Busy. Sick. Tired. Busy.

So many of you have probably been wondering "where is k?" (okay, this may be few, or even one). Though I have link to my current location on the left hand column, I haven't really updated my blog in a month or so. Well, I've been busy. And sick. And sick of being busy:

• I went to Vegas in early October for too long (>24 hours) and got sick. I did get to visit the Ghost Bar, but didn't get sick there.
  
  
  
  
• Still sick, I went to Tokyo and got stuck in Narita Airport for 40 hours after they cancelled my flight. Yes, there is a DFA letter in mail to United for that one (United believes that $350 travel voucher squares us, me not so much). On the plus side, I did get well acquainted with their awesome beer machines:
  
• I cooled my heels in Australia for a week. I say cooled my heels because I was in Australia (Brisbane then Sydney) eight days for the total of 2 hours of customer meetings and 6 hours of internal meetings. Basically, one day of work for 6 days of boredom and 36 hours of travel.
  
  
• I was home for about a week and was still sick.
• I finished off the month with a quick trip to Bangkok for 48 hours.

Now, I am on vacation until early January. Maybe I will actually post something interesting between then and now.

Last Stop

After another overnight flight, I arrived in Australia for the last stop on the magical tour. Wednesday was a business breakfast and lunch with executives. While the lunch was non-descript business, we had spectacular location in the Circular Quay cruise ship passenger terminal. The weather was absolutely perfect. This is the obligatory shot of the Opera House from the balcony of the terminal.


Unfortuantely, I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy the weather. I had to immediately jumped on a plane down to Melbourne for another set of meetings. Up early for breakfast presentation to partners, a quick stop into office where I got to have massive flat white at Metro with colleagues. I've never posted this in my months of work down in Melbourne (which is a curious ommission with my peroccupation with java), but Metro makes two sizes of latte: just right and larger-than-your-head. Young Brett got a larger-than-your-head flat white to cope with the nocturnal adventures of his young son:


I got through my lunch presentation and headed directly back to the airport and Sydney. That night I caught up with Niall for Indian food at Karmas then some drinks. He took me to a new bar in the Rocks -- The Argyle. It was a bit too trendy but pretty nice. Lots of open space and different areas.

And they had Asahi on tap. Thumbs up there.

With that my little trip was done. I caught a 747 back to San Francisco the next morning.

Goodbye Australia

Since Friday was my last day in Australia after my eight month stint, I decided to do two uniquely Australian things to round out my stay.

Footy

The inexplicable game that is Australian Rules Football is a insanity passion in Melbourne. Friday night, I snagged a ticket to see the battle for last place between Richmond and Melbourne (most of the teams are suburban Melbourne neighborhoods). Life was good -- we were rooting for Richmond (go tigers) and they thumped Melbourne 124 - 75.

Less good was bitter cold (it dropped to about 40F) and the 8 renditions of the Tigers fight song that we had to endure after the game. Here in the US, we can only hope that it doesn't invade our shores.

Vegemite

A brown, salty paste that is commonly spread on toast. It is vile. Or so I remember from the last time I tried it in 1999.

And I am happy to report that nothing has changed. Vegemite, still nasty.

This completes my prolonged assignment in Australia. I'm home for a stretch, then off to India, Malaysia and . . . Sydney again.

Wombat

To take advantage of my last weekend in Melbourne, Chris and I went to the southern most point of mainland Australia, Wilson's Promontory. Wilson's Promontory is about 2 hours south of Melbourne. It wasn't a bad drive but the weather along the coast was a bit brisk.

Wilson's Promontory is a national park that kinda sticks out in the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. Having been a national park since sometime before the turn of the 20th century, you get to see a wide range of wildlife. Just inside the gates to the Promontory, we happened onto a glen with a wombat, several kangaroos and an emu.


I wanted to get out of the car to get a better picture of the wombat, but the emu was huge, pretty mobile and didn't seem to be in a good mood.


Further into the park, we found a nature center and the only settlement on the pennisula, Tidal River. Not much to see, except that it was absolutely overrun with King Parrots. They were everywhere, even walking up to people for food.


Since we were all the way down there, we decided to hike to the highest point in the park, Mount Oberon, to get a better view. The climb was about 2 miles and 1200', but the views were fantastic.


This is the summit looking west back towards Tidal River.


This one looks south towards the Bass Strait.


All in all, a pretty good trip.

I'm With The Band

You meet interesting people flying international flights. This is good because often times you are sitting next to a person for the better part of an entire day. And I've been pretty lucky over the past year. For example, I sat next to a professional cyclist on my flight home from Japan a few weeks ago.

Now usually, I am not a great seatmate. I don't really like sitting next to people and basically just keep to myself. But I got lucky on my trip out and there was no one in the middle seat so I was in a pretty good mood. That is, until I saw my seatmate's reading materials. He had a large, leatherbound with gold gilted pages. I almost panicked thinking he might be ... religious. And talkative. Not wanting to chance it (it is a 14 hour flight), I immediate went into immersion mode by pulling out the laptop and putting on my headphones.

About half way through my fifth or sixth song, I catch a better glimpse of his book. It turns out it isn't a bible, but actually a trade handcover called The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. So probably not a religious guy after all. Just odd. But I can deal with odd. Hell, I know odd pretty well myself.
Realising that danger is over, I come out of immersion mode and took off my headphones. He asks me about my mac, turns out his MacBook Pro was stolen a few weeks ago (note to self: do not leave lappy in your pickup). He's a bit into computers and we talk about some normal Mac stuff, mostly related to music software. During the course of the conversation, he asks why I'm going to Australia. I give him my sad story and return the question. "Concert," he says. Curious, I ask for details. Turns out he's a sound engineer for Brand New, a punk pop band. A punk pop band I actually know. He's surprised, as am I. Turns out, he tours with a lot of bands from Primus to Lisa Loeb to the White Stripes. It's a pretty damn interesting conversation.

As we part after clearing customs and such, he stops and asks if I want to come to the concert on Friday night. And as you well know, I don't have a lot going on in Melbourne, so I accept. He says if he can swing it, he'll send me an SMS. Cool.

I have to go straight to a customer meeting after I land so I quickly forget about the conversation and go about my work week. However, come Friday afternoon I get a SMS: "I'll put u on the guest list for tonight if ur interesting in coming. Doors open at 9pm." I look up the club that they're playing at and it turns out it is only 5 blocks from my hotel. Certainly worth at least a fly-by.

Around 9 pm, I cruise by the venue. And there is literally a line around the block. Crap, best laid plans and all. Of well, I'll grab some food and if the line peters out I'll go in. I go around the corner and settle into Nandos for dinner. Finishing my Double Classic, I get another SMS: "There's a long line. If u make it here before 10 let me know. I'll meet you outside with a pass.." Damn, this is getting better and better. I finish my sandwich and head over. The line is still huge, but emboldened by my inside contact, I just walk up to the head of the line. "I'm on the list," I tell the bouncer. He looks me over (as I am twenty years older than everyone in line) and tells me to go see the ticket people. I scoot inside to jeers in the crowd. I give my name to the ticket lady and she searches the list. "Sorry, I don't see your tickets," she says. I say that the band left me passes. Apparently, I've said the magic words. "Oh, you're with THE BAND." And she pulls out a different list, with only 3 people on it. And my name is at the top with VIP next to it. Almost giddy, I repeat after her, "Yes, I AM WITH THE BAND." She is now quite apologetic and says that I should go right in. Emboldened by my new found status, and sensing that my American accent might let me pull this off, I start towards the entrance then stop and ask "Oh, will I need a bracelet to get back stage? I've never been here before." At this point, she is almost falling over herself. She says that they don't do bracelets, but she can get someone to take me if I want. This is a little higher risk that I had intended, so I decline and walked in.

It turned out that I made the right choice. The bars were on the opposite side of the venue from the stage, but still had a front and center view of the stage. In fact, we could stand right behind and above the sound boards (where I got a chance to talk with my seatmate). The concert itself was really quite good. I never really followed Brand New before, but they put on a long show (2+ hours) that showcased a lot of different material. You can tell they have changed their sound quite a bit of the years. The crowd was really into the show, I think they sung along word for word for the first hour.

I caught up with my seatmate after the show. He thought it had gone pretty well and was ready to go out for drinks with the band. I was still shaking off my jet lag a bit so I declined to come along. They are off to Sydney then Brisbane to complete the tour.

My camera phone took some pretty crappy pictures but some posted some video to YouTube:

Lazy Sunday (St Kilda Edition)

Anglo-Boer War Memorial
Originally uploaded by /k.

I've been on flights most of the past three weekends and am off to Japan this Friday, so I decided to take it easy and just hang out here in St Kilda for a few days. However, that turned out to more boring that I anticipated -- especially when I burned through my last episodes of Heroes and the Sopranos on Friday night. So I decided that I should at least walk into Melbourne CBD to get some reading materials.

On my walk, I spotted this about three-fourth of the way there. Melbourne has a huge war memorial park and this particular memorial is from the Second Anglo-Boer War (South Africa around 1901). I'm not sure what it is supposed to symbolize but it is quite striking.

Big Screen

While I have always been in awe of the 108" big screen at the Powerhouse, in the back of my mind I thought there must be a bigger TV out there. And there is. Here in Sydney at the James Squire Brewhouse I found a TV larger than me.

Yes, it is just a projection dealie, but I still sat mesmerized for hours. Even through Aussie Rules Football.

Back From Vacation

So I haven't blogged much lately. Sure, I've been hitting twitter pretty hard (which has probably cut into my blogging), but there really hasn't been a lot going on in the past few weeks. To recap:

• I flew back from Melbourne on a long, long flight. I was happy to be back in NorCal.
• I flew to Nashville to meet up with some of my friends and play golf for a vacation. On my flight from Chicago to Nashville, Ashley Judd sat about five seats from me. I was oblivious to who she was until the flight attendant asked for her autograph and she almost bitch-slapped him. Although tired, I made a mental note to "never mess with an grumpy Judd" in the back of my mind.
• I was delayed on every single flight I took for two weeks. Sometimes short delays, sometimes long delays, sometimes even cancelled flights. I cursed "flow control" many times.
• Nashville seems a bit sleepy and backwards but was actually a lot of fun.
• I got some time with my girlfriend and dogs. Shelley is working at home a few days a week now (which confuses the hell out of Louie and Zeke) which makes life a lot easier.
• And I am back in Melbourne. It now feels like I am always in Melbourne. And I now believe that Melbourne might be the most boring place in the world. I am beginning to miss Nashville.

Just kidding about the last piece (before the entirety of Melbourne descends on my Aussie rules style and gives me a massive wedgie). To prove it, I will highlight one of the best thing about the Melbourne office: our prodigious wine selection (and extreme willingness to sample it). Back when I joined my firm (pre-Internet boom days), it was an unspoken rule that every office had a quality stock of booze. Even a corporate HQ (where I was stationed), there were Friday keggers. And in the more remote parts of the empire, it was usually much better. Unfortunately, economic reality set in, political correctness crept back and this tradition started to wane. Not here in Melbourne. Melbourne, being the heart of the Australian wine industry (Yarra Valley is close), has always had a quality selection of the vino. So much so that, they have converted an old computer (19" style rack for those in the know) into their wine cellar. We have a fairly constant supply of two to three cases of red with a sprinkling of white for consumption anytime after about 4:00 PM.

It being Friday and well after 4:00 PM, I am having a glass of the 2005 Mitolo Jester Shiraz. Bold, very full bodied with a bit of spice, The Jester is a Aussie Shiraz drinker's red. It has just come into its own (it was to be aged about 2 years) so we have a good supply and I expect to be drinking a fair bit of it over the coming two weeks.

I am off to New Zealand tomorrow to visit a customer in Auckland, so I should have something to post from there.

Mt Buller Beerfest

After my day of hard riding, I attended the Mt Buller BeerFest which was held practically outside the front door of my hotel in the Village Center. It was a small, intimate affair -- there were only about 100 people on the mountain -- but we still had more than 50 people of all ages.

• Mountain Goat Hightail Ale: Malty. Rich smooth finish. Low hoppyness. Nice. 85.
• Jamison Mountain Ale: Darker. Even malty-er. nice finish. Higher alcohol -- maybe like a barley wine. Dark wheatbeer. 88.
• James Squire Amber: somewhere in between the others. More hops, less malt.
• Bearings Draft: Lighter, pilsner type. Geelong based. Nice but a little nondescript. 82 at best.
• Holgate White Ale: Belgian. Banana esthers. White. More hoegarden than hoegarden. 86.
• Chieftain Amber: Nice. Malty but complex. Interesting finish. Beer drinkers beer.
• What's Brewing Amber: Nice but not remembersal (?). I might go visit these guys, since they are just down the road from Melbourne in Geelong.
  
• Holgate Winter Ale: Porter. Unique in Australia. Nice. Not extremely chocolately but very drinkable w/ a smooth after taste.

The picture below shows the Village Center, the beer tents and the "band."
I think I may have some more beers, but truthfully, I don't think I could remember how to work my Treo after the Winter Ale. I topped the night off with some of my new found mountain bike rider friends at the only pub/restaurant open on the mountain.

Bike Buller

After arriving pretty late on Friday night, I awoke early to catch some breakfast and get up the hill for some biking. Mount Buller repurposes their ski lifts and runs during the summer to be open for mountain bikes. They've paired up with an American manufacturer, Kona, to become one of their approved bike park. While the prices were a bit steep, I decided to hire one of their downhill bikes -- the Kona Stinky. The Stinky is a slightly longer travel, stouter, more downhill oriented bike than my Stumperjumper FSR at home.

Mt Buller has a number of downhill runs, but most of them are pretty advanced. I picked the ABOM run, which was rated intermediate, instead of the International run, which at expert had several jumps and 2 meter drops. This was a wise choice, ABOM was extremely rocky and pretty technical. Unfortunately, half way down I realized that the Aussies reverse their brake levers from Americans (left is back, right is front). Not before going over the handlebars once. But none the worse for wear, I made it down to the village.

After I completed my first run, I decided to hook up with a guide that was leading around another group of riders up from Geelong (near Melbourne). This was cool -- they were worse than I was -- and the guide knew a lot of less downhilly type rides around the mountain and village. This was great since I got to see a lot more of the mountain and get away from the developments. Unfortunately, you still needed to use the chair lift to get back up the mountain (the stinky is a really heavy bike). I believe that I may have used up one of my nine lives here -- I fell off once and felt like I was about to the six other times. This shot is over my shoulder as I went up the lift.

I got in about 7 or 8 runs before calling it a day. All in all, well worth the time and effort.

Morning on Mt Buller

I woke this morning to a scene from my old house in Pacifica: fog rolling over the mountain and through the valleys. When I woke and opened my shades, we were completely fogged in. Five minutes later, it looked like this. You need to click on the photo to see it full size.

Off To The Snow Fields

Due to high hotel demand (the Melbourne F1 race and the FINA swimming world championships are in town this weekend), I have decided to flee to the hills for the weekend. The closest "mountains" to Melbourne is Mount Buller, which is located about 4 hours away by car. Although the drive was an adventure (I really don't drive much and I certainly don't drive on the left side of the road much), I made it up here before nightfall. I was pretty proud that I only drove the wrong side of the road twice.
Mount Buller seems nice so far, but it being low season (it's just getting into the fall here in Australia), there's no one here. When I went down to the pub/restaurant there were only ten other people there -- the waiter told me that was everyone staying in the hotel. That's a little creepy -- almost like "The Shining."
I'll post more news tomorrow -- I am off to mountain bike and attend the beer festival (you knew there was a hook here didn't you?) tomorrow.

Celebrity Sighting #3

I do not know if I am just more observant that I used to be, or I hang out in more glamorous place or I simply travel more often, but I see a lot of celebrities lately. Of course, it could be that celebrities are drawn to me. Then again, I do see most of these people in bars...My latest sighting came last night at the Tank Stream Bar in downtown Sydney. Niall and I had slipped into the trendy bar before most people come and found it empty except for two strange looking blokes hanging out with models. This peaked Niall's interest -- rightly so, it turned out -- and after he came back from the bar, he knew why: it was Simon Pegg and Nick Frost from Shaun of the Dead (Simon above over Niall's shoulder and Nick hiding outside behind the shutter).Apparently, they were in Sydney for the Australian premiere of Hot Fuzz, their new movie, and decided to grab a quick drink before the actual festivities. The bartender said they were actually staying in the hotel.

Farm Animals At Breakfast

Goat, originally uploaded by /k.

I forgot to post about this when I uploaded them to Flickr, but they probably need a little bit of explanation. On the last Sunday of my most recent trip to Melbourne, I decided to get up early and get breakfast over in Prahahn. Prahahn is a kinda nice neighborhood in southern Melbourne with a lot of cafes (and loud gay bars, but that's a different story entirely). So I wander over to the Prahahn Market, which is a indoor/outdoor market in the center of the neighborhood. I order my big breakfast (a standard staple of the Aussie breakfast menu) and sit down in the courtyard. And then I hear barking. And whinying. Crap, I thought I was back home. But no. They had a farm animals in a small pen in the courtyard for the kids. Which, although entirely too close to my breakfast, was a lot of fun. You can see the other photos over at my flickr page, but goats, rabbits, chickens, herding dogs and ponies were all represented. The best part of the little show was the herding dogs -- he definitely wasn't amused by the rabbits running around causing trouble. Eventually, he rounded them all up into a little wooden triangle area and kept guard of them for the next hour. I need to teach louie to do that.

Woot!

We're up to TWO smiles per hour !
Along those same revisionist lines, I take back my previous car choice. I want this now:both images captured on St. Kilda Road here in Melbourne.

Dorks Down Under

I am happy to see that my adopted homeland of Australia is not too proud to succumb to the dorky pleasures of the Segway. Of course, I am afraid this may create a Segway arms race with Canada and Las Vegas.

My Next Car

More Robots

Jim and I have been searching for something to do tonight, it being the day after Australia Day here in Sydney, and thought we had a winner in Devolution. It was described as a performance piece exploring technology and art. Cool, robots. And Jim likes the whole performance art thing. Fine. As long as there are robots.We cruise down to the theater which is a converted factory. The space is pretty cool, and they serve beer, so I am good. However, this quickly goes south when I find out we can't take the beer into the actual seating area.
This gets worse when I figure out that "performance art" is actually code word for "fruity dancing." Lots of fruity dancing. And some nudity. Male nudity. There are some robots: two tyrannosaurus rex thingies, three ETs and several spider looking things. They were good. But I can sum up my review for the "piece" in two words: More. Robots.
The night wasn't a total loss; We stopped at the 3 Wise Monkeys on the way home.

Melbourne Downtown

I took advantage of my last full day in Melbourne (at least for this year) and hiked to the end of St Kilda's Pier. There's a nice little cafe with views of downtown Melbourne through the marina. Check out Flickr's cool geotag view for more photos from this same spot.

Pub Crawl

While I was waiting to catch up with my friend Niall on Saturday, I had to scout out a pub for our meeting place. Luckily, Sydney actually publishes brochures on their pubs:We eventually ended up at the 3 Wise Monkeys, my favorite Irish ex-pat establishment.