Thursday, 30 December 2004
A White Christmas In Australia
For the past 4 days, we've been camping at Mount Buffalo with Harold and Angie. For those who are as unschooled in Australian geography as I, Mount Buffalo is about 4 hours Northeast of Melbourne. It's one of the highest mountains in Oz, which sounds impressive but actually is not. This country is known for a lot of things, but tall mountains are not one of them.
It was a beautiful drive up there, and it was an interesting contrast to the long drives I'm used to in America. On the east coast, for example, the longest you'll go without passing a city or town on I-95 is about 20 minutes. Not here. To get to Mount Buffalo we took the Hume highway which runs from Melbourne to Sydney (a 12 hour drive). There is almost nothing in between. Every hour or so you might pass a tiny little town, but that's about it. Nothing but huge expanses of flat, dry land. It was pretty impressive.
On the way to Mt. Buffalo we had a bit of a surprise. Fiona and I were tooling along in the Civic we borrowed from Harold and Angie when all of a sudden Fiona hit the brakes hard and veered over to the shoulder of the road. As the car slowed down she said, "OK, don't make any sudden moves, but there's a spider in the car. When I stop you're going to have to get out of the car slowly."
Yeah right. You can imagine my reaction after reading stuff like this for years:
The male Sydney Funnel-Web Spider is the world's most deadly spider.
Both the male and female Sydney Funnel-Web Spider carry atraxotoxin, the world's most dangerous toxin to humans as produced in the animal kingdom.
As soon as Fiona said the word "spider" I had the door open and one foot on the ground. In my haste I forgot to undo my seat belt, so my first attempt at evacuation almost resulted in decapitation.
When the car came to a halt, Fiona sprang to action and killed it with a 400 page, textbook-like map of Victoria called a "Melways". I stood by and tried not to scream like a little girl.
With that behind us, we headed up to the summit of Mt. Buffalo. It took about an hour to get from the bottom to the top because of all the twisty roads, and when we finally reached the campsite it was about 15 degrees colder than it was at the base.
Harold and Angie had warned us that it would be cold, but I had no idea it would be as cold as it was. The next day it actually snowed. Seriously. Harold and I had gone for a hike while Fiona and Angie stayed in the hammocks and read. As I was making my way back to the site (Harold had stopped to talk to some people), I felt the first flakes fall. I couldn't believe it. By the time I got to our campsite Fiona and Angie were scrambling out of the hammocks trying to get everything under the tarp.
So it looks like I got my White Christmas after all. I had almost forgotten how it felt to freeze your ass off for days at a time. Now I remember, but I'm looking forward to forgetting again.
Posted by SmooveJ Zao on December 30, 2004 at 08:15 PM in Australia | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wednesday, 29 December 2004
Ways to Fix Your Life
Step One: Quit your job
...
In some ways, now is a better time than ever to quit. "If you've been at one company for too long, corporate America figures that you are a dud," says Barbara Sher, author of I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was. "Companies are not loyal to employees anymore. Nobody blames you anymore and asks why you didn't stick with things."
The midlife crisis and the approach to retirement have long been socially accepted times to reassess. But it's increasingly acceptable to search for purpose and satisfaction wherever you are in life.
Seriously, quitting is the best thing ever. I highly recommend it.
Posted by SmooveJ Zao on December 29, 2004 at 08:42 PM in Random News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thursday, 23 December 2004
Two Shopping Days Left
Pretty good day today. I started off with a workout - it's getting embarrassing going to the beach every day with my soft and squishy body. In America I fit right in, but here it's a different story.
After lunch, Glenys, Angie and I headed down to Torquay to sit by the ocean for a few hours. It's so strange to go to an enormous beautiful beach and not see anyone on it. I'm used to beaches in the states where there are tons of people playing frisbee and walking around and basically just sitting on top of each other. There's none of that here. I guess if there's one thing they've got in Australia it's a lot of space.
After hanging out in Fiji for a couple of weeks I was shocked by how cold the water is here. Keep in mind, I'm from Connecticut so I'm used to frigid, icy surf, but this was too much for me. I went in for a couple of minutes, but my nipples were becoming a safety hazard so I went in to warm up. Luckily the sun was blazing and I had Talib Kweli on my mp3 player so everything turned out just fine.
When we got back to the house Peter was outside mixing a load of concrete by hand, which was a bit of a surprise giving his heart attack history. He was standing by the side of the road sweating his face off and turning this massive barrel thing. Glenys was surprised, to say the least.
I went out to help him and did my best to pretend I know anything at all about laying concrete. It's amazing what a few well-placed "yeps" and "oh yeahs" can do for your image in the manual labor arena. I'm certainly no Luigi Fontanelli, but I have to admit - when it comes to laying crete I've got skills. That new step out by the side door is a masterwork.
For dinner we went over to Harold and Angie's and I made a phenomenal risotto. Again, I'm no Luigi Fontanelli, but my risotto is delicioso. Even Harold murmured his approval at one point. After dinner we sat around and talked about our upcoming ascent of Federation Peak in Tasmania. More on this later, but suffice it to say we're planning some serious "bushwalking" as they say around these parts.
We left Harold and Angie's at around 10:30 and I doubled Fiona home on my gay little pink bike. Luckily it was all downhill so I didn't have to do any work. Otherwise Fiona would have wound up doubling me and that would have just been unacceptably pussified (you know with the pink bike and everything).
Finally, I was surprised to learn that many of the department stores in Australia are open all night long tonight for Christmas. I mean, that's standard operating procedure in America but I honestly didn't think Aussies were into that type of Tickle Me Elmo/Cabbage Patch Kid silliness. Apparently no one is immune from the capitalist juggernaut that is Christmas.
Except for Jews. I guess they don't give two shits about Christmas, do they?
Posted by SmooveJ Zao on December 23, 2004 at 07:16 AM in Australia | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wednesday, 22 December 2004
Martian Carwash
Hey everybody! Free carwashes on Mars!
It said something -- or someone -- had regularly cleaned layers of dust from the solar panels of the Mars Opportunity vehicle while it was closed down during the Martian night.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 22, 2004 at 09:48 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Fiji Continued
Got some interesting feedback from people on the Fiji pictures. My friend of mine who's a marine biologist said:
And my buddy Sajit gave me these words of warning:
That's even more interesting considering the sizeable Indian population in Fiji. I bet that's caused a fair amount of snickering over the years.
And thus concludes your lesson for today. Not all lobsters have claws, and the Fijian word for "Hello" means something quite different in Hindi.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 22, 2004 at 02:49 AM in Fiji | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Tuesday, 21 December 2004
Fiji Pics
Finally got the Fiji shots up. Also, in case you haven't heard it yet, don't miss the Fijian church choir.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 21, 2004 at 07:49 AM in Fiji | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Monday, 20 December 2004
Venturing Out
Went for a bike ride yesterday. It's really difficult riding on the opposite side of the street (note use of the word "opposite" instead of "wrong"). At one point I was making a right turn and somehow I got confused and forgot that in Australia a right turn means you're turning across oncoming traffic. I almost got myself killed in my first week down under.
But the funniest part was the reaction of the other driver. Naturally I felt like a big moron and put my hands up to say "Whoa, sorry about that", but the other lady had beaten me to the punch. By the time I realized what was going on she was already waving her hands all over the place with a super apologetic look on her face. It caught me by surprise - I guess I was ready for a bit of hornblasting or at worst a savage American-style beating.
I think people here are just incredibly safety conscious. Apparently you'll get a ticket if you get caught riding a bike without a helmet. And it's not like it is in the States - it's not that they can give you a ticket, they really willfine you. Hard to imagine, but that's what I hear.
Hopefully they don't issue citations for riding while gay, because if that's the case I'll definitely get a ticket. I've been riding Fiona's old pink bike from when she was a girl. I won't even bother describing it, I'll just post a picture tomorrow.
Assuming I don't get hit by a car before then, that is.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 20, 2004 at 10:39 PM in Australia | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bush From Down Under
After four years of America-style media saturation, it's interesting to be in Australia. I'm used to the media treating George Bush as either an awe-inspiring demigod or the devil incarnate.
Here, he is neither. They seem to treat him the way Kevin used to treat his older brother Wayne in The Wonder Years. He knows Wayne is mildly retarded, but he lives in constant fear of a beating so he has to be subtle.
I've seen more than a few articles this over the past few days. Nothing blatently offensive, but pretty clear nonetheless:
In Washington, there are plenty of ways to say "no comment," but US President George W Bush offered his own formulation today when he refused to "negotiate with myself in public".
Bush used the phrase to deflect a question on the future of Social Security at a televised news conference.
"Now, the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself and others here, as we run up to the issue, to get me to negotiate with myself in public," Bush told the questioner.
"To say, you know, "What's this mean, Mr President? What's that mean?
"I'm not going to do that. I don't get to write the law.
I'll propose a solution at the appropriate time," Bush said.
In essence, this Bushism means the president will discuss options on such issues as Social Security with members of Congress who write the law, but not with the media.
Asked to explain one facet of his Social Security policy, Bush agreed but said, "I will try to explain how without negotiating with myself. It's a very tricky way to get me to play my cards. I understand that."
Posted by SmooveJ Zao on December 20, 2004 at 08:25 PM in Funny Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sunday, 19 December 2004
The Anonymous Empire State Jumper
Glad to hear things haven't changed in New York City while I was away:
His identity and the personal demons that drove him to suicide are still a mystery.
"There have been no missing persons reports, no tips, no phone calls," a detective from the NYPD's missing persons squad told the Daily News. "We're just hoping someone out there knows who he is."
Posted by SmooveJ Zao on December 19, 2004 at 08:21 PM in Random News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Saturday, 18 December 2004
Back In Oz
Got into Melbourne last night at around 11 PM. Glenys, Peter, Karen, Jeff, Harold, and Harold's friend Adam were all there to meet us at the airport. Right before we walked through the gate I took a look at my passport and noticed that it was almost two years to the day since we last walked through that same gate. In some ways it feels like ages, but at the same time it seems like it could have been just yesterday.
Karen and Jeff weren't planning on coming back to Geelong, so we sat in the airport for about an hour and had a cup of tea. It's so strange to see all these people face to face after so many years of thinking of them as disembodied voices on the other end of a phone line.
As is the way with families, everything felt completely natural and conversation fell into a natural rhythm. Which is to say Fiona talked and everybody else tried to follow along.
Anyway, we're at Fiona's parents' now and we're having a barbecue for dinner tonight so I'm going to sign off. I'll try to do some proper posting tomorrow and I have loads of Fiji shots and other goodies, but it's going to take some time to get everything sorted. For now, I'll offer you a couple of teasers:
And finally, this is the view from Wayasewa:
Posted by flow Frazao on December 18, 2004 at 03:26 AM in Australia, Fiji | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Thursday, 16 December 2004
Bula!
Bula everybody! We've been on an island in Fiji for the past week or so - no electricity and obviously no internet. Just a short post to let everyone know we're still alive.
I'm running out of time on this account, but we'll be in Melbourne tonight. I'll do my best to get stuff up as quickly as I can.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 16, 2004 at 06:04 PM in Fiji | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Sunday, 05 December 2004
California
So, I just checked the weather in Fiji and almost had a heart attack when I saw that it's currently 32 degrees. I was like "Oh NO!!!" But then I realized that temperature was in Celsius. It's actually 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
Anyway, we're taking off tonight! Ten days sitting on the beach in Fiji is just what the doctor ordered.
As a parting gift, I give you these photos we took in California. I'm not sure how it happened, but we didn't get as many shots as I would have liked of people - I always seem to do that. I take pictures of scenes and weird stuff I see, but I always forget about the people and then kick myself later.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 5, 2004 at 08:56 PM in America, Photos | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Friday, 03 December 2004
Laguna Bound
No time for a long post, but we're on our way down to Uncle Steve's today for a tree-lighting ceremony in Laguna Beach. It's so weird to be driving around and see a Frosty the Snowman lawn ornament propped up against a palm tree. Call me a Yankee, but as far as I'm concerned it's not Christmas unless you're freezing your ass off.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 3, 2004 at 06:09 PM in America, Family | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Wednesday, 01 December 2004
We're Off
Leaving is the hardest part of traveling. Saying goodbye to people you love is absolutely brutal, isn't it?
But, on the flip side, I guess without leaving there'd be no such thing as coming home. So it all works out in the end, I suppose.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 1, 2004 at 10:32 AM in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Places of Peace and Power
You have got to see this guy's site. He's my new hero:
Martin Gray is an anthropologist and photographer specializing in the study of sacred sites and pilgrimage traditions around the world. Traveling as a pilgrim, Martin spent twenty years visting and photographing over 1000 sacred sites in eighty countries.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 1, 2004 at 12:29 AM in Weird Earls | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack