January 2003 Archives

Okay, so now baring an overbooked flight from sydney (I guy can hope, can't he), final words from the road.

• Take lots of pictures. I stopped right about the time I started having fun - camera was too big to carry around. I have memories but more pictures would be nice.
• Big cotton towels are hard to carry around, conversly those little travel towels would hardly dry an elf (I left my cotton towel in cairns so I know first hand). A happy medium must be found.
• Be a fool. If I look back at what i've written and emailed, I look like a complete loon, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Makes me feel alive.
• Use absolutely every resource you have to do everything you can. It's only money, and all too soon you'll be back at work.
• Never complain about a hostel room or the next one will be worse. Checking out and back in to sydney central got me out of the room with naked man from some faraway country and into a ground level room sleeping above a guy who's snoring could cut through walls.
• Don't be an american. In that I mean the typical american tourist. Every loud obnoxious complaining tourist is always american. I've apollogized many times for my countrymen (especially our president).

Of that list, being the fool is the most important I'd say. After all that I did and went through last night I got a call from Dawn. She was sad I couldn't come up, said she should have brought me down the coast with her. She's been having fun but would prefer the company. And that I must return. She still calls me Chicken. It was worth everything to try, next time all of my tickets will be changable.

So as not to concern that I'll be insane when I get back to seattle :) I realize the lows come with the highs and that it's a good thing just to have some passion in life, regardless of how it pulls at you.

I played Yahtzee (Knuffle) with two germans (Natelie and Petra) until midnight last night. Man my accent has slipped.

So more quick lists, the people I've met: Dawn, Niamh, Tim, Hue Le, Lavina, Anna, Graham, Trevor, Dave. The people I've run across, "Chip" the drunken american with a tan to show, "guy who's in every airport I am but who's name I don't know", Arno, "very drunk swiss man at an all UK table", Natelie, Petra. More people than days, a good thing I'd say.

Train in an hour, then 2.5 hours till flight from Sydney to LA (flight 107), time to get a move on.

I tried to do something great today. Perhaps not great, poetic rather. And money was what stopped me. Money and an uncaring ticketing system.

As I walked around Sydney today - yesterday as well - a thought kept tugging at the back of my mind; to hell with work, delay my flight home, find Dawn and meet her. I called Qantas, called Dawn, found the flights and when and where to meet her and checked out of my hostel. I called Martin for his help, told him I was doing something very cool or very stupid and I couldn't tell which - maybe both. I got to the airport and went to the ticketing counter and was stopped dead, my return ticket couldn't be changed. I made two ticketing agents weep that they couldn't help me, that the only option they could offer me would be to just buy a new ticket for wednesday for $3000, or delay for at least a week and return for "only" $1200. To tell the truth, if I had the money I'd probably have spent it.

I don't know if it would or will lead to anything. It's probably a long shot at best, but for the first time in a while I'd really felt good. It wasn't just finding someone to squeeze who liked to squeeze me back - I honestly don't know how much she really felt for me, if this was more than two people out of their element enjoying a little stability. All that mattered was that life wasn't just about work and the drive home and the occasional game of pool anymore and that I was going to do something about it. No wondering what if I'd tried, no thinking "I should have". I was going to, I could say "I did". And fucking money stops me.

As I type, my cel phone's screen save shows superman flying along and smashing into a brick wall. I feel a bit like that now. Tomorrows flight is going to be long.

Sadly this will probably be my last update from the road. Tomorrow is my last day in Sydney and then I head to the airport fairly early on Saturday. But anyway.

Sydney is big, very big, I would say almost too big for my liking when traveling alone. It reminds me much of New York only with a slightly less convenient mass transportation system (I still can't figure out what type of pass I need). The YHA hostel here is HUGE which I consider a disadvantage. I'm on floor 5 of 9, each floor has it's own common room, however that room is dedicated to TV usage. There is a lounge area down on the ground floor but it is largely dominated by people sleeping or awaiting a bus or something, it makes meeting people somewhat difficult. I "met" another one of my roommates today, which consisted of me opening the door and him starting awake, mumbling something in a language I couldn't even begin to recognize and then passing out again. So yes, this city would be more enjoyable with my friends (new or old).

As it is I went to the opera house, the harbor bridge and got out near bondi beach but never actually hit the beach. Found a couple of cool parks - including one right next to the hostel - and determined that the train/underground is going to be the best way to get around since Sydney is a bit like seattle in the "maze of one-way streets" aspect. Tomorrow I'm going to climb one of the towers of the harbor bridge (rather than do the whole bridge walk, it costs $150!) and try and find a zoo. Two weeks hopping over australia and I've yet to see a koala or living kangaroo (dead ones or skins aplenty but I don't think those count).

So yes, Sydney is nice but not really in tune with the rest of the trip. I had to see it but I'd have much rather spent another two days (weeks? months?) with Dawn and Tim and Niamh. So if they ever read this, Chicken wishes he was back in Cairns. $1500 airfare, $175 work permit fee, and three promising short term contract IT jobs. Can you guess what I'm thinking about?

Cheers.

I think I was supposed to go to another rainforest yesterday. I honestly don't remember (any receipts long locked away in my email at home), I tried to poke around and find which company I thought I'd booked through but there are about a million different companies offering tours of the Daintree rainforest. Just another thing to see when I come back I suppose.

Consiquently Tim and I were idle most of the day and started to get a little cagey after about 1:00. I decided to take Dawn up on her suggestion of bleaching my hair (just the tips) so we wandered around trying to find a bleach kit. Unfortunately none to be found, but in the wandering around we ran in to Hue Le (I incorrectly named her Hun Le earlier) and Lavina. They thought I was heading to Sydney from Alice Springs and I'd forgotten when they said they were arriving so it was pretty long odds to just bump into them on the street - small continent like I said I guess. They were headed to "The Sportsbar" (that's its name) later that night so we decided to meet up with them. Found a pool hall and played a couple of games of strange australian rules pool, met up with Tim's two friends (Graham and Trevor I think), and then headed to the bar.

Since I've gotten most of my film developed I've got a picture of Hue Le and Lavina now (left and right respectively). Anyway they had free meals and we had free drinks at the Sportsbar (some YHA promotion) so we met up around 7:30. The food was average and the pool was fun but MAN did the DJ there suck. We figure he was trying to find what sort of music the crowd wanted to dance to so kept jumping from genre to genre with no real transitions. We thought that was pretty bad until he actually hit on the genre that most of the crowd wanted to dance to - gangsta/hip-hop/r&b/whatever. Tim and Graham slammed down their beers as quickly as they could and we headed out to the woolshed.

Having hit the Woolshed the first time on Australia day the second time was kind of disappointing. Not nearly as many people dancing and oddly enough it was the same music in almost exactly the same order. Still fun (they played House of Pain's "jump around" :) ), but I had a much better time the first time with Dawn and Tim. Lavin, Hue Le and I ended up leaving around midnight so I could get ready to head to sydney today and they could manage to wake up for their tours, I think Tim and Graham were there (or somewhere) until around 5:00 - obviously they had a good time.

They walked back on the Esplanade to see where my YHA was and try and stop the ringing in their ears. I told them I wanted to come back as soon as possible and they said they'd be back in sydney by then to show me all of the propper clubs. So there you have it. I have to come back to sydney in about two months. Dawn and Niamh will be set up by then and I can see them (hope their couch is nice :) ), Lavina and Hue Le will be back in town and can give me a propper tour. All I have to do is show up, seems easy enough. Checked prices, $1500 for airfare. I can probably save that in two months :)

But for now off to book a taxi to catch my 3:15 flight.

A couple of quick corrections. I didn't got see the Koala bears yesterday, day before I guess, I met up with Tim as I was going to book it and he said that there was still a chance to go white water rafting (they only run in the afternoon since they've only gotten about half of the rain they're supposed to have). There are pictures from that, but I haven't had a chance to go pick them up yet.

After that I changed my dive plans yet again. Rather than get up painfully early to catch a 6:45 bus I switched from the Quicksmart to the Osprey which left at a much more manageable 8:30 and was the same ship Tim, Dawn and Niamh (the correct spelling of Neve) were going on. Since early wakeup was not required we went to the bars again until around midnight when they closed. Pictures and more:

We only ended up going to two dive sites, the first one was kind of bland except for these little red and black fish swiming in the coral. If you wiggled your finger near them they'd come out and nibble on the end. It was a very strange sensation to say the least. That's the dive master's hand there demonstrating.

This is Manny (or murry, something like that), a HUGE fish that the dive crew keep as a pet at the second dive site. Whenever they go out there - basically daily - they feed him, so he's always around there and will come right on up to divers. When I say huge, I mean larger than full grown human size. You can make out in the left of the picture someone's dive gear to get a rough sense of size. I did try to pet him but he turned away in search of food.

Probably the best shot I got of the whole lot, there was a sea turtle grazing on the coral about halfway through our second dive. He was pretty content and fairly dosile so I got to get right up next to him for this picture. Previous experience told me they don't like to be touched, so I just let him keep eating.

Finally there was this school of about a million tiny silver/blue fish swimming around one of the reef clusters. The picture doesn't really capture it well, but does give a sense of how close and how many of them there were. There were also some giant clams we got to tickle to see them snap shut but not many good pictures of them.

That was about it for the dives, the boat was nice though the seas were somewhat rough so no one felt particualarly well at the end of the day. Also the combination of scuba gear and salt water seems to have rubbed off some of my sun screen so I have a very read face, hands and top of feet but the rest of my arms and legs are fine.

Nightlife. To put faces to names, from left to right are Tim, Niamh, Myself and Dawn. We went out to dinner after the cruise, I was fairly sunburned so kept mostly to water for the night rather than a lot of heavy food. We went to the Rattle and Hum as usual (where this picture was taken) then went in search of an Irish bar for the two girls. After that pub Tim, Dawn and I went to the Woolshed, though Dawn and I lost Tim somewhere in the process.

We'd thought it was odd that the bars in Cairns closed so early (midnight) and that they never seemed very crowded. Well the reason was everyone was at the Woolshed, great atmosphere and music to dance to. It was Australia day so everyone was well into party mode. The floor was packed so Dawn and I ended up dancing on a table with a bunch of other aussies. I thought it was real class that when I bumped into one fellow who was still on the ground - spilling some of his beer - rather than be pissy or wanting a fight he said "No worries, dance away mate". I love this place. Dawn and I stayed until around 2:00 and Tim stayed until around 3:30 I think. It was an excellent cap to the evening and a good farewell for Dawn and Niamh.

That is the one drawback to travling like this. I've gotten to know these three well enough over the last 3 days that it seems like I've known them forever. It's hard to say goodbye to friends, though we exchanged addresses and I'm supposed to return to Sydney as soon as possible where I can stay with Dawn and Niamh once they find a place. But for today it's finally a day of rest and trying to stay out of the sun somewhat. Tim is still sacked out and will probably be for a while longer but we're probably going to catch a movie or something else air conditioned since it's supposed to be nearly 40 today (around 105).

I keep writing it in my journal at the end of almost every entry, but it bears repeating; I love this trip, I needed it, and I'm glad it was delayed so I could meet the people I did. I love this place and will be back :)

Had a great time with some UKers last night. Tim, Elsa and myself went out to dinner to try and stave off falling asleep at 8 from exhaustion. On the way back we ran into an Irish girl named Daun I'd met just that morning. She and her friend Neve had gotten some cheap but hideously timed flights so arrived in Cairns around 8:00 in the morning, hadn't slept, and couldn't check in to the hostel until noon. Understandably she was pretty tired, but being irish it didn't take much to convince her to come out with us. She went back and fetched Neve (who was already asleep) and we went to a little bar around the corner. Daun and Neve were in insurance but quit to travel for a year because being in insurance when you're 24 is just sad (they're words). Elsa is studying law down in brisbane but is on some form of break for the next few weeks and Tim is traveling around with two friends (who are currently out at Uluru) but has just finished university. We had a great time, talked about music and the virtues of Guiness, only had to deal with one very trashed american who wanted to show everyone how good his tan was below the belt. But regardless it was fun and we'll probably go out again tonight. There's only one problem...

See I'm supposed to be on a boat on it's way to the outer great barrier reef right now, obviously I'm not. I wasn't really sure of the pickup time for my tour so got up and went out at around 7:30. Turns out it was 6:45. There was No possibility I was going to be up and ready by then, I was barely up and ready for 7:30. Thankfully the tour company is pretty forgiving, so now I'm going tomorrow, no extra charges. I had to find something to do with the day so I'm most likely heading to Wild World this afternoon where you get to go in and play with a mob of kangaroos and hold koalas and all that sort of stuff (see picture, from their website). It should be fun, and I'd planned on doing something similar, I'd just planned on doing it after diving. Oh well.

Also, it's cheaper to get film developed here (with picture CD) so I had my first 6 rolls developed (halfway through roll 7). I'm kind of anxious to see if any of the night sky turned out, though I don't have much hope for that given how bright the moon was that night.

Back to see if Tim's awake yet. I think he's stuck in Cairns today too, see if he has any ideas for the rest of the day.

I don't like flying. Anyone who knows me can tell you that. My favorite part of a flight is getting off of the plane. Apparently that holds true at 14,000 feet :)

There were only four jump teams in the small single engine cesna, 10 people total (4 2 people crews and two cameramen), but still I was the only one that got to do summersaults out of the plane.

One of the things they tell you to do is to breath through your nose and try and keep your mouth closed, it helps you breath easier and keeps your cheeks from flapping around. I don't appear to have listened very well.

A quick shot from above to show you about how high 14,000 feet is. We jumped well above the clouds and had a full 60 seconds of freefall before the chute opened. My dad said that 60 seconds was an eternity when jumping, I thought it was over with all too quickly.

I appear to be having a good time :) I got these pictures (and the video) taken because "I'll most likely only ever be doing this once". First thing I started thinking about when we hit the ground was when I could do it again. I don't seem to have a very good track record for predicting things I'll never do a second time.

The other people were really cool, the three I jumped with were all hung over but that only seemed to affect them once they hit the ground. A couple from Ireland and a guy from London who wore a straw cowboy hat (they wouldn't let him strap it on and jump in it, too bad - I thought it would have been great). The crew was great too; Tobi (the guy I was attached too) gave me a nice little guided tour after the chute opened. The cameraman Mark (I think) was a real nut, ex-army paratrooper whos highest jump was close to 27,000 feet (you need oxygen at that height).

I'm extremely happy I did it, but tomorrows trip through one of the rainforests is going to seem pretty darn tame in comparison. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the rest of the day.

(Bonus points to anyone who can get the reference in the title.)

Quick update, it turns out the french girl I met up on Uluru is in fact german. Somehow we ended up on the same baggage claim in Cairns and on the same bus to different hotels. Chatted for the ride and when I asked where she was from in france she said she was just speaking french to a random couple on the rock and that she's actually from Munich. She chided me for having let my german lapse, I seem to be getting chided a lot from europeans. Turns out she's a pretty serious diver and had just come from Thailand where she spent three weeks diving. Apparently it rivals the great barrier reef for interesting places to dive and isn't nearly as crowded. So now I "have to" go to thailand, france, germany again, paupa new guinee, and then the dozen or so towns and cities around australia that have their own special attractions.

I can't believe I ran into Anna, what are the odds?

Alice Springs isn't really much of a place to visit. It's more of a starting point for lots of short or long trips out into the bush. As such there isn't a whole lot to do or see here (except buy didjs, mine should be in the mail now). I met some nice people though.

One of my roommates in the hostel is Arno ("Arnold in French" he says). A nice fellow, very outgoing and surprisingly anxious to talk, I haven't had too much trouble with his accent. He's on vacation for two months, started in new zealand and is on his way down through the center of Australia right now. Plus he had the hat I've been looking for :) A Barmah Foldable Oiled hat (1062) size large. Anyway, he's from a city just outside of Paris and chided me for having seen germany and italy but never having seen his country. I told him I would and he said it had better be the next one I see. Hey, who's going to argue.

Later on I met two girls from Sydney who are on a quick three week tour of their own country. Hun le and Lavina are originally from korea and malasia respectively but have been in sydney for the last seven or eight years. They were sweet and tried not to make fun of my microwaved stirfry as they ate their freshly made meal. We shared dinner and talked about photography (Lavina is a little farther along on the enthusiast track than I am), dogs - they laughed that I keep addie overweight so she can't jump the fence, life in our respective cities, and places we'd like to see. They're both accountants of all things, though Hun le is currently unemployed and traveling (first time taking the hostel route). Hun le and I tried to explain the virtues of unemployment to Lavina, but she just didn't buy it. It was a pleasant four hours and helped finally kick my jetlag. I got pictures, but not digital, so this will be an entirely text based post. Anyway, I came away with a list of things to do and see in Sydney that I couldn't possibly complete in less than a week, never mind two days (the movie on the water sounds really cool if hard to get tickets for).

So Alice started off seeming like a wasted day, and I guess I didn't really need an entire 24 hours here, but it's always nice to meet more people. The flight for Cairns leaves in 4 hours and I have to return the rental car in two. I've been hoping the costal cities will be a little cooler, but from what I hear they're just as hot. Guess we'll see.

Uluru
Uluru (and by extension the rest of the Northern Territory) has been fun, if incredibly hot. It reaches near 100 pretty much every day here during the summer, but unlike the deserts of home it doesn't really get that cool in the night time. Yesterday was spent almost exclusively at Uluru (Ayer's rock) doing a climb and small base tour. After a quick exhaustion nap I spent the evening around the hostel listening to average-to-moderatly-okay lounge music and meeting a really cool guy named Dave. Picture and story as we go I suppose.

First off, if you stay in youth hostels, don't kid yourself about what kind of accomodations you'll be getting. This is my room, it technically sleeps four but there were only three in there the first night and I actually had the room to myself the second. I don't think I could lie down and fit the width of the room - and I'm not that tall a guy. However for $17 a night you really can't beat it given the hotels all run close to $100 and are the only other option.

Uluru at sunrise. We had a sunrise climb and base tour the first day with a pickup at 4:45 am. This was probably the first time jetlag worked for me :) I woke up at 2:30 that morning, tried some brief starfield photography and had plenty of time to get ready. We arrived about a half hour before sunrise and got to setup up to take some shots. Like a fool I'd left my tripod in the room but found some germans who were nice enough to let me rest my camera on the top of their camper van. The vantage was pretty good, but some very ends of the rock were obscured by some bush. It was all about being there though.

This is the start of the climb to the top of Uluru. It should be mentioned that the aboriginal people would prefer you NOT climb the rock as it is sacred to them, however their teachings say that no man may tell another what he may or may not do so you are free to choose. I chose to do it, it's not any easy call to make though. It's an average difficulty climb - 50 degree incline to start - but so incredibly worth the effort for the view. Once you past the first 1/3 you crest a small roll into a wind cut gully that nearly knocks you over with blasts of pleasingly cool air. I met a nice frech girl here and we swapped snapping pictures for eachother and then got caught in what often happens at sites like this where more and more people kept comming up and asking either of us to take a picture of them. We managed to leave in a lull but agreed you could make a small fortune sitting there taking pictures.
The top of the rock is quite peaceful - not counting the occasional cluster of very "touristy" groups who come up, slap the top marker and immediately begin their descent.

Lest we forget that american culture is ever present, the aboriginal culutural center had a coke machine right outside the "how bushmen survive on grubs and twigs" exhibit. I liked the logo though :)

Fairly sore from the hike/run down the rock (40 minutes up, 20 minutes down) I took just a short base tour of the rock, not all the way around but to see some of the key points. If I had more time I'd take the full tour with one of the aboriginal guides who runs through the entire creation story rather than the pared down version I managed to get. This particular potion had not real cultural significance, but I really liked the effect of being inside a curl of rock. It rolls down to a point that hovers about a foot above a flattened rock benieth it, very hammer and anvil evoking. Some paintings on the rock but they didn't turn out well in the digital photos.

When I returned home from Uluru this little guy was there to greet me at my door. He was just cooling himself in whatever cold air managed to leak out from under my door. I tried not to disturb him as I grabbed my camera but he got startled and scuttled away. I caught him two doors down and grabed this quick picture. I think he knew I was done with him and settled right back into a little slumber.

No more pictures, at least not digital, but after a power nap I roamed around the hostel for a while and met Dave. Dave is a 50 year old ex-navy shipman currently in month 4 of a 1 year quest to spend the money he's been saving. His situation is vaguely similar to Pat's in that he had a long stint working in a place with basically no opportunities to spend the money he was earning. He spent 16 months in Antarctica then came up through New Zealand before heading over to Australia. He gave me lots of pointers on great places to dive around the western portion of the continent (where I won't be of course) and I've already forgotten a good portion of them save to learn to Wreck dive (there are apparently a couple of extrodinary sunken battle ship dives at a couple of places up near Darwin and down near Adeilade). He was basically the kind of person I wanted to meet on these trips, a real traveler as opposed to a tourist who was more than happy to talk about the places he's been and would recommend visiting (I'm supposed to place China fairly high on my list). We chatted for a while about diving here and in the puget sound (he was from Eugene Oregon) and the photography while on the road. It was pleasent conversation and I'm glad I met him, plus it's nice to have people in picture rather than just massive slabs of stone.

I'm typing this in the morning but it probably won't be posted until I reach Alice Springs in the afternoon. May have something to say about Alice but from what I gather it's mostly just a good place to buy hats and Didjs (the ones around here are surprisingly commercial). Doesn't much matter, I'm there for less than 24 hours I doubt I'll get to get much of an impression about it.

7:30am, time to go bother the Thrifty car rental people about getting my car early.

Road to Alice Springs
Just arrived in Alice Springs after a 3 hour drive. It's quite expensive to own a car down here, $70 australian (about $35-40) to fill up about 3/4 of a tank on an SUV. Granted it is an SUV and I was driving around 160 Km/h so I did tend to burn through the fuel. Trying to do things somewhat cheaply I'm not sure it's worth the expense to rent a car from Uluru to Alice, however saving nearly three hours of travel time could probably be seen as making up for the cost. Depends on your priorities I suppose.

The drive was interesting if somewhat uneventful. Early on when the day was still somewhat cool there were lizards every few kilometers sunning themselves on the roads. Some where smart enough to scurry out of the way of cars, others less so. A few flocks of red and white cockatiel-like birds that liked to play chase with my car and a whole host of kangaroo skeletons along the side of the road, but other than that just lots and lots of road - it gave me a chance to look at the country side though.

I keep thinking the Creator must have been a bit punchy when he got around to doing Australia. There's the animals of course, but everything else has a sort of strange sense of humor to it as well. The rock of this place is always either twisted on it's side or seems to have been haphazardly hacked at by some massive sword. Driving along through twisted red and white trees you'll see what basically looks like a mound of rubble just poke up out of the middle of the plains - and this isn't even counting the flat topped mountains ("nope, don't like how that one turned out, best just slice it off and set it on it's side somewhere else"). This isn't to sound like I don't like the place - I do have a rather strange sense of humor myself. I'll just have to wait to tomorrow to see what the coastal lands look like.

And now I'm off to try and find a hat and Didj - or rather good hat's and didjs. I think I may have given up on finding an "authentic" didj and will just go for one that appeals to me.

24 hours on a plane. Well technically 22 with two 55 minute stops to get off the plane, go to the counter, check in, get through security, and get on the new plane. Thankfully the second plane was late (LA to Sydney) so I rushed on to sit :)

There is no way to upload pictures here at the Pioneer Lodge in Ayer's Rock - not that I have many yet - so you'll just have to imagine the rock, my tiny cell, and the rhinosarous pigeons until I can find a place to put pictures up. However since people like - I like them at least - the little notes I make to myself in my travel log, I present some of them now in chronological order:

• Free tickets, they always offer free tickets and lots of bous miles on flights I have absolutely no chance of delaying. Utah/vegas, a leg of italy and now seattle to LA. Oh well.
• First taste of Australian hospitality. They gave me the wrong seat since I couldn't check in until so late - I'm way in the back on the middle isle. I talke to the stewardess explaining my general distaste for flyig. The man who got the seat I had requested is happy to switch. I tell him I'll buy him all the beer he wants. "you don't owe me anything, have a good flight" he says. Pure soul - I wish I'd gotten a picture with him.
• I love Qantas. They give you gift bags on long flights. This one includes:
  1. A Lanyard - why?
  2. Socks - it's awfully nice to be able to change socks 12 hours into a flight.
  3. A sleep mask - at least I think it's a sleep mask, mine's sewn shut in half for some reason.
  4. Black Vial - Mouthwash? Toothpaste? The Plague? who knows, no one seems to be opening them though, don't think I will either.
• Wow, I can buy "Authentic" aboriginal art, boomerags ad bush hats right here in the airport. Somehow I think I'll wait and try elsewhere. I don't think aboriginals used quite that much glaze.
• Uluru - and for all I know the rest of the northern territory - exist in a half time zone. Flying in I have to change my watch 1:30. As far as I know there are only three such half time zones in the world - no real strong pull to go visit the other two (Siberia and somewhere near Turkey if I remember).
• I don't like Kangaroo. Not that I really hoped I would. It's just a little... kind of gamey like moose, only not quite. I guess they'll just have to stay cute fuzzy pests to me.

And there you go. Pictures to come, I promise. Hopefully good sunrise ones, gotta get up at 4:50 for the tour :)

That was probably the worst 36 hours of my life I've ever dealt with. What I initially thought to be food poisoning was in fact a stomach flu. Not at all enjoyable, though the 17 straight hours of sleep I got after most of the symptoms wore down was kind of nice. Experience it has led me to two rather odd conclusions:

1. There is nothing good on daytime TV anymore. Now if you're a fan of soap operas there is obviously going to be points of contention here, but baring them (and Oprah et al) there is NOTHING on daytime TV anymore. I remember on the crap days of summer vacation being able to watch old Batman or Land of the Lost reruns whenever some good old sci-fi movie wasn't to be found. Today it seems those are all religated to specialty channels somewhere in the premium Digital Cable lineup I choose not to subscribe to. So instead I get marathons of "Hands on History" and "Hell's Battlefield". Not all bad, but the black and white footage gets old after a while.
2. There are mighty good drugs out there now. I made it to my doctors on the first day when I was still feeling pretty much like death warmed over. After concluding like I had that it probably wasn't food poisoning they mentioned that the flu shot I'd gotten earlier does nothing to protect against these short term flus and that was likely the cause. Since I was pretty severly dehydrated they gave me a shot of some anti-nausea drug that works really really well - and partly contributed to the 17 hours of straight sleep. Felt fine stomach wise after that though.

So now I'm at work, trying to catch up on the two days I missed before I leave for vacation in another two days, all at still somewhat diminished capacity. Oh well, new bed arrived today so at least I'll sleep more comfortably tonight.

I got hassled by Nestle security last night.

Well okay, they were pretty polite - polite as security guards can be I guess. I went out to do some test night sky photography shots and figured a town near seattle named Duvall would work fine, it's about a half hour away and mostly shielded from all of the light polution. My boss lives near there and after having to drive him home once I got lost and found the Nestle training center (I kid you not) out there. Besides the brightly lit compound it's mostly just acres and acres of open fields - figured it would be a perfect spot.

I pulled off into just some random driveway that dipped down below the road (I hoped this would shield me from any random passing cars. As I'm pulling out my tripod - seriously no more than like 30 seconds after I stop - a truck with flashing orange lights pulled up and a guy gets out demanding to know what I'm doing on Nestle property. I explain and he says that's nice and all but I still have to leave.

So let that be a lesson to all of you, never mess with the chocolate cartels, they mean business.

I got about a dozen test shots at various exposure times and aperature settings last night (400 speed film). I wanted to drop them off on the way to work but the camera store wasn't open, I'll try again tonight. The 6 and 9 minute exposures should be interesting since two of the three of those I shot were in an area where occasionally car headlights would sweep through the trees. The camera was mostly shielded and the light never touched the lense but I have no idea how much light bleeds in in long exposures. I guess we'll see.

If any of the shots turn out (they were all of orion/mars or directly overhead since those were the two things I could identify) I'll post one.

Homer: "You know that feeling you get when a thousand knives of fire are stabbing you in the heart?"
Bart & Lisa: "No"
Homer: "Well I've got that feeling right now."

So whatever it is I did to my chest during the photo pictured above is getting slightly worse. That is to say, more movements or ranges of motion cause it to twinge in pain - never so bad as a sneeze, but still. The only thing I can think about is wondering how breathing pressurized scuba air is going to feel on it - deep breaths and all that.

Almost ready to begin the massive move into the new old house. I went over to the garage to pick up a few things and was amazed yet again by the amount of crap I've managed to accumulate. I brought over two boxes of "vital" stuff and could find nothing I needed in either of them. Things weren't all useless (blank cds are always good) but there were a lot of hardware boxes I'd saved "just in case". We'll see how much of it goes into the house and how much just sort of side tracks to the dump this saturday I guess.

I've got an itch to work on the WOPR but no tools or supplies or space to do it, bah. Guess I should completely flesh out the control circuit (and get some pictures and a schematic up here) since all that requires is a small amount of space to heat up the soldering iron.