Halloween Zombie

 Originally uploaded by WilWheaton

Happy Halloween to anyone out there who still gets to enjoy it! Here in Australia there is nary a mention of something I get very nostalgic about. I asked our friend's daughter, who is in primary school, about Halloween the other day. She knew what it was, "but," she said, "we don't celebrate it at school because it's an 'American' thing."   Chalk up yet one more failure of U.S. diplomacy! For a more absorbing analysis of another American's experience of October 31 in Oz, please read Audra's entry.

This picture comes from one of my favourite bloggers, Wil Wheaton. If you know anything about "Star Trek: The Next Generation," you know who he is. He has become an excellent writer, and his blog is a great gathering place for geeks far and wide. (Yes, believe it or not, I am a geek).

My Aunt

My aunt and my dad’s sister, Maj Siri Ulmen, passed away last week while I was in the States. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn about this until I was flying out of the country on Sunday. Last May she fell and hit her head, eventually leading to a blood cot that had to be removed. Her two daughters, Leah and Erin, kept a blog about her progress over the summer. I hadn’t checked it in a few weeks because I thought Maj Siri was getting better. My dad is in Minneapolis this week, visiting my cousins and their families.

The photo above is of my dad’s family. It was some sort of passport photo taken just before they boarded a ship to America from Sweden. As I understand it, their immigration in the early 1950s was inspired by the success of Sven’s brother, John, in Iowa and Nebraska. From left to right is Edla (my grandmother), Bo (my dad), Bert (my uncle), Maj Siri, and Sven (my grandfather). My dad was the middle child. I imagine that he must be feeling quite alone now, as he is the only surviving member of his family.

To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t seen my Aunt in over 25 years. And I only met one of my cousins very briefly when she was a little girl. There were various reasons why so much time passed without any contact between us. I do have many good memories of Maj Siri when we lived in Minnesota, however. She had a dry sense of humor and a really throaty laugh. She became an adult in the ‘60s, and there was always something hippy-like about her that I found fascinating. I know this is going to sound awful to contemporary ears, but I also fondly associate her and the rest of my dad’s Swedish relatives with the smell of cigarette smoke. As a kid I’d hang around listening to their conversations as they all puffed away on their cigs. The women usually had a special case for their packs, and everyone seemed to carry a personal lighter. My grandmother later developed a hacking cough, and most of the family died at relatively young ages due to various health problems. But memories of smoke-filled discussions (and plenty of arguments) between Maj Siri, my dad, Bert, and their cousins can still easily bring a smile to my face.

My thoughts are very much with my dad and my cousins. And I’ll say a prayer for my Aunt too.

Diversion

Just a quick note to say that I am back in Brisbane. However, I did experience a little "diversion" on the way from Los Angeles. Just after we crossed the International Date Line, the pilot announced that we were taking a "hard turn" towards Nadi, Fiji. It turned out that Brisbane was forecast to have heavy fog during our scheduled 6 am arrival, so that meant that we wouldn't have enough fuel if we were forced to circle around waiting for the fog to clear. Therefore, we had to land in Fiji to get more fuel! From my seat (three away from the window), I could see the country is beautiful, mountainous, and very green. It also looked sparsely populated. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to get off the plane during the refueling, so I wasn't able to see much more. Soon after we were airborne again, I used the plane's satellite phone system to call V. so that she would know I would be arriving three hours late.

Finally, when I got through customs at 10 am in Brisbane (they had to scan my bags because I declared my peanut butter), I walked out into the central arrivals area and heard a little scream of delight from my son. Will's face lit up when he saw me. I picked him up right away and he gave me a very tight hug, not letting go for several minutes. How wonderful! And, of course, V. was glad to see me too!

I'm home at last.

Flying with Trojans

I am in the middle of a 36-hour journey back to Australia, currently waiting at LAX for the 11:30 p.m. flight to Sydney. I arrive in Brisbane at 6 am on Tuesday. First, however, my trip began at 6:30 a.m. Sunday when I checked out of my hotel in Savannah. My friend Yuki and I then drove four hours to Atlanta. I returned my rental car to Enterprise (luckily, they didn’t notice the damage inflicted on the car by a homeless man with a wheelbarrow in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood where we had dinner on Tuesday), and flew to Chicago. I made some calls to my family there and received some sad news about my aunt, whom I will write about later. I grew even sadder as I thought about the great distance that I will soon be from my family once more. At the gate for the flight to LA I noticed a large number of USC Trojan fans, including members of the marching band, were waiting to board. I went to grad school at USC, and was affiliated with the university for nine years, but I haven’t kept up with its football team. This weekend, I quickly learned, was the classic USC-Notre Dame game, and yesterday these fans had watched the Trojans crush the Fighting Irish on their home field.

As our plane pulled away from the gate and the safety video started to play, I was happily surprised to watch at least half the passengers (i.e., the Trojan students and other fans) begin to interact synchronously with what was going on on the screen. I don’t know how it was organized, or whether this is some new cultural phenomenon based on a recent movie, but everybody really did the same thing at the same moment. For example, when the narrator mentioned that the seatbelts should be fastened, a steady clicking noise started to swell as all the passengers clicked their belts. When the video showed the oxygen masks fall from the ceiling, people made a loud blowing noise throughout the plane. When the exits were identified in the video, dozens of hands started to make waving gestures towards to the various doors. And when the film finished, everyone clapped. It was perfect. It was a bit like going to the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" back in college, in fact.

I feel especially happy to be an American tonight... and a (lapsed) Trojan!

P.S. This is my 100th post!!

Five Days Later...

Greetings from Savannah, Georgia, USA. I am attending the annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, something I have been doing quite regularly for 22 years. My sleep is finally back to normal, but I get to disrupt it all when I leave for Australia tomorrow.

I was Atlanta for 48 hours earlier in the week. Besides working on some projects at Georgia State, I spent a couple of hours at our old house and surrounding community (where I launched a commando assault on Super Target and Babies R Us). I was surprised how little nostalgia I felt for anything, but that could be because I have been away for only 3 ½ months. The one exception was when I went to our house (it’s still for sale!) and walked through the Will’s old bedroom and his play area. I was momentarily overwhelmed with sadness as I thought about the times V. and I had spent painting his room and getting ready for his birth. It didn’t help that I miss V. and Will very much!

I saw a lot of old friends in Atlanta, and even some older friends here in Savannah. Many people have asked me what I miss most about the U.S. My first answer is always “my friends and family.” And then I have paused while I try to think of something else. If my questioner waited long enough, “peanut butter” was usually my next answer. Actually, I have found myself nearly every day wishing I was back in Australia, which has really surprised me. Besides seeing my little family in Toowong again, I miss the general friendlier “tone” of Australian society. Here in the States there is still so much public animosity surrounding race, religion, and politics. Sure, Americans are a friendly, happy lot. They are, after all, my peeps. But there is something not quite right about the way I have seen the Fox News Channel playing in the background nearly everywhere I go. I ate a burger in front of a TV in a diner the other night, and had the unpleasant experience of watching the hateful Bill O’Reilly for 30 minutes. The scorn that he regularly dishes out has made his show the most watched on cable TV (my guess is that he pulls in more viewers each night than does the top-rated show in Australia). I witnessed such spite firsthand as I walked the streets of Savannah, as the accompanying picture taken yesterday shows. Do democracies really require such extreme divisiveness to survive? I think not. Perhaps such hatred and intolerance is what leads to their eventual unraveling. I hope not.

Sleepless in the Land of Lincoln

I am writing this entry at 12:30 a.m. CDT from Rockford, Illinois. For four of the five nights I’ve been in the States, I haven’t slept very well. It’s the worse jet lag problem I have ever suffered through. I go to bed around 10:00 feeling sleepy, but then wake up two hours later, not being able to get back to sleep for another 4-5 hours. What's worse is that I had to get up at 6 each morning, and I haven’t really had a chance to nap. Later today (less than four hours from now), for example, I need to catch a 4:20 am bus to O’Hare airport, so that I can board a 7 am flight to Atlanta. Oh, why didn’t I take that Ambien along that V. recommended?!

Part of the problem is that my mind has been racing as I think about the events planned for the next day. And when you’re packing in each day like I am, there is much to think about. Recent highlights include a fantastic dinner in Chicago with my old friend Tiffany at Topolobampo, an exceptional Mexican restaurant part-owned by chef Rick Bayless, who has a line of cookbooks and television shows devoted to this cuisine. Tiff and I each ordered a sampler menu, which was comprised of five courses, each paired with the perfect ½ glass of wine. The mole sauces alone put me in a state of unbelievable gastronomic ecstasy. Oh, Rick, please think about opening a restaurant in Australia!! On Saturday night my conference had its big social event at the Shedd Aquarium. Our group had the entire place to itself, where we first sipped drinks while we watched the dolphins and beluga whales swim, and then were later treated to a buffet dinner surrounded by dozens of large aquariums. On Sunday I spent most of the day with my two brothers and their families. They each have two daughters in the age range of 5-9. We played Sorry! (the old board game) and some sort of shoot ‘em up video game. We also watched the Vikings beat the Bears, and then enjoyed an early Thanksgiving dinner put on for me by Betty. More than anything, my brothers love to laugh, and the constant kidding that goes on between them (and me) has been a part of our lives since childhood. I also briefly talked to my mom on the phone, who lives in Oklahoma. My family is currently scattered over a large section of middle America, so it’s always going to be difficult for me to create an affordable itinerary to see everyone on these trips.

Well, I am feeling a little more tired now. I had better try to sleep again so that I can get another two hours in. My next entry will come from Georgia. Good night!

One Man Shopping

Today I spent nearly six hours shopping along Chicago’s N. Michigan Ave. I didn’t realize how shopping-deprived I had become after living in Australia for only three months. But, the choices and the prices found in American stores just can’t be beat. My first stop was at the Apple Store. I got to handle an iPhone for 10 minutes, including sending myself an email using its beautiful touchscreen (the iPhone won’t be available in Oz until 2008 at the earliest). I also played with the new iPod Touch and the cool video Nano. It was like spending time in a geek porn shop. I then had lunch at the original Uno’s, where I had a marvelous deep-dish pizza. I had forgotten how tasty a real Chicago-style pizza is. After stops at The Gap, Niketown, Borders, Radio Shack, and Filene’s Basement, I paused my spending spree to save room in my suitcase for other things on our shopping list. Our son is getting plenty of new summer clothes, which are now heavily discounted here because winter is just two months away.

I did remember to attend the opening night reception for the conference I’m attending. And then it was back to my room to watch the end of “Survivor: China” and the latest episode of “The Office” while I munched from a bag of Cheetos Puffs. Don’t worry. I still want to go back to Australia after all this!

Touchdown in L.A.

I'm here...posting another blog entry at about the same time I did today (yesterday or tomorrow, or whenever). I’m sitting in the American Airlines terminal at LAX across from a Starbucks (where else?!) waiting for my flight to Chicago. I had to pay $6 for an hour’s worth of net access, so I’m using the time that I have left (after checking my email) to jot down a few lines here…

My flight was OK. It took nearly two hours of standing in line in Brisbane to check in, however. There were only two employees standing at the nine Economy check-in counters to process a nearly full 747. Sure, there were two counters open in Business class too, but that didn’t really help things. As a result of this staffing shortage, our plane left nearly an hour late, after several of us had to run to the gate when they made the final boarding call, just seconds after we got our boarding pass.

Anyway, I made it. I sat next to a very large woman, which made simple things like eating and sleeping a challenge. I watched three movies, several sitcoms, and probably slept an hour or two. Going through immigration and customs here took about 15 minutes. I picked up my rental phone, and walked out into the cool California sunshine. Of course, I was immediately accosted welcomed by three different solicitors begging for money (and I couldn’t even make out what “cause” they were mumbling about as I shooed them away). Back in Australia, I haven’t run into one panhandler yet, and anyone soliciting for charity sits quietly at a card table with a sign. They must come meet up with their American equivalents for some tips!

It does make me smile to hear those bilingual recordings of the LAX public address system and to be barked at once again by an unfriendly TSA agent. It feels almost like home.

The 17 Percent Loading

I leave for the United States in just a few hours. Today I will fly nearly 13 hours from Brisbane to Los Angeles, and then leave for Chicago three hours later. This 12-day trip is work-related, although I’ll get to see some friends in Atlanta next week, and my brothers and their families this weekend.

I attended a staff induction (orientation) this week at UQ--three months late-- and learned that one of my benefits (in fact, for all UQ employees) is four weeks personal leave each year, which can accumulate up to 20 weeks, plus a “17.25% loading.” I later learned that this loading is a 17.25% increase in pay whenever I’m on leave. Yes, I get paid more not to work! This is apparently a common thing in Australia, although no one seems to know its origin.

The price of an airline ticket between L.A. and Australia is nearly double what it was in 1996, so maybe the “loading” is meant to help with airfares when Aussies go on their holidays. It makes you wonder what will happen here when the “cheap” oil runs out. By then we’ll have more alternatives for cars, heating, etc. But, as far as I know, there are still no alternatives for jet fuel. Maybe Aussies will have to resume long sea voyages to see their families “back home.”

Mixed Tapes

V. and I had a "date night" on Saturday. After the babysitter showed up at 5 and went to play with Will in the back garden, we snuck away by foot to the Regatta Hotel for dinner. I haven't quite mastered the terminology yet, but "hotels" in Australia are sort of large combination restaurant/pub/entertainment centres. The Regatta in Toowong is a landmark, sitting near the river and having some sort of historical connection to Brisbane rowing. Anyway, we had a very nice dinner there, once I got over my angst about which steak to order. I haven't been so challenged about a piece of meat before. Take a look (the menu is posted on the website):

Stockyard MSA Beef 18-24 month old British Bred Yearling, grain fed at the "Kerwee" feedlot in the lush surrounds of the Darling Downs
Eye Fillet (minimum Med 100 days grain) 200gr $28.0
Eye Fillet (minimum Large 100 days grain) 300gr $34.9
Rib Fillet (minimum 100 days on grain) 300gr $26.9
Rump (long fed) (minimum 200 days on grain) 400gr $27.5

Diamantina MSA Beef Raised in the Central QLD Highlands, fattened at "Bottletree" feedlot in the heart of the rich Darling Downs
Sirloin (minimum 70 days on grain) 350gr $25.9
Rib Fillet on the bone (minimum 70 days on grain) $35.9

After dinner we walked to the ferry terminal below the Regatta and got on a CityCat for the 30-minute ride to New Farm. It was our first river trip all the way through the city centre and under the Story Bridge. Restaurants, clubs, and parks along the river were full of people enjoying the warm spring evening. Large clusters of people sat around public BBQs in the twilight, looking like scenes out of 1950s small-town America.

Disembarking at New Farm, we walked to the Brisbane Powerhouse, an old power station that has been converted into "a contemporary multi-arts, dining and conference venue." We had a nice coffee (a flat white, which has become our fav) before entering the Visy theatre to see Daniel Kitson's "C-90." We figured out that this was our first theater outing in over two years--the last just before we found out we were pregnant. The "play" itself was about 70 minutes long, and was actually a monologue by the fast-speaking Kitson, who wrote and developed the show back in his native England. I enjoyed the performance very much. It's the story about a man's last day at work in a large repository for mixed cassette tapes. (You do remember the cassette tape, don't you?) Most had been made for the benefit of others, either as gifts of appreciation or some romantic gesture (at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the relationship). As suggested by the show, sometimes a person might even make a mixed tape and label it "Sorry" before giving it.

In college I used to make a lot of these tapes. I remember the careful process of putting a record on the turnstile, setting the needle down, and then releasing the pause button on the tape deck set to record. As soon as the final bit of noise from the song was done, I would hit the pause button again and repeat the process with another record. Even after we got a CD player in 1989, I continued to make mixed tapes, but stopped when I was able to burn CDs in the mid '90s (a process that in turn ceased when I got my iPod). I still had many of these tapes when we were packing up to move. Of course, it had been many years since I listened to any cassette, so all the ones I had made were put in the trash and the rest given to Goodwill. After seeing "C-90," the funny thing is that I can't remember ever making a mixed tape for someone else, particularly for a romantic reason. I received a few from others over the years, but I don't think they were accompanied with romantic yearnings either. Maybe this was a more prominent form of expression in other parts of the world...

Did you ever receive or send a mixed tape? Was it ever done out of love?

World News in Australia

For my friends back in the U.S., I thought you might be interested in learning about what we in Australia hear about the rest of the world in a typical week. The following represents my own memory of the major news stories, as presented in the past seven days on the websites of the The Courier-Mail, The Age, and The Australian, as well as the news presented on Seven and ABC television:

• Britney lost custody of her children. This one received an excessive amount of attention in the Aussie press, unfortunately, and included the shocking detail that she went to a tanning salon after she dropped off the kids with their father.
• The situation in Burma (Myanmar). Students on the UQ campus have been collecting signatures and starting facebook groups to urge the Australian government and the U.N. to get more involved.
• The upcoming elections in Pakistan. As you might imagine, news from Asia is generally much more prominent here (and I hear very little about the Middle East).
• Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car accident. Oh, yeah, that was 10 years ago, but every excruciating detail of her final minutes has been discussed this week as a result of the inquest in London.
• Eva Longoria released a sex tape. Actually, it was a joke intended for Will Ferrell's website, but there was a lot of interest in this one because Eva has massive appeal here. She's prominently featured in several ads, including one for Pepsi Max, where she ends up running out of the gas with two strange boys in the car whom she's just picked up. She smiles and says, "I guess we'll have to spend the night here."
• Marion Jones admits to taking steroids before the 2000 Olympics. The headline at The Australian: "Marion Jones admits she's a drug cheat."
  
• Aussies prepare for Pom Assault. According to today's Fox sports website, "AUSTRALIA is preparing for a foul-play ambush from England when the two sides collide in a World Cup quarter-final tonight." That's the World Cup in rugby union football, mind you. Again, rugby league is something else...
  

For the most part, the rest of the news this week focused on stories coming from Australia itself (e.g., the trial of a father who drowned his sons by driving his car into the water, the wildfires in New South Wales, the building of a pulp mill in Tasmania). One can dig around and learn much more about the rest of the world, of course, especially on news websites. And, I think it's safe to say that the average Australian is more aware of news in the rest of the world than is the average American. I am looking forward to catching up with the news back in the U.S. when I arrive there next week. What's the latest on the Obama vs. Hillary battle? What's the current hotspot for racial tension? What's the latest gruesome murder? Who have the police mistreated this week? And, most importantly, is the latest edition of "Survivor" any good?

Assimilation

We arrived in Australia a little over three months ago. Of course, I know it's going to take a much longer time to feel like we actually live here. Right now I still feel like I'm on a sabbatical from the U.S. I am making daily comparisons between what "they" do here and what "we" do back in the States. Owning a house back in Atlanta that hasn't yet sold and renting our home here adds to this sense of a temporary lifestyle. In fact, I leave in a week for a 12-day trip to America to attend some conferences and see some family members. I find myself very much looking forward to this trip because I'll be able to relax again, being in my own culture surrounded by people who talk like me and eat my food, sell "my" kinds of things, etc. We're creating a shopping list of things for me to buy there that will require bringing along an extra suitcase. And I'll get to see so many of my dear friends and family!

Given my current state of mind, I found this page appropriately amusing. It's from www.matesupover.com, a website for ex-pat Australians living in the United States. On this page is a little anonymously written essay called "The Five Stages of Culture Shock." I believe that I am experiencing the beginning of the second stage (which followed a stage of wonderment and tourist-like excitement):

The second stage is the actual shock. It can be characterized with loss of courage and general discomfort. Changes in character occur, depression, lack of self-confidence and irritation, people become more vulnerable and prone to crying, more worried about their health, suffer from headache, bad stomach and complaint about pain and allergy. Difficulties with concentration often occur and reduce the ability to learn a new language. These factors increase the anxiety and the stress. In this period, the self-awareness dissolves and people have trouble with solving simple problems. Conversations on this stage are about things that cannot be bought, what you must get along without, and everything that the people in the new country do wrong (which means "differently").

It is easy to get into a rant about the little things that are different here (e.g., the lack of built-in sink plugs, the light switches that flip down instead of up, the complicated choices involved in choosing mobile phone services), but such rants merely mask pangs of homesickness. Most of all I miss my friends and family. It's hard to accept the fact that I can no longer just jump in the car and drive off to see them in a few minutes or a few hours. I also realize now that I am resisting assimilation quite fiercely by surrounding myself with things from "home," and occasionally mocking what people do here. I end up spending most of my social time with North Americans (which is easy to do at my workplace)! According to the "Five Stages of Culture Shock:"

The third stage of culture shock is characterized with one's plunging into new ways of living. With patience, it is possible to reach this stage by the end of the first year. Key aspects in a new culture are being learned and the earlier chaos and lack of direction seldom appears. Relations with the native population are initiated, such as neighbours and workmates or schoolmates.

So, according to this, I've got another nine months of moaning and whinging to go! Then I can start on fourth stage. Stay tuned...

Saving Daylight

Quoting from this morning's Courier-Mail (assuming that the link to the full article will disappear soon):

QUEENSLAND might not be about to split into different time zones under daylight saving, but yesterday's decision to bury the controversial issue has divided the state.

Premier Anna Bligh's decision to rule out a referendum, trial or a southeast corner zonal system split opinion between the coast and the farms.

The decision was taken worst on the Gold Coast, where support for winding clocks forward one hour during summer was strongest because of different time zones near the border.

Tourism groups were most disappointed, saying daylight saving meant more time for tourists to play.

"Many of our international visitors, in particular, like to dine and go out later in the evening and daylight saving works well with that lifestyle," Gold Coast Tourism spokesman Ben Poole said.

Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke last night accused Ms Bligh of lacking leadership qualities.

He said: "You really have to dig to the bottom of the barrel to find some reason not to adopt daylight saving when the rest of the country has it."

Yes, I live in the part of Australia (a very big part, mind you!) that does not have daylight saving time. In fact, Queensland had voted against it mid-20th century, later voted it in (and had it sometime in the 70s), and then voted it out again. Western Australia recently adopted it on a trial basis, although it's probably going to be repealed soon due to many people who now hate it (maybe Brett can clarify that...). The rest of the country, with the exception of the Northern Territory, doesn't appear to have any problems with DST. Having never spent a summer without DST myself, facing a summer with sunsets around 7:30 makes me a bit uncomfortable, so I turned to the old Wikipedia for some clarification.

First, did you know that most of the world's population does not observe DST and its use is actually on the decline?

Key: Blue=DST used, Orange=DST no longer used, Red=never used

Second, politics, and not some sort of common wisdom, has played an enormous role since 1907 when it was first proposed. Winston Churchill was very much in favour of it, and Canadian novelist Robertson Davies argued that opponents to DST represented "the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves." (I saw one of these Puritans railing against it on TV this morning: "children would have to wake up in the dark!"). More recently, the U.S. Congress extended the American DST period in response to pressure from lobbyists representing the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association and the National Association of Convenience Stores. Typically, in other parts of the world the retail and travel industries have been in favour of DST, whereas those in more rural areas (primarily farmers) have opposed it. So, the arguments about DST confronting Queensland's Anna Bligh are really not so new after all.

Sydney

Sydney is perhaps the most beautiful city in the world. And we got to spend five days there this week! Our friends moved to Sydney from London last January, so we made the trip to visit them (the things we suffer through for our friends!). We stayed in a hotel in the city centre for the first three nights, and then moved out to our friends' home in Roseville (a N. suburb) for the weekend. V. and I honeymooned in Sydney in 2003, so we got to relive many of those moments (without the jet lag) as we pushed Will around town. Circular Quay is a big draw for us. It's the place where all the ferries leave for destinations around the harbour, but it is also smack dab in between the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, so the views there are stunning. On Thursday we met up with our friends at the Taronga Zoo, which is perched along some cliffs on the north side of the harbour. Although it's compact and the exhibits are therefore on the small side, I definitely recommend it to any visitor simply because of its location. When arriving from the ferry, visitors can take a cable car ride up over the zoo and get treated to magnificent views of the city. On Friday we wandered around by foot, stopping for breakfast at Darling Harbour, visiting our honeymoon hotel in Hyde Park, looking through the windows of the Seven Network's studios (we watch "Sunrise" each morning, which is kind of a laid-back "Today" show for those of you from the U.S.), meandering through the walkways of the Sydney Hospital (built in 1811), and then stopping to smell the spring flowers in full bloom at the Royal Botanic Gardens. We finished the day by taking the ferry to Manly (which was in full Grand Final fever), where we had dinner under the stars with our friends.

On Saturday we had a quick coffee at Bondi, where Will was given a Kevin '07 balloon (Kevin Rudd is the leader of the Labor party, and who will undoubtedly become the next prime minister). Who knows...maybe Will will end up voting in an Aussie election someday! We then spent the rest of the weekend in Roseville, a nice leafy, northern suburb. Because I have meetings today, I flew back to Brisbane last night, and Will & V. will return tonight. For more pictures, see the album.

By the way, flying domestically in Australia is a bit like it was in the U.S. before 2001. No one asked to see my ID. I didn't have to take off my shoes when going through security. And non-ticketed passengers can go all the way to the gate. On top of that, the airports are not at all crowded, even on a busy flying day like yesterday, so the entire flying experience here is more relaxed than I am used to. And that's a good thing.

A Little More Sport

Just a quick note to add to what I wrote in my last post. Geelong beat Port Adelaide in the AFL Grand Final this past Saturday afternoon. I watched the final minutes of the match...it turned out to be the most lopsided score in the Finals history. I also watched the post-game ceremonies. On Sunday evening Melbourne beat Manly in the NRL Grand Final. I got to see more of this one, and again I watched the post-game ceremonies. Of the two, the NRL seems a bit wilder. At the AFL Final it looked like most of the fans stuck around for the ceremonies, which were full of brief speeches from both the winners and the losers. The same occurred at the NRL, but, maybe because it was nearing 10:00 and it wasn't the winners' hometown, the seats were nearly empty when the PM, John Howard, gave all the players medals. I heard this morning that the 17 players get to "share" the $400,000 purse, which means that one of the players will make--oh my!--at least $140,000 this year!!! In contrast to American football, many (all?) teams here have a corporate benefactor, and the players wear their sponsors' logos on their uniforms. Geelong are sponsored by Ford (and home to its largest plant in Australia), whereas the Melbourne Storm are sponsored by Optus. I think I have figured out the scoring and the basic game play of rugby league, but Aussie rules football is still a bit of a mystery...

A Little Sport

When I was growing up in the U.S., on Saturday afternoons I enjoyed watching "ABC's Wide World of Sports." This "anthology" showed sports not typically found on U.S. television, such as surfing, track and field, figure skating, etc. Well, following sport (note the singular spelling) in Australia is very much like this...and I've become quite fascinated with all the variations. Some examples:

• Rugby League and Australian Rules Football. These are obviously types of football and the ones that most people associate with Australia. Rugby League (which is different from Rugby Union) is more popular in Queensland and New South Wales, whereas AFL (the name of the Aussie rules league) is popular in most of the rest of the country. Their seasons almost completely overlap, and they both have their Grand Finals this weekend in Sydney (the NRL) and Melbourne (the AFL). It's a little confusing following what's going on because of the strong regionalism of these two sports. Both have weekly television shows called "The Footy Show," which air at times most desirable for their respective regions. Both sports are called 'footy.' They both had fancy dinners recently in which the players received trophies and their wives/girlfriends paraded down the red carpet in fancy dresses. Years ago I went to see an AFL match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and loved it. I hope to see some more NRL and AFL in person during next year's season.
• Motorcycle and Auto Racing. There are all sorts of distinctions to be made here--Indy, V8, Supercars, Formula, 5 cc, etc., but I'm afraid that I'll never master them. Sure, the U.S. has its NASCAR in the southeast, but I think it's safe to say that Australians are even crazier about their racing here. A big Indy race is coming to the Gold Coast in just a few weeks, but I think we will be staying at home.
• Bowls. I had thought this was a quiet, genteel sport for the retired folks, as I often see elderly players clad in white when I drive by the local bowls club. But, it turns out that this is a competitive, lucrative, and popular sport all over the planet. I found myself mesmerized with a round of the World Cup of Bowls on the ABC recently. All the men were grossly out of shape, but they sure could bowl. It got particularly exciting when the jack rolled into the ditch, and Ireland ended up beating England. By the way, that "other" kind of bowling done indoors is known as "ten-pin bowling."
  
• Netball. Although this is played by both sexes, I have only seen women playing on television. Netball is like basketball, just without the dribbling. And the Aussie women who play are gorgeous.
• Swimming. Australians are much more obsessed with this sport than elsewhere--probably because they do so well at the Olympics in it. There are so many swimming celebrities around, they must have to fight for every PR event. For example, two of the ten celebrities on "Dancing With the Stars" this time around are Olympic swimmers (Elka Graham and Michael Klim).
• Horse Racing. This is big, big, big. Right now there's a horse flu epidemic going around the country that is shutting down most of the major races. I think I heard that horse racing is one of the top ten industries in this country (it has to do with all the betting).
• Marbles. Yes, that old school yard game is still popular here. A local watering hole is hosting some sort of Queensland state tournament that will be broadcast on television. I can't wait to see that one!
• Cricket. This is a summer sport, so it hasn't started here yet. As you probably know, many view cricket as the most boring game ever invented (see Bill Bryson's descriptions of it in "Sunburnt Country"). But others find it absolutely riveting. There have been several attempts to make it more appealing, with the latest incarnation called Twenty-20 Cricket, which can be played in just a couple of hours. Australia was recently beat by Zimbabwe in the Twenty-20 World Cup, much to the chagrin of the morning sport commentators who ended up saying this wasn't 'real' cricket.
• Hockey. That's field hockey for those of you in the icy climates. I haven't seen it being played, but I hear about it all the time. Perhaps it's more of a summer sport.
  

Other sports that are popular here: beach volleyball (UQ has a large playing area devoted to it), surfing (of course), tennis, basketball, soccer, rowing, and track & field. I'm hoping that someone will discover that blogging provides good cardiovascular fitness...

Spring Break

Although no one here appears to use the term, it is now "Spring Break" in Queensland and much of the rest of Australia. The university has the week off, but all the primary and secondary schools have two weeks holiday, which is dubbed "school holidays" (how clever!). From what I can tell, these school holidays are concurrent for EVERY school in Queensland, and perhaps those in other states as well. I noticed a big reduction in the traffic in Toowong this morning when I went to drop off Will at daycare. Many families leave town for various destinations (including Mooselet, who is on an amazing journey to the Queensland interior). Later this week we are flying to Sydney for a few days to see our friends, but we got things started this past weekend with two mini-breaks. The first was a one-hour drive to the Gold Coast, where we had breakfast at Surfers Paradise. The Gold Coast looks a bit like Miami Beach, with many, many skyscrapers, including the Q1. At 80 floors high, Q1 is the world's tallest all-residential building, when measured to the top of its spire (according to Wikipedia). Australians are fond of complaining of the glitz of the Gold Coast, but for a guy who grew up in the Midwest, it's quite exciting. On Sunday, we took our second mini-break to Noosa, which is about a 2-hour drive north of Brisbane. Noosa is considered one of the most beautiful places in Australia, which also makes it a major tourist destination. During the school holidays it's jammed with families from the southern cities. In fact, our friends the Clarks are spending the week there with some of their Melbourne friends. They took us out on the Noosa river on their boat, and then V., Will, and I walked along the main shopping boulevard in Noosa Heads, before spending a little while on the Noosa beach. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and a bit drizzly, so we didn't get to see the place at its best. But, it is clear that it's still quite beautiful, despite the creeping urbanism. You can check out more pictures from our weekend by clicking on the album on the right.

The Journey, Part II

(A few months back, I wrote a post about my first trip to Australia when I was 12. Here's the promised next installment).

In 1995 I became actively involved in a "social networking" community known as CU-SeeMe. Using Connectix webcams and, at first, Macs, several people could log into a virtual space called a "reflector" where we could see several black & white video feeds of people from around the globe. This was before high-speed internet was available in the home, so most of us engaged in CU-SeeMe while at work on our universities' high-speed connections. Because I lived in Los Angeles at the time, during a regular business day I had the temporal advantage of being able to talk to people in Europe who were finishing their day, Americans (and Canadians) who were still at work, and, finally, Australians and New Zealanders who were just getting to their jobs in the morning. Because the audio didn't work so well, we mostly sent text messages to one another through a central chat window. Two of the people I met on this system were Fiona and Kirsty, who worked at the Earth Sciences Department at Monash University in Melbourne. It's amazing to think about how many hours everyone spent "hanging out" with each other in this way. In December of that year, I organized a large meeting of CU-SeeMe participants at a cybercafe in Venice, CA. Many people flew in from all over the country, but it was Fiona, who was pregnant at the time, who came the farthest, flying all the way from Australia. The whole group of us spent a lot of time together sight-seeing and then going to the big party at the café. Seal (yes, the singer), who was a semi-regular in our chat sessions along with Timothy Leary, promised to show up that night, but never arrived. Still, we got some attention from some news outlets, had a chance to see what we were like in person (and in color!), and then we all headed back to our respective computers.

In 1996, Patty (my wife at the time) was starting up a major research project in Brisbane, Australia. I went with her for a month, thus marking my second visit to Oz. During that trip, Kirsty and her partner, Tony, spent a week with us in the Whitsundays on the Great Barrier Reef. Later I flew down to Melbourne to spend a few days with Fiona and her husband Ian, and their new baby, Ellen. I also drove to Canberra and Wagga Wagga to visit some old haunts. Over the next five years, I went to Australia two more times with Patty, and I stopped off each time to see Fi and Kirsty in Melbourne. And we always stayed in Toowong whenever we were in Brisbane.

You know what's cool? We (that's V., Will, and me!) now live in Toowong. And Fiona, Ian, Ellen (who is now 11), and Sally (who is 8) ended up moving to Brisbane last year, and live just a couple of kilometers away.

It really is a small world after all. (Look for Part III soon...)

Regurgitate

I came across this today, and it really made me smile. Perhaps because we have been worrying about our little one all week (he developed an ear infection a couple of days ago)...

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930s, '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, and tuna from a can.

Then, after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with brightly-colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking .

As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because...

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING !

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day.

And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound, CDs or iPods, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them . . CONGRATULATIONS!

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

An Aussie Politician

From the main website of The Australian today:The caption: "John Howard adjusts his glasses during question time in parliament."

I'm not even sure that the middle finger means the same thing here, but it's still a hoot!

Relief

Will woke up this morning nearly back to his old self. On the way to work (just five minutes away) I dropped him off at his family daycare and he started to whimper. When we returned to pick him up at 5:00, he was all smiles. He even had a few new tricks for us at dinnertime.

Most of our boxes are now unpacked, but we have a smaller shipment of nine boxes to pick up this week once they have been inspected by AQIS--the quarantine people. As V. said, "it's the beginning of the end of the whole moving process."

Now, if we could just sell that house back in Atlanta...

Coffee Break

It's Day 8, and we are still struggling to recover from our cold/flu/lurgy. V. and I were able to go out last night for a dinner and a movie ("No Reservations," a pleasant but forgettable film that wasn't as good as the original, "Mostly Martha") in Southbank. However, after we went to bed Will woke up a few times during the night from congestion and coughing. So far today he's managed no more than 30 minutes of sleep in a row. V. has dosed him up with Dimetapp, so I hope he gets some relief now.

Yesterday I attended an interesting talk by one of my new colleagues at UQ, Blake McKimmie. Blake is a social psychologist interested in the impact of psychological factors on the legal system. I learned a bit about the Australian legal system. It appears to be more similar to the one in the U.K. than the one in the States. And only the State of Queensland requires unanimous jury decisions. In the other states, a simple majority is required for most kinds of cases. I was also surprised to learn more about the infamous McDonald's coffee case. You know the story: in 1994 an old lady was burned by a cup of coffee she bought in the drive-thru. The U.S. jury in that case awarded her $2.9 million, although that was reduced to $640,000 by the trial judge, and even settled for less than that in the end. It is often brought up as a horrendous example of frivolous litigation, and did a lot to damage the reputation of the legal system. But here are some additional facts that Blake mentioned in his talk:

• All McDonald's coffee at the time of that incident was served at about 190 degrees F (88 degrees C), whereas most other restaurants never served coffee hotter than 160.
• The woman spent 8 days in the hospital and required skin grafts for the 3rd-degree burns she received covering 6% of her body, including her legs and groin region.
• McDonald's had received over 700 complaints about its hot coffee and resulting burns BEFORE this case, but had always settled such complaints out-of-court without adjusting the temperature of the coffee.
• The reason given by the jury members for awarding the large amount was that $2.9 million was equivalent to two days' worth of coffee sales for McDonald's in the U.S., and such an amount would send a message to McDonald's that it needed to deal with the problem once and for all.
• After this case, McDonald's indeed lowered the temperature of its coffee to no more than 160 degrees F, and added warnings to the cups.

For more information, there's a great Wikipedia entry about the case.

I don't remember hearing any of this back in the day. Isn't it interesting how what we do hear (via the news) can affect our attitudes about things for such a long time, even if they are based on incomplete information? Or should I say, isn't it scary?

Wednesday Night Television

In Brisbane, we receive six "free-to-air" HD channels on our new Sony HDTV-- Seven, Nine, and Ten, which are all commercial networks (and they're actually known by those numbers), and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), ABC2, and SBS, which are government owned, although SBS shows commercials. We really haven't felt the need to pay for cable or satellite, as there is plenty for us to view for free. For example, I can watch the nightly news broadcasts from several countries, including the U.S., on SBS. I'm also so impressed with the picture quality of these HD channels--something we didn't have back in our house in Atlanta.

Wednesday is my favourite TV night, mainly because everything we see on this night is produced in Australia (and doesn't involve cops and murders). Here's a rundown of what we watch (after Will has his bath and goes to bed, and provided V. hasn't fallen asleep yet!).

7-7:30. Home and Away. Seven. This is a long-running soap that takes place in a fictional bay town north of Sydney. It's on every week night. The cast is generally young and good-looking, the outdoor locations beautiful, and the melodrama is cranked way up. This show is also very popular in the U.K. It's fine to play in the background because I don't feel like I've missed anything if we happen to be putting Will to bed or cleaning the kitchen after dinner.

7:30-8:30. Thank God You're Here. Ten. This "live" comedy show involves putting some celebrity performer into the middle of a sketch, complete with a high-quality set and props. He or she then improvises lines with other actors who create the situation and sort of control where the sketch is going. I don't think I have recognised one of these celebrities yet--they are mostly Aussie comedians, radio DJs, and sitcom players. Still, most of the sketches end up being quite hilarious. Interestingly, a U.S. version of this show was piloted this past spring while I was still in Atlanta, and it wasn't nearly as funny.

8:30-9:00. Spicks and Specks. ABC. This is my favourite Aussie show. It's basically a music trivia game, in which two teams of celebrities compete for a few points. The two team captains (Myf and Alan) are the same each week (Myf is a morning DJ for Triple J, a fantastic alternative public radio station), with other guests typically being Aussie comedians or musicians whom I usually have never heard of (although a member of Squeeze was on a few weeks ago!). The questions are really tough, and there are plenty of interesting challenges for the players, such as having to identify a rock song from listening to a team player sing the tune while reading from a dishwasher manual, or figuring out what's missing from an old record album cover. I am in total awe of the players' knowledge of music trivia that can extend from knowing the name of the first Pixies album to being able to finish the lyrics to an Everly Brothers' song.

9:00-9:30. The Chaser's War on Everything. ABC. It's hard to describe the Chaser, which, as implied by the title, satirises everything. It's part "The Daily Show" and part "Borat," but its style is mostly original. This week's episode was significant because it aired a stunt that recently attracted worldwide attention (including CNN). The Chaser boys hired a few limos, attached Canadian flags, and were then allowed to pass through two security checkpoints at the APEC meeting in Sydney last week. It's clear from last night's footage that the Chaser team really didn't think they would get that far, and even started to turn around when they got to Bush's hotel. It was only when one cast member dressed like bin Laden got out of his car that the police even noticed the prank. Eleven people from the show were arrested over the incident and face charges next month. Last night's episode also included stinging pieces about George Bush (who referred to APEC as "OPEC" and "IPEC" during the meeting, and talked about John Howard's visit to the "Austrian" troops in Iraq), John Howard, Steve and Bindi Irwin ("help save the Irwins, who are dying off at the rate of one a year"), and Kevin Rudd, the opposition leader. And this is all on a public television station!

That's the Wednesday line-up in our household. Of course, this will all change in a couple of weeks. Australian TV series, just like in the UK, typically have only 6-8 episodes in a season. I'm sure they will find another 22-episode American police drama or two to fill the void.

Resignation and Change

The Premier of Queensland (the equivalent of a state governor in the U.S.), Peter Beattie, announced his resignation yesterday. For my American ears, it was refreshing to hear a politician resigning after nine years of service--and well before his current term was to end--for fairly simple reasons, such as wanting to spend more time with his family and desiring a healthier lifestyle. Although there could be an ulterior motive to his actions, he is leaving a booming, economically healthy state to his successor, Anna Bligh, who will be the first woman to hold this office in Queensland. Pretty cool.

Six years ago today (on a Tuesday as well) I went to work without having watched the morning news. I therefore ended up not hearing about the World Trade Center towers until after they had collapsed. At around 11 that morning I made a quick trip to the CNN center in the hope that I might learn more about was going on, but it had been immediately evacuated in case of another terrorist attack. I then went home and watched the news for the rest of the day, as life in the U.S. came to a sudden standstill. That was a horrible, scary, and sad day. And the week got only worse for me, with an unexpected change in my personal life happening a few days later. That was an important week in my life because it led to many huge changes. Thinking back to that day six years ago, it seems incredible where I have ended up today, happily typing this entry from my new home in Brisbane, Australia, with a completely different life from the one I had back then.

I heard that Michael Jackson turned 49 recently. Harrison Ford, at 65, is filming the next "Indiana Jones" movie. And an older, plumper, loonier Britney could hardly move around the stage this week at the MTV video awards. Time flies when you're having fun.

Getting Better All the Time

Thanks to those of you who left get well messages for us. We seem to be improving. After spending nearly two days comatose in bed, V. was up and about today with a smile on her face. Will was doing better this morning, but started to decline late in the day. I may have to stay at home tomorrow if he's not well enough to attend daycare. I am limping along with a sore throat, but seem to have missed the worst part of this cold/flu that was experienced by the rest of my little family.

An American colleague here in Brisbane sent me the following link--it's an American imported food store in Melbourne that sells all sorts of goodies via the internet to us Yanks far from home. For those of you reading this back in the States, look at the site and check out the prices. Even with the exchange rate, I don't think you will look at your cheap jar of Jif extra crunchy peanut butter the same way again (and there really is no Aussie substitute for it). For those of you considering a move to the land of the vegemite sandwich, there's a much more complete website that offers all sorts of support for American Ex-pats in Oz...check out TerritorianTori's Yanks Down Under.

The Sick and the Moaning

Well, I knew it would happen eventually. After several weeks of watching my colleagues fall to The Plague one by one, the flu/cold/lurgy has come to our home too. Yesterday we all woke up feeling crappy. Will was irritable and had a runny nose. V. was feverish, chilly, and just sick. I had a cough and a sore throat. I ended up staying at home, but took Will to Gymboree (the only one in Australia, according to the website). Other than that, we all took turns napping and whining about how we felt. Today we are each a bit better, but it looks like we'll just hang out at home today as well. I hope you are well and enjoy the weekend.

Weather Man

I once read on an Aussie's blog about his trip to the U.S. that "Americans are obsessed with weather." Well, after reading some of my fellow ex-pats' recent blog entries (look here, for example), maybe the bloke had a point. I try to bite my tongue about all this, as I am a confessed Weather Channel addict (going through major withdrawal), but I can no longer hold back. For those of you who still live in a place with great weather maps, let me show you an example of a typical forecast map in Australia:
It's called a synoptic chart, and you do sometimes see these on American forecasts. But, notice that it's quite difficult for the average person to interpret how these lines are going to affect things. In my prior visits to Oz, I have learned that a cluster of pressure gradients close to one another means that it will be windy, and a Low is usually a sign of rain. But troughs (the dashed lines) are a new concept for me, and I don't really see how this is going to give me a reliable view of future weather. For comparison's sake, look at these Weather Channel maps:

Here, in fact, is the forecast for the rest of the week in Brisbane from my Weather Channel substitute, the WeatherZone. Note the distinctions between "Rain periods," "Rain at times," and "Showers about." I have also seen "Rain easing.."

• Wednesday. Rain at times. Moderate to fresh S to SE winds
• Thursday. Rain periods
• Friday. Rain periods
• Saturday. Showers about
• Sunday. Fine

Maybe I could start a new business here involving nicely coloured weather maps with more detailed information. Hmm...

Seasons in the Sun

My friends in the U.S. might be surprised to learn that September 1 is considered the first day of Spring in Australia. The fact that it’s the “opposite” season from autumn in the northern hemisphere isn't a surprise, of course, but from an American perspective, seasons don’t change until the 22nd. Sometime during elementary school (in Illinois) I had learned the seasons changed during the March equinox, June solstice, September equinox, and December solstice, each around the 21st or 22nd of their respective months. I liked the certainty of those dates, but I really didn’t question whether it made sense to do it this way. In fact, here’s a link to a site where the author examines the logic, but is also apparently unaware that some countries do not observe the beginning of the seasons on these dates because their citizens rely on meteorological, rather than astronomical, reckoning to determine them. Quoting from Wikipedia: “Meteorological seasons are reckoned by temperature, with summer being the hottest quarter of the year, and winter the coldest quarter of the year.

Using this reckoning, the Ancient Roman calendar began the year and the spring season on the first of March, with each season occupying three months. This reckoning is also used in Denmark, the former USSR, and Australia. In modern United Kingdom and Ireland there are no hard and fast rules about seasons, and informally many people use this reckoning. So, in meteorology for the Northern hemisphere:

* spring begins on March 1,
* summer on June 1,
* autumn on September 1, and
* winter on December 1.

Conversely, for the Southern hemisphere:

* summer begins on December 1,
* autumn on March 1,
* winter on June 1, and
* spring on September 1.”

I think this meteorological reckoning actually makes sense, even for the United States. When I lived in the Midwest, it always seemed somewhat stupid to hear on December 22 that it was “the first day of winter,” as I trudged out to the driveway to shovel the snow for the third time since Thanksgiving. Similarly, June 22 is well into summer, especially when you think of Memorial Day and Labor Day in the U.S. as the real bookends to the season.

A final note: I hope that those of you back in the good old USA are having a relaxing Labor Day weekend.

Riverfire

Riverfire Brisbane-03+
Originally uploaded by cindytoo

We just got back from a fantastic evening along the Brisbane river with our friends the Clarks (Ellen, Sally, Fi, & Ian). Tonight was the annual QBE Riverfire, which is certainly the most spectacular fireworks display I have ever seen. Fireworks were set off at many locations in the city, some a few kilometers from each other, and all were synchronised with music that played on the ABC. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the evening--some on blankets along the river, others on large party boats, and many standing on verandas of high-rise apartments. The whole show was framed by the passing of F-111 jets that did a "dump and burn" (i.e., flames shot out the tail on a low altitude pass over the city). Transport was easy, despite the crowds. We caught an express bus into the city, ate kebabs for dinner, and sat along the river in the Botanic Gardens. The ride home on the CityCat took 15 minutes. What a great city this is!

By the way, click on this photo to look at plenty more on Flickr posted by "cindytoo," who is one of my local favourites.

Shadow on the Moon

I managed to snap this shot about an hour ago, just after the peak of a beautiful lunar eclipse. I wasn’t really equipped to take such a photo, so I simply mounted the camera on the railing of our verandah and opened up the shutter for about five seconds. Although it’s not so clear here, the moon displayed a range of beautiful red shades of light as it passed through the earth’s shadow.

The big news for us--most of our stuff is finally here! And, most of it is still in boxes on the two verandahs. Last night we finally got to sleep on a bed again, and it was marvelous! We also had dinner sitting together at our table using real glasses for our drinks. Yes, one appreciates such simple pleasures after being separated from it all for over 3 months.

Yesterday was also the first day that Will went off to daycare. This photo was taken just before V. dropped him off while I stayed behind to supervise the movers. He did very well, and never cried the entire morning. When he came home, however, he seemed to find everything very disorienting. It’s hard to tell whether he actually recognizes his toys and the other items from our house in Atlanta. V. and I have been trying to unpack as quickly as possible, but we both had to take a break tonight when we realized that we are going to have to pace ourselves. Much of the challenge has to do with organizing so much stuff in such a small space. I can’t even enter the home office because so many boxes of books are crammed in there.

President Bush arrives in Sydney in just a few days. The newspapers are full of stories focused on the security costs and disruptions to life for Sydneysiders caused by his visit and the APEC conference that starts a couple of days later. Apparently, W. has already made a mess of things by deciding to come to Oz a few days early and then leaving APEC early to go back home for Sept. 11 services. The latest news is that Laura isn’t going to make the trip, so Mrs. Howard doesn’t know what she’s going to do with herself. Hey, she’s certainly welcome to come up here and unpack some boxes!

Drying Out

After seven days of rain, the sun was once again shining early this morning as I walked to the local 7-11 to buy the Sunday Mail. I still don’t feel comfortable subscribing to a paper, as the two newspapers that are available in Brisbane, The Australian and The Courier-Mail, are both owned by Murdoch’s News group. So, I end up browsing several news websites everyday, including some in the U.S. But on Sundays I have been permitting myself the delights of The Mail. Sure, it provides information, but it’s really more entertaining than anything else. Think of it as a nice mixture of People magazine, USA Today (i.e., fairly short stories) and a small-town paper. I spend about a half hour reading my copy at the Newspaper Café in Toowong while sipping a flat white. I then head home to have breakfast with V. and Will.

Yesterday I gave the first talk at a day-long conference in social psychology in Brisbane. I had spent several days preparing my presentation, and I feel good about how it all went. In the evening there was a post-conference party at a house just a few miles away, so V. went with me while Will stayed at home with our babysitter. The party started at 5:30, and was still going strong when we left at 10:30. Last year’s party reportedly went to 4 a.m., but V. and I are lucky if we can stay awake after 11. All in all, it was a really comfortable setting and a nice way to get to know my new colleagues better. V. remarked that it was typical of an English party, but I really didn’t understand what she meant. It certainly wasn’t like a party in Atlanta--people always seemed to go home at 9 back there!

Early tomorrow morning a truck will be pulling up in front of our home to unload our belongings. We are a bit stressed about this next part of our move. I’ll keep you posted on what happens…

Rain, Facebook, and Ms. Knightley

1. At last, it has been raining in Brisbane on and off for the last three days. To appreciate the significance of all this moisture, read this entry by another of my favorite bloggers, Mooselet. She, by the way, has some sort of unending reservoir of physical and emotional strength for parenting that I used up two days after Will was born. Just so I'm clear about the value of rain in Australia, it is measured in millimeters, not centimeters or something bigger. A forecast can include the chance of 5-10 millimeters of rain--that's not even a half an inch!!
   
2. I am now on Facebook. Why would a "middle-aged" man do such a thing? The answer is simple: peer pressure. EVERYONE in my immediate social group at UQ seems to be on this. I'll report back once I understand the benefits of all this "social networking." If you're on Facebook, please consider adding me as a friend...I am desperate to become popular.
3. The other night we watched "Pride and Prejudice" (the Keira version) on a DVD that I bought here in Oz. Guess what?! Viewers in the U.S. saw a different ending. Elizabeth and Darcy are shown cuddling and whispering sweet nothings to each other in the U.S. ending, but the rest of the world saw the credits hit once Elizabeth got her father's blessing for the engagement. (I've heard the Swedish version had an even racier ending involving Jane, Elizabeth, and Darcy, but this is unconfirmed. Maybe Sven will check on this). It appears that Americans can't be happy with their romantic movies unless they have a little kissing in the end...
   

An Evening at the Cinebar

V. and I had our first “date” in months this past Friday night. Our babysitter is a caregiver at a neighborhood daycare whom V. met while walking down the street one day, and who is entirely overqualified for babysitting but very cheap, by American standards. Once we waved goodbye to our son, who was really indifferent about our leaving, we headed off to Rosalie, a little neighborhood a few minutes from our home, where there are plenty of trendy restaurants to choose from. However, we opted to spend the entire evening at the Blue Room Cinebar. For a fixed price, we had a Thai meal on the cinema’s outdoor balcony and two tickets to see a Danish film, “After the Wedding.” The food was excellent (it comes from the kitchen of a Thai restaurant just below), and the entire concept was wonderful. Each of the two theatres has about 24 seats that were stuffed like reclining chairs with a sizable side table for two between each pair of seats. One can order a bottle of wine or other drinks that are brought to you during the movie (we didn’t actually try this out, but someone behind us had a bottle of champagne). You can even have your dinner in your seat during the film. It is all very cozy and convenient. The movie, by the way, was quite good--full of repressed emotions and family tragedy, typical of any good Scandinavian film.

I want to make special mention of the blog penned by Audra “Bryson”, an American who moved to Sydney in January. These two recent entries describe the exact Aussie appliances and the strange bathroom drain that we have in our home in Brisbane. It’s a bit eerie reading someone else’s description of what I thought was our unique experience!

The Friday Routine

My Friday afternoons now go like this. There is almost always an alternating weekly seminar at 3:00--one week it is the “School Seminar” and the other it's the Social or Psychonomics Seminar (click here to see the current schedule). After each seminar, a graduate student rolls a trolley cart into the room with plenty of wine glasses and about 6 bottles of red and white wine (always different each week), chips, and possibly other nibbly bits. It is this student’s job to cater this little function and clean the wine glasses afterwards (all on the School’s budget!). Then, at around 4:30 some people start to walk over to the staff club, which has a very nice pub atmosphere and outdoor seating. I have gone each week for about an hour and sat next to grad students and faculty (called staff here) from the different programs and chatted about all sorts of interesting stuff. I then walk down to the ferry landing to catch the 6:09 pm boat home to V. and Will. It is all very civilized (or civilised, depending on my mood) here in Oz.

Happy Exhibition Day!

August 15 is "People's Day" or Exhibition Day in Brisbane, a day set aside so that people can attend the Ekka. Ignoring the mid-week holiday, I went to work but found no one there and every shop on campus closed. A light rain was falling on students who were making their way to the ferry dressed like they were going to prom. I later learned that they were going to a special race day at Eagle Farm. People in their 20s going to watch a horse race in their nicest clothes...you just don't see that where I come from!

Still no word on our container's journey at the port. We have now gone more than a month eating our dinner on beanbags.

Gone Whaling

I have been a very bad blogger this month. I’m sorry. Prepping new lectures for the courses that I’m co-teaching has taken more time than I thought, primarily because I’m covering the material more deeply than before. Getting home each night, I have been trying to be a good dad and husband until my loved ones fall asleep, and I have slowly put together several shelving units that we bought from Ikea a few weeks ago. We still don’t have any of our things yet…the container ship should have arrived last Thursday, so we’re just waiting for ours to clear customs, which can take 5-15 days.

Our weekends have been very full. The pictures here are from our whale watching trip on Aug 5 with the Clarks. We went on a great cruise put on by the Australia Zoo, which was Steve Irwin’s home. It was a bit surreal on the way out of Mooloolaba to watch videos of Steve from the last series he was working on--called something like “The Ocean’s Deadliest Creatures.” Unfortunately, the sea was choppy that day, and a lot of people were filling up the vomit bags that were readily available. Although we never saw a whale breach the water, we did see several pods of humpbacks during our four hour cruise. Will had a mostly good time, although he was more excited by the water spray than anything else. His mother fared more poorly, but was still happy we went.

This past weekend we went to the Ekka, a sort of state fair for Queensland. It goes on for 9 days, and has a huge mix of livestock competitions, exhibits, scary rides, and “Aussie” food. We tried a Dagwood dog, which I think is just a corndog, downed some “old style” ginger beer, munched fresh strawberries, and licked an ice cream cone together. We took a brief walk through the showbag pavilion. This must be uniquely Australian. Many companies (e.g., Cadbury’s, magazine publishers) throw together bags of goodies from their company and sell them in all sorts of combinations that cost between $2 and $20 at gigantic booths, with hundred of people moving like cattle from booth to booth. V. also watched a sheep shearing demonstration while I was soothing Will after he got some sunblock lotion in his eyes. I really would have liked to watch the butcher show--in which several cuts of meat were to be lectured about--but we had to cut our trip short due to our son’s next fastly approaching crash.

Thanks for being patient with my blogging. And I do plan to reward you with some new pictures very soon. Late last week I received a copy of the new iLife, which has some great features for posting photos on the web. I hope to have it mastered soon, complete with a new way to view our photos…

Some Peace

I haven’t written for nearly a week, mainly because our lives have become much quieter as we continue to settle in. On Sunday we said goodbye to our "old" friends, Patrick, Grass, and Isabella, who had come up from Sydney to visit us for a week. Unfortunately, our home is so inhospitable at the moment that they had to stay in a nearby motel. They moved from London to Sydney back in January. On the last day of their visit we drove up to Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast (our second trip since arriving), where the surf, the beach, and the temperatures were simply perfect. Will (who turned 18 months old this week) discovered the wonders of playing with beach sand, but there was the worry that he would throw it in his face, so we had to watch him closely. By the way, this photo of Mooloolaba comes from Trig's flickr page, as I still don't have all our photos properly edited. We head back to Mooloolaba this Sunday, when we go on a whale watch. I promise more of our own pictures then.

I have been spending a lot of my time at work on my first lectures. I am also getting to know my new colleagues, who (surprisingly) represent a wide range of nationalities. My undergrads were just as charming during the second week of lecture, with many coming up to me during the break and after lecture to ask more questions about the material. Another pleasant surprise about Australian university life is the mixture of informality and respect between students and academics. The students are used to addressing their instructors by their first names, and I noticed that my colleagues always introduce themselves to students that way. However, the students are also very polite and appreciative of their instructors, so the informality in no way undermines a sense of faculty “authority.”

We have received word that the big shipment of our belongings arrives in Brisbane a week from today. It could then take between 5 and 14 days in customs before it’s delivered. That's nearly 3 months since it all left our home in May. We are starting to worry about what we are going to do with everything. Our townhouse is about 1100 sq ft., but we’re moving from a house that had about 4800 sq ft! We do have two large verandas, so we may be putting some of our inside furniture on the outside. Yes, I can hear Jeff Foxworthy saying, “You might be a redneck if…” I guess ten years in Atlanta had an effect on me after all.

Oh, and I just have to mention something I posted on another blog. I bravely ordered a chicken quesadilla at a restaurant on campus the other day. When the server brought it to my table, she said something like, “chicken kwehs-a-dill-a, sir?”

Si, muchas gracias!