2008-04-18T04:35:00.002-06:00

An hour ago, I was shaken awake by an EARTHQUAKE! A 5.4 out of SE Illinois, it was definitely no big deal by the time it got to Chicago... but really? Of all the places that I have lived, I feel an earthquake in Chicago.

Weird, but I'll take it!

Museum Day Part II

2008-04-14T19:25:00.002-06:00

Last Friday, Dax and I went to the Museum of Science and Industry. The special exhibit was all about glass and featured sculptures by Dale Chihuly, who is now my favorite glass-sculpture-artist.

Just in case you were wondering.

The giant German submarine in the basement was cool too, but... I liked the glass better. Dax thinks I am such a girl.

Consequences, Shmonsequences

2008-04-01T20:25:00.003-06:00

One of my favorite people, (and bad influences) Jaci, came to visit me this weekend. Here she is looking windblown and lovely on our walk along the Lake after lunching in Hyde Park:

Jaci is my all-things girly-girl connection and somehow every time we go shopping, I end up buying something I never knew I needed. This time, we ventured into the makeup mecca Sephora, where I stumbled into some lady's makeup chair, got a makeover, signed up for the VIP club, and $95 later, I walked out with moisturizer, eyeshadow and red mascara. Red mascara. Who buys that?

Apparently I do. Now, pardon me while I go learn to use it.

Field Trip

2008-03-31T20:02:00.005-06:00

Last Friday I went on a field trip with Dax to the Field Museum (of Marshall Field's department store, which will never ever ever be called Macy's here in Chicago no matter how hard they try). He gets extra credit for class by checking out the science museums, and I get someone willing to fight the Disneyland-like lines in order to let me geek out at all the sciencey goodness.

That's Sue the T-Rex and... some elephants. I guess I forgot to check them out. Nevertheless, I was quite happy with our day exploring and since there are still two more museums to see, I'm sure I'll be helping Dax with his grades a few more times this semester.

Progress!

2008-03-30T20:15:00.003-06:00

The wee little green nubs that I got a couple of weeks ago have sprouted into beautiful (tall!) spring flowers. AND I saw quite a few little nubs peeking out of the brown while on a walk around Chicagoland this weekend. Soon Chicago will have some spring flowers of its own!

Happy Easter!

2008-03-24T19:29:00.003-06:00

The ears and photo op were for the kids, but don't those moms look cute?!

Is That A Mushroom?

2008-03-19T20:44:00.002-06:00

Yes, yes it is. Why a Leprechaun is wielding a mushroom in a parade is beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the only other balloon in the parade was Puff the Magic Dragon- because shrooms and dragons just scream St. Pat's.?!

The Future President (and some other guy)

2008-03-18T17:11:00.000-06:00

Happy St. Pat's!

2008-03-17T19:27:00.002-06:00

Here's the view from Michigan Ave and Wacker four hours after they dyed the river green.

It was still green on Sunday. That's a LOT of food coloring.

For The Record...

2008-03-13T16:13:00.003-06:00

...it's 5:30 PM, the sun is still shining, (the sun is shining at all for that matter), it's warm enough to play outside without the winter coat, and I just got some spring flowers.

Well, they'll be flowers soon enough.

Things are looking up.

Sing A Song About The Heartland

2008-03-12T20:05:00.002-06:00

Taking the train from Chicago to St. Louis is a great idea. Five hours of sitting back, enjoying the scenery and relaxing.

Cue scenery.
Hello? Is this thing on?

Another kind of corn to look forward to: King Corn airing April 15.

Nautical Nonsense

2008-03-11T20:25:00.003-06:00

One of the projects that I am working on is to basically help a town redevelop a piece of old industrial property into something useful, I mean, good for the community, I mean, revenue-generating. Their idea of the perfect something is a museum campus dedicated to the regional history, which includes boat building.

This means I am learning lots about boat building. (Me? The girl from the desert?!)

On my last trip, we got to tour around to some of the more active members of the nautical community, and our tour included a visit to the loft where they are giving boat-building classes. If I were a man living in mid-mitten Michigan, I would so be in this club.

Here's one they are working on now:

View From The Top

2008-03-10T18:08:00.002-06:00

View from my new office... if I could see through cubicle walls or stand on my tippy tippy toes. This is where I am learning new words like "sewershed," "pollutograph," and "antibacksliding." Yep, I have a feeling that I'll do well in this assignment-thingy.

A New Approach

2008-03-09T21:34:00.004-06:00

In the interest of creating a better blog to entertain/inform/enable your worktime procrastination with, I'm doing a bit of a blog makeover.

I really do like sharing my adventures with you all, really. It's just that lately, it's really not that exciting. And if it's not that exciting for me, well... all I can say is that you're a loyal lot.
All 6 of you.

So, I'm going to try to increase the postings, but decrease the content. Kind of a twinkie-ifying of my blog, if you will. ( Twinkies were invented in Chicago after all, did you know that?) We'll see how it works. As always, I'll expect you to weigh in with your opinion. Loyal you are, but meek... not really.

As promised, an update on the fate of the ice wall displayed in Millennium Park through the month of February. Here's a chunk in its final days:

Slouch

2008-03-02T20:40:00.003-07:00

So I just realized that it's been quite a while since my last post. I have no excuses.

I hope to get back to you soon and update you on all the recent good stuff... sometime after my trip to MI this week. In the mean time, I can say that I've resumed my quest to get through all those "classics" they tell you to read in high school and college. This week I read Voltaire.

I'm pretty sure he is the reason that country music is alive and well today: drama, drama, drama.

Happy March!

Slumming it Grad-Student Style

2008-02-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

Saturday night Aimee and I headed back to the University of Chicago for the 48th Annual Folk Festival. This festival is put on by the same crowd that runs the monthly contra-dances on campus and since we were first-timers for the festival, we volunteered to help out instead of actually ponying up some cash to see the bands. (That way if it was boring, at least it was free.)

The helping out turned out to be ushering for the show, which caused some major college flashbacks. I was completely at home there in the back of the house, and it was great to see that every school theatre has an uptight theatre manager running around dealing with mini-crises that are only really crises to him. The ushering gig wasn't so bad after all though, because once the crowd was seated, we were pretty much finished. We got to hang back in the back of the theatre and watch the parade of performers as they completed set after folksy set.

It was a great mix of music: we had a bluegrass band (Junior Sisk and Ramblers Choice), an Irish band (Chulrua), a banjoer (Paul Brown), a blues band fronted by that guy who sings "Tough Enough" (Kim Wilson Blues Revue), a cajun dance band (The Lafayette Rhythm Devils) and a couple of random guys from a couple of different bands who just wanted to jam onstage. It was a pretty amazing show really.

Then, since we were volunteers, we were invited to the after-show party. The party was down the street from the theatre, in the grad co-op housing. It was the most ginormous college house you've ever seen. It was also right next door to the fraternities, so maybe it wasn't the biggest you've ever seen, just the biggest you've ever seen for students who actually attend every class. Seriously, there were like five fridges in there. I counted 24 mail slots. I think I would have seriously gone insane trying to do grad work there, but I was never really a hippie, so there you go.

The highlight of the party was that practically everyone who came brought their instrument and folksy jam sessions broke out in every available space throughout the house. People were wondering around with their banjoes and violins like gypsies between breaks to sample the grad-student gumbo (smelled delicious, contained unidentifiable ingredients) and the rest of us wandered around glassy-eyed at the idea that ten people all knew the same obscure but entertaining song for violin, bass, banjo and mandolin.

Since we are both girls with jam packed social schedules, (and okay, really just because of my impending trek back to the burbs) Aimee and I called it a night at the young hour of 1AM, while the party had lots of hours of jamming to go. It's definitely something that I will try to catch again. Maybe next time I'll even pay for my ticket.

The Dim Adventures of Steph and Mandy

2008-02-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

Since our 30th birthdays, my BFF Mandy and I have tried to observe a traditional birthday visit to the birthday girl in question. As we all know, in years past I was prone to work-related traveling, so my visit to her on her birthday has been sporadic or at best, on her husband's birthday instead. (I still maintain that it's the thought that counts!) However, Mandy has kept her end of the bargain and despite the grueling traveling conditions, my getting lost on the way to the airport (Hey- blizzard! Enough said.) and she being the only person to voluntarily leave greater Phoenix on Superbowl weekend, Mandy made it out for another attempt at my 29th.

Our plan was this: Friday was to be Ferris Bueller's Day Off Day. A favorite movie of our highly impressionable teen years, we set out to conquer Chicago, Ferris Bueller style. Unfortunately, our mid-winter day was not quite up to the John Hughes-summer day set and so we had no Cubs to watch, no Sears Tower to peer from (it was socked in by clouds), no Chez Quis for lunch (OK, so it didn't really exist anyway), and no Chicago Board of Trade gallery to make rude gestures from- 2008 tours don't start until later this month... So really all that was left was the Art Institute.

We found Cameron's painting "Sunday in the Park" by Seurat, we found that sculpture with the guy with his arms crossed, we made lots of lewd comments about naked sculptures... we didn't find any kids on field trips, but all in all, a successful trip to the Art Institute. Maybe we'll give that Day Off idea another try when the sun is actually out.

Saturday night we had plans to go to dinner and see Wicked with the girls. Dinner was, uh, not exactly planned out (Hey again- I am a very busy person!) so the only place we could find a table was the Walnut Room, on the 7th floor of Macy's on State Street. It was completely empty, but we had a good time and it was right across from the theatre, so it worked out really well.

The show was great. I haven't read the book, and I had heard from a trusted source that there was a lot of politics in it, so I was braced for some underlying themes. Politics had made it into the show, but not nearly as much as in the book (from what I understand) and so the story we saw was more a great story of friendship- with excellent special effects. I'd definitely recommend it, and definitely recommend seeing it at the Oriental Theatre here in Chicago. It's a beautiful, ornate Asian-themed masterpiece. And they don't allow photos. Rude.

Afterward, the group of us went in search of a cocktail, but the loop is not exactly known for its nightlife. So we crossed the river and headed to House of Blues, where we balked at the cover of $43 to see Queensryche. Queensryche! Playing at the bar! It was weird and I really felt old when one of our group hadn't even heard of the heavy-metal rockers of the 80's. Instead we headed next door and found a bowling alley on the second floor (who would be under a bowling alley?!), which had a bar mixing some mean cocktails and had a never ending loop of good music and people watching.

Sunday we headed up to the northern suburbs to go watch the Superbowl at Mandy's husband's cousin's house. (Got that? I'll wait... OK?) Doug and Laurie had a small group of us over for a party where we dined on experimental food and learned some highly random Velveeta trivia (since they both work for Kraft) between plays, and since none of us were really tied to either team, we were all super excited to see the Giants take it at the end.

After the game, the weather came in again. We struggled to drive in heavy snowfall back to my house and even though the snow gradually let up, the fog rolled in on Monday, canceling all flights out and stranding Mandy until Tuesday morning. With our bonus time, we went to go see the newest chick flick out right now, 27 Dresses, which was uh, really chick-flicky. Mission accomplished.

The drive from the movie theatre was yet another adventure in weather navigation, and at one point, we had the horror-movie epiphany that happens when the heroines feel all alone on a foggy dark road in the middle of nowhere. We locked our doors, proclaimed not to pick up hitchhikers or light any cigarettes (since neither of us smoke or pick up strangers, this was easy), and considered ourselves protected from the horror-movie gods until we made our way to a more populated section of road. Really, it was only the matter of a block, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Ice, Ice, Baby

2008-02-04T21:22:00.001-07:00

The month of February means the first-ever (American) exhibition of the Museum of Modern Ice.

Or just MoMi. Clever, eh?

The 95-foot long, 12-foot tall wall of painted ice is installed at Chicago's Millenium Park and is behind the "bean". The Michigan Avenue side is supposed to mimic the city's skyscraper-clad skyline, while the Lake side is supposed to represent an advancing wall of a glacier.

Apparently, I wasn't so impressed with the skyline side, because I just realized all of my photos are of the glacier side.

Must be my daredevil character, taking nature head-on and everything.

The wall was a bit snowy this day since we had something like nine inches of snow the day before. I plan to head back to the wall during the month, so I'll keep you updated on its icy progress.

Baker's Dozen

2008-01-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

As I was recently pleading for friends to keep me clued-in to their own personal myspace vs. facebook crisis (endemic of the nation at large) so that I can actually keep up with them, I realized that I am on way too many places on the internet.

My computer must have so many cookies on it that I could make a killing as a baker in SecondLife, (had I the lack of a real life and actually wanted to try again or whatever it is that they do there).

I gave a quick think to the numerous places the interweb has a piece of my identity, and it is terrifying. Not terrifying in that paranoid Dick Cheney way (even though he's one mere pretzel away from being my boss), but more in that "look how compartmentalized my life has become" kind of way.

...email (4), credit cards (3), bank (3), utilities (3), library (2), google maps, weather channel, blogspot, feedburner, family album-like website thing for college friends, myspace, facebook, meetup, youtube, classmates, craigslist, drug store, target, ebay, amazon, the commuter train, the city train, the bus pass, the highway toll thingy, travelocity, expedia, hotwire, airlines (4), hilton, job searches (3)...

I have over 40 different identities out there. Floating around. Just out there, waiting for someone to ping me so they can report back.

The most disturbing part is that I would freak out if I had this many pieces of paper coming through my mailbox, and so I would actually prefer this to the alternative. And even more disturbing than that is that I can barely keep up as it is. What on earth was life like before? I don't know, and I want no part of it!

Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

2008-01-24T16:57:00.000-07:00

I would say spring is in the air, but since it was 4° outside today, I can't.

Spring was definitely on everyone's mind today though, as the Cubs announced that tickets will go on sale Friday- which definitely means that warmer times are ahead. Never mind that opening day, this year on March 31, usually has snow. (They even have planned a day off the very next day just in case they have to have a snow-day makeup game.)

It must be the knowledge that eventually, those Cubbies will be playing in the heat of summer that keeps us going.

News also spread today of first sunlight in Barrow, Alaska.

Just a little perspective on that one- all that latitude and only seven degrees warmer. sigh Still, we get the sunshine all day and today actually marks the first day that I had light for my walk all the way to the train station. YAY! We even got to pull out from Union Station in the post-sunset twilight. Not the dark.

I think things are looking up.

Preaching to the Choir

2008-01-23T22:50:00.000-07:00

This evening, after work, Aimee and I set out to the Jefferson Tap for Green Drinks.

No, there's no colored beer, (I know we're in Chicago, but this isn't St. Paddy's Day!) there's 80 environmentalists squished into a bar (and that kind of sounds like the first line of a joke, but there's no punchline that would do justice to 80 people suddenly busting out into conversations about how to get your hands on a cheap LED light bulb just yet) and some kind of discussion or presentation of the sustainability/environmental issue du jour. With cocktails. Don't forget the cocktails.

This is only the second meeting of GDs that I've been to, and I have to say, the first one... was better. My first GDs was a "business edition", which, as far as I knew, only differed from the regular version by a two dollar increase in the cover charge.

The first event had a great crowd of mixed ages and disciplines and we had one of the vice presidents of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) talk about the history of the exchange and how this system will inevitably come to be the norm as it is in Europe, how it will enable regular consumers to choose their spending more wisely, how if the EPA knew what was good for us, they'd make it regulated. You know, all those really intense tree-hugger principles that appeal to the disciples of climate change ideology. But interesting, and surprisingly more scientific and less touchy-feely than one might imagine.

This event, however... Apparently, all it takes to separate the wheat from the chaff is a lousy two bucks.

The crowd wasn't as good, not really networking but trying to get dates. (With the exception of the girl who has her own candy-making business that could tell you lots more than you knew possible about recycled, organic, sustainable candy wrapping papers.) And, the panel wasn't as good. It was advertised as a presentation on the state of Chicago's sustainability efforts or somesuch theme. Nobody from the City of Chicago actually made it to the event, which I imagine was not exactly what the organizers had in mind. (But no matter, we're modern day hippies! We're adaptable.) The panelists were all from non-profit groups around Chicago, which wasn't really a problem until I started realizing that we were getting preached to.

I mean, really? This was probably the only audience in town that knows exactly what is happening. I would have just liked to hear more about what these groups are doing about it. THEN I'll decide if it's a method I'd like to get behind, you know?

Maybe I should give it another shot. After all, I really did like the first event. Maybe I will luck out and there will be one on a night without blizzard-like conditions which cause train delays. Maybe I just need to cough up two more bucks.

A Whole New Level

2008-01-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

By now you know that due to my complete astonishment and, let's face it really, envy of how Aimee managed to move here and be completely dialed-in to the social scene in like a week, I've been trying to get out and meet more people.

I joined the band. I went dancing. These were relatively safe things to try since, you know what you're getting into before you go. (Well, not entirely with the dancing as per the previous article, but Aimee was there to guide me.)

Next up: the meetup.

Meetup.com is a website much like a bulletin board, where anyone with an interest can create a group that will eventually (once there are enough people interested) have meetings to discuss/do whatever the interest may be. For example, say you are into UFOs. You can go on to the website, input UFOs, and there are 44 meetup groups that meet regularly to discuss UFOs out there somewhere.

The beauty of this is that you know that the people you are meeting have the same interests as you, you meet in some public place so there's safety in numbers, and people create a little profile to get on the site so you kind of have an idea of who you are meeting and what they look like (less stranger danger).

Where it gets weird is that yes, these really are strangers and other people really are strange.

So, with a deep breath, I went ahead and joined:

The Indie Rock Fans meetup. Their next meeting/concert is on Saturday, during the day, for which I already have plans. After that, it's a Monday night and I haven't decided if I am dedicated enough to indie rock to want to be a slug at work that Tuesday. Oh, and I may be facilitating a workshop in Wisconsin that day, so that is out.
The Urban Explorers meetup, where I can "Meet other locals who are interested in Urban Exploration, Photography and Abandoned Buildings." OK, so that's kind of my thing. The problem is that the organizer isn't that, uh, organized, and there are no meetups planned anytime soon. Dang! This leaves...
The Board Games meetup. I know. So not exciting. But it's close to my house and they meet at a Barnes and Noble twice a week (twice!), making it way more convenient, and if it was lame, I was planning to just go drool over the new books I would like to have.

Wednesday night comes and that means game night! (They also meet on Thursdays, but I think one night of games is a good starter, don't you?) I made my way over to B&N, and as I walked up to the group of people collected at the cafe, I realized that I am the only person over the age of 25. (OK, there was one guy who was 50+, but let's call him an outlier.) I am also the only girl. Yikes. Too late to cut and run for the fiction section, I grabbed a seat and met the crew of about 8. Turns out that they are all nice guys, and more trickle in as the night progresses, including guys more my age and (thank god) a woman, who also just happens to be older than me (thank you thank you thank you). I feel significantly less nerdy as the evening progresses.

The nerdy feeling returns, however, when I realize which games we have been playing. None of which I have ever seen, they are described to me as (and I'm serious here- actual words)"Like chess, but not", "Like Othello, but not", "Like Tron, but not" (Like Tron?!) and Scrabble. Oh, there was one in there where we built a zoo, but that was like nothing else, apparently.

And you are right, I have played Scrabble before. That was the consolation game we had to play because at least three of us had, you know, jobs to report to on Wednesday and we couldn't start the next game which was like the knights of the round table, complete with "health points" (I'm having scary ex-boyfriend flashbacks here), which would require us to close down the Barnes and Noble. Jeez. Closing down the bar I've done, but closing down the bookstore? I am experiencing a whole new level of geekdom.

Yes, I'm throwing out the "geek" and "nerd" labels pretty liberally here. I just... really think it applies in this situation. The thing is though, that I had a lot of fun. My fellow game players were all fun (the ones I got to play with- yes there was more than one game happening at a time) and they seemed to genuinely want me to return (obviously) so I think next week I'll be back.

But not Wednesday. Wednesday I have Green Drinks.

Good Wholesome Fun

2008-01-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

So last weekend I went to my first contra dance. Contra dancing is something like a hybrid between the square dancing we learned in third grade and the old English dances portrayed in period movies with the long rows of people moving up and down the hall. There's a caller who makes up the dances and a band on stage. This time it was a fiddle, a guitarist, and an accordion player. I danced to the accordion.

The dancing itself was pretty fun. Aimee and I went early so I could get in on the lesson before the dance started (Aimee is a veteran contra dancer, having begun this hobby in full force last April) and while no one move is complicated, I found that just remembering where my hands went half the time was a challenge. Oh, and that whole knowing your left from right thing comes in pretty handy.

Soon, the time came for the first dance, and I found a very nice (patient) guy who knew what he was doing to be my partner. It went something like swing around in a circle with your partner, go around the big circle (4 people or two couples) 3/4 of the way, girls do-si-do one and a half times, move up the row and then start over again. I was dizzy for like 20 minutes after all of this swinging around stuff!

Here's a video I took of one of the next dances, it's not the same set, but it still has the whole one partner and two couples make a square thing going on. You can hear the caller and the band...

I think there's a move called the half-hey in there and there's also a gypsy thing too, so... yeah. I'm going to need to go back just to understand what the heck they're saying!

The dance was held at the University of Chicago Ida Noyes Hall, which was just one beautiful building among many at that campus. (I will definitely be going back in the spring to take some photos.) Apparently, the folklore society holds these dances every month (that seems like a pretty active club to me- what the heck else do would they do though?) and since it was the first dance of the year, there were a lot of novice dancers like myself. I suspect that there were lots of people who had made New Years resolutions to go and be more social, or to try something new, or to actually touch a girl... yeah, there were some pretty socially awkward people there, but let's face it, I was not on my A game either, being dizzy all the time and everything.

So all in all, it was a pretty good night. Aimee and I ended up volunteering to be ushers for one of the concerts in the upcoming Folk Festival (maybe that's what the club does!) so that we can get into one of the dances for free...

I think I just got sucked in.

A TV Classic

2008-01-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

I know it's a total cop-out of a post, but besides kicking ass at work (obviously), I have nothing interesting to report.

So, here's a little blast from the past I was reminded of when my friend Trina developed a sudden fascination with llamas on her myspace page.

I'm Flat and I Can't Get Up

2008-01-08T20:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight I joined a band. A community band of posh community X, just east of posh community Y, which has the almost exact same name, but is made distinct because it has the big mall, just north of me. As far as I can tell, this town is about one square mile big and it still ranks a "city" park complete with stage on the second floor of the community building. Anyway, it's weird. Driving back behind the town homes and the lawyers' and dentists' offices to have band practice. It just seems unnatural.

Suprisingly un-posh fellow band members include music teachers, college students, musicians trying to keep up (like me), the 80 year old guy who sticks all of the cork on his bass clarinet into his mouth at once before he puts it together (ew), and the french horn player who whipped his spit-valve so hard that a big old band loogie landed right on my neck (double ew) and who I suspect is the assistant director. (ick, I'm still reeling from that one.)

There will now be four flautists, me humbly residing in fourth chair (since I apparently have no embouchure after 10 years of neglect) and the following personalities I will get to know better each Tuesday:

Chair one is a very nice lady with very thick glasses, who, when sharing her holiday news of a daughter's engagement, was extra glad because you know, she's the horsey one.
Chair two was absent, but the seat was reserved for a woman who also plays piccolo, so maybe I'll give her a run for her money when we inevitably play "Stars and Stripes Forever" for the July 4th concert.
Chair three was a very nice girl who just so happens to work for a music shop that could just, you know, fix that flute right up for ya, since she works there and all. It'll cost more than my dad paid for it in 4th grade, but I suspect that will be the cheapest repair bill in a two-hour radius.

Plus, I'd really like to hear e-natural again. I rather like e-natural.

The director was the requisite round, sweaty, loud man who barked when the band was out of tune during warm-up, but then gave us only one tuning note to remedy this. (I therefore spent the rest of the practice only pretending to play any note in the upper register because I knew that it was so we were all so out of tune it would make my hair pop into split ends if I contributed to the madness.) His directing style was something that I would call epileptic-airplane ground crew guidance agent. Even if you don't understand the general hand-waving that is keeping time as a director, you should know that down equals count 1. Our fair director would tend to wave out something like 1,1,1, seizure, 4, 1,1,3,4,1,1,seizure, seizure,1.

I was somewhat lost for a majority of the practice.

I suspect that next week's practice will be just as exciting. Cross your fingers for me.

Oh, and let me know now if you want tickets to the concert. The band only gets 75 tickets and you know, we gotta let the director know in advance.

Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

This year I resolve not to make any resolutions, pre-planned major life changes, or trips to the ER.

Won't you join me?
(In the slacking I mean, not the trip to the ER. Call me though if you do end up in the ER and need someone to point and laugh.)

Pulling Out All of the Stops

2007-12-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was Christmas Eve, (yay Christmas!) and Mom and I made the yearly trip to mass to participate in the godliness of it all. While I really do like the yearly trip, I still don't quite get it (all the standing up and sitting down and repeating back- I feel like jumping up and doing a cheer for the football team) this year was quite the experience. You see, this year, I am in a new town. This year I happen to be lucky enough to be living the "posh life" in a posh suburb, where really I live in the only house that hasn't been scraped and/or popped to add another floor, and which also happens to be within walking distance of like, six churches. (Seriously, I am not exaggerating: six churches, two coffee shops, three florists, three bakeries, and a Chinese food joint. I know this because I counted as Mom and I walked around town today.)

Anyway, last night we found our way to the nearest church of proper denomination, where I learned that rich people really like to hear the pipe organ. Loud. I mean, wow. And apparently adding in the fake trumpet sound and the jingle-bells sound makes up for the fact that you have changed the tempo on "Silent Night" at a whim. Oh, and that micro-mini skirts are back in fashion (good news for you boys out there) and that apparently it's OK to pick lint off of other parishioners without introducing yourself. So you see, not only did we learn that we should "bring the mass back to Christmas", we learned that rich does not equal sane...but we all kinda knew that already.

Merry Christmas!

I Just Couldn't Stop

2007-12-20T19:56:00.001-07:00

OK.

So I wasn't quite finshed dealing with the trauma of my recent Christmas Tree installation, but I didn't really know how to express myself. Apart from more whining. And I thought it best to save you from that.

And then I wandered over to the site of Ms. Sassy Pants, who refers me to The Bloggess, who, let's face it, is not for the faint of heart (OK, so nobody who has an interesting blog is, but I digress...), and she is exhibiting the most perfect affront to holiday cheer ever.

And it is a sweater.

(The sweater-creating site she discovered from someone else. That's how the web works, you know.)

So, in order to properly convey my Christmas-Tree-putting-up experience, I've created some sweater art for you.

Note the hard-working elf all tied up in lights,
the crooked tree- just about to fall over,
the garland gone awry,
the ornaments all gathered in a jumbled mess
and the taunting Santa just laughing at me. Quit laughing, Santa!

And the cherry to top it all off... the star. The star that I just started talking about in the middle of the Christmas market, the star that I kept saying was the star. of. David. Aww crap.

It's really a wonder I have a job at all after all of the stuff that comes out of my mouth around my co-workers.

O Christmas Tree

2007-12-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

So if you are among the few Chicagolanders (is that really how you say it?) who keep up with this blog, you already know that I put up my very first real Christmas Tree all by myself this year.

You also know that I've sworn against ever doing it again.

Yes, it's beautiful.
Yes, it smells wonderful.
Yes, it's festive.
Yes, it trashed my house and yes, I had to make an extra trip to the hardware store just to buy a hacksaw that I'll never use again to get it to fit into the tree stand that took me an hour to get set up just so and yes, by the time this was all done, I wanted no part of decorating the bloody thing.

But I did. And OK, I love it.
I was missing one thing though- a topper. An angel or a star or something to complete the look... and then I went on a business trip.

Now, stay with me here. I went on a business trip to Michigan where I participated in what is going down in the books as like, the best meeting ever, and everyone involved would probably be jumping up and down and hugging if this was a John Hughes film. (Wouldn't that be great?)

The next day, still giddy with accomplishment, on our way back to Detroit to catch our plane, Jim and I drove through a small town called Frankenmuth. Michigan's "little Bavaria" just so happens also to be the home of Bronner's Christmas Wonderland the LARGEST Christmas store in the world. And lemme tell ya, it's huge.

This place is like Costco for the Christmas OCD. There was a whole floor set up the size of, I don't know, Target, with just ornaments. It was out of control. It was here, I decided, that I was meant to buy a tree topper. And I did. It's one of those glass bulb things with the point at the top? You know what I mean? Anyway, it's awesome.

AND yesterday, Jim, Chris, Aimee and I made the trek back to Daley Plaza during our lunch hour to check out the market one more time before we all go on vacation. While there I was able to squash Chris's grinchy Christmas Tree fact (said tree is not really one authentic tree- see December 1 post) with the fact that the Daley Plaza tree is actually made of many whole authentic trees. They just happened to be stuck in a gigantic metal frame like the faux trees of my future. So while my hope of one gigantic tree was still not realized, I feel a little redeemed by the fact that we were gathered around something partially authentic. It was something anyway.

I wonder how they water it.

der Plows That Work in der Night

2007-12-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

So tonight I came home on the 9:40 train.
(I was out making friends with some state environmental types, but that is not the story.) (Figures though that the first friends I make will be promptly leaving town at the end of their conference.)

So anyway, I get off the train around 10:20 and there are all of these trucks around town. They're working. There's a loader, and a plow, and ohmigod, they're loading up the snow!

All the snow has been moved into giant piles in the middle of the streets... They are literally picking up the snow, loading it into trucks and moving it out of town. Where does it go? The less fortunate areas of Chicago? Is there some impoverished area of town that has a penchant for igloos? Does it get dumped into the river?

Where is Nancy Drew when you need her? Hey, I'll settle for Encyclopedia Brown, though I don't think he takes out of town gigs...

Okaaayy...

2007-12-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

So, it got worse. I have no idea what the official count was but it looked like a good three or four inches of snow had fallen overnight and was sitting all cozy on the top of my car this morning. Since I didn't have to drive to work, I left it there (protective coating, right?) and happily trudged through the neighborhood in my spiffy boots and got to the train just fine, thank you.

The train. Now that was a different matter entirely. I showed up to catch the early train in case there were delays somewhere down the tracks. (There were.) We boarded the train according to schedule (early, mind you), but I walked into my office ten minutes later than usual, so something was definitely up. And the people were nuts. All flittery and flustered. I think I'm going to have to sequester myself up in one of those one-person perches on the second level from now on whenever there's weather. Yikes.

Anyway, I haven't posted any photos lately, so here's one of Union Station during better, calmer times: Saturday night.

This is as bad as it gets!

2007-12-04T17:15:00.000-07:00

That's what my co-worker keeps saying about the weather. I think he is on crack. Some kind of a hallucinogenic, anyway.

This afternoon marks the second snow of the month, the first one to "disrupt" rush hour on a weekday. It's not that impressive, really. Just a dusting. I don't even need my brand-new-Christmas-present-in-advance snow boots that I lugged into work just for the occasion.

I know it's got to be worse than this, and so that's why I'm pretty sure my colleague is sniffing printer toner. Or his house is too close to some high tension power lines. Something, because this really isn't bad.

Now, Mr. Murphy, about tomorrow's weather...

I'm Mad as Hell and I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore!

2007-12-03T19:34:00.001-07:00

I just saw Network for the first time.

It stuck.

'Tis the Season

2007-12-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

As we have passed the official start date for the Christmas season, (Hello? The day after Thanksgiving and not one day sooner!) Chicagoland is putting on its holiday best.

I have learned that Daley Plaza is the crux of all things holiday fun in the loop, and this Christmas is no exception. The star of the Plaza is a gigantic Christmas tree right on Washington Street. It's not all one tree though (thanks to Chris for ruining that particularly impossible holiday illusion)... still, it's pretty impressive.

The rest of the Plaza is filled with small wooden shacks filled with gift-giving goodness as in the Kristkindl markets of Bavaria. I was impressed with the authenticity of the whole thing- tree ornaments, blown glass, carved wooden toys, lace work, roasted nuts and German chocolate- and only one stall selling churros!

Let's compare, shall we?

Can you guess which is which?

One is in Garmish, at the foot of Zugspitze, the tallest mountain of der German Alps.

The other is in the center of the Second City, at the foot of... City Hall.

OK, so maybe it wasn't that hard to guess which is which, but really, Chicago's attempt is pretty close, considering we're half the world away.

All it needs is an oompah band and some crazy person to jump onstage. Oh wait, maybe that's been done.

The New Girl

2007-11-30T18:21:00.000-07:00

So I'm still checking things off the gigantic list of new-employee training, and since I found myself with nothing (in the public interest) to do, I made my way up to the "self-learning" lab on the 12th floor. This day of orientation taught me the following:

The union will act on my behalf no matter what, but unless I pay dues, I have no say about what they think really is "on my behalf";
I shouldn't take time out of a full building evacuation to look for bombs;
I should never admit fault if I'm involved in a car accident with a federal vehicle;
Tidbits like these are buried in six hours of orientation conference presentations;
Six hours attached to mono headphones is a very long time;
One good thing about the feds taking so long to make changes is that you can watch an orientation conference taped in 2003 and it still mostly applies to 2007;
Seven-year hiring freezes tend to impede the creative process when presenting orientation materials; and
It could be worse.

Even though this truly is painful, technically there are no jobs here. If I weren't so lucky, I could still be a consultant. Ick.

What I Learned From Daylight Savings Time

2007-11-15T17:07:00.000-07:00

Because I grew up in a non-"let's change the time of day at our whim" state, the annual central time zone's "fall back" keeps me on my circadian-stimulated toes. Each year I learn something new about myself and the world around me. This year was no exception.

Today's commute home from work in the newly-dim DST world of Chicagoland taught me the following:

This was the first time I had actually taken my "regular" train home since the time change. I really have been travelling quite a bit recently.
People walking to the train station in downtown Chicago get a bit more frantic as the sun goes down.
Riding the train while it is dark is strangely relaxing.
Completing a sudoku puzzle while listening to your ipod is an oddly zen experience.
Zen experiences block out the things around you.
Those things include the passing of your train station.
Missing your train station enables you to meet new people.
These people are not necessarily cheerful in the dark after a long day of work.
Walking home from the next train station only adds 0.5 miles to your commute.
Those 0.5 miles are pure deep suburbia, with very few street lights.
Wearing black from head to toe like the people in the city is not recommended for people trying to cross the street in the burbs at night.
Even though it is completely dark outside, you can still see your breath.
You really should have a hat when it's 37 degrees outside, even if you do get off at the right train station.

Cleveland Rocks

2007-11-14T18:20:00.000-07:00

Rounding out my recent tour of the midwest, last night I spent an exhilarating evening at the Cleveland Airport Sheridan ordering room service and watching Chuck. During the show I noticed two things: a high incidence of jewelry commercials and that apparently the best holiday lights are viewed in "nearby" West Virginia. This can only mean one thing:

The people in charge of Christmas are getting way out of hand.

It is far too early for Christmas stuff, since we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet! Halloween candy is still hanging around the grocery stores! Sadly though, I'm not in charge of this (yet another thing I'll have to change about the world someday) and I guess I'll just have to cope...

After all, I spotted at least two Christmas trees on my way out of the Cleveland Airport.

The Weirdest Thing... part 2

2007-11-01T18:52:00.000-06:00

So here's what I was talking about yesterday:

...and really, I don't ever want to sneak a camera into the bathroom ever again. Eww.

The Weirdest Thing...

2007-10-31T20:25:00.000-06:00

about working for the feds so far is the bathrooms. OK- hear me out on this.

They've got a foyer-type room right when you walk in for changing or makeup or gossip parties or whatever, but that's not the thing. Then, you get into the actual bathroom and they are clean (nice) with granite counter tops (fancy) and overstocked paper towels (handy) and little extra bits of rubber on the doors to cover the cracks (huh?). That's weird, right?

They've actually gone in and retro-fit the stalls with a metal strip on one side and a rubber strip on the other so that you can't see through that tiny little crack at the hinge of the stall door.

Now, we all know that the government doesn't usually take it upon themselves to go doing things on their own, which means that so many people complained about it, they thought it was a problem to be remedied.

I give kudos for the remedy.

I puzzle the cost.

I question the sanity of my co-workers.

In the Garden

2007-10-28T20:05:00.000-06:00

So it's been a busy couple of weeks, full of loooong car drives on the weekends. Lots of quality time with the podcasts. (What did I do before "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" and "Radiolab"?! Nothing good, I tell you!)

In any case, I had some quality time with old friends and family in Cincinnati and Peoria and so this weekend was all about my couch.

First I had to find it of course, (three weekends away and your tidy house becomes a wreck! I blame der elves in der night)and Saturday was cleaning day, which thankfully didn't last too long so I had date night which included the bargain bin at Hollywood video and nachos from Taco Bell and for under $25, I was set for a long long time of couch love.

This morning though I had had just about enough of the couch, so I hopped in the car and went to Garfield Park Conservatory, which is having a special exhibition of sculptures of Niki de Saint Phalle . Truly outstanding mosaic sculptures distributed throughout the conservatory (which is beautiful in it's own right). Oh Bother, I should just show you I guess.

You step into the Palm House and are greeted with this lovely lady:

Through to the fern room (breathtaking in its own right- designed by Jens Jensen, very famous landscape architect in these parts) to the central pond and these three ladies appear (you can see the reflection of the third toward the top):

And two trumpet players, who we all know I have quite the weakness for:

And now we have made it outside to the city garden, with its wide open spaces and on a bright sunshiny day like today, I had to play with the glittering mosaic.

You can see me in these two, you know.

And I just kept thinking that this was a great way to look at lines and shapes and textures and light, and before you know it, I'm applying everything you are supposed to think about in art, but doing it all at once- and totally second hand. Like I had just taken the integral of it or something. Can you go from 3D to 2D with a twist and get 4D?

At least, that's what it seemed like to me.

So, not a bad way to get off the couch, I reckon.

Sorry it got a little strange there for a bit. Betcha can tell when the sleeping pill kicked in, eh? Goodnight!

This Is Big

2007-10-16T20:35:00.000-06:00

A brief look into what I now consider a breakthrough for my new job:
Green Roof Quantification in the Chicago Tribune

Enjoy!

But Why?

2007-10-14T19:37:00.000-06:00

You ask, "Why is it taking you so long to update me?"
I reply, "Because."

I have truly good intentions, I swear. But you know what they say about intentions.
One thing you may not know, is that they also say,
"Welcome to the dark side. We have cookies." And you know how I like cookies, so it's been tough.

Alright, enough screwing around, here's some photos of my new hometown:

Here's the farmer's market that happens every Thursday in Daley Plaza (note the Picasso), but doesn't happen anymore because it's too darn cold and they've made the plaza into a Halloween-themed park with orange water in the fountains anyway:

Here's a bit of the Chagall Wall that lives in the shadow of the Chase Tower:

And here's Jill on her birthday before I left Denver (just had to include her!):

She likes Harry Potter, and by god, that's what she got.
(Lesson to all- be careful what you wish for!)

A Banner Day

2007-10-11T17:54:00.000-06:00

So yesterday was my first encounter with the whole crowd on the street big newsfest happening right in front of you thing, just like in the movies.

I was walking to the office from the morning train and all of a sudden, everyone was stopped and looking up.

Turns out some activists had rock-climbed their way up the Chicago Board of Trade building (right next door to my office) and dropped a big banner about deforestation of the rainforest after they reached the 23rd floor.

I don't care who you are, that's a long way up.

Here's the banner, a little closer-in (but backwards- hey, it was windy!)

So, long story short, the cops let the guys hang for a while, then they pulled them into the windows. A little anticlimactic, but still, a good start to a Wednesday!

Here's the article.

FYI

2007-09-25T05:05:00.000-06:00

My doorbell is quite loud before 6:00 AM.

Chicago by the numbers

2007-09-24T17:17:00.001-06:00

It takes 105 minutes to get from O'Hare to my apartment via trains only, if you catch them just right.
A cup of coffee costs 35 cents in my office.
A pop from the machine costs $1.45. (This may be why the feds are regarded as slow-movers. No caffeine!)
I have lived in Chicagoland for 24 whole days.
I have ridden a train 15 times.
I have passed underneath the Sears Tower 12 times.
I have mooched dinner from David and Geeta at least 6 times.
I work on the 4th floor of the federal building with the least security I have ever seen.
I still have three boxes to unpack. (They are books for work, so they don't really count, do they?)
I live on the 2nd floor, above a man who says he is an accountant, but who I am convinced is a secret-agent.
Two of my posters (framed in glass) spontaneously jumped from my kitchen walls.
One of them shattered to bits. Six of them were then removed in a preemptive strike.
Only one pot of coffee that I have been forced to learn to make for myself has turned out funny.

Slacker

2007-08-23T07:50:00.001-06:00

Okay okaaay, I know I am a slacker. In my defense, lots of things are happening in my world right now!

The DC trip yielded a job offer (hello dreamjob!) and so now I am in the midst of moving to Chicago. Someone put an offer on my condo after only 10 days and wants to take possession by the first, so I am furiously trying to tie up loose ends at every turn. My apartment hunting trip in Chicago was traumatic, but I ended up with a funky apartment (the good kind of funky, and let me tell you, that was hard to do) right next to the train so that I can commute like the urbanite I will become. And work in Denver is still full force, with my to-do list verrrry sllloooowly shrinking.

Since this is my last full week in the office, I'd better get back to work.

DC update coming soon!

2007-07-15T21:41:00.000-06:00

Until then, here's the inside of the rotunda at the Capitol.

A tall house with room, please

2007-07-06T20:30:00.000-06:00

So first let me say that this blog tracker thing is pretty cool. I still like the look of the original web page, so I'm not as into the subscription thing or the feed, but the tracking makes it all worthwhile. I can see what someone searched for before getting my blog, and what posting they read. No way to track the individual people yet, so you can keep those Big Brother paranoia issues at bay.

OK, back to the task at hand: a new post so the former headline isn't staring out at me from every web page I've plastered myself on. Here goes:

So we all know last night I had a bit of a getting to sleep problem. As a result, my intended 7AM start time at work dropped back to around 8:30. Because nearly everyone was in the office before me, I was able to get the lowdown by checking my email before leaving the house. Turns out that the project that I spent all day til 8:30 PM working on didn't really need to go out the door today. Oh yeah, it was really no big deal and they're going to send it out Monday. Jeesh.

So I did what every self-respecting pleb does, I went to Starbucks.

Then I got back to work.

Friendly Fire

2007-07-05T22:00:00.000-06:00

As per tradition, the recent holiday was all about fire, in various forms.

But before I tell you about the traditional variety, let me back up.

Long before I came to Denver (way, way back in like 1999) an impulse buy at the grocery store yielded a pinata, and the Third of July Fiesta was born. Jen and Brian, out on a routine grocery stop, found the pinata which Jen really really had to have. They bought the pinata, filled it with mini bottles of booze, candy and condoms, and threw a party in its honor. And so began the Fiesta.

The fiesta has had many glorious traditions, including the ritual accidental setting of the roof on fire. For reasons unknown, the Fiesta had recently gone the way of the dodo, and was only resurrected this year. Mostly because Kate and Scott have a fire pit in their yard which is far, far away from the roof.

The evening began in classic mountain party style, with some thundershowers to cool things off, the teaching of the margarita mixing, and playing with dogs. Soon, more people came and they brought more alcohol and more dogs. Soon we had a plethora of pooches and a Pollock, fresh off the plane telling Pollock jokes. (Ah, you see, I'm not sure I'd normally call him a Pollock because doesn't that have a negative connotation? I don't know. But since a) he called himself the Pollock, b) he really was telling Pollock jokes, and c) he came with the token gay guy and the artist, it was expected of me, really. The theme for the evening quickly became "Stereotypes save time")(And no, we didn't really get his jokes.)

After feasting on our fiesta dinner, we gathered in a circle around the fire (the rain stopped long ago) and passed around the whisky bottle. Each person who took a drink had to entertain the rest of us with a joke, a song or a dance. (Nope, I wasn't drinking. I had to work the next day. "But, it was the 3rd of July!" you say. I know.)

After much time with the whiskey bottle, we decided it was time to hit the pinata. Garth took first honors and smacked the thing down in one samurai swoop. I laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants. Completely sober, mind you! The boys rigged the pinata back up, because one hit just doesn't have the satisfaction required, and David, Kym and then James gave it a try. It was pretty great. Try hitting a big paper hat after being blindfolded and spun around to dizziness on the side of a mountain. It's pretty fun to watch, anyway.

That was pretty much the highlights of the evening. There were more fun things, like staging "Dancing Queen" on the steps freaking out the dogs, and playing shadow ninjas with the spot light in the trees, but you really can't top a pinata filled with booze and candy. (No condoms this year.)

On the Fourth, I slept in and then went to work. Because I'm taking some time off next week, I worked through the holiday and made it out in time for darkness. (I actually really like working when nobody else is there. You can turn your itunes up really loud and laugh and nobody thinks your neither annoying nor insane.)

For the fireworks festivities I headed to Mike and Sara's house in the Highlands. They live just on the other side of I-25 from downtown. Here's my attempt at an arty shot a while back- the view from their balcony after it rained. Off camera left is Coors field, and off camera right is Mile-High, both of which were having sporting events with fireworks afterwards.

Anyway, so we had some BBQ'd burgers as required for all citizens, and went out to the balcony to wait for the fun. By 9PM we had at least 10 different shows going off in the 180 panorama that we could see. The various shows may have only lasted 20 or so minutes each, but we were good and entertained until at least 11:20, with only a minor time out of the action.

The Coors field fireworks were by far the best, being a smidge closer than the Mile-High show. They were definitely louder and had the added benefit of some dry lightning overhead. It was amazing timing- a round of fireworks would go off, and then a giant bolt across the entire sky would fill in the stillness. There was definitely some divine choreography going on that night!

My favorite fireworks were the giant cauliflower that exploded just over the Rockies fans' heads, the big blue sparkly rain that had about 30 shells going off all at once, and the squiggly loud illegal fireworks someone was shooting off a rooftop downtown.

My least favorite fireworks were the squiggly loud illegal fireworks that someone was shooting off right outside my window at midnight. They only got two GIANT coffee can sized fireworks off though, so after my heart stopped beating 300 beats a minute, I could go back to sleep with only minor dream interruption.

And on Saturday, I slept

2007-07-02T21:09:00.000-06:00

Once again, I can't keep up the blogging now that I am back in the real world. Strange how having a social life takes you from the computer! But anyway:

May 1: Paul, Brian and I gave a talk about how cool science is to some junior high kids at Julie's school. The talk was pretty awesome, though Paul kept tossing around jargon (without knowing) and I'm pretty sure I said that Canada was cold about 5 times. Brian stole the show with his description of turd herding (waste water treatment).

May 4: Beth's bridal shower. Beth being the only woman in the world who hates being the center of attention, we had a paint-your-own-pottery party where we all painted her a gift instead. It turned out to be great fun. Here's some highlights:

Jessica is proud of her free-styling ability.

Nancy, Christina, Lucy and Maureen are the artistic table.

Ivon concentrates on her plate. (She's outlining the whole thing because she didn't believe me when I said the pencil would bake away!)

May 5: Cinco de Mayo, and instead of heading to the festival downtown, a few of us take advantage of the break in showers to have a picnic in Wash Park. I scouted out a good spot north of the lake (with water in it) and I settled in for the afternoon. Pretty soon Garth and dog Magna, Kym, James, and Mike and Sara with pooch Heisman join in.

Mike comes to the rescue with a brand new grill and Garth protects the meat from the dogs

May 10: Tucson, I'm off for Mother's Day and some quality time with the fam. Dad and I take the Carsons out to dinner and it's probably the most fun I've had at the Macaroni Grill.

For Mother's Day, Mom and I head out to use my new pottery painting skills and make some art of our own. (I suspected that some of my colors were off and Mom now tells me that they were, in fact, the wrong colors. Why anyone would choose to paint with baby-poo brown is a mystery to me.)

One more day left of this mini-vacation and Dad and I head out to Sabino Canyon for a hike up what is left of the road. My goal was to get a photo of a saguaro flower- mission accomplished!

May 14: Salida, Sampling at Chaffee County Landfill. In central Colorado, it's not a bad place to spend some time. This time I was training some of the local guys, so I had a crew of two to chat with. It was actually a pretty fun trip!

May 19: Ivon's birthday party at Ceviche, a Peruvian restaurant in Denver. She and friend Delia have sweet talked their way into having the party after hours and we were given free-reign of the restaurant. We started on the patio with drinks and appetizers. Here are Ivon, Sarah and Brett:

And then we moved inside for some dancing where Reed demonstrated his version of the white-man's overbite:

May 22: Jay is in town for some work schmoozing and since I am all about being a good hostess, I take Jay and his work buddy to dinner at Rodizio as a marketing effort. Rodizio is one of those Brazilian steakhouses that have a crew of servers with big bunches of meat on sticks. We had our fill of the read meat portion of the food pyramid for about the next couple of months.

May 24: Phoenix. The 25th is Graham's birthday and the beginning of Memorial Day weekend- all the excuse we need to have a pool party. I perfected my floaty skills and took lots of naps until I left on the 29th.

May 30: Baltimore. Brian and Jen, two of the crowd I met when first moving to Denver, are getting married June 2. Since Baltimore is so far away, Kym, Jon, Kate and I made a vacation of it. We toured Fort McHenry, inspiration for the "Star Spangled Banner", learned how to eat crab properly, and generally raised a ruckus. Here's Kym getting a crab lesson at the market:

The wedding was at the Baltimore Theatre Project, where Jen used to work while going to grad school.

The ceremony was creative and touching, and at the end of the day, Jen tossed her bouquet from the theatre steps as the crowd sang "Rainbow Connection". It was by far the most fun I've had at a wedding in a long time.

June 8: Jess and Todd's rehearsal dinner at the Wynkoop. I used to work with Jess and the dinner was a blast. Lucinda and Jason and Pat were also in attendance representing the Golder crowd.

June 9: The wedding. Jess and Todd got married in Genesee out under a gazebo and it was beautiful. Perhaps the best part though was that Katie and Mitch came up from AZ for the fun. Lucinda, Katie and I had a blast catching up and the boys entertained us all on the dance floor.

June 13: Happy hour at the Hornet. Sarah just got back in town from a very traumatic two weeks in the field in Montana, so a bunch of us took her out for a drink and debriefing. Jason got to show off his new motorcycle, so everyone was happy.

June 14: Arts and crafts class at the library. Can't tell you what I made because it's going to be a present soon. Fun though.

June 15: Golder happy hour in Denver. We decided to have an all Jill-and-Reed happy hour event, so we did their regular circuit and started at Dazzle, the very dark-lit jazz and martini bar on Lincoln. Then, we moved to the Funky Buddha, which had an outstanding patio that just happened to be very near to a cottonwood tree that I was really allergic to. I pleaded the need to breathe and we left early for the next stop- Armida's, the Mexican karaoke bar that I had attended earlier for Sara's birthday. We got prime real estate outside on the patio (no cottonwoods) right in front of the picture window behind the stage. We could see everyone perform and read all of the words as they butchered each song. This was way better than the last time. Not a choreographed move seen all night.

June 16: Golder picnic in Wash Park. Since the park is near my house, I was elected "she who must secure shady spot". Since Denver was experiencing a heat wave, we had the pick of the park (everyone else stayed home)... and apparently so did all of Golder. It turned out to be pretty fun, but hardly anyone showed, so that was disappointing.

Later that night: the annual Lobster Party. Brett and Larry throw the annual lobster party each year as a fund-raising effort for SIDS. Everyone who comes gets either a steak or a lobster and fun ensues. This was the first year of the lobster costume. It was impressive to say the least.

It was a great night, and people came from all over CO- even Dena came up from Trinidad to hang with Kym (but hey, she's a party regular).

June 17: Digital photography class at Chief Hosa Lodge in Genesee. The lodge is named after Chief Hosa, who watched over the hill that became the "Switzerland" of the Rockies. He was honored by having the City of Denver buy the land as the first ever Mountain Park as soon as humanly possible. Denver built the lodge for travellers on the stagecoach road that became I-70. It began as a reception hall and chapel, became a restaurant, a museum, a hostel, a gambling hall, a brothel, and now it's... a reception hall and chapel.

The class was taught by one of Denver's big digital photographers (name forgotten). He showed us the result of mysterious elements such as "aperture" and "back lighting". Most of the things I'd heard before, but it was a nice refresher. Lots of good photos to see, so that was good for inspiration. It was meant for the people with the really expensive cameras though, and so I had to fake most of my effects. Here's my "portrait of wildflower"

June 21: Gay on Santa Fe. This was the kick-off for gay pride weekend here in Denver, and since Kym and David's gallery was one of the few participating, Jill and I had to show our support. (The free wine didn't hurt.) One of their friends installed a giant art thing in their "ghetto garden" (the concrete lined backyard of their gallery that they share with a few others) with giant scrunched-up reams of paper. It was like a paper cave, but since this was gay pride, Jill and I decided it had to be something like a giant birth canal or something equally meaningful.

June 22: drinks with Peruvians. I joined Ivon, Carmen and E for mojitos at Cuba Cuba, in the Golden Triangle neighborhood of Denver. It used to be pretty sketchy, but now it's being over-run by lots of yuppie condos and the new federal court buildings. The restaurant is still good though- it's a converted house with an outstanding patio/backyard. The mojitos were pretty good as well. In fact, it's the first time I've actually liked a mojito...

Later we continued the consonance with dinner at Noa Noa, an outstanding Mexican restaurant on Santa Fe. Since this is just down the street from Kym and David's gallery, I'll be visiting it often.

June 24: Gay pride parade. Some friends of friends threw a gay pride parade pre-party, so I crashed. (That's the best part of the gay community, as long as you know someone, you're golden.) Jill and I met with Kym et al. at Eric's house at the beginning of the parade route for breakfast and mimosas. As soon as we heard the cop cars and the "dikes on bikes" leading the parade, we made our way to the street to join in the revelry. It was quite an experience.

After the parade, Jill and I made our way downtown to Civic Center Park, the center of all things gay that weekend, and had a look at all of the booths of stuff for sale. It was pretty much like the booths at any other festival, except with way more specialty travel agents. About then, the heat was getting to us, so we made our way deeper into downtown for some lunch at Zaidy's, a jewish deli/restaurant that has amazing pastrami. (I chose the lighter stuffed tomato instead.)

After lunch, we headed back to the gayness and found seats for the entertainment. We watched some random emcee and then a drag show that basically re-enacted all of the movie "Dreamgirls" (really- now I don't have to see it). We couldn't stay too long though because the heat was sweltering. We headed back to our respective houses and sat in front of our fans. (That's what I did, anyway.)

June 25: dinner at the Keg. I met Mike downtown at the steakhouse so he could use his free dinner cupon from his birthday (Sara was characteristically out of town). It was an excellent way to get half a free steak.

June 26: movie on the Rocks. Well, that was the plan, anyway. Crisis at work meant that I didn't get to leave work until like 8:30, so the movie was out. Dang crisis.

June 27: Bike to work day. I was the organizer for the office, so I rounded up breakfast and cajoled everyone into signing up for biking or carpooling or whatever and we got first place in our county! Not bad when you're competing against the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. (You'da thought they'd have it in the bag!) Since I was unable to ride (all that breakfast organizing) I carpooled with a couple of women who had to be to work extra early for a safety class. By 10AM, I was ready for a nap!

After work, Ivon raced across town for another crafts class at the library. This one was a fused glass workshop, and we made little glass creations that will be fired and mailed to us later. I made a key chain. I'm guessing that it's not award worthy, but I had fun anyway.

And THEN, I went to Mike and Sara's to dog sit the little dog. We watched a chick movie and bonded.

June 28: Today is the monthly beer-thirty reception at work, and I got to give out Bike to work day certificates like the "keeping it real" award for riding the last block to work with a grande starbucks, and the "AARP award" for the guy who tried to keep up with the young bucks riding from Boulder.

Later we celebrated Kate's birthday with happy hour at the City Park golf course club house. It was a great mix of trying-to-be-snobby golfers and folks chipping the crap out of the free grass. Definitely entertaining.

June 29: Happy hour at GI Jodi's in Littleton. Definitely not my pick. It was a very strange mix of redneck/biker bar/ hooters located in a very well-to-do area of town. Strange, but cheap.

June 30: I slept. All day.

Then I had dinner at Little Ollie's. Sara's back in town for the week and Karin was celebrating free babysitterhood and her first glass of wine in 10 months, so naturally we had to head to dinner in Cherry Creek. Little Ollie's is an asian fusion restaurant that was tasty but pricey- but I'm sure that's mostly due to the zip code. We finished dinner but not the gossipping, so we headed to a coffee shop to chat away until Karin's babysitter curfew.

Not a bad ending to a very busy month!
Here's hoping I don't wait this long to post anymore- I doubt anyone can read this far!

Colorado update

2007-05-08T22:21:00.000-06:00

So I'm working on a post about the last week or so, but in the mean time I thought you'd like to know that we have a herd of elk migrating for the summer who are blocking traffic at I-70 and C-470... seriously messing up the commute for those suburbanites.

AND, a little granola pat on the back to the Colorado Rapids, Denver's major league soccer team, who has just become the world's first carbon-neutral soccer team. I'm sure that is going to send stampedes of people to check out soccer at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, (that's seriously the name of the park- I can't wait until the nickname emerges) or maybe they'll just show up to try to catch a glimpse of David Beckham. Let's hope they carpool.

It's been a while

2007-04-30T20:56:00.000-06:00

Hey, I know I'm a slacker. I have all the usual reasons. Hopefully this will make up for it.

A couple of weekends ago now, we celebrated Sara's 30th birthday. We went to the Mexican karaoke bar and had birthday cake and wore Hawaiian leis. (It seemed fitting to me, I mean, what else would you wear at a Mexican karaoke bar?) I bought Sara a special birthday girl tiara, but she was having none of it. (She is very gifted at dishing out, but not so much at taking it.) That's OK, I'm sure we embarrassed her plenty throughout the evening.

Jon and Julie and a rotating round of folks (including me) ended up sitting right next to the DJ booth where the DJ must have been trying to wake the dead, because, damn, that was loud. I know I'm getting older and all, but jeez.

The first performer on stage was this chick who did the Catherine Zeta Jones version of "All that Jazz". She had choreography. It was horrifying. I mean, she sounded great, but what were the rest of us fools to do if we had to follow that?

Garth had the unfortunate luck to be that person. He did a pretty good job, considering, and he definitely took it like a man. Vowed never to come back.

Less than an hour into the singing, another group got on and did "Proud Mary" all over again. This time "Tina" had back up dancers. With choreography. What is the deal with this place?! I am never coming back again!

Another hour into it and one very painful rendition of "Reunited" later, I decided to call it a night. I hear that I missed Mike's standard of Jimmy Buffett songs, which I regret, but I'm sure I will see again with the next few glasses of whiskey.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful. It was beautiful weather and I spent it lazing about the house and going to the park. I got out the rollerblades and was painfully reminded just exactly why I keep those horridly ugly long socks, anyway.

The rest of that week also ran by in a blur. My friend from high school and college came to visit and I got to play tour guide for a couple of hours, which was fun. I really need more people to come out and visit. (See that everyone? Blatant plug for company.) I loved showing off my new town and seeing it all again for the first time.

I also did round 2 of dogsitting Heisman. I think I am breaking through to this dog- he actually let me sleep, and he's getting really good at fetch. He still went a little bit nuts when everyone came over Saturday though. Sara and Mike filled their kegerator with my favorite beer the last time I dog-sat, with the full understanding that I was to have our friends over to drink it. Well, I didn't quite get to it then, so we made up for it Saturday! We finished all the beer in their house by about 10 PM. I'd call it a success.

Up for this week- tomorrow I am giving a talk to Julie's 8th grade science club about how cool it is to be a hydrogeologist. I very well may crash and burn. I hope not. I really do need to start taking more cool photos at field jobs, because I suspect that core samples are not too exciting to junior high kids. I may be wrong. I'll let you know.

And another thing

2007-04-30T20:53:00.000-06:00

Not only are the leaves out, the bugs are out too.

I took a walk at dusk (mistake number one!) and walked right into about fifty swarms of mosquitoes. I got kind of an upper body workout with all the swatting, which is good I guess. Then I noticed that all of the swarms were centered over the path, not the grass. Maybe they are learning how to hunt?

Oh yeah, and I saw a puppy with a cast today. It was so sad, but very cute at the same time. It was a little blue peg-leg. He seemed OK with it though.

Spring has sprung

2007-04-30T13:13:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to let you know that we finally have little bright green leaves on all the trees.

I guess a day of torrential rain is just what we needed!
YAY!

Doors Open Denver

2007-04-21T20:50:00.000-06:00

So last weekend, Denver opened up the doors of it's "architectural gems" for tours and such. I took the opportunity to get my camera out and I dragged Garth and Julie downtown for the day.

Garth and Julie beat me to Union Station (I missed my train) and they signed us up for our tours. Since we had some time to kill, I met them at Zaidy's deli for breakfast. While we were waiting, we eagerly looked over the program detailing each of the open buildings and we planned our attack. As I was reading the snippets, I was struck by the marketing job of City of Denver, as they had come up with a complete gibberish of acronyms for neighborhoods, and it was getting ridiculous. Already well known is LoDo, or Lower Downtown. They renamed it when they "saved" it from the beat poet/artist scum and constructed the baseball park.

Now though, they have created NoDo- Northern Downtown, RiNo- River North, and SoCo- South of Colfax. Nobody really uses these names (outside of the real estate industry, I guess) so we decided to come up with some of our own. Since I live in the relatively square neighborhood of Wash Park, it didn't give us much to work with. Garth and Julie, on the other hand, needed a much more interesting name for their neighborhood. Julie came up with DoYo- between Downing and York, which became NoDoYo- North DoYo, and I suggested NoDoJo- North between Downing and Josephine. It may not translate well here, but we were cracking up.

After draining our cups of coffee, we headed to the 16th Street Mall to meet our first tour group. Garth signed us up for the "Victorian Denver" tour, which I'm sad to say, had nothing Victorian on it (what we managed to see, anyway). It was a good tour though, full of the gossip and stories that come from a mining town. Our first stop was the Brown Palace, one of Denver's swankiest hotels.

The Brown was built by Henry (?) Brown, out of spite. He was rejected from lunching at one of the other Denver hotels due to his casual dress (they didn't really enforce dress codes then either, so it was a particularly obvious blow), and so he built the Brown Palace, meant to be the fanciest place in town.

He did a pretty good job- every president has stayed there, and Eisenhower even ran the country from the hotel while recovering from somethingorother for a couple of months. Another sign of a good hotel- it's said to be haunted. We didn't get the lowdown on any of the ghost stories, but you can go on a tour by the hotel to learn all about them. I think I'll be hitting that up later.

The next stop on our tour was the Capitol Building. Just as we were about to hear the story of the "mile high" marker, a bunch of Red Hats came out, led by their own tour director. They joined us for the telling of the story, and our guide got about 2 minutes in before being interrupted by the other guy, who wanted to tell the "real story". (This was about the third time already that this poor guy had gotten interrupted for a telling of the "real story".) So here goes:

The etched step in the middle is the marker surveyed in by the mayor of Denver when the Capitol was finished, way back in the day. Sometime in the 70's, a group of protesting university students (Down with the bomb, Boo Nixon, etc.) decided to take it upon themselves to re-survey the mile-high mark, just to stick it to the man. They measured the mark every midnight for a week and placed the upper marker on the spot they decided was the real mile-high mark.

Then, a couple of years ago, (since I've moved here- my previous photos of the mark don't include the third one!) President Bush was visiting, and was entertained by the story of the students and their project. He decided to use his multi-million dollar, high precision GIS system for good, and he had the mark measured again. The satellites just happened to do a flyover at exactly noon every day, and so, the third marker, the one on the bottom, was placed.

Which one is right? Well, after much deliberation and input from USGS scientists and such, they decided that the true, correct mark was: the original one, etched into the step. (The noon and midnight measurements were affected by the same pull that makes the tides.) Guess those old guys knew what they were doing, huh?

The tour was off to another stop, but we had to head back another direction to catch out other tour at the new EPA building in LoDo.

The new building, which is not nearly as interesting on the outside (I couldn't get a good photo- these are the buildings across the street) was built as a "Green" experiment. The building sports bamboo floors, a roof garden, cubicles lined with corn husk fabric, and a giant atrium with sails to reflect the sunlight down to the plebes on the lower floors, among other green things. It was an interesting take to construction, and we had one of the design architects to lead our tour. Since it was a government building though, I didn't get to bring in my camera, so you'll just have to trust me.

Woohoo!

2007-04-20T08:50:00.001-06:00

So great

2007-04-15T23:12:00.000-06:00

So, this last week was jam-packed as usual, and I don't really have time to write all about it, but I'll give you the short-short version and then fill you in later.

I had a site visit on Monday where the client gave me a lecture about how my job is "bullshit".
We had PM24 happy hour on Tuesday.
We started the big office move on Thursday.
I shared a Colfax moment with Garth and Julie on Friday.
I got to learn some cool Denver stories on Saturday; and
I worked all day today, but some of it was on a "brownbag and discussion" (BAD) talk about feng shui that I am giving on Monday, highly qualified individual that I am.

All that and I even have a video for you. It's about six months old, but fun nonetheless. It's yum cha lunch in Melbourne with my international set of friends. Enjoy!

Curiouser and couriouser

2007-04-09T18:58:00.000-06:00

After work today I went to library to pick up a couple of books I had on hold. After I popped in, I was heading back to my car and noticed some trees in flower in City Center Park.

My photo taken, I headed back toward my car and noticed some really great light on the new wing of the Denver Art Museum.

This time as I was heading back to the car, I saw a white-tailed rabbit run across my path. It ran up into a dead-end corner around a bend, and I thought, hey, the rabbit wants to look at the books! Cool photo op! So I head around the bend, camera ready, and the rabbit is gone. Total "Alice in Wonderland" moment.

I thought it fitting that the giant rocking-horse chair was the next thing I saw. But, in the words of Alice herself, "I don't believe there's an atom of meaning in it."

Happy Monday!

Easter festivities

2007-04-08T20:55:00.000-06:00

This year Easter fell on Kym and David's birthday. Generally this would mean that our annual day of gay croquet in Cheeseman Park would be today, but snow and cold drove us indoors, to Larry and Brettly's house in the tree-lined neighborhood of Park Hill.

Brettly and Larry went all-out for the birthdays and we had quite the spread. Here's Jon and Larry discussing antiques or potato salad or something.

We all sat around and chatted and ate lots, and drank wine like the sophisticated Denverites that we all are. Here's Garth and Brettly and Julie listening to David wax poetic on his many travels (which really means we were trying to figure out how a native Japanese speaker would pronounce La Jolla while trying to catch a bus).

Here's Richard and birthday boy David pondering their R's.

I had to head home and begin preparing for my week, but just before I was heading out the door, Dave showed up all ready for his day of gay croquet. He definitely won "best dressed" for the day, and Kym was keen to have her birthday photo with him. A couple of times. (She even checked his socks. They were a disappointing navy blue.)

Here's Dave and Kym, his sweet outfit and her birthday/Easter/prom date corsage.

I headed home shortly after, to do nothing blog worthy, I'm sorry to say. Since I have nothing else to share, I give you this game:

Spot the gay guy!
Each photo above has exactly one of out favorite flamers. See if you can pick the right one. Careful, this is trickier than it looks!

Happy Easter everyone! (All two of you) xox Steph

Car kharma

2007-04-07T15:42:00.000-06:00

Since I am already a week late on getting my car registration renewed, I spent this morning getting my emissions checked, even though the snowy grey skies were calling me back to my cozy big bed in front of the DVD player.

As I made the final turn into the waiting line of cars, an old guy zipped past me (ignoring his stop sign) and coasted in the shorter line ahead. Resigned to my fate and sure that I was being punished for my procrastination, I took my spot in the other line of cars waiting ahead.

The time passed as it usually does when you are listening to Saturday morning radio, and I was soon motioned to skip over a few lanes into the next spot. Happy to make my way to the front of the line, I gladly turned my car over to the professionals and wondered why it seemed like really only two of the lines were moving, and why would this one start all of a sudden?

Ah, my spidey-sense was definitely tingling for a reason- there was only one cashier. She ran from station to station taking everyone's carefully filled-out checks (no credit cards here, it would be too similar to an actual business) and making her way to the ends (one of which where I was waiting) only every 10 minutes or so and getting to the people in the middle much more quickly. Once again resigned to my fate, I tried not to take out my growing impatience on the lady, who actually seemed to be doing the job as quickly as you could.

Then I turned around and checked out the car waiting behind mine. That person would have to wait even longer, a painful additional 20 minutes in the cold until she was finished up with me and then made her way back. Just as I was starting to feel sorry for the poor soul, I realized it was the old guy who had cut me off earlier.

HA! Chump. I'm not feeling so bad about this whole thing after all.

Something nasty in the woodshed

2007-04-04T20:19:00.000-06:00

After all that whining, I thought I'd show you some photos of our field work that show how it wasn't all that bad...

That bunch of stuff is the whole set-up for sampling. Too bad it didn't work for us, it would have been pretty handy to cart around. We did end up getting the samples. We had to bail to get 'em, so that kinda sucked. I'll leave it at that.

We finished up in time to get the samples to Fedex and we hopped into the truck to make the drive across Colorado, just as the snow started to fall yet again. The side trip we had planned to Archuleta County was out the window, as we realized that it was late, we had bad weather, no health and safety plan, and oh yeah, no contract for the work. So, we headed "straight" home. The weather wasn't that bad for the first half, we just coasted in and out of snow storms as we moved through the mountains.

This was our drive through the San Juan Valley, with the Sangre de Cristos off in the distance. (This is actually the only bit of standing water I'd seen the whole trip, but I think it looks nice, no?)

Sadly, these were the good parts of the drive, and once we hit Buena Vista (Bee-you-na Vista, no correct pronunciation here!) the snow really came. It was bad. Thank goodness Jill was driving, because I think I would have just pulled over and cried and then frozen to death. But, we made it.

The weekend was mostly uneventful, since I spent the days at work. BUT, I did stop and watch some basketball with Mike and Sara and a couple of their friends. Mike is a huge Buckeye fan, so it's always fun to watch OSU games with him. (I did not watch the championship game with him, since I know how emotional he gets with a big loss like that, and we all know it's a pretty good thing I stayed home for that.)

The rest of the week so far has been pretty much a whirlwind, but one of the best parts is my library card. I went browsing and I found Cold Comfort Farm, a story where I saw the movie first ages ago, but the book is so much better. Laugh out loud funny, but I'm sure only some of those laughs are meant to be there. Silly Brits. The cousins have the social skills of, well letsee who severely lacks social skills... engineers- and Aunt Ada saw "something nasty in the woodshed," which they never quite explain, but I have my ideas.

I've been reading the book all week, and I was (only) a little disappointed when Jay and Alison came up from New Mexico with new baby Adrian last night on their way to vacation in Florida. (Hey- I only have a couple of chapters left!) They camped out at my house before their flight this morning and it was great catching up with them both. We stayed up late and chatted, I taught them about youtube and we searched for people they knew on myspace. (They can only get dial-up. Such a shame.) This morning we went to breakfast at Duffeyroll, where they have the best cinnamon rolls on earth.

Up for the weekend: gay croquet in Cheeseman Park if the weather holds. I'm guessing that there will be photos.

Drama in Durango

2007-03-28T20:21:00.000-06:00

So... that road trip. Not all fun you know. I am here to train Jill in the fine art of groundwater sampling using the micro-purge method, the only method if your Australian, not so often used in GAI Denver.

Needless to say, (but I will anyway) the job is not going exactly to plan. The plan was to roll into town on Monday and get our gas sampling done, then set up and get our groundwater and leachate samples done in time to head to the microbrewery on Tuesday, and then head to the next county over and do some gas sampling there on our way back to Denver. Plenty of time to be back for the office-wide happy hour that Jill is planning with our social committee for Thursday.

The best laid plans...

We got into town and to the landfill just fine. We got our gas sampling done and everything was going just fine. Until Tuesday.

Our pump didn't work. Our control box froze (literally!). Our tubing had a hole in it. Our water level meter chose a very inconvenient time to be brittle and break off at the end. Literally everything that could go wrong, did. (Except problems with the truck, thank goodness! Jill has been driving, so none of my bad car kharma is in play.)

So after calls to the rental place, the manufacturer, every single person in the groundwater group that was not on spring break (2, it turns out) and another rental place, I figured out how to fix the pump, remembered to test the line for leaks, and got a new control box in for this morning. Oh yeah, and I ordered some bailers, just for back-up.

This morning, we got to site and got our leachate sampling done, so there's something actually accomplished. Then we got back up to the monitor well where we had our pump set up. This is when we figured out about the leak in our air line and that our pump bladder had blown out. That all fixed, we headed into town to pick up our new control box and back-up bailers that had been fed-exed.

Good news- the new control box yielded water! Bad news- the compressed air bottle still froze. We waited to see if it would work after it thawed, but no luck. The whole sampling event is a bust. Tomorrow we will go back to the site and bail the wells by hand (did I mention that they are 100 and 200 feet deep, respectively? good thing I got those back-up bailers just in case!) and then head back to Denver (via the next county over where we still have to test gas!)

It's been a heckuva trip, and I think Jill is getting a bummer of a training event (she's getting really good at bailing though). That being said, it's not such a bad place to be trapped, you know? Durango is really a cool little town with lots to do and beautiful scenery. The weather turned bad today (as did everything else!) but since we were up high at the landfill, we could watch all the snowstorms come and go. It was pretty great, even though we were cold!

Keep your fingers crossed for us as we try and get this dang job finished in time for the weekend!

Road trip!

2007-03-26T19:50:00.000-06:00

Today Jill and I set off for our trip to Bondad and their very glamorous landfill. We left Lakewood at the bright and early hour of 7 AM and made it to Durango at 3 PM. That was a lot of driving. Luckily, Jill was all too happy to drive and so I was able to sit back and enjoy the scenery.

Here are a few of the highlights:

The booming town of Center and its stoplight (blinking variety):

Unfortunately, we couldn't catch up to these guys in time to take the photo and make our turn, but I hope you can see that they have an inflated river raft on the top of their wagon.

On the highway.

Shortly thereafter, we made it to the landfill- not a bad view, eh?

After all the sights, we did get down to work, and we got all of our gas monitoring done in record time. (I'll save those exciting photos for another time.) After that, we hit the town and went to a local brewery for dinner. On the way back, we saw some really white gangsters and a chick get out of her car at a light to have a temper tantrum, scream and jump up and down, only to get back in her car and drive off. These mountain people are crazy!

Spring has sprung!

2007-03-25T18:00:00.000-06:00

Spring has sprung! To celebrate, we wore short sleeves and walked to lunch without jackets! We wore sunglasses all day! We dashed to the car as a thunderstorm pelted us in the afternoon! Spring is my favorite season, and I cannot wait to get out into it.

Despite the inspiring weather, the work week was once again almost more than I could handle. I did accomplish a few things though:

I got out my site assessment report, on time (barely) , even though the client really turned out to be high maintenance;
I spent practically a whole day in meetings (a first)- meeting with a vendor, meeting with the other members of the GREAT committee (recreational and teambuilding for the office), a groundwater group pow wow, and a GAI-wide conference call about a new software that I'm implementing in two of my projects; and
I still spent lots of time running around like a chicken with its head cut off to keep up with everyone else's crises.

So, by the time the weekend came around, I was ready! Somehow, I've become the organizer of the weekly happy hour, and the good part is that I get to pick the venue every week. This week, we went to the Buffalo Rose in Golden.

This self-proclaimed road-house is a local icon for Golden, and the Coors flows like nobody's business. You can't really tell in this photo, but the place is really suffering from an identity crisis. There's dead heads on the walls, heavy metal and sometimes hip hop on the jukebox, a hippie with 4 foot dreads serving up the beer, the place is packed with bikers, and there's the world ice skating championships on the big screen. What?

Nevertheless, we had a great turnout- it was Jessica and Brian's first time out for happy hour, Nestor just got back from Canada (he got stuck with the assignment in my place this year- too bad for him!) and Ron got a chance to come out with us as Melissa hung out with the kids. We also got a chance to hang out with Doug, a golderite from way back when I used to work at the gold mine in Cripple Creek (affectionately known as Cripple Crud).

Saturday morning came way too fast (don't forget I had to go back and rile up the dog for a good few hours before he would sleep!) and I managed to get to the burbs, back and out again in time to make it to Karin's baby shower. Her mom threw the shower and unfortunately, most of our other mutual friends were gone for the weekend. I managed OK, but I was stuck between the girls that really care about appearance (obviously still not moms themselves), the new mom that mysteriously never wanted to talk about her baby, and relatives. A very surreal experience.

After some quality time with the pooch (here he is trying to help me figure out my tripod) I headed over to Ivon's house for a Peruvian dinner.

Ivon had decided to cook for about ten of us- 5 Americans, 4 Peruvians, one Chilean, and a Swede. Sounds like a punchline is coming, but nope. We all had a great time teasing each other about our respective cultures and learning the ins and outs of the properly prepared Peruvian cocktail called the pisco sour. It took a couple of the girls at least 20 minutes to make a batch, but they were worth the wait! Something akin to a margarita, but it involves egg whites and cinnamon.

Dinner consisted of something like ceviche (but not), some rice and corn, some yams, something chickeny and spicy, and salad. Good stuff. Now if I could only remember what the heck it was called...

Dessert was provided Delia, one of Ivon's friends, and was a giant chocolate cake from Whole Foods. It took three of the guys to serve it out, and once we started up with the ice cream, it was up to a crew of five. Don't be fooled though, there were enough consultants in the room to provide quite the quality control team. Almost half the ice cream in the place was "quality tested" before it was even served.

Full up on food and conversation, I made my way back to downtown and called it a night. Here's a photo of the neighborhood that I took earlier in the rainy day. I had hoped to spend lots more quality time with the camera while I stayed here, but I had too much going on. (That's always the case, eh?)

Today I went back to work and didn't get nearly enough done, but I felt the need to come back and spend my last quality moments with Heisman. Sara and Mike are back tonight, and I might actually miss this pooch! I won't have too much time to worry about it though- I am off to Durango tomorrow for three days and then back to write a stats report in record time for the end of month due date. Keep your fingers crossed for me and my time management skills!

Demon dog

2007-03-22T20:59:00.000-06:00

So, Sara and Mike are on vacation on some sunny island in the Atlantic and I am watching their dog, Heisman. Still a puppy, he is pretty high maintenance and can make one heckuva mess out of some toilet paper in less than two minutes flat.

As part of their "payment" for my dogsitting services, Mike filled his kegerator with my favorite beer and they insisted that I have people over to drink it. Easier said than done, it turns out. I mean, I'm here mostly weeknights and all, and I already have plans for Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and jeez, I'm sounding way over 21.

This realization came to me yesterday, at about 4:45 PM, at work. So, went over to Lucinda's desk and we decided that Wednesday night was the night and we rounded up the troops.

Three girls came over. That's all we could muster up. Seriously, I mean, when did everyone start having so much money that they could turn down free beer!?

It was fun though, and in between gossip and munching on leftover dip from Lucinda's St. Pat's party, we ended up watching some quality B movies. We watched Brain Candy, the base of most of my dialogue during my college years (hey, they may be Canadian, but they had the dry one-liners down!), and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which Ivon had never seen. A definite must if you are trying to understand American genX culture.

We were all entertained by the movies and (mostly) the dog, and I can honestly tell you that I'm not sure which disturbed me more. Fast Times is really a bad movie.

Oh, and I don't think we even made a dent in the beer supply.

A big weekend

2007-03-19T18:31:00.000-06:00

So after a crazy week-

I had the joy of finding out that I am allergic to a certain brand of ginger snaps (cookies make migraines?!);
I learned that puppies don't sleep through the night -I now have a whole new-found respect for pet-owners (and parents!) and I may just think twice before agreeing to pet-sit; and
I learned that the fires that happen at work don't stop because I happen to be suffering from migraines or sleep deprivation.

To make up for it, I had an outstanding weekend (in between putting in those extra hours at work).

The weekend started with happy hour at Vinny's bar in Morrison. This week's pick is as close as you can get to a speak-easy and be in a "modern" mountain town. The bar has a back entrance above a restaurant, has low lights, cheap drinks, and a strange fondness for Robert DeNiro posters. Everything you could possibly want from a happy hour venue.

We ended up having a pretty good turn-out and even had something that Ivon had never seen before- a woman alone at a bar.

I took this photo (I have no idea what David is talking about, but Sarah seems to be captivated) just to commemorate the occasion. That's the random woman alone in the background.

Apparently in Peru, women don't go out alone and people over a certain age don't go out at all. (But if you are under a certain age, everyone goes out, no matter what you have waiting at home.) Ivon's been in the states for a few years already, but it was great to share in her cultural learning experience. And any time you can have cultural learning experiences while sharing drinks is a plus!

Here's Ivon and the rest of the gang-(I had to take this photo to make the previous one less obvious!) I have no idea what they were talking about either, but I have a feeling that it was rock-climbing. Or the basketball tournament. Or beer.

Later we headed down the road (literally- just two blocks away) to the other bar in Morrison where my friend Scott's surprise birthday party was taking place. While Scott's handlers where trying to get him to the right place, we entertained ourselves with the timer on my camera. Turns out napkins don't work so well as tripods. Go figure.

The good news is that we found Scott and were able to wish him a happy birthday before the terrible band in the back got too far into their set. It was still a good night though and I got to introduce more Golderites to the funky Morrison night-life.

Saturday after a hard day at the office (yuck!) I headed to Lucinda's for a raging Saint Pat's party. OK, well raging probably isn't the word, but Lucinda and Jason have been big fans of Saint Patrick's day ever since they went to college at University of Missouri-Rolla, where the celebration of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of engineering (I had no idea- I think they're making it all up!) is quite the annual festival.

The party was good though, and we had a great turnout. Here's Denielle and Jason stealing cupcakes on their way out,

the ever-present crowd in the kitchen,

boys playing with records in the basement,

the crowd in the laundry room- next to the beer fridge (duh!),

more laundry room,

and the rest of the girls in the laundry room. Turns out we all really kind of liked hanging out in the laundry room! Lucinda was not as excited about us hanging out there since she spent time fixing up every other room in the house, but we decided it was meant to be. It was green after all!

The long night socializing more than made up for my day at work. All I wanted to do though was fall into bed. The problem- take 2 of puppy sitting. Heisman (the only Heisman on earth that cannot catch) is Sara and Mike's puppy Italian greyhound. The Italian greyhound looks just like the the racing greyhound, but smaller. and way high-maintenance. Luckily (after some quality play time) I was able to convince Heisman that sleeping was good and I was able to get some rest.

Next up, brunch with the girls. Five of us ventured downtown to Snooze, a new breakfast-only restaurant near the ball park. It was a good thing that Leah is a good planner and got us reservations- it was packed! There was a crowd of about 30 people waiting outside- for breakfast! (I had french toast- surprise!) We were seated and shortly began the ritual gossip and catching up. Two of the girls had just finished some grad school mid-terms and another is planning her annual trip to Hawaii, so we had lots to talk about.

After brunch, it was back to work for me. It was really tough to go back to the office instead of playing outside in the beautiful spring weather, but the good news is that I was able to get the report out today. On to the next fire!

llamaseteme

2007-03-13T23:26:00.000-06:00

So, I've gone and done it. I've created a myspace profile, mostly because, in usual fashion, one of my friends had convinced me that "everybody's doing it."

Well, it seems to be true. I reluctantly joined so that I could be supportive and it turns out that it's pretty fun. I have my profile on a "by invitation only" kind of deal, so I don't get any strangers (and more importantly, bosses) checking out my friends and making judgements, etc. But, in the day and age where emailing seems to take too long, myspace is perfect. All you have to do is make a smartass comment on your friend's profile, and:

you look like a good friend for keeping in touch
you add to your friend's cyber-popularity by increasing her "comments"
you look witty to the friends of your friends who now want to be your friend, because that's the only way they can see your profile- thus increasing your friend count and making you even more popular.

It's like junior high all over again, only this time you get to swear.

I've been on "space" for just over a month, and I've already found a bunch of co-workers who are on. And... ding! The boss thing, right? Yeah, I'm not so keen on everyone I work with knowing everything about my life, so I can't really tell everyone that I'm on myspace. You thought the gossip at work was quick already, try making it viral. Yeesh. So, "fight club" was born. Even if you haven't seen the movie, you know, "The first rule about fight club is that you don't talk about fight club." Having friends at work and not all of them are on, there's like a secret underworld, a second friendship, that is going on online. It's about to get schizophrenic.

I have to admit that I did not think of the "fight club" reference on my own. It was all Jill, who's myspace profile is under the name "llamaseteme". I knew, knew, KNEW that this was some kind of mangled Spanish, but I haven't ever been able to place it and frankly, I've been too busy when at work to think to ask, even though we chat everyday. Tonight though, it came to me. All those years of Spanish and it turns out that llamase te me means "you called me." Perfect.

Don't try to find her though, her profile is set to private.

Catching up!

2007-03-12T23:51:00.000-06:00

So, it's been a while since I've reported... and I'll get to more later!

Last weekend, I went to my first ever Roller Derby bout. There were a bunch of us first-timers on hand, and we even made some friends. Well, OK, we knew Suzette already, but none of us knew she could kick ASS!

The afterparty definitely had potential, but the bands were a bit sub-par, so we didn't stick around too long.

This Friday we went to LaLoma for the BEST margaritas in Denver. SO good. I have no photos (Sara?!) although there's one on my camera that shows Reed's head for scale. Yep, he got the margarita as big as your head. Worth every penny.

Saturday was the very first Golder GREAT event (that wasn't a happy hour) and since I'm on the comittee, I showed up for what turned out to be a great day of sledding!

Trust me, that hill was way steeper than it looks.

Today, my first ever trip to Frozen Dead Guy Days in Nederland. Turns out yesterday was the big day to go, so the small freaky town was relatively quiet. I'm not giving up on it though until I can check out the coffin races for myself- maybe next year!

I can report though, that Grandpa is still in the tuff shed, and if he's looking down at us, I'm pretty sure he thinks his grandson is a dumbass.

Home Sweet Home

2006-11-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

So I've been home a whole week and I can honestly say that I have the best bed ever.

Oh yeah, my house and my friends and my family are all great too.

I've been eating bananas, I've filled up my gas tank for less than $20, got free refills on coke at lunch, used the new on-ramp to the freeway and had mexican food. Twice.

However, I have noticed that I keep running into people in the hallway because I'm walking on the left, the paper here is really short (and really heavy as well), and working that extra half an hour a day really isn't that fun.

Oh, and at least three people have commented on my Aussie accent and I keep wanting to say reckon. Crikey!

This switching back and forth is kind of hard!

Last (whole) Day in Australia!

2006-11-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

Our third day in Tasmania, we woke up cloudy skies, perfect weather for touring the Port Aurthur Historic Site.

But first, we had to check out one more geological wonder, Remarkable Cave. One more of the cave + blowhole + collapse-created phenomena. We had to take an unfortunate number of steps down to see it, and after yesterdays hiking, I for one wasn't too happy with that! Other than that, truly remarkable! (Excellent photo courtesy of Richard who braved "do not cross" tape to get it.)

Next we arrived at the official Port Arthur Historical Site. The site was once a prison facility for England's worst criminals, and if you screwed up at some other prision in Australia, you got time at Port Arthur. We arrived in time to catch a short walking tour and then a brief cruise of the bay where the guides told us of daily life and how the prision worked. Criminals (women and children included, though young boys first got a chance across the bay at the Point Peur boys' prison) were set to work, producing timber, rock, and textiles for the booming cities to the north. They built all their own buildings and structures and for a while, did it all with leg shackles- until the commandant in charge decided that the only way to punish someone already working this hard in this very dreary place was to put them in leg shackles. Then, the rest of the lot went shackle-free.

This went on for twenty years until England figured out that people actually wanted to be transported to Australia and they quit sending convicts. Without the fresh workers, the workforce got older and soon the camp wasn't profitable anymore. For the next twenty years or so, they started carting the nation's lunatics and infirm to the peninsula and cared for them there.

The garden was nice though. This is the Government Garden, created outside Government house, where members of the uh, government came to stay and observe. The powers that be decided that these people needed something civilized to look out upon and created a magnificent garden of flowers for them to ponder.

The garden was the last bit we saw before hitting the road again and heading back to the Hobart airport. We stopped in Sorell for some afternoon fish and chips and then headed back for our flight.

Once we were back in Melbourne, we made quick work of getting settled and then headed to the Union pub to meet Don for some farewell drinks. A great way to finish vacation!

Vocab of the Day
Mmm: a way to fill silence, usually before answering a question or during conversation to ponder what they have already said, usually with a slight head nod, as if giving it time to sink in before continuing. Not the yummy sound.

Most of the time when you ask someone "How ya'going?" They reply, "mmm" "Yeah. Good!"

Tazzy Day 2

2006-11-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up to some rain. So we went back to sleep.

Then we made it to breakfast and off to some hiking! Our overindulgent dinner last night did not agree with me, so I was feeling a bit ick. I decided to take the (supposedly) low/easy route to Wineglass Bay while Richard and Dee took the high route to the top of Mt. Amos and the lookout there.

The hikes, though certainly not flat, were outstanding and the views were awesome. The weather was perfect for hiking: overcast with a cool breeze. Made for some unfortunately dreary photos though. Bummer. As I relaxed on the beach and waited for Richard and Dee to join me, (they were supposed to take a side trip from their trail and meet me at the bay) Richard called me. Unfortunately all I got was a couple of "Are you there"s, so deciding that this probably meant they were not going to join me, I headed back uphill to the lookout. (I was right. It was a good thing I did that since they would have had a couple extra hours of hiking if I hadn't met them at the trail head.)

Next we piled back into the car and headed south, this time taking the coastal roads. (But first- check out this wallaby and joey we saw in the parking lot! She just stood posing for photos for ages!)

We weaved through towns along Great Oyster Bay and stopped off for some very necessary wine tasting (at a vineyard so small I think they must be hiding the rest of the grapes!) and a side trip to Kate's Berry Farm where we had "morning tea".
It wasn't quite still the morning, and we didn't have tea, but I got one ginormous ice cream cone (I asked for a medium! Think of what the large looks like!) and Richard got scones, a milkshake and coffee. Only Dee had restraint, but her small ice cream still towered. Definitely a highlight of the day. What can I say, I'm easily impressed some times!

We continued south and hung a left a Sorell to head down to the Forestier and Tasman peninsulas. The highlight of Forestier Peninsula was Norfolk Bay, which was a bit of a mud flat and somehow had developed some amazing large-scale ripple marks. We crossed onto the Tasman Peninsula through Eagle Hawk Neck, an area only 100 meters across (more on that tomorrow!).

As we winded our way south (ultimately to Port Arthur) we saw some pretty amazing geological features. Once again, with two out of three of us being geo-minded, we stopped at them all. (To be fair, Dee really was interested in seeing this stuff. She just wouldn't admit to liking anything so geeky if you asked her.)

First geology highlight, the tessellated pavement. Siltstone and mudstone deposited in this area underwent a period of fracturing during tectonic activity in the region. As these layers are being exposed to the elements (namely the ocean) the cracks are filled with salt and start making this erosional brickwork. It's pretty cool! You end up with this series of similarly shaped stones that all look like loaves of bread. Needless to say, we saw quite a few areas that were landscaped with some similarly shaped stones that looked like loaves of bread.

Next sight, the Tasman arch. The arch used to be a cave, but sea erosion has caused the collapse of the cave ceiling. Lucky us! Nearby the Devil's Kitchen was a similarly formed area, but the whole thing collapsed. Not so good for the photo op there though.

Next up, the Blowhole and Fossil Bay. The Blowhole is a cave with an opening where waves shoot out the other end. (Are you starting to see the pattern?) Fossil Bay was just a little protected cove, but it had tons of rounded cobbles chock full of fossils. Nothing too glamorous, but fossils all the same. This is also where we saw another echidna. The little guy was feeding in the bushes and wouldn't stand still long enough for a good photo. Dang wildlife!

Soon we made it all the way south (as far south as we were going anyway!) to Port Arthur. We checked into our room at the Port Arthur Villas (very nice!) and found dinner at the next hotel up the road. Dinner wasn't anything special, but the waitstaff was extraordinary. Well, maybe horrible is a better word. It was definitely different from what we were used to in our big-city restaurants anyway. For being such a tourist destination, they haven't quite grasped that tourists are the reason they are around. I got chastised for cursing, (I said "gosh". Really. Cursing?!) and Richard got dressed down for not realizing that the bar closes early on Sundays. Wow. If this is the Tazzy version of Australian sarcasm, they need to work on it!

Vocab of the Day
Howya'goin'?: Greeting. Said most properly when you can move your jaw, but not your lips. Oh, and you have to say it fast and allrunningtogether. Proper response is "Yeah, good thanks, you?" Where they got the whole Swedish "yeah" before they answer is still a puzzle to me.

While we were hiking, I got a lot of g'days, howya'goin's, and hellos. I could easily figure out who the Australians were!

Tasmania!

2006-11-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

Richard, Dee and I piled into the airplane for Hobart only to have to wait on the tarmac for one late passenger, who they ended up leaving in Melbourne, but not before we all waited for them to offload all their baggage. Luckily, the rest of the flight went off with no problems and we touched down in Tasmania around 10 PM.

Turns out Hobart is asleep by 10:30 on Friday nights, so we made a quick night of some take-out pizza and hit the sheets for our big day ahead.

Saturday morning means one thing in Hobart: the Salamanca market. We walked through the market and I was surprised when Dee actually seemed to be shopping. Then I realized that not everyone packs as thoroughly as I do, and she probably had room to take treasures home. Nothing really tempted her though, and my purchase of the Tazzy-shaped refridgerator magnet for my collection was the only thing to leave with us.

After the market, we took the walking tour described in the lonely planet. It took us through Battery Point, the park and the wharf where we got the vibe of old Hobart. Lots of Georgian architecture, which was a big change from the elaborate Victorian style of Melbourne. It reminded the poms of home.

Next up, we hit the road. Our first stop was Mt. Wellington, a dolerite extrusion that hovers above the northern half of Hobart. The weather was rolling in, so we made quick work of exploring the peak and examining the geology (two out of three of us are geologists after all!) and then hopped back into the car for our trip through the midlands.

We drove through little towns for hours. The "highway" was a two-lane road, marked at junctions (usually) which gave us some trouble early on, but we soon mastered the reading of the mediocre map that was standard issue from the car rental place and we were soon enjoying idyllic and pastoral scenes a-plenty.

We detoured off the highway for two towns noted in the LP, our first was Oatland. Noted for the Georgian architecture and (we quickly realized) not much else, we did our oohs and aahs from the car and kept driving. Our second detour was much more interesting- to me anyway. The town of Ross boasts the third oldest stone bridge in Tasmania, so well built, that the convict that designed and built it was pardoned afterwards.

After Ross, we wound our way through eucalypt forests and then finally reached the Freycinet Peninsula and Freycinet National Park. We checked into our cabin at the park (an excellently situated place within the park boundary) reserved a table for dinner, and got exploring.

First we went to Cape Tourville in the north and hiked the small track to the lighthouse. It was really windy. Really. Take the breath out of your lungs windy. We didn't stay for long!

Next we went to Richardson beach, adjacent to the lodge and enjoyed some time watching the waves and the birds. This beach squeaks too! I am beginning to think that the Squeaky Beach may not have been so special after all!

Since time was getting scarce and the weather was turning, we headed back to the lodge and then to dinner. We opted for the "very nice" restaurant as opposed to the "nice" restaurant, and we had an excellent, expensive dinner that unfortunately did not end well. Let's just say there were a couple of hair spottings in the desserts. Yikes.

Vocab for the Day
Reggo: vehicle registration.

When we got the car from the airport, the clerk said, "Just double check the reggo and you're set!"

Keep your pants on

2006-11-08T16:52:00.000-07:00

I'm updating soon!

Back to Melbourne

2006-11-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I woke up to traffic sounds and realized that I had very little time to actually do anything in Sydney before I had to catch the shuttle back to the airport.

So, after sleeping in, (and thus waiting for the shower) having a leisurely breakfast and packing, I headed to the shopping area near the QVB. Market Street, Pitt Street, George Street, and lots of little alley ways were filled with retail goodness. There were heaps of tourist kitsch, lots of the obligatory surf shops, and just as many high-end retail stores that are too scary to actually go inside.

I wandered around the area for a couple of hours and then decided that I'd actually had enough of the big, bustling, busy streets and I headed back to the quiet of the pub and waited for my shuttle.

The rest of the day was mostly uneventful, since I arrived in Melbourne around 5 and there wasn't too much day left. Richard and Dee invited me back to their house and we had dinner, but that was quiet and I went back to the hotel (I was staying in the California again) and had a quiet night.

This morning I got up, did some laundry, and was finished in time to meet the office folks at lunch at the pub. It was a good group and we chatted and told travel stories and I was sad to see it end. I will truly miss the people here!

Not much else exciting has happened today, except for afternoon tea, when I brought in some Tim Tams. I gathered up some folks and we tried the "Tim Tam slam" according to Karen's directions. It was awesome. Melty chocolately goodness. It has the potential to be extremely messy though, so I don't recommend wearing white. (I was lucky this time!) Obviously, a process that requires the upper level thought that goes with Friday activities!

Tonight, after a very quick trip to have birthday drinks with Drew, Richard, Dee and I head to Tasmania for the rest of the weekend. I am very excited to see the place and let someone else share the travel planning responsibility!

Vocab for the Day
Root: euphemism for sex. This has been a tough one for me since I use it quite often when I actually mean to "cheer" for a team.

When I asked which footy team Drew rooted for, he blushed and politely told me that he barracked for the Hawthorn Hawks.

Sydney Day 3

2006-11-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

This morning I got up so early, there was no line for the shower. There was nobody in the kitchen, and though it seemed to me like I was the only one in the city awake, I was soon among the walking commuters of a big city with no parking. My goal was the Sydney Opera House (SOH).

I didn't walk straight to the SOH, but made my way south on York to Market and then east to Hyde Park. Market Street is the home of some upscale shopping and I saw perhaps the most involved Christmas displays in the David Jones windows. There were puppets. They were singing. There was snow.

After having a quick look at the Archibald Fountain in front of St. Mary's Cathedral, I headed north on Macquarie Street. I passed the mint (strangely white- nothing old here was made white), Sydney's first hospital (looked more like a university), parliament house (looked like a glorified clapboard house- no wonder they never had the capitol!) and the state library (your basic columns). Soon I was amid the Royal Botanic Gardens. I took a short stroll along the only green grass in town (level 4 water restrictions) and soon I had arrived at the SOH.

I was very lucky to be there before the masses, and I basically had the whole site to myself for a good half hour. Just long enough to get some good photos without all those pesky tourists in the way! As soon as the box office opened, I signed up for the opera house tour and prepared myself for some good stories.

We began the tour in the foyer, where the tour guide explained that the Danish architect pinched a fit in the mid sixties and quit the project after a change in government took away funding. The result, an outer shell built according to his plans, but everything on the inside was designed by an Australian architect (no photos allowed in the theatres- bummer!).

We headed into the Opera Theatre, home of the Sydney Opera and Sydney Ballet. She pointed out little details like the make of the wood on the walls and the chairs (Australian hard and soft woods, respectively- I can't remember their names) up to the surtitle bar over the stage. Apparently, not too long ago, the opera company decided to stage an Italian opera and set it in the outback. Since they could, they translated the Italian into Australian English- right down to the slang. "Bonjourno" became "g'day mate" and "you're a beautiful woman" became "you're a bloody good looking Sheila!" Cheeky.

Then we headed into the Concert Hall, the largest of the halls, mostly used by the symphony, but has been known to host anything from the Australian idol finals to the Mr. Universe pageant (go Governator!). The definite highlight of this hall was the huge pipe organ in the back wall. Supposedly (and now that it's been the better part of a day since I've listened to this- I could be wrong) you can see about 130 of the pipes from the organ, but there are over 1,000 in total. That's enough to drive me to wearing funny masks and kidnapping musicians.

Last, we went underneath the Concert Hall to the Playhouse. This theatre is much smaller and was once used as a movie theatre. Actually, it was used as a movie theatre of surfing films. Surfers would come in from a hard day at Manly or Bondi (complete with board) and watch the latest surf film. Oh yeah, it was also the only movie theatre in town where alcohol was allowed.

That was most of the tour. I tried to get last minute tickets to Pirates of Penzance, but all they had left were obstructed view seats. Bummer.

Next on the list- whale watching! I secured myself a ticket late yesterday afternoon and was looking forward to four whole hours at sea. I boarded the boat at Darling Harbor and after we stopped at Circular Quay to pick up more watchers, we were off.

We weren't out of Port Jackson for more than five minutes before the guide had spotted a spout. It took the rest of us a bit longer. OK, about 15 minutes longer.

The whales are migrating south for the summer after they all gathered for spring break in the area near the reef for mating and birthing. We were following two adults and a cub for the day and once I got the hang of knowing where to look, I was a pro.

Couldn't get a good photo to save my life, but it was fun anyway. The cub practiced breaching (jumping fully out of the water) at least four times, and we got as many tail slaps from the adults and even a wave from one of those fins on the side (dorsal?).

The ride was pretty calm by ocean standards, but when you are on the top deck fighting for some elbow room on the only bar for balance, it gets a bit rough. I'm still feeling the ocean. I didn't see anyone lose their lunch, but the crew was passing out ginger sea-sickness pills like after-dinner mints, so maybe that had something to do with it.

The whales would come up for air about every seven minutes and between times, the guide would spout off random whale facts, most of which we all forgot as soon as he said them. One I do remember is this: the mother whale will produce over 900 liters of milk per day for her cub. (Yikes!) The milk is over 60% fat and the mother doesn't feed herself while she's nursing. That's one heckuva way to lose baby weight I guess!

I hopped off the boat and onto a train and made my way back to the hotel to get cleaned up. My last activity for the day: heading to the Star City casino and a performance of "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" the musical. Just in case you don't remember the movie, it was a very Australian movie about three drag queens finding their inner diva while on a road trip from Sydney to Alice Springs. The musical was way better than the movie for two reasons: 1) the music was outstanding and 2) the costume budget for the musical was about twenty times that of the movie. The costumes were amazing.

The show was funny and brash and loud and raunchy- everything I had expected. It was a late night though, and so I made it back to the hotel worn out and ready to sleep in!

Vocab of the Day
Wedding cake: Lighthouse/sentinel tower in Port Jackson. They're white and terraced and topped with a light, resembling a wedding cake.

When we passed one of the wedding cakes on our way back into Circular Quay, a pod of dolphins swam with the boat for a little while before returning to their original course towards Manly.

Sydney Day 2

2006-11-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

I had an excellent night's sleep thanks to the ear plugs that I had handy (here's a photo of the view from my room- think sirens and jackhammers 24 hours a day) and I woke up to a line for the shower. After a peek-a-boo game every time I heard a door close, (OK it was more like whenever there was a commercial on my morning show) I got into the shower about a half an hour later. I was all ready to go when I realized that I hadn't charged my camera, so another half hour of morning TV (it gets worse the later you get) and I was definitely ready to get out of the hotel and into the city.

First in my plan for the day: catching the ferry to Manly. Manly is on the northern edge of Port Jackson and is a narrow peninsula with harbour and ocean beaches and reads like a small beach community that welcomes the odd tourist looking for a change from the big city. Since I consider myself just that kind of odd tourist, I was looking forward to the town as much as I was looking forward to the ferry ride.

I headed to Darling Harbor and after wandering around for about half an hour looking for the time table to be posted on one of the wharves, I realized that my ferry to Manly is really at Circular Quay (I'm blaming it on the signage) and not at Darling Harbor, where I was. So, I made my way to the train station and then caught the next boat. They switched the scheduled ferry with a rivercat (speed commuter boat), so the ride took half as long (15 minutes as opposed to 30) and was four times as choppy. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride since I couldn't get any photos.

Turns out that Manly is booming, with lots of luxury apartments, lots of restaurants, and a full four blocks between the wharf and the ocean with touristy surf shops and more restaurants called the Corso (the street, not the restaurants).

The wharf side has a protected swimming area and the ocean side had a beautiful beach full of swimmers and surfers and unfortunately also had at least two sewerage outfalls (bummer). That and the many signs informing of a strong rip tide and I was convinced that I should enjoy this beach from the safety of the sand.

While enjoying the afternoon, I realized that sushi on the beach for lunch (didn't buy it on the beach, I bought it and then took it there for a picnic) was not a good idea as it collects every grain of sand in the air. (Beaches tend to be sandy, and so now my lunch was too.) I abandoned the sushi and found a kebab shop and a civilized picnic table on the street. Soon later, a couple of old folks join me at the table and after 5 minutes of silence, I ask where they are from (I had noticed an accent). The woman was chatty and she tells me that they have been here for over 50 years and this is just a normal day. Then the guy proceeds to yell at me because my president is a warmonger and since I know there is nothing I can say to make him stop, we continue eating in silence. It's the first time in ages that someone had taken offence at my being American, so I guess it could definitely be worse.

After lunch, I wander around town and find Market Street, which is highlighted on the map like the Corso, hoping to find more good shops. Unfortunately, there was nary a surf shop to be found, as Market Street is the home of Manly's porn shops and hair salons and a strangely scary public toilet. It looked like a pay toilet (but it wasn't) so I figured it would be in pretty good shape (but it wasn't). Despite the poor appearance, I needed to go, so I stepped inside. (Don't worry! This is not going where you think. Even I have my limits.) As the door slides shut, a voice comes on and tells me to push the door-lock. When I do, the voice returns and tells me that I have ten minutes and then the speakers fill with the loudest rendition of "What the world needs now, is love, sweet love..." It was surreal. I would have stuck around to see what the crappy DJ had on deck, but I decided my time would be better spent elsewhere.

I caught a proper ferry back to Circular Quay and enjoyed the whole 30 minute ride. (I think if I have extra time here I will just ride ferries all day.) I made my way back to the hotel and decided that I would recharge my camera (take a cat nap). Fully recharged, I headed back out, this time to spend some quality time at the Harbor bridge.

I walked back to the Rocks and found my way to the pedestrian access to the bridge. It was still the end of rush hour and vehicular and pedestrian traffic was high. Joggers and commuters joined us tourists on the bridge and it wasn't too difficult to tell which was which. We tourists actually looked around. If you are looking to spend some extra cash, you can do the "bridge climb", where you strap on climbing gear and walk up the railing to the top of the bridge. You can see the people waiting at the top for the rest of their group. Uh, no thanks.

I walked out to the middle, and knowing that there was little to lure me to North Sydney, (it's mostly office buildings) I turned back to the neighborhoods I knew best.

As the sun set, I decided that I would hang out and get some evening shots of the city and of the opera house. (This puts my count of shots that include the opera house to the teens and I haven't even been there yet.) I really should have had a tripod and probably a bit better camera, but it works for me!

Vocab of the Day
Pensioner: retiree

Manly is crawling with tourists and pensioners since it has a nice beach and is easy to get around.

Zebra crossing: crosswalk that is painted onto the pavement in short, vertical lines

I was surprised to find that cars actually yielded to me as I came upon zebra crossings in Manly. They were even getting impatient because I would wait to make sure they were stopping before I crossed! Sydney has zebra crossings as well, but the drivers are a bit less courteous.

Sydney Day 1

2006-11-02T20:54:00.000-07:00

This morning Aaron and I met Karen for breakfast at the Spoon in the West End (another restaurant called the Spoon, I'm thinking it's a chain!) and I got handed off to Karen for my ride to the airport.

I arrived in Sydney on time and an hour ahead of Brisbane. The rest of Australia had changed to daylight savings time while I'd been in Queensland (they don't change). After a packed shuttle ride to the CBD, I got to the Wynyard Hotel (say win-yard). This historical downtown hotel is located right above the pub. No bathrooms in the rooms, but there is a kitchen for residents with free toast any time of the day. If I lose my cash at the pokies (slot machines, poker machines) downstairs I can at least catch up on my peanut butter intake for the year.

Settled in, I threw my Lonely Planet into my bag and made my way to an internet cafe on George Street. Sadly the download speed was less than desired. So I made my way back outside into the shopping district and and saw a gigantic building across the street. This one building was a city block long. Intrigued, I stepped inside. The Queen Victoria Building (QVB) is four stories of retail glory, complete with Christmas decorations.
Yep, that's a Christmas tree. A big, evergreen pine tree with ornaments. Doesn't quite make sense since evergreen trees like that don't exist on this continent.

With the rest of the day calling, I left the QVB and headed north to Circular Quay. (Well, not on purpose. I thought going all the way to the Quay would be too far, but I missed the park I was looking for (turns out that it was a building- I have no idea why it was special enough to make the map) and ended up there. (It wasn't that far.)

Two major icons that you hear about when you travel to Sydney are the opera house and the Harbor Bridge. It's amazing how close they are to each other.
Knowing I'd spend some quality time getting a closer look at these in the coming days, I wandered around the neighbourhood between them called the Rocks. The Rocks was the site of the first European settlement and soon became the center of commerce, prime real estate, and oh yeah, riddled by the bubonic plague. These days it's mostly warehouses converted into art galleries. And pubs.

A couple of wrong turns and I was looking at the wrong end of a very long staircase. As I made my way back up hill, I noticed that the walls were seeping. Not just a couple of drips, but enough water coming out of this sandstone to have plants sprout out of the retaining wall. I'm no geotechnical engineer, but, I think that is somehow a bad sign for the rock that makes the footing of a gigantic bridge.

I headed back to my hotel and had some dinner in the pub downstairs. It was poker night and the crowd was not very social outside of the card tables, so I headed back outside for an evening stroll. When I checked in earlier in the day, I noticed a bit of blue water peeking out from the end of the block, so tonight I went to check it out.

Turns out that a short few blocks away from the hotel is Darling Harbor. Darling Harbor is a renovated docklands lined with a promenade of shopping and restaurants. King Street wharf is where I will catch the ferry out to Manly. Cockle Bay wharf (they are only separated by a pedestrian bridge to the other side of the harbour) is home to the aquarium and more restaurants and shops. The promenade just kept going and going to the IMAX, to Tumbalong Park, to more restaurants and more shops. I decided to stop once I lost sight of the harbour and I found my way back to the hotel.

Vocab of the Day
Brekky: breakfast
Shout: Your turn to pay/your treat at the pub/restaurant.

When we sat down to for brekky, Karen said, "It's my shout, so you guys get whatever you want!" I had French toast. Again.

Watch This Space

2006-11-01T23:19:00.000-07:00

I have heaps to tell about Sydney, but I just got back to Melbourne and there's no way I'm spending the rest of the night on the computer in the office.

I'll be back tomorrow to update!

BrisVegas

2006-10-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

Richard was gracious enough to take me to the airport at the ungodly hour of 5:30 AM for my 7 AM flight. In my semi-conscious state, I was questioning my travel planning abilities, but also very glad that I was flying in Australia where you can still show up to the airport with only an hour before your flight. Definitely a plus at this hour of the morning!

I arrived at the airport and realized the reason for the speediness. Nobody checked my ID. Not once. I got my boarding pass from an automated machine that got my name off of my credit card and then went straight through to my gate, pausing only a moment to zip through security, where they also did not check my boarding pass. Didn't even check to see if I was flying. Interesting. They did, however, pause to take my cuticle scissors, because that a clean manicure is definitely the sign of terrorist activity.

I slept the entire flight (which usually happens, no matter the hour) but had even surprised myself when I realized that I had already had a dream by the time we took off. Maybe the five hours of sleep was not the best decision I made last night!
I arrived in Brisbane a short two hours later, refreshed (save the slight crick in the neck, but what can you do) and found my way to the passenger pick up lane where a short time later I was met by my friend Aaron. Aaron is an ex-GAP employee who came to Denver on exchange a couple of years back and he has graciously volunteered to be my tour-guide and host for the weekend that I'm in town. (This is a very good thing!)

First order of business: breakfast. Apparently, Aaron is suffering from that syndrome that effects the newly single, and so he has come straight from his Friday night activities that ended on buddy's couch to pick me up. We head to Fortitude Valley, once red-light district of Brisbane (and still apparently a bit dodgy) that is making bold attempts at poshness. We find a cafe on James street with outdoor seating and settle in for some catching up. (Spoon Deli and Cafe - best French toast ever!)

In order to walk off some of our breakfast, we head down James street and pop into Mambo's (say ma'am-bows), an Australian surf brand that is coming into its own. There are loads of brightly-colored tshirts with kitschy Hawaiian prints and as much as I would love to buy one, the memory of sitting on my suitcases in order to zip them up last night is still too fresh.

Next stop (and second illegal parking job of the day) is Wickham Street, Chinatown and the Saturday morning Brunswick Street market. This market is not quite the fresh-food type that drives Melbourne, but more the upscale flea-market variety where you go to find tshirts, sun hats, and a new pair of sunglasses. Since we needed none of the above, it was a quick tour of the market and back to the car.

A twenty minute ride in the car along the river and up into the hills and we arrive at Mount Coot-tha (say couth-a), the lookout of the city where all tourists end up. The view was outstanding, if a tad hazy, but as Aaron had said at least three times so far today, Brisbane was definitely due some rain. Aaron pointed out the University of Queensland, the GAP offices, the river, and highlights of the CBD. We were definitely in need of something to drink, so over some ice tea, Aaron told tales of the GAP Brisbane office and why he made the move Coffey not so long ago.

Then began the recruitment speech. (I made the mistake of telling him that Melbourne would like to have me back.) Discussion of corporate politics over, we headed back downhill to his house where I sit in the lounge room with all the windows in the house open and a breeze flowing through the house while I put this together. I've acquired that dewy glow that you get in the heat and humidity, and it is definitely a nice change from the cold and rain I left in Melbourne this morning!

We spent the afternoon hours watching some classic Australian cinema, Wop Boy. OK, not exactly on par with The Castle, but some funny jokes anyway. After the movie, we realized that we forgot to eat lunch, so we headed out to the bakery down the road. (Insert small intermission where Aaron breaks back into his house after he realizes that he's left his keys inside.) Successfully at the bakery, we decide on meat pies. It's my first meat pie ever and Aaron assures me that they are the best with "mushy peas" and chocolate milk. OK, well, the meat, potato and peas isn't too much of a stretch, but chocolate milk? I was doubtful. Then, mid-swig, I realized the most important part of this equation is that chocolate milk is always good. Bring it on!

Once again looking for some activity after our meal, we headed to the riverfront to take a stroll along the... river. Brisbane is "The River City" of Australia and the Brisbane River winds through town and is the ultimate neighbourhood boundary. We walked through the arbour made of steel and bougainvillea to the Sweets Beach, a series of public swimming pools along the river.

Brisbane is protected from the ocean by a series of islands off the coast, but with protection comes mud. The city is built on a giant mud flat and most of the docks are constructed on dried out swamps. Construction in general is a bit of a challenge.

After a quick walk through the mostly-closed Crafts Village market, we headed to Kangaroo Point, which has a series of sandstone cliffs that have become a rock-climbers haven. We spy at least ten people hanging off the cliffs, and I'll bet that's only because the first 20 have already gone home.

We wind our way back through town and rest up for the night ahead. On the itinerary: Thai food with Aaron's friends and a Halloween/Salsa dancing party, both of which I was very curious about!

Thai dinner was at Rwan Thai, in the outer CBD. (Most of the CBD in Brisbane goes to sleep after the working day is done, so there's not much to do there at night.) We met up with Magda, Richard and Lydia (Aaron's friends from Coffey) and their friends Ann, Alan and ?, and Brendan, Kirsty and Heather (Aaron's friends from GAP). Brendan was at GAI Denver with me and he is here on exchange, so it was good to catch up with him and hear about all his experiences in the Brisbane office. (From his stories, I can tell you that I will not be moving for GAP Brisbane, no matter how nice the weather is!) Dinner was great, and I have to admit that I'm actually liking curry these days. I'm still weary of the yellow stuff though. Eww.

After dinner a few of us went to the West End of Brisbane to find the salsa Halloween party. We got there and it turns out that it is in the function room of this bar/casino and there were very few people actually dancing. This was discouraging since we had hoped to be lost in the crowd so our lack of salsa dancing skills would go unnoticed. We had a couple of drinks and played some pool in the bar outside (literally outside, the bar was a glorified tent- sounds crazy, but it worked) waiting for the crowd to get bigger. By midnight, the crowd hadn't gotten any bigger though, so we called it a night. I was not really heartbroken though since I wanted to get to bed so I could be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the beach tomorrow!

We wake up Sunday morning and after opting for peanut-butter rather than vegemite on my toast, we head south to the Gold Coast and the beach! My first lesson of the day came while Aaron was strapping the surfboard to the car (!) and I tried to help. Since I wasn't quite sure how he was strapping this on, I stepped back and he gently informed me that it was probably best since, "You never touch another man's straps." Apparently, they are a bit territorial about the tying-down of surfboards in this part of the world ("...other people I mean.") Right. OK then, I just sat in the car.

The Gold Coast is a major tourist destination for people looking for sun and surf and it has become flash and tacky (and yet wildly popular), kind of like a destination that is always on spring break. Aaron's local knowledge leads us to the town of Southport and the Spit, a long sand bar that separates the mainland (and the Broadwater River) from the ocean. The spit is home to Sea World, but further on, you will find only locals heading for a day in the sun. The river side of the spit is really calm, since it is protected from the waves, and that beach is riddled with small children. The sea-side of the spit is home to a giant sand pump, which is pretty much the ugliest thing ever for a beach, which is why locals are the only folks here.

The sand pump was built because developers, in their infinite wisdom, built a sea wall south of town in order to protect it. What they didn't realize (or maybe they did it anyway) was that sand for the beaches travels from south to north with the tides. They had just ruined the whole reason all the development was here in the first place. So, they installed this giant sand pump to suck out sand from the north end where the sand now "naturally" is replenished and they pump it back to the south to the beaches cut off by the sea wall.

We arrived at the beach and met up with Sandy and Karen and her two dogs. Soon later we were joined by Tim and Hua and their dog. Yep, dogs. Did I mention that? Since this beach has been deemed unacceptable by tourist standards, this is about the only place for 100k that people could have their dogs on the beach and off the leash. It was packed with dogs, tennis balls and Frisbees flying in all directions, and if there was a dog heaven, I'm pretty sure it's something like this.

Aaron deemed the surf too choppy for surfing, and I have to say I was OK with that. Not only was I not in the mood for humiliation with an audience, (once again, nobody else was doing it and I'd be the only novice providing a show) there were jelly fish being swept up on the beach. Call me silly, but swimming with jellies is not my cup of tea, "Aww, their sting doesn't hurt too bad." Right. Oh yeah, and the fact that there just might be sharks on this beach, "...but they won't come get ya unless you've got bait or something," was not exactly reassuring. Lesson number two for the day: only go swimming out in the surf when the tide is coming in since the visibility is better. When the tide goes out, it takes lots of sand and stuff with it, and you are more likely to get a nice debilitating shark bite just because they'd rather take a bite of something yucky and spit it out than let it swim by. AND, apparently, people aren't really killed due to becoming the shark's dinner all that often. Nope, it's that tester-bite that sharks take that make you bleed to death before you can get help. Reassuring.

After enjoying the sun and exhausting the dogs, we decided it was time for lunch. Aaron, Tim, Hua and I headed to Peter's Fish and Chips, a fresh fish shop that fries up the catch of the day by the net-load and sells it off seven days a week for seven bucks. The shop is half diner window and half fresh fish shop and you can choose from the filleted fish on ice from that day's catch or from the cheap stuff. I chose the cheap stuff since I wouldn't know the difference anyway. We carried our bags out to the picnic tables out front and dug in. It was the best fish and chips ever.
Note: This restaurant is right next door to the hotel Pallazo Versace, of Donatella fame. We were eating on a picnic table in full view of someone who paid up to $1200 a night to stay at Donatella's designer pad. I thought that was awesome.

Since the day was wearing on, we started the hour drive back to Brizzy. On the road, we saw a very nice beamer with a proper chauffeur (cap and everything) and I convinced Aaron to catch back up to it so I could see who it was. On our first pass, I made eye contact and everything and I couldn't figure out who it was. Not surprising, since I am in another country and I don't even know their super-important people, let alone their slightly important higher income bracket B-listers. On our second pass, I decided he looked familiar, and I decided that it was probably Matthew Perry. Since this is my story, I'm sticking to that.

After our afternoon siesta, we head back to the Valley for some jazz. But first, we get some authentic New York style pizza on Brunswick Street. Right next door is a gelato place that we decide we must have some while we meander our way to the concert. We settle on three flavors at once and find our way to the Zoo.

The Zoo is one of the most popular one-room music venues in Brisbane. Tonight we were watching Sunday night jazz, and all we knew was that there was supposed to be a big band involved. Turns out that it was the last public performance for three of the jazz groups from the Conservatory of Music from the University of Queensland. All three groups were great, and they had some outstanding "guest" vocalists.

Aaron and I were joined by yet some more GAP Brisbane folks (very social bunch out here!) and we had a good time trying to chat between sets. Since everybody had to work Monday, we called it a night after the concert, but it definitely would have been fun to hang out with this crowd some more.

Vocab of the Day

Servo Sunnies: sunglasses you buy from the gas station (service station = servo)

Aaron was tempted to buy some servo sunnies when he forgot to bring his sunglasses on Saturday.
Budgie Smugglers: speedoes. Budgies are a small parrot-like bird native to Queensland. The smuggling part, well, you get the idea.

Luckily when we went to the beach, we didn't see any budgie smugglers.
Tim Tam Slam: special way to eat cookies with your coffee. Tim Tams are a brand of Australian cookie, basically a chocolate sandwich with chocolate inside covered in chocolate. The slam is when you bite off the two ends of the cookie, suck your coffee through the cookie like a straw, and then pop it into your mouth before it disintegrates in your hands.

Karen taught me the correct method for the Tim Tam slam while we chatted at the beach.
Ordinary: ordinary. OK, so this one is the same, but it is used as a (negative) judgement statement.

When I told Aaron that the GAI Denver Christmas part will be in January this year, he said, "That’s rather ordinary isn't it?"

You Say Goodbye, I say Hello

2006-10-26T02:05:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow is my last day in the Melbourne office.

It's almost sad, really. Almost.

I will be sad to leave my office mates, as I have become accustomed to belting out random disparaging comments about the Queen for Toby's benefit and other quips against poms in general. (Toby sits to my right.) Don't be sad for poor Toby though, as I assure you that I get quite the variety of anti-American drivel under his breath at random times during the day. OK, well, it's usually after I've called him on something, but that happens randomly anyway.

Jason sits diagonally from me, and Sally sits on the other side of Toby and regularly pops over to have a chat or ask a question. Jason and Sally are native Australians, and they get lots of questions (from me) about how things are supposed to work with all this strange bureaucracy that the Australians have built in to their environmental system. Sally does mostly Phase I's which means that she can find obscure references to site histories pretty quickly. Handy to have around! Drew sits to my left, but he is on holiday this week. He is my source for Aussie sports knowledge and movie quotes.

Over my wall is Richard, Cybele and Carl. Richard and I have an unfortunate habit of talking to each other over/through the wall, (it's all work stuff, I promise!) but we try to keep it down most of the time. This leads to Richard standing on his desk to look over the wall and have a normal-voiced chat and lots of my time sitting in Jamie's chair (Jamie sits on Richard's left and is out of the office most days) working through the issues that are DTP. Carl and Cybele are my resident slang experts and they help to make sure that I use my newfound vocabulary properly. It also helps keep the pom jokes coming towards Richard. (I like to deflect the immigrant issues whenever possible!)

This morning I had my exit interview with the boss. He offered me a job. (You knew that was coming, didn't you?) He also said he doesn't want to be accused of poaching from the other offices, but how many exchange people have gone back to their home offices in the last few years? One. I'd say he really doesn't have that much of a problem with poaching. Anyway, I told him that I would consider it. I'd really like to get home before I go making any life-changing decisions!

On tap for tomorrow: Trying to finish this dang DTP groundwater report. It's like a washed-up classic rock band in concert: so many false endings, you end up leaving before it's over to beat the traffic out of the park. Hmm. A bit like that anyway, because I certainly do have one foot out of the door, and we keep finding more twists and turns to how things are working, more historical data that changes our conceptual model, and more figures and tables and supporting documents than I know what to do with. It's going to be a good report when it's done though. I would have liked to finish it myself!

Oh, and the pub for lunch. That is definitely on tap for tomorrow.

Vocab of the Day
Squiz: look, examine.
You can "give a squiz", "take a squiz", or "have a squiz".

When Paul came up to give me the latest version of the contour map, he asked me to give it a squiz and let him know if there were any changes.

Joys of Victorian Living

2006-10-25T16:05:00.000-06:00

This little beauty landed on our safety board last week. It is horrifying.

A quick look on Wikipedia and I found this little gem, "Australia is the only continent where venomous snakes outnumber their non-venomous cousins."

A two-word google search brought up a site where you can point to any place on a map of Victoria and it will tell you which kind of snakes live in your area. Handy, but somehow I'm not going to sleep better knowing that the Common Copperhead, White-lipped Snake, Tiger Snake, Common Brown Snake, or the Little Whip Snake are lurking underneath the grass. Bllech.

Another click later and I find that two of those are among the biting-est and killing-est in the country. Yikes!

I don't think there is much bushwalking in my future.

Vocab of the Day
Mozzies: mosquitoes

Hopefully, the worst animals I will encounter on vacation are some mozzies near the water.

A Proper Australian BBQ

2006-10-22T04:03:00.000-06:00

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!
Yep, it's time for your favorite Yankee to head back to the States. But first I would like to have a real honest-to-goodness Aussie barbeque in the park.

So, bring your partner, your family, your roommates, and your neighbors and join me in Albert Park on Sunday, 22 October from 11 AM (Cormorant Picnic Area) and we'll enjoy my last weekend in Melbourne in the sunshine!

Albert Park Map
Please forward this to anyone I may have missed!

A little insight into (some of) the American Way, courtesy of wikipedia and EB White:

To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.

Nope, I didn't quite make it there at 11. I would have, but since almost everyone I knew went to the races yesterday, I knew that there was no reason to rush. They'd all need some recovery time.

(By the way, the very best excuse I got for not attending goes to Brad, who wrote: I have my Buck's Night (Bachelor Party) tomorrow night so I may well be on a train to Sydney, glad wrapped to a prominent Melbourne landmark or chained nude to a roundabout or children's play equipment on Sunday morning. Even if these don't occur I don't think I will be able to face the outside world on Sunday. Excellent!)

Anyway, Albert Park is right in the middle of town and houses tennis courts, football fields, a skateboarding half-pipe, a lake, picnic grounds, a golf course, soccer fields, and most importantly, it is the home of the Melbourne Grand Prix that happens every year. We had fun making race car sounds as we drove around the lake. Very realistic.

We arrived in waves, some in cars, some on bikes, and the first thing we did was get out the frisbee. A few minutes of good frisbee fun and it ended up in the lake. OK, I threw it into the lake. But only because Richard missed it.

Luckily for us, there were a good number of boaters on the lake that day and we were able to get one to practice his turning skills, rescue it, and fling it back. We put it away for a bit after that though, didn't want to press our luck.

We were able to reserve (thanks Richard!) a ramada with an electric grill for our BBQing needs, but it was a bit chilly in the shade, so most everyone gathered around in the grass to enjoy the sunshine.

Soon enough, another game of frisbee started up.

And soon after that, another frisbee rescue mission was underhand. This time it wasn't even my fault!

The day was pretty relaxed in general, with people coming and going depending on how ambitious their day had been. Francesca and Gabrielle decided to get me a going away present of a giant bubble blower that came in really handy as we all had (probably too much) fun aiming for joggers and bicyclists and swans along the lake with our bubble ammo. Unfortunately Gabrielle received the brunt of the dud bubbles and he had had enough by the time Francesca got into them! (They also gave me a really great card that I'll never be able to translate from their native Italian, but it basically said, "If you are sad, things will get better. If today is not sunny, tomorrow will be." Some Italian rhyming proverb. It sounded nicer than it translates!)

We had all about had enough by around 5, so the party split for points across Melbourne. By the looks of the group in the office on Monday, we all could have probably used a bit more sunscreen, but other than that, it was the perfect BBQ, going-away or otherwise.

Vocab of the Day
Sanga: sandwich. One of the innumerable Aussie shortenings of words.

Instead of using buns for hamburgers or sausages, Aussies use regular bread and make a BBQ sanga.

The Caulfield Cup

2006-10-22T03:05:00.000-06:00

The Caulfield Cup is part of the Melbourne institution that is the Spring Carnival. People from all over the world come to Melbourne to take part in the racing, the fashion, and the social atmosphere (read: 18 year olds drinking champagne out of the bottle). But, more on that later.

We slowly arrived as trains and trams trickled in to Caulfield Station (they have a train stop just for this race!) and even the ride on the train was entertaining. Groups of people dressed to the nines cheered as the train stopped to collect us and cameras flashed as people settled in for the 10 minute ride to the race track.

A flurry of phone calls later and we were able to get our group together and head in to the track. The first thing we did was stake a claim to some grass near to the track so we could see the horses run by. (This lasted for exactly two races, until the crowd got bigger.)

Then came the very important studying of the racing papers from the morning newspaper and the racing programs to decide how we were going to bet. Of all of us, only Richard, Dee and Don had been to the races before, so the rest of us looked to them for guidance. Plus, it turns out that Don's family used to breed race horses, so whenever he made a comment about a horse it was a bit like an EF Hutton ad- when talked, everybody listened. (For a while anyway.)

Early in the day, picking your horse was based on a very thorough study of past performance, the reputation of the jockey, the trainer and home country of the horse (horses were flown in from Ireland, New Zealand, and the US). Later in the day, the strategy became a bit more dodgy. I'm sure it had very little to do with the chosen refreshments and standing out in the sun for 6 hours. Really.

There were 10 races total for the day, and the Caulfield Cup was race 8. We started with the first race, bright and early at 11:30 AM. Each race was a little bit different, and they ran about every 45 minutes or so. Just long enough to finish your drink, muscle your way to the bookmakers, place your bet, and start another drink. Did I mention they were selling champagne by the bottle?

Don was the big winner for the day, picking three winners. (We really should have listened more closely!) I was a bit less lucky. OK, well, very unlucky, as at least two of my horses came in second. It was like the racing gods were having a laugh at my expense. Then again, I had decided early on that since I didn't know much about racing, or even how to decipher the program* I would just choose based on the name of the horse. Yep, maybe next time I will put a bit more thought into it.

*An excerpt from the racing pages:
RACE 4: Montaon, blinkers first time; De Lago Mist, blinkers off first time, norton bit off first time, noseroll first time, races plates off first time, standard bit first time, Fire in the Night, winkers first time.
What?! I bet on De Lago Mist, since he seemed to have the most comments. He came in second. Pssh.

The crowd got bigger and bigger as the day wore on, and the people watching was fantastic. Women plan their outfits for this race for ages, and nothing like bad weather was going to stop them from showing off this year's creation. Hats and fascinators (the feathery bits that look like they belong on a hat, but are just clipped into your hair) were everywhere, and more than once were lost to the wind. Since I had made an effort to put together an outfit for the race, I was pretty impressed. I was also laughing to myself when I saw girls wearing sundresses covered in goosebumps because they were too silly to bring a sweater. (The weather was my justification for not buying a new outfit in the end anyway, I figured that all I was going to do was cover it up!)

By the time the 9th was finished, we had just about had it. The excitement of the day (and standing) had worn us out and so we did what every Aussie does in times like these- go to the pub. A couple of games of pool, some dinner, and cab ride home were just about the perfect ending to a busy day.

Vocab of the Day
Lary: obnoxious, loud. Refers equally to people as to objects.

At the races we saw some really lary suits on a group of guys that ended up looking like a box of crayons when they walked together.

Going-Away Lunch I

2006-10-20T01:06:00.000-06:00

I am calling this "going-away lunch 1" because it can definitely be improved.

Let's put it this way, I ended up sitting next to the office manager and my group leader and they talked about climate change and lawn maintenance. Scintillating lunch conversation, let me tell you.

You can get an idea from this photo- Doug the office manager is counting the money for the bill, and Ric the group leader is watching him count it. Wow.

OK, enough griping. It was a good effort, anyway. Peter, the other going-away-er got up and gave a very funny speech after his farewell-intro (can you have a farewell intro?), so there was no way I was going to get up and follow him. Sure, I'm clever enough when I've got a chance to think about what I'm going to say, but public speaking is not my forte. After speeches, a few of us stuck around to delay working for a while, but ultimately, deadlines called.

Definitely going to have to try this again. Good thing I have another week!

Vocab of the Day
Cactus: messed up, broken, ruined.

My plan to finish the groundwater assessment report was cactus once our group meeting ran late.

Preparing for the Weekend

2006-10-18T20:59:00.000-06:00

This weekend is packed with social events. It all starts Friday at lunch, when they are piggy-backing my going-away lunch with another (one of the senior types) and we are having quite the do at the pub down the street. Rumor is that there will be 40+ people there. Not too bad!

Saturday is the Caulfield Cup. This is part of the Spring Racing Carnival, lots of horse racing every weekend building up to the Melbourne Cup on November 7. A bunch of us are going to the race together and the plan making is whirling around the office. The races are a bit of a fashionista event as well, and I've been debating about my need to buy a new outfit. Then, Richard found the dress code (see below). Debate over. I will be going shopping Friday night!

*Dress Code
Gentlemen are required to wear a suit, sports coat or blazer plus tie. Ladies are expected to maintain a suitable standard of dress in keeping with the standard of the Corporate Areas. Unacceptable items of clothing include: parkas, duffel coats, denim jackets, zippered or waist length leather/casual jackets, any clothing revealing bare midriff, shorts, jeans, running/sports shoes, thongs or any dilapidated footwear. The club reserves the right to refuse admittance to the function areas to patrons not adhering to the above conditions.

Sunday we decided that I needed to have my own going-away and so we are having a BBQ in the park. We will see how many people are feeling up to the picnic after the races!

Vocab of the Day
Stuff: verb, all-purpose curse, though mostly benign. When I asked Cybele on proper stuff usage, she said, "I'd use it in polite company, when the F word isn't appropriate; stuffed is almost as diverse in its potential as the F word."

Except polite. Hard to imagine, but true.

Usage
surprise: "Well I'll be stuffed!"
get stuffed: "You can tell him to go get stuffed."
trouble: "Are we stuffed?", "Yep, we're stuffed."
tired: "I'm stuffed"
stuff a thing: "Is it stuffed?"
stuff an action:"Did he stuff it up?", "Dropping the pump down the well stuffed everything up."
give up/can't be bothered: "Stuff it.", "She couldn't be stuffed doing another micropurge."

The Beginning of the End

2006-10-17T01:47:00.000-06:00

I now have four days to finish my groundwater report for DTP. After that, I will be in a training class for three days. After that, I have one day to tie-up loose ends and after that I am on vacation!

On the 28th I will be heading to Brisbane; on the 30th, Sydney; and on the 4th, (with a day catch-up in Melbourne to pick up Richard and Dee) to Tasmania!

It's quite the whirl-wind trip, I know, but I'm caught between that place where you have seen so much and that place where you still have so much left to see that there is no way to see it all in the amount of time you have (or in the budget that you have) and you just have to go ahead and pick some flights already! Know what I mean?

Everyone gives me the "tsk" when they hear that I am only spending 10 days on vacation before going home (but they perk right up when I mention that I'm going to Tasmania!). Travel is such a part of the culture here that most people have seen half of the world before they turn 21 and they find it appalling (and this has come up more than once) that only a small percentage of Americans have their passports. On the other hand, lots of people I've talked to haven't even ventured to the day trips that I've seen while I've been here and car-less. Go figure.

I am also really looking forward to getting home. You never realize how much you miss everything (and everyone!) until you leave on a last-minute trip for three months that ends up really being six. I'll be heading back on November 7, a mere three weeks from today.

Plus, look at what I'm missing! All of these people have helped me out with things while I've been gone (and many more, but I didn't think they'd all be at Julie and Garth's housewarming). Does anyone else find it ironic that Garth got the Saints scarf?!

Vocab of the Day
Too easy: reply, like "no problem". Also used to make everything sound, well, easier. They're a laid-back bunch here and even their technical discussions have a few "too easy"ies thrown in.

I was training Carl on proper QA procedure for lab data and once he understood the process he summed up the steps and said, "too easy!" even though it's going to take him days to really figure it out.

Two Poms and a Yank

2006-10-15T02:31:00.000-06:00

Sounds like a punch line, eh? Actually, it was Richard, Dee and me as we toured Southern Gippsland and camped at Wilson's Promontory National Park.

Gippsland stretches from the suburbs east of Melbourne to the New South Wales border. It makes up the south eastern bit of Victoria and is known mostly for agriculture and mining. We saw plenty of rolling hills with cattle, dairys, and some wineries along the journey.

Wilson's Promontory, affectionately called "The Prom" is a National Park in the southernmost tip of Victoria- the southernmost tip of mainland Australia, actually.

After a four hour drive (which included a brief and unintentional detour to Hastings) we arrived at the Prom. A mere $17 for a campsite at Tidal River and a two-day pass (what a bargain!) and we set up camp in what was possibly the most beautiful public camping area ever. Since it is not yet high season, we were relatively secluded from other campers and had a nice quiet area all to ourselves.

After settling in, we were off to our first hike. We crossed the Tidal River and made our way through the heathland in the hills that seperate Norman and Leonard Bays.

Our first sight of wildlife: a kookaburra. These birds of prey are all over the place in the Prom and as we learned while making dinner later in the day, they are not too shy of people! One sat atop a branch over our dinner table and waited until we had our backs turned to swoop in and steal food right off the plate! When Richard tried to scare him away by running at him and thowing water, the bird just stood there, and even opened his beak to catch the water Richard had thrown. We soon learned that the maniacal laugh of the kookaburra (kind of sounds like the monkey noises kids make) is really them laughing at us tourists while they plan thier dinner!

Back to the first hike of the day though, and as we decended upon the beach, we found an echidna feasting on an ant hill. He was really shy and about the size of a house cat. We didn't get too close.

Back to the track and we finally arrived at Squeaky Beach. Yep, the beach actually squeaks- it makes that squeak noise that you get with wet shoes in the supermarket. The sand only squeaks when it's dry, and it squeaks because the (very fine grained, well rounded, well sorted) quartz sand is sized just so and rounded just so that it's like a bunch of marbles squeaking against each other. I have to say that this was probably the highlight of my weekend. I loved it.

On our way back to the trail head, we found a wombat grazing on some grass near the beach. He seemed pretty used to people, but when Richard went in for a closer photo, he scurried off. He basically like a giant guinea pig, really, though he had super huge claws like koalas do. Earlier in the day, the park ranger told us that we have to keep all of our food locked in the car so that the wombats don't scratch through our tents in the night looking for goodies. After seeing the size of those claws, I didn't even bring my chapstick to my tent!

After Squeaky Beach, we made our way to Pillar Point, the tip of land that seperates the two bays. It was really, really windy up there (so windy I almost couldn't hold my camera straight!). I snapped this photo of Richard looking pensive, but I'm sure he's really just gathering the courage to come back up to the trail from that lookout.

Back on the trail, and we decided to finish out our day hikes with the Tidal Overlook Circuit. This trail had some more amazing views, but instead of hiking through the forests of tea trees (sometimes ti trees) we went down a slope that had a recent burn. Much of the park had suffered from a controlled fire gone bad in 2005, and the revegetation was amazing.

Wild orchids, she-oaks and grass trees (sometimes called kangaroo tails) covered the slopes.

We made our way back to camp and other than the excitement with the kookaburra, not much happened. Since it is still officially spring here, the temperatures weren't quite warm enough for my taste, and I had to snuggle myself into my tent in order to stay warm. By the morning, I was sure they'd have to shear me out of it all, I was wearing so much fleece. But, morning came, and the sun was out, and so we continued our exploration of the park.

On the plate for today: Mt. Oberon. I was a bit hesitant after reading the brochure that said "a subtle uphill climb, which is noticably constant." Yep, they really should have said 3.4k of sheer uphill torture. OK, so torture is maybe too strong a word. It was actually quite manageable. I did, however, give into my frustration once by stomping my feet and declaring that I would not continue, no matter what. That only lasted a few seconds though, since I didn't want the family with small children that we had just passed to pass me back. Soon enough, (but after the stairs) we reached the summit. It was well worth the trip, and as Dee was so fond of saying "all downhill from there!" We had amazing views of Oberon Bay, Norman Bay, the Tidal River, and even Leonard Bay and Squeaky Beach.

After returning to the Tidal River ranger station for some lunch, (I will never understand the need to put not only bacon but a whole egg on top of burgers here!) we decided to walk off some of the grease overloading at Lilly Pilly Gully. (This gets the vote for the best name ever!) This track took us through a tea tree forest (flowering tree to the right, also what the kookaburra was hiding in) and into a moderate rainforest.
We were told to expect quite a few koalas in these parts, but despite walking with heads up most of the way, we didn't see a one. What we did see were lots of banksia trees in bloom- they smelled like honey.

Most photogenic person of the day- me! OK, so maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. It's not my fault that Dee said, "Oh, I hope there are no spiders in this tree," right before Richard took the photo. I think they planned it.

Final tally: 19k over two days. No wonder I slept so well Sunday night!

Vocab of the Day
Woop woop: the middle of nowhere, the bush, the outback. Also the name of an Australian wine available in the states. (I haven't seen it here.)

In a park as large as Wilson's Prom, it's easy to feel like you're hiking through the middle of woop woop.

Tidbits

2006-10-12T16:15:00.000-06:00

Just some observations from the last week:

Barb (my roommate) is in Tasmania for a few days. I have the flat to myself and what do I do? Ironing. I really need to find some irresponsible friends or something.
Melbourne is in a heat wave! Yesterday was the hottest October day on record, at a whopping 36 degrees C(97 F)!
250 bush fires (forest fires) started yesterday.
We have a camping trip planned for the weekend, so the forcast says cold and rainy. Jeez.
We had a new starter in the office this week- Dave from somewhere in England. All the other poms laughed when he said where he was living, so I'm guessing it's not so great.
Dave is tall. Really tall. I have high hopes for our friendship.
I went shopping with Suzy after work to find new outfits for the Spring Carnival (loads of horse racing- high fashion). Target was a zoo, and I couldn't quite get the right outfit together.
All the other stores on the Bourke Street mall close at 6pm on Thursdays.
When you order the potato cakes at the sushi restaurant, you ruin your perfectly healthy dinner.
They let anyone on the train.
- The woman in the seats to my right was flashing body parts to her friends with a digital camera.
- The woman across from me was writing the longest text ever on her phone with one hand and without looking.
- Two men sitting behind the flashers were discussing the joys of the TV show "West Park". (I wanted to jump over the seats and point out that it is actually called "South Park", but that would defeat the ego stroking session at hand.)
- The other woman across from me was making out her Christmas list. (See outrage below.) Apparently she knows half of Melbourne.
Potato cakes from the Japanese place really are not a good idea.
The "Daily Show-International Version" comes on at 10 PM Thursdays. (I had no idea!) I learned a new word: catastrof@$k. Apparently they can say that on Australian TV.
If I had switched the black skirt for the white one, I would have had a good outfit. Dang. Now I have to go back and try to piece it together again.
If you live next door to the train station, you should really have ear plugs if you want to sleep with the window open.

Vocab of the Day
The dog's breakfast: a mess.

The dressing rooms at Target were the dog's breakfast because they were having a massive sale for the Spring Carnival.

It Has Begun

2006-10-10T22:01:00.000-06:00

I just took a walk to get a sugar fix during my lunch break and when I got to the grocery store on the corner, I saw them.

Christmas candy. Christmas crackers, Christmas chocolate gift boxes, and chocolate Santas of various sizes, shapes, and fillings.

Since I was on a chocolate run in the first place, you'd think this would be a good thing. BUT, Christmas stuff in the second week of October?! Really?

I didn't buy any out of sheer principle.

And yes, the Santas were still in big red suits even though it's summer here during Christmas.

Vocab of the Day
Fussed: worried, concerned. Basically the same meaning as in America, but used in a different way.

Because my boss in Denver has no time to read my stats report, I'm not too fussed about getting the QA done today.

Being Bogan

2006-10-09T21:19:00.000-06:00

Vocab of the Day
Bogan: good-willed country folk that are a bit rough around the edges. Like white trash, without the negative connotation (mostly)

Instead of a sentence to show proper usage, I thought I'd supply the Bogan Test that was passed around the office email today.

(We really do work. Just not all the time.)

Sorry it's so small but I had the interactive version up here and it kept crashing. I guess the world is not quite ready for boganhood. If you'd like to take the test yourself, I can email it to you!

I was a whopping 44% bogan. Pretty good (bad?) considering I'm not from this country.

Some tips you may need in order to answer the questions properly:
(2) Salvo = Salvation Army
(3) Bundy = Bundaberg Rum (made in Queensland)
(6) Cheap as chips = like the Salvation Army store, only it's not for charity. That's right- a for profit junk store.
(16) Council house = the projects. "The Council" is the town council.
(17) Loo = toilet
(18) Thongs = flip flops. I am sure the scoring of the question remains the same if you thought it meant the underwear, however.
(23) Take away = take-out or delivery food
(25) Trolley = shopping cart
(30) Runners = sneakers

Good luck on those exams!

Spring Lunch at Phil's

2006-10-09T02:17:00.000-06:00

Sunday was the annual GA Spring Lunch at Phil's. Phil is one of the bigwigs at work. You know the type: gregarious/principal/millionaire/owns a block of land outside of town so large that he has manicured gardens and a proper nursery out the back.

The day was really fun. I hitched a ride with Richard and Dee and we headed off to Mt. Macedon where Phil lives. We toyed with the idea of sampling a few wineries on the way up, but since we started at 10 AM on a Sunday and we were heading to lunch with the higher-ups, something about wine tasting on the way didn't feel quite right.

Instead we headed to the top of Mt. Macedon and the lookout there. It was a really cold, hazy day (yesterday had been 30 degrees and warm!), and so I didn't even bother taking a photo. On top of the mountain, they have built a giant cross to memorialize Australia's war dead. The cross was meant to be visible from Melbourne, but at roughly 60k away, it was a bit of a stretch.

After being sufficiently chilled, we headed to the cafe and had a coffee. Didn't want to appear too eager and be the first to arrive to lunch, now would we?

Not too soon later, we made the drive halfway down the mountain and arrived at Phil's house. We parked at the greenhouse, walked up the drive to the main house and found a gang of golderites hiding near the doors since we had just had a rain shower. Hellos exchanged, we got on the important business of schmoozing.

Two swallows into our beer however, Doug the office manager appeared and essentially told us to get lost. Phil has the 18 acres of gardens to explore and we were told to go find them. (I later learned that Doug was on the lunch-serving committee and was trying to get us out of the way so he could set tables.)

Well, find gardens we did. We wound our way around the property and up the hills and I can tell you that it was beautiful and somewhat steep and not too easy to navigate considering I was wearing glorified gardening clogs/sandals and it had just rained and the soil was mostly clay. I managed to keep myself upright, but there were a couple of places that were very one-step-forward-slide-two-back. I wasn't the only one to make poor footwear choices though. Some of the girls had actually dressed up (pppssh) and were trying to hike in strappy sandals. Silly girls. Everyone knows engineers don't dress for lunch.

Lunch itself was pretty good. Everyone was chatty and I managed to secure a seat at a good table in the first seating. Turns out most everyone ate then (the first seating, I mean) and so afterward a lot of folks left. Since the crowd was dying down and there weren't as many children to point and laugh at in the jumping castle, (OK, so I mean we weren't allowed inside the jumping castle. Dang rules.) we decided to head back to Melbourne.

I ended up tagging along with Richard and Dee back to their house where we watched V8 Supercars (Australian NASCAR) and then I taught them the finer points of 500 rummy and spit. Or is it speed? I always get them mixed up. Anyway, Richard liked spit much better because it was fast. Go figure.

Vocab of the Day
Rock up: to arrive.

Since people were supposed to show up at Phil's starting at 11, Richard, Dee and I rocked up at the fashionably late time of 12:00.

What Happens When You Have No Plan

2006-10-07T01:37:00.000-06:00

First of all, let me say that I had no intention of going out Friday night. This week had been really busy (I got the Draft Preliminary Groundwater Assessment for Tooronga finished and off to the client in record time, complete with eight appendices. 8!) and after the harried rush to get the deliverable out the door, I crashed with a cold. Thursday I slapped the alarm off and slept in, and so Friday I was having the "if you're not well enough to go to school, then you aren't well enough to go to the party" kind of guilt.

So they talked me out of that pretty easily and I ended up at the Arcadia, Don's local pub with Richard and Don. We were soon joined by Steve and eventually by Dee. It was a pretty good evening involving far too much Draught, and ending in some late-night Italian food down the road in South Yarra.

OK, now for the interesting part. (I could tell you more about our increasingly silly conversations, but really, you've had them all yourselves. Probably.)

This morning I had a bit of a sleep in and then Barb and I took off to Fed Square with very little on the agenda: check out the Federation Bells and then head to Lygon Street for some shopping and Greek food for lunch.

When we arrived at Fed Square, we saw that there was an art exhibit on. Something about man's impact on global ecology via air photography. It ended up being much better than I expected (all I expected were google earth images of mine sites, so that's not saying much) and we thoroughly enjoyed looking at the photos of giant flocks of flamingos, glaciers in Iceland, and textile dyeing in Morocco. It was very National Geographic.

Then we continued down along the river to the Federation Bells. The bells are another of the many art exhibits placed throughout the CBD and they are programmed with songs that play twice or three times a day. While we were there, they began to play, and after getting over my shock (I was standing very close to the first bell to ring) I can tell you that they are loud and not exactly in tune. But, interesting to hear and see nonetheless.

Finished with our art requirement for the day, we headed up to Lygon Street.

A few weeks ago, I had dropped Cybele off at her house after field work in Geelong and ended up driving down Lygon Street to get back to the CBD and maneuver my way back to Hawthorn (I can get around well enough, but I only know a few streets!). My impression of Lygon Street was a crowded center of retail stores and sidewalk cafes, full of people and pretty far north of the CBD.

Barb and I took the tram up to Lygon Street, and as we kept going north through some dingy neighborhoods, I kept waiting to see the bustling few blocks I had remembered. No such luck. We got off the tram just before it curved around to another street and we were essentially at the end of Lygon Street. Whoops. Convinced we could still make an adventure out of it, we walked back down towards the CBD to find the one cafe front that boasted souvlaki, since I was sure that this was the greek neighborhood.

When we arrived at the cafe to find an empty burger joint that just happened also to have souvlaki, we abandoned all hope, hopped back on the tram, and headed back to the CBD to find some lunch. Anywhere else.

By now I was feeling a bit bummed since I was so sure that this was the street I had driven on that night (and we all know what happens when I am sure about directions), and I dragged Barb out for this misadventure. Soon enough, the tram stopped at a light in order to make it's dogleg turn to get to the university, and as we rounded the corner, I looked up. There it was. The blocks I remembered. The cafes and the people and the shops and everything. And we had just gone in the wrong direction from the start.

We hopped out, doubled back, and started walking. Soon we found the University Cafe, and we had our lunch at a table on the sidewalk. It was perfect.

Oh yeah, and it wasn't the Greek neighborhood either. It was the Italian neighborhood. I'm sure that the Greek neighborhood is centered around a street starting with the letter L. Heh.

Content and full, we made our way back to the next block and Swanston Street to the tram line that would get us back to the CBD.

Before reaching Flinders Station, we were sidetracked by the impressive looking State Library building and we popped inside to have a look. The library is centered around a huge dome- the reading room site below and they have a museum of sorts that lines the outer edges of the dome all the way up. We checked out the museum, but I was most impressed with the feel of the library reading room itself. The dome was pretty impressive as well, but photos don't quite give it justice.

After this detour, we found that we were just across the street from Melbourne Central Station, and we headed into the mall that sits atop the station to make our way down. I've been to this station (and its mall) before, but only really took a quick look around. When we stepped in, I was astounded to find a historical building right in the center of the mall. Turns out that the city planners wouldn't let the building go and so they built the mall around it. I can't remember the official name for it, but they made lead shot here by dripping molten lead off the top of the tower and letting the air on the way down cool it and shape it into shot. Pretty impressive process, but I was more impressed with the cone they'd built around it. It just seems to go on forever.

Tonight, the plan is to settle down and watch some Australian cinema. Drew lent us three Aussie movies, and so far we've only watched one: The Castle, from the early 90's. Hilarious. Even funnier now that I've lived here. I'm looking forward to seeing the next two movies!

Vocab of the Day
Bloody oath: exclamation. This can be an affirmation of something said as in "damn right!" (said with an upward inflection at the end), or an affirmation of something bad, as in "that sucks!" (said with a downward inflection at the end).

After Steve told us about the house prices in Geneva, Don replied, "Bloody oath!"

The Silvan Tulip Festival

2006-10-01T02:00:00.000-06:00

Up in the Dandenong Mountains east of Melbourne lies Silvan, a sleepy little farming village that specializes in flowers. Lucky for me, they have a festival every year and open their doors to those who would like to tiptoe through their tulips...

And it appears that I am not the only one.

The fields were beautiful, the colors were amazing and the crowds were out of control. Tour buses packed the parking lot, free range children were hopping through rows of tulips and harried parents were chasing as fast as their shutter-speeds would allow.

Still, quite the photo op.

Richard, Dee and I made the trip up midday and spent most of the afternoon enjoying the scenery. As we made our way back to the city, we veered off course and went to the top of Mt. Dandenong for the view. A bit hazy, but you can still sort of see downtown in the distance. It was a nice little walk, anyway.

Feeling saturated with Dandenong nature, we headed back down to the city, and more importantly to the television set, as Richard will be watching the rugby final promptly at 7.

Vocab of the Day
Full on: intense.

The crowds at the wine tasting tents today were full on, especially in the afternoon.

Festival of the Boot

2006-09-30T18:22:00.000-06:00

This weekend is called the "Festival of the Boot" because of the AFL final that was yesterday at the MCG and the National Rugby League (NRL) final that is tonight at the Telstra Dome.

The problem is, nobody really cares about NRL in this town, even though the Melbourne Storm are in the final. It's pretty sad, really.

Not quite as sad as the game yesterday where the Swans were behind for the whole game, came back in the second half to tie it and then lost in the final minute by one point. That's really hard to do in this game. Did I mention I was cheering for the Swans?

The neighbors downstairs were cheering for the Eagles, and so it was a nice little melodrama as we each yayed and booed every time a play was made. They also had their TV turned up so loudly that we were able to shut the sound off on ours. Instead we tuned in to Triple J radio where their sports guys were calling the game on their own. I don't remember the commentators' names, but they are a bit of an institution here in Melbourne, and they have been calling the Grand Final match for 20 years. It managed to get even Barb yelling at the TV, which is quite a feat, considering she's a Canadian who isn't sports-minded.

Vocab for the Day
Chockers: overly full or stuffed. From chock-a-block, which apparently has some kind of nautical derivation.

The trams out of downtown were chockers after the game was over and two old ladies almost got in a fight because we were all so jammed in.

AFL Grand Final

2006-09-29T17:11:00.000-06:00

Today is the AFL Grand Final. The streets are empty, the pubs will be packed, and the air emissions will spike due to BBQ smoke.

This is the third year in a row that no Victorian teams have made the Final. It's really rather a scandal. The influx of people from WA (Western Australia- home of the West Coast Eagles) and Sydney (home of the Swans) is going to make downtown crazy packed. Federal Square shows the game on a huge screen for all of us who couldn't get tickets to the game today.

I tried to find a BBQ to attend, but just as the day was getting close, I came down with a cold. Kind of takes the wind out of the social sails. Dang.

So, Barb (who will be working all day) and I (who will be working all morning) will shut down the computers, crack open some wine and watch the Finals from the couch in our apartment.

Not exactly the Aussie way, but I figure it's a good effort nonetheless.

I will be barracking for the Swans, who used to be the South Melbourne Swans before they were moved to Sydney to bring footy to the big city to the north. Hopefully my unlucky streak will end and the Swans will actually win. I seem to have a dark gift when it comes to footy: for every single game I watch (and I've watched quite a few) the team I'm cheering for loses.

Oh, yeah, today's photo was taken at the GA footy game courtesy of the office camera. That's me, Ian, and Drew at the Telstra Dome. (I was cheering for St. Kilda. They lost.)

Vocab of the Day
Ace: excellent.

It would be so ace if the Sydney Swans win the Final today.

Trash TV

2006-09-27T16:11:00.000-06:00

One of the new guilty pleasures at the corporate flat is watching "McLeod's Daughters", a ranch-based soap opera filmed in South Australia. Nothing like a good Aussie bloke using a post-hole digger while arguing with his new bride!

The show bought a working ranch out of Adelaide and it has a genuine Aussie cast, so I'm going to chalk it up to culture. I'm uh, perfecting my accent. Or something.

Vocab of the Day
Jackaroo: Station hand. Doesn't mean much until you realize that they call ranches stations. Female counterpart is the Jillaroo.

Stevie the jillaroo on McLeod's station is charged with murder, and her friends are trying to prove her innocent.

Smoke and Mirrors

2006-09-25T02:36:00.000-06:00

Instead of bothering you with the tale of my day (which ended with poor Alex from Adelaide losing a pump down one of my wells) I've decided to share photos from John's birthday party last Saturday night.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and, well, I'll let you be the judge.

John and his bee-yotches.
Seriously, that's how he introduced them.

Suzy, me, Richard and Dee. Judging by the wattage of Richard's smile, I'd say we were about a couple of hours in.

Carl, Ken, Sally, and Kismet, Carl's girlfriend visiting all the way from California! We haven't seen much of Carl since she's been here.

Elvira and Toby examining his new mobile phone/camera that he obtained on a recent holiday to Mother England. Bee-yotch 1 is on her second set of entertaining the crowd, soon to degrade (upgrade?) to sing-along songs of the 80's.

Drew and John pontificating about the world's misunderstanding of disco.

Four hours in.

Jamie, Toby, Suzy, and Jamie's unnamed friend striking their best pose.

Vocab of the Day
A bit of alright: Complement for the opposite sex, kind of like the American "all that." Upgrades to "a bit of a bit of alright." Creative country, this one.

When discussing Jennifer Aniston, Drew commented that she was a bit of alright, and even though her new movie was generally considered to be crap, he watched it anyway.

The Best of Shows

2006-09-23T18:18:00.000-06:00

Saturday Richard, Dee, Barb and I hopped on a train and headed to the Showgrounds to the Royal Melbourne Show.

The Show is basically a cross between the county fairs that I grew up with and the stock show that happens in Denver every year. Lots of people, lots of livestock, lots of rides, and lots of things you never thought to think about.

We started with the animals. Dee grew up on a farm in England, and so she was going to teach us how to buy cattle. We headed up to the cattle shed and found alpacas. Not to be discouraged, we spent some time making friends with these shy woolly creatures.

Since the cattle appeared to be sequestered away for judging, we headed south to the wonderful world of pets. Nothing too exciting there- it was mostly stuff to buy for your pet. Nothing too exotic to see, unfortunately.

Next it was onto the poultry pavilion. We crossed the threshold and all you could hear was chickens. Squawking and crowing and feathery dust everywhere. No wonder Grandpa didn't like chicken! We made our way down the rows and I was mostly appalled by the roosters and chickens in their individual cages. Then we saw this one. It's a butt-faced chicken. I'm sure that is not the official name for it, but that is definitely the name I would give it if I were raising it. Probably Harry, the butt-faced chicken. Yep, sounds right to me.

We also saw some ducks with afros, but they wouldn't sit still long enough for me to get a photo. Just imagine your ordinary mallard with a 'fro. There you go.

Meanwhile, I had an uncontrollable urge to start singing "Surrey with a fringe on top", well, the first few bars, anyway. I'm pretty sure the rest of my group had thought that I'd lost it. That's the trouble with hanging out with poms. They don't get the good American culture jokes.

Next we headed to the animal nursery discovery farm. Surprisingly, it was loaded with children. We didn't say long.

Next up was the arts and crafts pavilion. We saw decorated cakes, knitting, quilts, calligraphy, painting and photographs, and some baked goods. The decorated cakes were my favorite. Some of them were amazing, little flowers that really looked like silk and little structures that looked like they were weaved from straw. I had no idea sugar was so versatile.

Feeling cultured, we headed to the grand pavilion, (which bears a striking resemblance to the Denver airport, by the way) to participate in all the corporate commerce associated with the show. This mostly meant heading to all the tents with goodies and getting free samples. There was a whole section with vendors from Gippsland, a region of Victoria between Melbourne and the New South Wales border. Lots of wine and fruit in this area, so we supported the cause and tried lots of wine. Not so much fruit, really. Since it was a bit early in the day yet for me, I stuck to the wines with cool labels. Yes, I know you are not supposed to judge anything on looks alone, but I figure that if you have a product, you should put some effort into presentation, right? I found one I particularly liked called Bazz Shiraz. I don't remember which vineyard it came from, but I'd recognize the label!

Now we were determined to find the cattle. We headed towards the livestock pavilion and were completely distracted by a huge crowd vying for seats at the arena. Turns out that the monster trucks were up next, and since I was the only one who'd actually seen monster trucks before, (I'm not really sure that is a good thing) we had to go check it out.

The show was really one monster truck, one set of acrobats who did a balancing act on a trapeze and a pole on a crane way too high off the ground, and three motocross bikers who did jumps off ramps (none of this at the same time). I pretty much knew what was going to happen before every step of the show, but it was good fun and now they could all say they've seen it!

Finally we headed to the livestock pavilion and got to see some cows. Sadly, we weren't allowed to go in between all the rows of cows to see them all up close, but we did get some handy cow-purchasing tips from Dee from our perch at the outside edge. It mostly had to do with udders.

Next we headed through the carnival to the market (crap for sale that you really don't need), the sports and leisure pavilion (autographed stuff you don't need), and then to the dog pavilion, where we saw lots of little strange looking dogs you could fit into your purse, and some huge ones that could probably eat you in two bites. No dog shows though. Bummer.

After this it was time to head into the showbag pavilion. Showbags are little bags of stuff for kids. As much part of the show here as the carnival rides, children will study the showbag list for days before selecting the few they get to have.

SpongeBob, Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer, Cadbury, pirates, princesses, cowboys and bounty-hunters(complete with guns). Everything you could want that was plastic and cheap and filled with sugar. The place was packed. These bags cost up to $20 each, and children and parents had 3-4 of them, dragging them around the showgrounds, hopped up on sugar. We refrained from purchasing any, since all of us are only living here temporarily, and we don't really have room in our luggage for the giant fuzzy purple hat or the pink sequined cowgirl hat. (Personally, I was crushed about that one.) We squeezed our way out of the building, took some deep, calming breaths, and made our way back to the simple life of agriculture.

What we didn't expect to see was woodchopping. This is a sport? Apparently so, and a very competitive one at that. There were multiple heats and multiple events, and even a competition where you stood on the wood you were chopping. One missed chop, and off with the toes! We were impressed. We were also pretty tired, and so after finding a place in the stands to cheer along, we ended up getting mesmerized by the whole process. Soon enough though, we had to get up and make our way to the next event:

The pig races.
I can honestly say I've never seen the pig races, and I don't think that I will ever have that opportunity again. It was quite the spectacle, from start to finish. We were pretty sure that the emcee had lost most of his marbles, but other than that, it was yet another thing to cross off the list!

Completely exhausted, we made our way back to the train and home again.

Vocab for the Day
Chook: chicken. Also used as a term of endearment.

After spending half an hour in the poultry pavillion, the last thing I wanted to see was the chook washing contest.

Pub Friday

2006-09-22T15:58:00.000-06:00

For some reason, yesterday centered around the pub. It might have had to do with the fact that I was doing what was perhaps the most boring task ever all day long and had nothing else to look forward to.

That might have been it.

But I don't know why everyone else came with me.

We have a bit of a tradition of the Friday pub lunch and Richard, Cybele and I headed out as usual. We were surprised to have Lorenzo, Julie and Gabrielle meet up with us as we were finishing up.

Lorenzo and Gabrielle told me about a new word game they have: think of two words, spelled the same, but pronounced differently with different meanings. For example: live. You can live a happy life, or you can catch a live fish. I immediately thought of the word message. Except that I was wrong, because I was thinking message and massage. Whoops, random bad spelling skills rearing their ugly heads.

Back to work and I continued plowing through. Next was our group meeting, where Sally gave a presentation about references for conducting site histories and Phase I's (perhaps the other most boring task ever).

Then on to the tech talk where Paul talked about the CAD group's ability to do 3D design. He didn't really talk about 3D design though, he mostly just told us about LDD, an Autodesk program that helps to calculate volumes, and which was just determined obsolete by the installation of a new program THAT AFTERNOON.

That would make this the most boring tech talk ever.

It's a wonder more people aren't driven to drink.

I will say that I attempted to go straight home after work. I did try. Dang peer pressure. The cool kids made me do it.

Off we went to the Royston for one drink. (Just one drink, Steph, c'mon!) Famous last words. We did escape after only three rounds though, which by Australian standards was hardly worth mentioning. I made it home at a decent hour and fell into bed for some much needed rest.

Vocab of the Day
Hill's Hoist: type of clothesline that looks like an inside-out umbrella and turns. Hill was Australian and apparently the inventor of the hoist. When describing the hoist, my work mates said, "It was exported and everything."

Suzy saw a new apartment yesterday and listed among the assets was a washer and a garden, complete with Hill's hoist.