phik

I’m in Maui for the Lustre Users Group meeting which we’re hosting — tough life, I know — and it’s been really stupid busy, although I did spend an hour snorkeling earlier. Mike and I found one of the fabled sea turtles a little ways offshore, and a few big schools of fish under some rock shelves. I’ve only ever snorkeled in little lakes in Ohio, where the most exciting thing you’ll find is a smallmouth bass, or perhaps a piece of masonry.

The first morning after I arrived, I went for a swim just after the sun came up, and there was a bikini model and photographer on the beach. The rest of the day was kind of a let down.

You know that you’re in a special country when the free wine in the airport lounge — the cheapest thing they can leave out that won’t be a complete insult — is a Jacob’s Creek shiraz. From this I can only conclude that this is truly a place of wondrous natural and human resources.

People occasionally ask me for the secret to multi-time-zone travel, although coming from Maui was only a 3 (well, 21) time zone difference. At any rate, the key is to be one of those people who can sleep on planes, go to sleep on your new time zone, and wake up for breakfast on your new time zone. If you can’t sleep, well, you’re pretty much fucked on that 13-hour flight anyways.

I have the opposite problem. I’m all set to get a lot of work done, without the constant interruption of the telephone, and the moment my ass hits the seat I’m asleep until we’re back at the gate. I guess it’s better than the alternative affliction.

I picked a mostly-random barber shop in the King’s Cross district, and I think I could not have done better. An awesome Italian-Australian man cut my hair almost entirely with a straight razor, which was a new and very pleasant experience. I have no idea if I’ll be able to find someone similar when I get back to Boston, but now I’m spoiled. It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a nice person cut my hair. It’s usually such a chore.

This is one of my only meeting-free days while in Australia, but we have something of a major release coming up for which I somehow find myself in the critical path. So I’ll probably need to work on that instead of seeing more of Sydney.

I bought an Australian SIM card for my phone two days ago, and every call I’ve received has been cut off after almost exactly 10 minutes. So today I went back to the store to troubleshoot, and while I was there, their mobile phone supplier came in for a visit.

While he was waiting for the owner, his bag was stolen, almost right out from under his nose.

Canberra is a pretty cute little city, although owning a car appears to be basically mandatory. It’s one of those planned cities, which I think in most cases means ass-y, but in this case means filled with awesome concentric circular streets and roundabouts.

I would be content to spend every February here, actually.

I ate at an average thai restaurant on London Circuit, which according to both the guidebook and the storefront is award-winning. What they don’t tell you is that it was for Slowest Restaurant in Canberra. I cannot in good faith recommend it.

If you are interested in getting on my good side, or have something for which you feel the need to apologize, or are the person whose job is basically to make me happy, I am now a very big fan of Cooper’s Sparkling Ale. I predict that I will have a difficult time finding it when I get home, not unlike the products of another favourite brewery, Sleeman.

In unrelated news, when I’m drunk in Australia, I’m pretty sure I talk with an Australian accent. I guess that’s just the risk one takes.

That is all.

I finally managed to have a kangaroo steak, after a false start involving an exceptionally busy restaurant on valentine’s day. I’m told that it’s best prepared like beef, and the “medium rare” they brought me was somewhat more done than it should have been, but no matter. The cut I had was quite good, and went very well with the roasted tomato and capsicum … topping? relish? Whatever.

I have definitely had better beef, but this was also probably not the best kangaroo that man is capable of preparing. So by no means would I reject another meal of the same.

I caught an amazing show on the BBC last night about Venice. The highlight was the last interview, with a man who owns a wood shop. He makes all sorts of everyday items out of wood — “jackets” and “hats” hanging on pegs, chairs which look like they have cushions, sneakers, bowls of fruit, all manner of things.

The finale was a fully operational amphibious convertible made entirely of wood, except for the engine and other necessary automotive components. Even the folded-down “soft” top was made of wood. I wish I had a clip of that wooden car driving down the river.

Before I went to the airport I stopped at Circular Quay, to see if the Queen Mary 2 is moored there. To my delight, it is.

Make no mistake, this is an extremely large boat. If I said that it is the largest ocean liner in the world, that would not be exaggeration, that would be the truth.

After carrying it for probably 14 months and something like 80 flights, the “security” guy in the Sydney airport decided to confiscate my one-inch eyeglasses screwdriver for being a lethally dangerous sharp object. Amazingly, the TSA is incredibly consistent, in ways that the rest of the world never is. I have never had an easier time having my privacy invaded than since the federal government took over, which makes sense, since they have so much practise.

There is an (out of order) computer here in the lounge, which appears normally to have internet access, and I see a wire snaking back to a Cisco 800. I’m tempted to plug in and see where I end up, but given the unrelenting paranoia in airports, that could easily be jail. And not the good jail, like on Cinemax. The man jail.

There was a store selling various customs-inspected and approved Australian perishables in the airport, but they only had fish and beef, no kangaroo. Sorry Mike.

I was going to stay in Boston for at least 3 days, but you know, I’m a sucker for being away.

A carefully, albeit belatedly, orchestrated scheme came to brilliant fruition when Mike came bounding down the stairs expecting me to be somewhere — anywhere — except his doorstep. Success!

I tipped Tyla off in advance, because although we all love surprises, the uninvited-out-of-town-houseguest surprise is the kind that rarely goes unpunished.

I got to see Aven, Mark, and Madhava, which was an additional bonus extremely nice surprise. Aven and Mark regaled me with tales of my own life, regurgitated from my own writings. It made me feel special, and stalked.

Today is Hockey Day in Canada — which is the real reason I came to visit — a phenomenon for which there is no parallel in the United States, or perhaps anywhere. All of the Canadian NHL teams play each other, while junior and pick-up teams across the country play shinny or drink a lot of beer. We fell into the latter category, a fact from which I take absolutely no shame.

Jacob arrived early this morning, and I think he’s been awake for something like 36 hours. He’s a lot less surly than I would be, I think, but I usually do my best to avoid subjecting other people to me after my all-nighters.

We were all pretty tired, but between the Halo and the Hockey — the two Hs of weekend family entertainment — we managed to stay awake until a respectable hour.

I was stunned by some kind of loud wetness during the night, but it was over quickly and it was lost to the mists of fatigue and time.

Until Jacob started telling a story this morning about how Chester was drinking his water and making some kind of loud drinking noise. So what did he do? He threw water on Chester, of course, who promptly jumped down and shook it all off onto me. So that mystery is solved.

Mike was going to drive us to the airport — on surface roads, apparently, because he’s not allowed on the highway yet — but there was some snowfall and he was not interested in practising in the snow, I guess. That’s probably for the best, because then we can leave later in a taxi and expect fewer surprising delays.

Jacob and I thought the thumping was just innocent taxi noise, like some ice falling out of the wheel well, or perhaps running over a rock or small child. It turns out that you can drive for quite a long time with an extremely flat — a hole the size of my fist — tire.

K met us at the airport, and some gifts of coffee cake were exchanged. Later we had dinner with Jacob, k, Shona, and surly-Chris. He wouldn’t say why he was surly.

You would be surprised at just how easy it was to find a cricket league in Boston.

I tried to spur people towards holding friendly cricket matches at CMU, but in typical fashion, people were more willing to talk on the newsgroup than actually show up and play. To be honest, not even that many people were on the newsgroup (although it existed before I arrived). Not nearly enough to field two full teams.

Anyways, there are two Boston-area clubs which have friendly teams of people like me — let’s call them losers — who need a lot of on-field practise before they’re ready to compete with the other teams — let’s call them winners. In all, there are enough teams that there are two divisions, and most clubs field a first and second eleven. I am excited for the weather to break.