Ok, so I keep hearing about the situation in Iran and I have to observe something. If I were the leader of a regime that believed that I'd just demonstrated honesty and all that's right with democracy and the people started to rise up against me, I think I'd offer them a UN lead election to prove that it was indeed all above board.
So does threatening to shoot large numbers of your population and refusing to enter into any sort of disucssion declare innocence and justice? Somehow I think not.
Jun 24, 2009
Jun 14, 2009
A close thing
As recently noted, we have become the owners of a nice, near new caravan. That of course meant that we had to sell the tent trailer that we acquired last year, a process that I entered into with some trepidation. I mean who ever has a fun time selling things like cars and caravans?
We stuck signs on it, in the hope that someone might walk past, be pleasantly surprised and inspired and throw a wad of cash at us, but that didn’t seem to have much luck (well not in the first four days at least) and on Thursday, I managed to get around to snapping a couple of photos and posting a free ad on kijiji. It takes about 24 hours before its actually becomes visible to searchers so no one was going to see it until Friday night at best. To be honest, I never expected to hear from anyone as a result of that ad.
On Saturday morning the cell phone rang and It was indeed actually someone interested in coming to see the trailer, so I arranged for them to come after Emily’s soccer. That all went well and the couple departed promising that they’d have a chat and get back to us. Again, I wasn’t building up any hopes and didn’t expect to hear from them until today (Sunday). To my utter delight, they rang back a couple of hours later and decided to buy it from us and came around and put a nice cool grand deposit down until they can get to the bank on Monday.
Commence Euphoria.
Happy dances were done, champagne was put in the fridge … and then it hailed. Big Hail. Centimetre diameter hail stones pounding to the earth and of course all over the camper which we had up to show off.
Fortunately, no damage was done leaving me to wait until everything had dried out to put it down and pack it up for what is to hopefully be the final time. We were favoured with good enough weather to dry it out and so I went out to put it down.
I’d wound the handle perhaps 3 times when something went ‘twang’. I was concerned, but kept winding slowly. Things appeared to be ok, but as I continued, it seemed one corner was coming down quicker than the others. Not a good sign. Further investigation revealed that the cable on that side had gone slack. A very bad sign. And when I tried to wind it up again … only three corners went up. Oh shit.
I went inside at that point and told Caroline, “I think a cable has snapped.” So here I was, in mind of last year, when something went 'sproing' and it took 3 months and a lot of cash to get it repaired. And I had a thousand dollars cash, in my pocket, from the guy that wanted to buy it.
Commence Despair.
There wasn’t much I could do last night though and so rather than get worked up over something I had no control of, I had a couple of drinks, arranged for someone to come and help me raise the roof in the morning and slept on it.
Investigation this morning seemed to suggest that perhaps the cable wasn’t broken. The scary thing was that in order to see where I thought the problem was, cupboards were going to have to be removed fro, inside the camper. Four letter word time.
It was at that point, as we walked all around it time and again, peered underneath at cables and scratched at our heads, that Matt noticed that one cable had two clamps joining it and the other only had one. The cable had simply slipped through one clamp!
15 minutes later, the roof was winding up and down again.
Relief.
Waves and floods of relief. I clamped the lid down and hope to buggery I never; never never ever, have to put it up again. And I hope the new owners have better luck with it than I did.
There’s no winding on the new one! And for the record, a twang is a hell of a lot better than a sproing!
We stuck signs on it, in the hope that someone might walk past, be pleasantly surprised and inspired and throw a wad of cash at us, but that didn’t seem to have much luck (well not in the first four days at least) and on Thursday, I managed to get around to snapping a couple of photos and posting a free ad on kijiji. It takes about 24 hours before its actually becomes visible to searchers so no one was going to see it until Friday night at best. To be honest, I never expected to hear from anyone as a result of that ad.
On Saturday morning the cell phone rang and It was indeed actually someone interested in coming to see the trailer, so I arranged for them to come after Emily’s soccer. That all went well and the couple departed promising that they’d have a chat and get back to us. Again, I wasn’t building up any hopes and didn’t expect to hear from them until today (Sunday). To my utter delight, they rang back a couple of hours later and decided to buy it from us and came around and put a nice cool grand deposit down until they can get to the bank on Monday.
Commence Euphoria.
Happy dances were done, champagne was put in the fridge … and then it hailed. Big Hail. Centimetre diameter hail stones pounding to the earth and of course all over the camper which we had up to show off.
Fortunately, no damage was done leaving me to wait until everything had dried out to put it down and pack it up for what is to hopefully be the final time. We were favoured with good enough weather to dry it out and so I went out to put it down.
I’d wound the handle perhaps 3 times when something went ‘twang’. I was concerned, but kept winding slowly. Things appeared to be ok, but as I continued, it seemed one corner was coming down quicker than the others. Not a good sign. Further investigation revealed that the cable on that side had gone slack. A very bad sign. And when I tried to wind it up again … only three corners went up. Oh shit.
I went inside at that point and told Caroline, “I think a cable has snapped.” So here I was, in mind of last year, when something went 'sproing' and it took 3 months and a lot of cash to get it repaired. And I had a thousand dollars cash, in my pocket, from the guy that wanted to buy it.
Commence Despair.
There wasn’t much I could do last night though and so rather than get worked up over something I had no control of, I had a couple of drinks, arranged for someone to come and help me raise the roof in the morning and slept on it.
Investigation this morning seemed to suggest that perhaps the cable wasn’t broken. The scary thing was that in order to see where I thought the problem was, cupboards were going to have to be removed fro, inside the camper. Four letter word time.
It was at that point, as we walked all around it time and again, peered underneath at cables and scratched at our heads, that Matt noticed that one cable had two clamps joining it and the other only had one. The cable had simply slipped through one clamp!
15 minutes later, the roof was winding up and down again.
Relief.
Waves and floods of relief. I clamped the lid down and hope to buggery I never; never never ever, have to put it up again. And I hope the new owners have better luck with it than I did.
There’s no winding on the new one! And for the record, a twang is a hell of a lot better than a sproing!
Jun 8, 2009
Caravan
Ever since we’ve been in Canada, we’ve been astounded by the caravans that we see travelling down the highways. Even the smallest of them seem to put the Australian vans in mind of toys. The largest ones are quite simply ridiculous. Massive fifth wheel things that one could live in year round and they often have a boat or trailer full of quads off the back of that as well.
Early on I did some research as to the ability to bring a caravan back into Australia, but things seemed to be stymied by the fact that there was this insistence that the van have a door on the left hand side. Over here, they are all on the right. So we quickly ended import dreams and went down the path of the little tent trailer which served us well up until the point that I broke it last year.
That was all fixed though and as the sun came out (brief as it seems to have been) we started to plan this year’s trip. We’re going down to Yellowstone National Park in July along with some Aussie friends from over here. In the back of my mind though, I’ve always wanted to find that elusive van that might have a door on the ‘wrong side’.
When we drove down to Sunshine for our last ski of the year (in May) I finally saw one. To say the state of excitement was heightened, wouldn’t be doing my euphoric state justice. The fact that I saw two, from different manufacturers had me very very excited indeed. Of course when I arrived home and started researching, I could only remember one of the brands and that was the one whose website announced, “we’re getting out of travel trailers”. Bugger. I kept searching. Eventually I ended up back at the US Jayco site (here) and looking at the Jayfeather 213. It has this nifty little door on the left hand side, proposed as a bike storage. Well I don’t know about the bikes, but I can assure you, from everything that I’ve been able to work out, it meets the ‘get it into Australia’ requirement!
So we bought one.
Yep, a bit of looking, a bit of negotiating, some painful payment processing and shazzam … we have a 2007 model sitting in our driveway. On the other side from the tent trailer … which is now for sale.
Know anyone in remote Canada looking for a nifty camper trailer?
Early on I did some research as to the ability to bring a caravan back into Australia, but things seemed to be stymied by the fact that there was this insistence that the van have a door on the left hand side. Over here, they are all on the right. So we quickly ended import dreams and went down the path of the little tent trailer which served us well up until the point that I broke it last year.
That was all fixed though and as the sun came out (brief as it seems to have been) we started to plan this year’s trip. We’re going down to Yellowstone National Park in July along with some Aussie friends from over here. In the back of my mind though, I’ve always wanted to find that elusive van that might have a door on the ‘wrong side’.
When we drove down to Sunshine for our last ski of the year (in May) I finally saw one. To say the state of excitement was heightened, wouldn’t be doing my euphoric state justice. The fact that I saw two, from different manufacturers had me very very excited indeed. Of course when I arrived home and started researching, I could only remember one of the brands and that was the one whose website announced, “we’re getting out of travel trailers”. Bugger. I kept searching. Eventually I ended up back at the US Jayco site (here) and looking at the Jayfeather 213. It has this nifty little door on the left hand side, proposed as a bike storage. Well I don’t know about the bikes, but I can assure you, from everything that I’ve been able to work out, it meets the ‘get it into Australia’ requirement!
So we bought one.
Yep, a bit of looking, a bit of negotiating, some painful payment processing and shazzam … we have a 2007 model sitting in our driveway. On the other side from the tent trailer … which is now for sale.
Know anyone in remote Canada looking for a nifty camper trailer?
Found
The other day at work, I was sitting at the computer and happened to glance down. There was no particular reason for it, it was one of those thousands of tiny little motions that make up one’s day.
As I glanced down though, the pocket of my shirt happened to be open slightly. Just enough, in fact that I could see that there was something lurking at the bottom of it. Curious, I reached in to find out what it was and voila! One relocated wedding ring.
I have no idea why it ended up there, other than thinking that when I’d had it off I must have thought that would avoid me losing it. The fact that the shirt had been through the wash at least once and the ring was still there was quite simply amazing.
But all is well that ends well. I am, once again, branded :) claimed and loved.
As I glanced down though, the pocket of my shirt happened to be open slightly. Just enough, in fact that I could see that there was something lurking at the bottom of it. Curious, I reached in to find out what it was and voila! One relocated wedding ring.
I have no idea why it ended up there, other than thinking that when I’d had it off I must have thought that would avoid me losing it. The fact that the shirt had been through the wash at least once and the ring was still there was quite simply amazing.
But all is well that ends well. I am, once again, branded :) claimed and loved.
May 31, 2009
Lost
Several years ago now, someone in the machine that rules the laws of soccer decreed that no jewelry was to be worn whilst playing the game in the interest of player safety. It was the first occasion that I’d had to take off my wedding ring (other than those early days when I had to relieve the burning – no, I jest). When we started playing touch football, it had to come off for that too.
On very rare occasion I would take it off at other times. It would appear that on one of those days recently, I didn’t put it back on. And now I am left, sitting here, racking my brain as to exactly where I was when I took it off, because I can’t bloody find it.
Going home to tell your wife, “I think I’ve lost my wedding ring,” isn’t one of those things that you look forward to in a day. I had to do it of course, because were she to find it lying around the house, it would look even worse. Honesty in these matters is essential. Of course, its probably a good thing that I haven’t been out to the pub or anything lately.
Caroline has told me in the past that her father has lost his wedding ring on more than one occasion. I believe he’s on his third. At least he had a decent excuse … like losing it whilst concreting in the back yard. Even if he can’t get it, he knows where it is. I didn’t even have a good reason for taking it off and as a consequence, don’t remember where I was and don’t know where to look for the thing.
Its all a bit vexing really.
As a friend said … “Don’t start coming home late from the office!”
On very rare occasion I would take it off at other times. It would appear that on one of those days recently, I didn’t put it back on. And now I am left, sitting here, racking my brain as to exactly where I was when I took it off, because I can’t bloody find it.
Going home to tell your wife, “I think I’ve lost my wedding ring,” isn’t one of those things that you look forward to in a day. I had to do it of course, because were she to find it lying around the house, it would look even worse. Honesty in these matters is essential. Of course, its probably a good thing that I haven’t been out to the pub or anything lately.
Caroline has told me in the past that her father has lost his wedding ring on more than one occasion. I believe he’s on his third. At least he had a decent excuse … like losing it whilst concreting in the back yard. Even if he can’t get it, he knows where it is. I didn’t even have a good reason for taking it off and as a consequence, don’t remember where I was and don’t know where to look for the thing.
Its all a bit vexing really.
As a friend said … “Don’t start coming home late from the office!”
May 21, 2009
The great Mother's Day paddle
The other weekend, on Mother’s Day, to show that both I and our spawn appreciate the effort that the wonderful woman in our life goes to for us, I decided that we should head off to Lake Gregoire for a picnic. The timing was just right as the weather was turning and we’d purchased some inflatable kayaks online and they arrived on the Friday before, just in time for a maiden voyage.
So with the car packed to the rafters, stuffed with kayaks and life vests and picnic stuff we made our way to the lake with the weather looking okish, if not brilliant. After a little detour due to yours truly taking a turn that we weren’t supposed to (yes there’s only two and I got it wrong!) we arrived to find that despite the weather having started to come good, the park where we’d planned our days event was still closed! Undeterred, we headed down to the boat ramp to see if there was somewhere there that we could have the picnic, but other than the carpark, there really wasn’t a friendly place for us.
We also noted at that point that much of the lake was actually still frozen. It meant that falling out of the boat was going to be considerably less attractive than it might be in high summer, but then falling out hadn’t actually been in the plans anyway (well except perhaps for Michael).
We trundled off in search of a better spot and went into the actual camping grounds and found a site there where we could light a fire and cook some lunch. And at that point, it rained; of course. Fortunately it didn’t last too long and Matt, Bron and their tribe arrived as well. A little white spirit does wonders for assisting with a wet wood fire and soon enough we were cooking our chops and hotdogs over the open fire.
With lunch completed and the weather looking to take something more of a nasty turn, we scrambled the gear back into the car and headed back to the boat ramp to launch the kayaks.
As I stood in the carpark pumping up the first of the kayaks, I couldn’t help but notice that the weather had turned significantly from the first view of the lake that we’d had on our arrival. But with an expectant wife (no not in that way!) and excited kids, there was going to be no way that we were leaving without the kayaks getting wet. Once I’d finished the first one, we carried it down to the lake (which was suddenly extremely windblown and choppy) so that I could leave Caroline to it and pump up the second one in some relative peace.
I made a quick trip back to see how Caroline and Michael were getting on before I set about inflating the second one. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw that they had the kayak pointed into the wind, paddling, but going nowhere. Once they coordinated things a little better they managed to get away, but it quickly became clear that there was going to be no point in putting the second kayak in the water. And so after some 10 minutes and probably as many metres of travel, the intrepid adventurers returned to the shore so that we could pack up the kayak. And learn that once we’d had it out, it wasn’t going to fit back in the roof pod that we’d brought it in. Fortunately Matt and Bron, with less kids and a bigger car were able to bring it home for us.
Now if only the weather had held, we could have been paddling on this:
Instead of being frustrated by this:
So with the car packed to the rafters, stuffed with kayaks and life vests and picnic stuff we made our way to the lake with the weather looking okish, if not brilliant. After a little detour due to yours truly taking a turn that we weren’t supposed to (yes there’s only two and I got it wrong!) we arrived to find that despite the weather having started to come good, the park where we’d planned our days event was still closed! Undeterred, we headed down to the boat ramp to see if there was somewhere there that we could have the picnic, but other than the carpark, there really wasn’t a friendly place for us.
We also noted at that point that much of the lake was actually still frozen. It meant that falling out of the boat was going to be considerably less attractive than it might be in high summer, but then falling out hadn’t actually been in the plans anyway (well except perhaps for Michael).
We trundled off in search of a better spot and went into the actual camping grounds and found a site there where we could light a fire and cook some lunch. And at that point, it rained; of course. Fortunately it didn’t last too long and Matt, Bron and their tribe arrived as well. A little white spirit does wonders for assisting with a wet wood fire and soon enough we were cooking our chops and hotdogs over the open fire.
With lunch completed and the weather looking to take something more of a nasty turn, we scrambled the gear back into the car and headed back to the boat ramp to launch the kayaks.
As I stood in the carpark pumping up the first of the kayaks, I couldn’t help but notice that the weather had turned significantly from the first view of the lake that we’d had on our arrival. But with an expectant wife (no not in that way!) and excited kids, there was going to be no way that we were leaving without the kayaks getting wet. Once I’d finished the first one, we carried it down to the lake (which was suddenly extremely windblown and choppy) so that I could leave Caroline to it and pump up the second one in some relative peace.
I made a quick trip back to see how Caroline and Michael were getting on before I set about inflating the second one. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw that they had the kayak pointed into the wind, paddling, but going nowhere. Once they coordinated things a little better they managed to get away, but it quickly became clear that there was going to be no point in putting the second kayak in the water. And so after some 10 minutes and probably as many metres of travel, the intrepid adventurers returned to the shore so that we could pack up the kayak. And learn that once we’d had it out, it wasn’t going to fit back in the roof pod that we’d brought it in. Fortunately Matt and Bron, with less kids and a bigger car were able to bring it home for us.
Now if only the weather had held, we could have been paddling on this:
Instead of being frustrated by this:
Apr 27, 2009
Jet Lagged
As we settle back to life here in Canada, its been pretty evident that we’re all suffering from Jet Lag and time zone changes. There’s the waking up in the middle of the night, the not being able to get to sleep, and of course there was Thomas in the Kitchen, dressed, ready for school, stumbling around bleary eyed looking for something to have for breakfast …
at 11:30pm
at 11:30pm
Universal
I left the last post off at that point in time where we all happily boarded the A380 in Melbourne. We were a little late getting on board the plane and hence taking off, but given that we had a long flight and no connections at the other end, it really didn’t impact us.
Flying on the A380 was a nice treat. Nice shiny new entertainment systems with more options that I think I’ll ever need on a plane and friendly Qantas-style service. Possibly the best innovation as all as far as I am concerned is the self-service points about the plane that you can go to in order to pick up a can of soft drink and a small snack. It meant you could get one when you wanted without having to call an attendant only to find out that they were busy preparing for food service or the like (Or in the case of Air Canada, get a death-stare that makes you think twice about ever hitting that little attendant button again!)
The only issue that I had with the flight was that by leaving in the morning, there was no real immediate desire for sleep and by the time I should have been sleeping rolled around, I just couldn’t quite manage to get there. Oh for the luxury of a sky bed (one can wish).
Other than Emily, the kids weren’t particularly successful at sleeping either. And of course for the time that she’s awake, Emily manages to make a 1.5 hour movie that you’re trying to watch last at least 2 hours as she asks for assistance to play her game or do something with her. It meant that when we did finally hit LA we were all on a bit of a short tether, especially at that point when we collected all our luggage and did the bag count only to come up one short!
We waited patiently, but of course, because it takes us so long to fill out the forms and get through customs, we weren’t exactly competing with a crowd to seek out our luggage. Fortunately, just at that point when the last couple of bags on the conveyor had gone around 3 times without ours and the stomach started sinking, a helpful airport employee (not an oxymoron after all! – you know you’re not in Canada when …) came and asked us if we needed some assistance. A few minutes and radio calls later and we found out that some kind soul had picked up our bag for us.
Amazingly, they hadn’t managed to leave the airport with it though and we were able to collect it on our way out. They’d even taken the pesky nuts through customs for us!
And then there was the taxi. We managed to cram all of us and our luggage into a mini-van sized taxi. Four kids across the three back seats and luggage jammed into every conceivable space that there was and at that point Michael announces that he’s really not feeling very well. Of course. Well there was no option but to fish out a plastic bag as we zoomed off down the LA highways.
It wasn’t long before the complaints from the back started. Everyone was squashed and Michael started filling up the bag, much to the delight of us all. I think a combination of lack of sleep and not much of substance in his belly had him doomed before we even got off the plane.
The fact that our taxi driver would have felt quite at home in the streets of Jakarta didn’t help the poor tike and I lost track of the number of times I tried to stop the car Flintstones style as he careened up behind the car in front to seemingly randomly brake or swerve around them to the left or right.
Importantly though, we made it to the hotel and grabbed a couple of hours sleep. Somewhat rested and with no plans, we grabbed a cab and headed down to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to check out the hand prints in the concrete and the stars on the sidewalk. Apparently Hugh Jackman had been imprinted in the concrete that very morning, at about the time we risked life and limb on the highway, but wherever they hid his prints, we didn’t see them or his contemporaries, finding only the very obvious place where some of the older stars were immortalized.
And of course the whole time that we walked around, Michael and his little bag of vomit accompanied us, not a good sign for the following day when we were going to Universal Studios for the day. I did have to take him out of the supermarket at one point. It just didn’t seem right to drag a kid past people shopping for food when he liked to stop every couple of minutes and gag in his little bag!
We had some dinner, returned to the hotel and went to bed nice and early, ready for our Universal Adventure the following day.
Universal was more than enjoyable, though somewhat of a test for poor Emily. The park really is designed for someone older than her and after having the pants scared off her on the Backdraft set, in the monsters special effects demonstration, the Jurassic Park ride and again on the Simpsons ride, I think she would have been more than happy to have pulled up stumps and headed off home. Lucky we never took her on the Mummy ride! She survived though, as did we all, even Sam, who just wanted to go back down on the rides rather than see all the shows.
The Waterworld show was certainly a standout for me and overall it was a great way to spend a day. We managed to eat some dinner before walking back to the hotel, where I managed to have a beer with a friend that I’d met over the internet some 7 or eight years ago (and who had conveniently moved from Florida) and then it was time for some sleep before our last day in LA. No need to set alarms, after all our plane wasn’t due to leave until 2:45pm.
And then Caroline was waking me up at 10:45am to say “We have to pack!” At which point frenzy began. We stuffed luggage and rallied kids from sleep and fortunately had bought a nifty luggage scale duty free on the plane because we had to juggle things around to get all the weight distributed. I tried to organize a bigger vehicle to get us to the airport, but they had to be booked 24 hours in advance, so once again crammed in the minivan, we nervously set off for the airport, hoping to make it in time.
We did that and flew back to Fort Mac via Vancouver and Calgary. Of course, when you’re expecting to arrive home at midnight and work the following day, things are never going to go smoothly.
The plane out of Calgary was delayed and we didn’t leave until after we were supposed to have arrived home. And so it was that taxiing down the runway into Fort McMurray that Caroline said to me, “you do have keys to get in, don’t you?”
Of course I did. Um, somewhere here, in one of these pockets. Or not.
So at 1:30am, with no taxis to be seen at the airport, at -4 degrees, with SNOW blowing horizontally across the darkened landscape, we pondered our choices as to how we might get in.
In the end we settled for ringing the people that Caroline had left the keys with (by which time it was after 2am) and disturbing them rather than chancing a window being open enough to break in through, or even having to smash one. Fortunately they answered the phone and we were able to get into our house without being beset by frost bite or hypothermia.
And at 3:30am we managed to fall into bed.
Oh, and I did go to work.
Flying on the A380 was a nice treat. Nice shiny new entertainment systems with more options that I think I’ll ever need on a plane and friendly Qantas-style service. Possibly the best innovation as all as far as I am concerned is the self-service points about the plane that you can go to in order to pick up a can of soft drink and a small snack. It meant you could get one when you wanted without having to call an attendant only to find out that they were busy preparing for food service or the like (Or in the case of Air Canada, get a death-stare that makes you think twice about ever hitting that little attendant button again!)
The only issue that I had with the flight was that by leaving in the morning, there was no real immediate desire for sleep and by the time I should have been sleeping rolled around, I just couldn’t quite manage to get there. Oh for the luxury of a sky bed (one can wish).
Other than Emily, the kids weren’t particularly successful at sleeping either. And of course for the time that she’s awake, Emily manages to make a 1.5 hour movie that you’re trying to watch last at least 2 hours as she asks for assistance to play her game or do something with her. It meant that when we did finally hit LA we were all on a bit of a short tether, especially at that point when we collected all our luggage and did the bag count only to come up one short!
We waited patiently, but of course, because it takes us so long to fill out the forms and get through customs, we weren’t exactly competing with a crowd to seek out our luggage. Fortunately, just at that point when the last couple of bags on the conveyor had gone around 3 times without ours and the stomach started sinking, a helpful airport employee (not an oxymoron after all! – you know you’re not in Canada when …) came and asked us if we needed some assistance. A few minutes and radio calls later and we found out that some kind soul had picked up our bag for us.
Amazingly, they hadn’t managed to leave the airport with it though and we were able to collect it on our way out. They’d even taken the pesky nuts through customs for us!
And then there was the taxi. We managed to cram all of us and our luggage into a mini-van sized taxi. Four kids across the three back seats and luggage jammed into every conceivable space that there was and at that point Michael announces that he’s really not feeling very well. Of course. Well there was no option but to fish out a plastic bag as we zoomed off down the LA highways.
It wasn’t long before the complaints from the back started. Everyone was squashed and Michael started filling up the bag, much to the delight of us all. I think a combination of lack of sleep and not much of substance in his belly had him doomed before we even got off the plane.
The fact that our taxi driver would have felt quite at home in the streets of Jakarta didn’t help the poor tike and I lost track of the number of times I tried to stop the car Flintstones style as he careened up behind the car in front to seemingly randomly brake or swerve around them to the left or right.
Importantly though, we made it to the hotel and grabbed a couple of hours sleep. Somewhat rested and with no plans, we grabbed a cab and headed down to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to check out the hand prints in the concrete and the stars on the sidewalk. Apparently Hugh Jackman had been imprinted in the concrete that very morning, at about the time we risked life and limb on the highway, but wherever they hid his prints, we didn’t see them or his contemporaries, finding only the very obvious place where some of the older stars were immortalized.
And of course the whole time that we walked around, Michael and his little bag of vomit accompanied us, not a good sign for the following day when we were going to Universal Studios for the day. I did have to take him out of the supermarket at one point. It just didn’t seem right to drag a kid past people shopping for food when he liked to stop every couple of minutes and gag in his little bag!
We had some dinner, returned to the hotel and went to bed nice and early, ready for our Universal Adventure the following day.
Universal was more than enjoyable, though somewhat of a test for poor Emily. The park really is designed for someone older than her and after having the pants scared off her on the Backdraft set, in the monsters special effects demonstration, the Jurassic Park ride and again on the Simpsons ride, I think she would have been more than happy to have pulled up stumps and headed off home. Lucky we never took her on the Mummy ride! She survived though, as did we all, even Sam, who just wanted to go back down on the rides rather than see all the shows.
The Waterworld show was certainly a standout for me and overall it was a great way to spend a day. We managed to eat some dinner before walking back to the hotel, where I managed to have a beer with a friend that I’d met over the internet some 7 or eight years ago (and who had conveniently moved from Florida) and then it was time for some sleep before our last day in LA. No need to set alarms, after all our plane wasn’t due to leave until 2:45pm.
And then Caroline was waking me up at 10:45am to say “We have to pack!” At which point frenzy began. We stuffed luggage and rallied kids from sleep and fortunately had bought a nifty luggage scale duty free on the plane because we had to juggle things around to get all the weight distributed. I tried to organize a bigger vehicle to get us to the airport, but they had to be booked 24 hours in advance, so once again crammed in the minivan, we nervously set off for the airport, hoping to make it in time.
We did that and flew back to Fort Mac via Vancouver and Calgary. Of course, when you’re expecting to arrive home at midnight and work the following day, things are never going to go smoothly.
The plane out of Calgary was delayed and we didn’t leave until after we were supposed to have arrived home. And so it was that taxiing down the runway into Fort McMurray that Caroline said to me, “you do have keys to get in, don’t you?”
Of course I did. Um, somewhere here, in one of these pockets. Or not.
So at 1:30am, with no taxis to be seen at the airport, at -4 degrees, with SNOW blowing horizontally across the darkened landscape, we pondered our choices as to how we might get in.
In the end we settled for ringing the people that Caroline had left the keys with (by which time it was after 2am) and disturbing them rather than chancing a window being open enough to break in through, or even having to smash one. Fortunately they answered the phone and we were able to get into our house without being beset by frost bite or hypothermia.
And at 3:30am we managed to fall into bed.
Oh, and I did go to work.
Apr 24, 2009
Where to start?
Well 2 weeks have whipped by in a frenzied blur of activity and so I am struggling at this point as to where to start. I guess I’ll resort to that most basic of tactics and use the beginning for it’s intended purpose.
Before I get into the whole journey part of this, I should note that whilst stuck here on my own I received an email from Caroline saying this:
“I assume that you will get this fairly soon as you should be at work by now. It is 1am and I should be sleeping. I didn't get home until after midnight tonight though because I had to take Thomas to the hospital with a door reconstructed pinkie. As it turns out it was dislocated, they gave him some pain reducing drugs and pulled it into place. He was a champ and is now sleeping.”
Poor little Thomas, struck by the Temby finger curse …again. Fortunately he’s fine. Not the greatest thing to get in your email, even if it is over and done before you even know about it.
So having said that, I flew out of Canada all on my lonesome, looking forward to all the wonderful airport exchanges that I was likely to see along the way. There were some tight connections and so it was with some trepidation that I approached the Air Canada portion of the flight. When Caroline and the kids flew out, they were able to have their luggage checked right through to Melbourne, which meant that they only had to collect it in Vancouver to clear customs and avoided doing so in LA.
My first disappointment of the trip was right at the start in Fort Mac when they told me that despite the fact that they’d managed to do so just a week a and half earlier, they were unable to do this for me and I would have to collect my luggage in LA. What they didn’t tell me was that I would also have to collect my bag in Calgary.
So after traipsing all through Calgary airport, following the seemingly endless path of signs for international transfers, I arrived at a point where they told me I would have to collect my luggage before re-checking it a little further on. Which was fine, except for the fact that my luggage was not there. I waited. I tried patience. I walked back outside to the Air Canada check in and asked (yes, that’s how desperate I was starting to feel). They told me that it could take 20 minutes for my bag to travel through the system and get to that point. I went back and waited some more given that it had only been 15 minutes at this point.
Some random number of minutes after that and my bag finally arrived. I rechecked it and set off for LA.
There’s a reason why when we flew back last year that we went Vancouver to Sydney, but cheap flights routed us back through LA again this year and I remembered what that reason was. LA is busy as buggery and quite simply, a nice airport to avoid. I waited for my bag to arrive … last one off the plane thanks … and then walked around to the other terminal where I could check in to Qantas. At this point they asked me when I had bought my ticket (queue nerves). I told them that it was only a month or so ago and that’s when they let me know that the luggage allowances had changed and I was over the limit. Crap. I’d made it that far … perhaps I shouldn’t have bought all that duty free icewine whilst waiting for my baggage in Calgary.
The nice aussie bloke behind the counter was kind enough to suggest that as I had only a single small carry-on bag, that I could fit some stuff in a second bag … which he actually went and got for me! I rearranged, and then was allowed to go line up to have my luggage scanned. And then of course, go line up to have my hand luggage and myself scanned. Finally I was able to make my way to the gate.
And it was at that point that the announcement came over the loudspeaker to say that as the plane was at maximum capacity (yay) they would be checking and weighing hand luggage! Oh great, so here I’ve just rearranged weight into my hand luggage and now they’re going to weigh it. Bastards. Fortunately I managed to slip through without being weighed and made it all the way to Adelaide from that point without incident.
I even managed to snatch a good couple of hours sleep on the way over which meant that I wasn’t a massive wreck when I arrived, though there’s some massive gaps in some of the movies that I watched on route.
What does one do when you arrive on a Sunday morning, hell you arrange for people to come and see you in the park of course so that you’ve a half decent excuse to get stuck into a nice cold Coopers Sparkling Ale. It was great to catch up with the people that were able to make it and a most enjoyable way to keep from going to bed too early.
Then it was a case of preparing for the trip to Pt Hughes, the holiday within a holiday. It seems rather decadent to travel half way around the world just to pack a couple of tents (just, hah, well a couple of tents and 4,000 other little items) and head off to a Caravan park for a couple of days, but it is simply a wonderful time. Family, friends and a great environment, all the reasons that one comes home for in the first place really.
This year’s addition to the packing list was an inflatable boat so that my darling wife would be able to get just that bit further from the beach in her unrelenting efforts to extract tasty morsels from the sea. Admittedly, the crabs that she managed to get hold of (because in addition to the boat we some how ended up with a crab net as well) were indeed, very tasty morsels. But it did mean that I didn’t see much of her for the first couple of days. Between satisfying her own desire to fish and the kids as well (somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to get excited about it) there just wasn’t enough hours in the day to hang around the camp site doing nothing.
We were fortunate with the weather, meaning that the kids were able to play on the beach and even swim (bloody mad I say) and we with daylight savings having finished, we were able to eat at a reasonable hour and send them off to bed without too much in the way of reluctance and protestation. Which of course left us plenty of time to play cards and drink.
Add to that the opportunity to indulge in some good Aussie tucker like kitchener buns and meat pies and life was most grand indeed.
It was a great break and the only weather issue we had was on the night before our departure when the wind decided to start gusting and storm-strength intensity, threatening to collapse the tent on us. The tent survived, though the wind did manage to push the sand up under the fly of the tent and strain it through the fabric so that I was waking up every hour or so and dusting it out of my hair and off my pillow.
And of course with it continuing to blow maddeningly the following day, packing up was a bit of fun. We didn’t quite get around to folding our tents in any semblance of order, because it was just too hard to hold the bloody things down.
On the upside, it did remove last minute beach/fishing trips from the itinerary and we were ready to go in record time.
That left us with a couple of days back in Adelaide to track down a couple more friends, send kids all about town to catch up with their friends and even squeeze in some additional family time with my Aunty Carol having made a trip over from Melbourne to see us!
We probably didn’t have enough time to spend with everyone, but if there’s one thing that I’ve learnt from my sojourn first in Singapore and subsequently here, it’s that no visit back home will be enough to satisfy everyone. Especially not us! The two weeks were over before I knew what was happening and it doesn’t seem real that we probably won’t manage to get home again before its time for us to depart these fair shores more permanently.
And thus we were headed back to the airport, every bag we owned stuffed to the point of exploding; mainly due to the desire to bring back enough Aussie treats to see us through as far as possible. If customs had stopped us and made us pile it up, I think I would have been ever so slightly embarrassed.
But despite the early hour of the day, we managed to get everyone to the airport in a timely manner and survived the always painful goodbyes that accompany that part of the journey. Off to Melbourne, where we had a nice smooth transfer before boarding the brand new Qantas A380 for LA.
Before I get into the whole journey part of this, I should note that whilst stuck here on my own I received an email from Caroline saying this:
“I assume that you will get this fairly soon as you should be at work by now. It is 1am and I should be sleeping. I didn't get home until after midnight tonight though because I had to take Thomas to the hospital with a door reconstructed pinkie. As it turns out it was dislocated, they gave him some pain reducing drugs and pulled it into place. He was a champ and is now sleeping.”
Poor little Thomas, struck by the Temby finger curse …again. Fortunately he’s fine. Not the greatest thing to get in your email, even if it is over and done before you even know about it.
So having said that, I flew out of Canada all on my lonesome, looking forward to all the wonderful airport exchanges that I was likely to see along the way. There were some tight connections and so it was with some trepidation that I approached the Air Canada portion of the flight. When Caroline and the kids flew out, they were able to have their luggage checked right through to Melbourne, which meant that they only had to collect it in Vancouver to clear customs and avoided doing so in LA.
My first disappointment of the trip was right at the start in Fort Mac when they told me that despite the fact that they’d managed to do so just a week a and half earlier, they were unable to do this for me and I would have to collect my luggage in LA. What they didn’t tell me was that I would also have to collect my bag in Calgary.
So after traipsing all through Calgary airport, following the seemingly endless path of signs for international transfers, I arrived at a point where they told me I would have to collect my luggage before re-checking it a little further on. Which was fine, except for the fact that my luggage was not there. I waited. I tried patience. I walked back outside to the Air Canada check in and asked (yes, that’s how desperate I was starting to feel). They told me that it could take 20 minutes for my bag to travel through the system and get to that point. I went back and waited some more given that it had only been 15 minutes at this point.
Some random number of minutes after that and my bag finally arrived. I rechecked it and set off for LA.
There’s a reason why when we flew back last year that we went Vancouver to Sydney, but cheap flights routed us back through LA again this year and I remembered what that reason was. LA is busy as buggery and quite simply, a nice airport to avoid. I waited for my bag to arrive … last one off the plane thanks … and then walked around to the other terminal where I could check in to Qantas. At this point they asked me when I had bought my ticket (queue nerves). I told them that it was only a month or so ago and that’s when they let me know that the luggage allowances had changed and I was over the limit. Crap. I’d made it that far … perhaps I shouldn’t have bought all that duty free icewine whilst waiting for my baggage in Calgary.
The nice aussie bloke behind the counter was kind enough to suggest that as I had only a single small carry-on bag, that I could fit some stuff in a second bag … which he actually went and got for me! I rearranged, and then was allowed to go line up to have my luggage scanned. And then of course, go line up to have my hand luggage and myself scanned. Finally I was able to make my way to the gate.
And it was at that point that the announcement came over the loudspeaker to say that as the plane was at maximum capacity (yay) they would be checking and weighing hand luggage! Oh great, so here I’ve just rearranged weight into my hand luggage and now they’re going to weigh it. Bastards. Fortunately I managed to slip through without being weighed and made it all the way to Adelaide from that point without incident.
I even managed to snatch a good couple of hours sleep on the way over which meant that I wasn’t a massive wreck when I arrived, though there’s some massive gaps in some of the movies that I watched on route.
What does one do when you arrive on a Sunday morning, hell you arrange for people to come and see you in the park of course so that you’ve a half decent excuse to get stuck into a nice cold Coopers Sparkling Ale. It was great to catch up with the people that were able to make it and a most enjoyable way to keep from going to bed too early.
Then it was a case of preparing for the trip to Pt Hughes, the holiday within a holiday. It seems rather decadent to travel half way around the world just to pack a couple of tents (just, hah, well a couple of tents and 4,000 other little items) and head off to a Caravan park for a couple of days, but it is simply a wonderful time. Family, friends and a great environment, all the reasons that one comes home for in the first place really.
This year’s addition to the packing list was an inflatable boat so that my darling wife would be able to get just that bit further from the beach in her unrelenting efforts to extract tasty morsels from the sea. Admittedly, the crabs that she managed to get hold of (because in addition to the boat we some how ended up with a crab net as well) were indeed, very tasty morsels. But it did mean that I didn’t see much of her for the first couple of days. Between satisfying her own desire to fish and the kids as well (somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to get excited about it) there just wasn’t enough hours in the day to hang around the camp site doing nothing.
We were fortunate with the weather, meaning that the kids were able to play on the beach and even swim (bloody mad I say) and we with daylight savings having finished, we were able to eat at a reasonable hour and send them off to bed without too much in the way of reluctance and protestation. Which of course left us plenty of time to play cards and drink.
Add to that the opportunity to indulge in some good Aussie tucker like kitchener buns and meat pies and life was most grand indeed.
It was a great break and the only weather issue we had was on the night before our departure when the wind decided to start gusting and storm-strength intensity, threatening to collapse the tent on us. The tent survived, though the wind did manage to push the sand up under the fly of the tent and strain it through the fabric so that I was waking up every hour or so and dusting it out of my hair and off my pillow.
And of course with it continuing to blow maddeningly the following day, packing up was a bit of fun. We didn’t quite get around to folding our tents in any semblance of order, because it was just too hard to hold the bloody things down.
On the upside, it did remove last minute beach/fishing trips from the itinerary and we were ready to go in record time.
That left us with a couple of days back in Adelaide to track down a couple more friends, send kids all about town to catch up with their friends and even squeeze in some additional family time with my Aunty Carol having made a trip over from Melbourne to see us!
We probably didn’t have enough time to spend with everyone, but if there’s one thing that I’ve learnt from my sojourn first in Singapore and subsequently here, it’s that no visit back home will be enough to satisfy everyone. Especially not us! The two weeks were over before I knew what was happening and it doesn’t seem real that we probably won’t manage to get home again before its time for us to depart these fair shores more permanently.
And thus we were headed back to the airport, every bag we owned stuffed to the point of exploding; mainly due to the desire to bring back enough Aussie treats to see us through as far as possible. If customs had stopped us and made us pile it up, I think I would have been ever so slightly embarrassed.
But despite the early hour of the day, we managed to get everyone to the airport in a timely manner and survived the always painful goodbyes that accompany that part of the journey. Off to Melbourne, where we had a nice smooth transfer before boarding the brand new Qantas A380 for LA.
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