Ruminations

Since I got back I've been taking a good break from blogging of any kind. There are several reasons for this, firstly the need to make up for lost time and get on top of university. But also I think I needed a rest from it. I've become progressively jaded about the concept, and have not been enjoying what has at times seemed like a chore and an exercise in futility. A greay many other bloggers will probably feel the same at some point, I imagine.

Also, this blog no longer feels entirely right. I created it quite some time ago when I was thinking and feeling different things and perhaps the sentiment expressed in its creation, and indeed its name, are no longer accurate or even appropriate. I can't continue to do something that doesn't intrigue and excite me.

So obviously I need a change, and a change is as good as a holiday - maybe like the holiday I've just had.

I think I need to consider just what I want out of this blog and what I am prepared to put into it - and indeed what my readers, if there are any left, are prepared to put into it. A blog with no comments is like a club with one member, John Quiggan once said, and if that one member's heart is not in it then all you have is an empty shell devoid of feeling or purpose.

I cannot let this become a liability to my career, but neither can I completely ignore my need for some kind of outlet from time to time, a means to practice my skills and keep my mind working, and to put any work I do in the course of my studies or my own volition up for feedback.

Perhaps I should start over with something new, fresh and more mixed with something for everyone; so people, and indeed myself, will actually find it interesting and engaging again. Maybe I should get a bit more professional and make a new blog with a proper domain and a better software than Blogger - Wordpress served me well for my travel blog.

So I guess I'm in need of some direction, or even a new one. I'll think some more, and if anyone has any suggestions I invite you to indulge me with them. For the time being I'll post when I feel the urge and about whatever suits me.

The saga is complete

So, I'm back. Got on my plane at Sydney airport and got back to Perth around 2:20pm. It was a reasonably uneventful flight other than that the entertainment was not comparable to anything in the other flights I've had. I'm obviously too used to international. What was even cooler though is that the entire Warrtahs team (Rugby Union team, presumably here to play against our new and pretty terrible team) was on the plane, as was lead striker for the Perth Glory soccer team, Bobby Despotovski. Obviously there was a media presence and Mum managed to get on TV in the background during one of Bobby's soundbytes on the news last night. I have a couple of blury photos too (I zoomed in a lot and didn't want to use flash, he was getting mobbed enough already).

Come home, unpack the mountain of stuff, go to watch Syriana with Dad, and watch a couple of episodes of Babylon 5. This will be the last entry in this series and regular programming will begin again probably sometime next week.

Now to start saving for the next one...

Fish

Today I met Dan in Sydney as planned and we had very good, very expensive pancakes, then walked to and over the Harbour Birdge to Kiribilli House, residence of a certain politician, and then went back to the bridge via various slightly illegal means, as well as taking lots of photos. He then went home and I walked to the Opera House and back to the city where I got on a bus and went back here. Sydney has so much better ambience than Perth and just wandering around the central city streets shortly after dark was quite nice in itself.

I'm getting up at 7am and going to the airport several hours early for logistical reasons, then I have to wait ages until my flight leaves and then I'm home, finally. No more suitcases til after Christmas.

Red and White

I’m now in Sydney, having left Canberra this morning. I got in to Sydney Central at around 3:50pm and had a couple of beers with Shaun Cronin and friend until 6:30 and then figured out how to get to the Kennedy’s place. Since then I have done absolutely nothing, and unless a social engagement presents itself, I will spend tomorrow recovering, starting by sleeping in. Sunday will be consumed by church and Monday I’m meeting Daniel at some point and we’ll spend the day doing something, I don’t know. Then Tuesday I’m outta here back home.

Sydney is just as I remember and envisaged it. I would probably stay longer but I’m already two weeks late for university which is causing enough problems. Same with Canberra, though that’s purely for social reasons, as it’s more boring than an American college town.

Shortest museum visit ever

8th March 2006

Today I walked to the National Museum. It is so not worth the walk, just don’t bother. Firstly the arhitecture was far too modern and generally strange, then it wasnt even that big, and mostly extremely boring and cringe-worthy. It’s almost like it was made to push a political agenda, as it was amazingly blatant with its editorialising of each exhibit. It was classic left/green stuff and wasn’t really even trying to hide it. It also perpetuates the old, tired, corny, manufactured stereotypes about Australian identity and culture that either no longer apply or are built upon myths or generalisations. It just got worse and worse and more and more blatant. Just, wow. It wasn’t even much good and it didn’t take me long to breeze through it, finding very little of even slight interest.

What is with people living in their own imagined, slanted, bubble world and then making a museum about it that bears the nation’s name?

I know I sound like Andrew Bolt (who greatest hits with commentary from himself has been made into a book, which I had to put down a few minutes after opening it, for fear of throwing it across the Target book section), but honestly, it’s just that bad. The area is pretty though, even if it is a hike.

Bushwhacked

6th March 2006

I am back on Australian soil. This makes me quite happy as, though America is quite an awesome place, the culture does get a bit soul destroying after a while, and I’m sick of these suitcases. So tomorrow I enter my last week of this saga, somewhat mourfully, and return to Perth next Tuesday and surrender my life to the university work I’m already behind on for a week or so. But first, a stopover in the barbarian lands that are the East of this country.

The Alaskan Airlines flights out of Seattle to LAX was predictably bad, other than the fortune of the mother and daughter next to me vactaing their seats to two empty ones, leaving me with three to myself. The flight from LAX to Sydney was much more enjoyable up to the last hour when we hit what can be guessed as the after-effects of a particularly nasty storm that hit southern Queensland on the weekend, though there were few clouds in the sky. I almost died, the turbulance was so bad - nothing like I’d ever experience before. My stomach has not yet fully recovered.

On the plane I watch HP4, Capote and Good Night and Good Luck. More on those later, suffice to say they made the flight much better. We really do have a good thing going in QANTAS, it is by far the best airline in the world on all fronts - never having had a fatal crash and very few crashes of any description, having a good standard of entertainment, up to date technology, and pretty good customer service.

The Greyhound from Sydney to Canberra was pretty good, there was a movie, which is unheard of on buses in my experience. It was only Catwoman though, not particularly great and the sound wasn’t loud enough. But it did its job and killed a couple of hours. Then what am I assaulted with while waiting at that station for Hannah to finish work? The worst game show of all time, Family Feud, has been revived and hosted by none other than Bert Newton. Australia, can I not leave the country for four months and not have you screw it up? Go to your room and think about what you did.

So now I’m on a farm somewhere south of Canberra and leaving at 7:30am every day this week to go to Canberra and ammuse myself until 5ish. Apparently parliament isn’t sitting, which greatly reduces the number of things to do from one to zero unless Ronnie and Co can conjure something up.

And Crash for best picture? pfffffft...

Sleepless in Seattle

3rd March 2006

Seattle, a small yet highly important city of less than 1 million nestled in the northwest corner of the United States, yet home to a powerful football team and headquaters of three giant corportations - Starbucks, Boeing and Microsoft. Bit like Galilee really.

It’s a very nice place though. I took the time to do a massive exploration and photo mission of the whole inner city on Friday and see what it has to offer. The answer is quite a lot. It’s very beautiful for a start, with some nice skyscrapers including the world-famous Space Needle, a waterfront ah la Fremantle, and possibly the best markets I have ever seen in my life.

If you ever go there, the two places you want to hit are Pier 66 and the Pike Place Markets. You can die happy once you have been to these markets - some of the best antique, knick-knack, produce and food shopping in such a small area, and with atmosphere to boot. Pier 66 will give you an easy to access skyline view, and behind you the expanse of the sound and the shores beyond it. It won’t cost you the excessive $14 cost of scaling the Space Needle, either.

Then there’s the coffee. If you drink it, there’s plenty of places to try - and I don’t mean the overpriced and overrated Starbucks. Avoid anything that looks like a chain and you’ll be fine. The waterfront also has some fine if odd gift shops and antique stores - the Ye Olde Curiosite Shope is not to be missed.

For the more adventurous, you can always try to rob Bill Gates’ house heavily guarded fortress or steal a Boeing plane for a jaunt down the runway.

Could I live here for any length of time? No, but it’s a nice place to spend a few days. I seriously didn’t sleep very well either, I don’t know why this is so.

Sydney meetup

So, I'm going to be in Sydney for a few days on my way home, from Friday 10th March til Tuesday 14th March. Seeing as I probably won't be back around those parts for quite some time, I'd like to take the opportunity to say hello to some of the Sydney blog crowd at some low-key meetup.

Anyone from around there have any good ideas?

I tried to ford the river and my oxen died

The line above is a reference to the Oregon Trail Game, played by a great many American children over many years. Consequently, every university on facebook has a group of nostalgic students using this line as the group name. On my 30+ hour trip from Stockton to Spokane, I passed through Oregon.

Yes, I am serious, it took that long to get here on four seperate Amtrak rides, and is definately on my List of Things I Say I Will Never Do Again But Probably Will. I got several hours to kill in Sacramento AKA ArnoldLand, so I went to the California State Capitol for about half an hour before it closed and got photos of the Governator office door. I also spied a Jonny Rockets in a shopping center, which fixed the problem of finding somewhere to eat for little money. Bottemless lemonades and $1.99 fries later and I can probably survive the ride to some random town just over the border in Oregon. Did I mention how much checked baggage on Amtrak rocks? Yesterday would have been hell (well, moreso) otherwise.

From there it was a long bus ride to Pasco in Washington State, including a stop at a random Oregon town that really isn't a town, more of a pit stop just before a major bridge into Washington with about four stores, a resturant and a couple of petrol stations - and a Maccas. It arrived quite early just after 7pm with my train not arriving til 9pm and then being half an hour late - of course. So I walked around a few dark Pasco streets and found a low-quality but very cheap bakery. Eventually got to Spokane at 12:45, met Joslyn and family, and slept until almost 1pm. It's pretty cold here.

Great balls of fire

18th February 2006

I was supposed to get on a train to Stockton from San Diego at 10pm Thursday night, but when driving to the station on CA-94 we came face to face with a rather nasty accident that had occured much less than 20 minutes prior. It seems a van or SUV had been involved in a high speed chase with a police car and had crashed into the side of the road, rolled, and caught fire. This is a guess from what I could see at the scene, as there was also a police car with some damage to its front less than 10 meters from the burning veichle and there was a seachlight helicopter hovering overhead.

Soon there were hundreds of cars behind us and at least 50 in front, so we were stuck for over half an hour. Needless to say we were quite late for the train. The reporter in me wanted to jump out of the car and see what was going on as well as take better pictures than the blurry drive-by ones I did get. Smoke and hundreds of car lights do not help the cause of a digital camera. Interestingly enough, there was no press around. They missed a great opportunity with the chaos of the time the westbound traffic was completely blocked. I’d have had a monopoly if I had any way of broadcasting.

It seems like this kind of thing is not unprecedented.

So, eventually got to the station, argued with the desk staff for a while (”Dammit, there was a car ON FIRE in front of us on 94!”) and got on a train at 7:05 Friday morning for an additional $5. Iron Chef, Daily Show, Colbert Report and a Baileys coffee made the annoyance not quite so bad. But really, how many times do you get to see a car ON FIRE less than 30 meters from you? It was cool.

So, had pizza after a three-leg train ride, met up with Bill, and went to some random house parties and room gatherings. There was also a half-hearted poker game in which I came second of six after being short stacked in the sudden death. I though I had him til he pulled a flush on the only had I went all the way with. Not that anyone was playing properly anyway.
Outta here to Spokane tomorrow night at almost midnight for a fun-filled 25 hour train ride. Hopefully my coat will have arrived in the mail by then after I left it in Colorado.

P. S:Bill has just informed me that his team lost their rugby game against San Francisco University 49-8 and only 12 of their players showed up. Lame.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all the cops have wooden legs...

15th February 2006

I‘m here in San Diego having made a long road trip with Meghan from Colarado on Sunday. It really does feel just like Perth, as I was told it would. This is because it’s around the same lattitude and is protected by hills, just like Perth. This means the climate is rather temperate instead of swinging between extremes. It also has similar humidity and pressure. All this, of course, makes it awesome.

So, on Friday Ben, Ester and I drove down to Colarado Springs to spend time with Ben’s brother Daniel, who is a Lt. Col in the US Air Force and teaches Biology at the Academy there. So we were escorted in to the secure Academy base and spent the night eating the first home cooked meal in quite some time. In the morning we went to the Garden of the Gods which really needs photos to be explained properly, but basically there are many beautiful rock structures. Think of Ayres rock cut up into little pieces and scattered everywhere. There’s also so great mountain views. Then we went back to the Academy and I was persuaded to fly the flight simulator that all cadets learn to fly on. I did fairly well, especially considering the amount Daniel played with my controls remotely to simulate problerms with the aircraft.

Then Sunday was the roadtrip with Meghan to San Diego. We left at around 7am with the back two seats as well as the boot packed solid with her stuff and my bags, as she is moving to San Diego and we conveniently combined the trips. There were also her two cats, which could not be left in their cages because they would freak out more than they already were, and would make noise constantly. So we left them roaming around the car, which was interesting at times as photos will show. I have scratches all over my body :/

It was a reasonably pleasant trip with much cool scenery. Yes, we drove past the Big Rock Candy Mountains and throuhg Las Vegas, though missed the Grand Canyon because the roads were closed. We finally arrived at around 2:30am after Meghan woke me up from a 40-mile nap “Nic, the interstate is gone!” What had happened was that there was some work done on some of the lanes so we got forced into an exit somehow. My awesome map skills got us there without too much trouble once we figured out what had happened.

We’ve basically just been chilling since we got here and dealing with a house that you can tell was populated only by guys Meghan has bought latex gloves and set about fixing this. It’s an awesome house though. And there is like 15lb each of hot dogs and mince in the freezer. What the hell? Now I have to work out how to get to Stockton tomorrow, if Portland is going to work, and how to deal with the fast exploding Seattle issue. Should all be good though, I hope.

Note about Friday night

8th February 2006

Two things of interest on Friday night I’d like to go into a little bit more detail about. Firstly at the arcade there was a room full of the usual video game shooters such as the ever-present Virtua Cop and Time Crisis and so forth that are a vital part of every arcade in the world. This room was totally seperate from the rest of the arcade and was restricted to those 17 and older.

I take exception to this, mostly on sentimentality. In Australia there is the universally known arcade giant Timezone, which has a wide variety of games including those in the 17+ section of the arcade we visited on Friday. Timezone, whether intentional or not, has always had a somewhat community feel to it on the very few occasions I went there to waste my parents’ money as a kid. Part of this was that when a good player of any of the games in question got a reasonable distance through the notoriously long and difficult levels, a small but gradually increasing crowd would stand around to watch - not which doing something else, but just stand and do nothing but watch this guy play, hoping that just maybe you would finally see someone finish it. By confining these games to a small room that allows only those 17 and over - definately not the majoity attendance of any given arcade - you severely reduce or even destroy this phenomenom, which I think is sad.

Secondly, I’ve always been facinated by the way rock climbers, no matter if it’s their first or 1000th time, always have almost exactly the same instincts. The way they look up a wall to plan their path, the way they test their footing before putting all their weight on it, the way they feel around potential hand holds with their hands and eyes, the way they watch their feet when swapping them, the way they relax their arms before attempting a particularly difficult stretch - if you watch enough climbers, and especially when you climb yourself semi-regularly, you will notice the uncanny similarities. I just find this very interesting, even if it’s something that must be observed and doesn’t translate well to paper.

Mile high

I apologise profusely for lack of updates, I haven't been at a PC that would let me login and Blogger has been playing up. Dates of these entries are bolded at the top, this one is from Februaruy 8th.

I’m now in Fort Collins, Colarado, just outside of Denver and staying with family friend Ben Atchley and family. We’re right up in the mountains, which I haven’t seen anything like since I was eight and went to the snowy mountains around Canberra, except these are far higher. US Airways/ America West flight here from Houston via Phoenix was only marginally better than the United flight to Austin on the 29th of last month. Im sensing the trend that US domestic flights are supposed to suck. Only two more to go.

On Friday Carolyn and I drove into Austin from College Station, via the mall (guess the results), to meet back up with Mandy, then we went out to eat with Mike and Amy, a couple of other friends of ours, and Amy’s two kids. Mike and I, being the only two guys, ended up spending most of the time discussing 24 and sports, while the five girls talked about whatever it is girls talk about. We took the kids to an arcade afterwards and they and Carolyn also did a bit of rock climbing while the rest of us just watched. Later Mike and Amy dropped the kids off at a relative’s place and we met up and a diner for dessert because the club we wanted into was over 21 (stupid country).

Saturday there was a big birthday dinner for Mandy with her family (it was actually her birthday on Sunday, but that being Superbowl, it had to be on Saturday), including Levi who continued to affirm that he thinks I’m generally awesome for some reason. Carolyn and Levi’s four-year-old brother Micha also spent a large amount of time pulling faces at each other. We were considering going to a party with Mike and Amy after, but got lazy and instead spent the night playing cards until 1am.

The place we went to is called Cheddars. If anyone reading this ever goes to Texas, you will find one of these resturants and you will go eat at it. You will the order the baked potato soup because it is the best food in the world. Seriously. This is probably these best thing I have ever eaten in my entire life. Explaining to you just how good it is would probably tear a whole in the universe. Just buy a plane ticket to Austin now and go, it’s so worth it.

Drove back to A&M at some ungodly hour of the morning and watched several straight episodes of the FBI files, napped, took photos from the top level of the library and, of course, watched the Superbowl which the Steelers won (yay underdogs!). I can’t get over the 75 yard dash for a touchdown by one of the defenders, plus both the quaterbacks getting nailed before they could make a play several times, which is, by the way, hilarious every time.

Monday was another early start for Sociology and Philosophy (Nieche is so much better than Plato), then we made a beeline for Houston airport and got there well before my plane left, so I wrote on no less than ten postcards I’d been procrastinating and read week-old NYTs. Then the flight was delayed so I talked to random people. Met up with Ben without a hitch, which is the second hitchless leg in a row. Something is going to go badly wrong at some point to make up for this.

On Tuesday we drove around the mountains looking and scenery, elk, and random little mountain towns with rock shops that I spent over $50 in. Then we went to one of the biggest resturants in the world for dinner in Denver. It’s a Mexican place called “Big White House” in Spanish - Casa Something, and it has a number of distinctly themed areas to eat in, Mexican bands, divers into a pool in the middle, and all you can eat dishes for a little over $10. The food is great but not amazing, but you can’t put a price on the experience - particularly on a Friday or Saturday night, I’m told. Go there, seriously.

When I was 14 I was stupidly running my hand along a wooden log fence at my high school and managed to wedge a splinter of woon underneath my nail, and it needed microsurgery at the doctors to extract it. I did the same thing at the resturant on the wooden counter when I went to pick up my tray. Fortunately it wasn’t quite as bad as in high school, and I was, with great difficulty, able to remove it myself with a pair of tweesers once we got home. Perhaps I should sue the resturant, that’s the done thing in America, right?