General update

So Ruthie and I took a trip two weekends ago.  Tonight's pretty much the first night I've had a chance to sit down at a computer to catch up on some internetting, including posting to here.  Fortunately, while on the road, I typed as we went.  Unfortunately, I decided I would try to put some more layers to the blog posts - which require a bit more post processing if you will.

This inspiration dawned upon me after spending some time reading a friend's new blog, tomhavegroup.com/road-scholar-blog/ [and her hubby's tomhavegroup.com/sound-vision-2/].  I realised that I'd been reading plenty of other blogs with a bit of additional content other than words and the very random picture.  And then I decided it's about time to try and add that stuff to TFAAB.

So those entries are coming, hopefully starting tonight or tomorrow night.

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In the mean time, a quick update on acupuncture.   We've now gone to three sessions.  Just like when the doctor asks, I find it hard to describe how things are going.  After each session, and generally for the day after, my legs feel incredibly tired.  The first session, I was worn out for two whole days; when my legs feel exhausted, I feel worn down - which is part of the reason I've gone in the first place.  Anyways, it's difficult to say if I feel any improvement that simple R&R wouldn't've done for me and my knee.

Ruthie, on the other hand, apparently wasn't telling the needle guy the right thing on the first session, and flinched really prematurely.  She's corrected this, but she more or less detests the actual needles and the twirling of them to ping the nerves.  And I think she's fairly convinced it's not helping.  Meanwhile, her physio has decided it's time for a more aggressive approach and has started her back on some activity - including a bit of skating last night.  When prompted, she doesn't really claim that her leg is feeling better; perhaps this is due to increased amounts of activity - or perhaps this is due to a really slow healing process.

Generally speaking, though, being injured sucks - especially when it's a lame injury that just won't heal. 

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In other news, March 1 marked the first day of Autumn.  However, while last year it felt like the season changed with the flip of the calendar, this year, summer's holding on strong.  It's been in the mid 30s all week, and it seems to be staying that way.  Apparently February was the driest it's been since the middle of the drought season, and the weather now is very much like what Melbourne experienced during the ten-year drought.  While I'm not excited about drought prospects, I am kinda tickled by the fact that we're more or less experiencing two weather patterns in two different years in the same city.

As the weather currently is, blue skies and hot days, this is exactly the weather we naively thought Melbourne/Australia had every day all year.  Clearly we were wrong, but it's nice to know we're getting a good dose of it any ways.

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Lastly, work has been an interesting world as of late.  Having to deal with not one, but two governments seems to have been unnecessarily tricky the past little bit.  First off, I've added a new term to my diction with this sequestration business in the US.  If the doomsday clock is not delayed with some sort of financial agreement in Congress, it is getting increasingly likely that I will be required to reduce my work to 4 days a week.  As if dealing with one country's fiduciary restrictions wasn't enough, the coffers haven't really been overflowing down here either.  So much so that when a maintenance contract was supposed to be signed back in October for some equipment for which I'm responsible, they said no.  [Thus risking all kinds of serious damage and a massive repair bill by not simply ponying up the money for the maintenance.]  It's now March, and the contract just went through.

Silver lining: 4 days a week will mean more time to play video games and explore the city [hopefully for free] or spend time with friends.  And if I play my cards right, we'll have saved up enough money, taxes won't be terrible to us this year, that I might even be able to use the regular 3-day weekend to our advantage and we can do some paid exploration.

Anyways, that's all I've got for the moment.  Time to spice up the road trip blog and get it ready for posting here.

Cheers
-EP

Road trip!

So I'd totally meant for the next post to be an update on acupuncture [I went, too].  But, as it turns out, it's a slow burn kinda thing and we've got follow up appointments next week anyways.  So more to come on that.

In the mean time, it's Wednesday night, derby practice is over, the laundry is nearly all done, we are semi-packed, and the alarm is set for 4a.  For the first time in a long while, Ruthie and I are going on a trip.  Wooo!

The rough agenda is as follows: Fly to Adelaide first thing Thursday morning, pick up the car, drive to Lake Mungo.  Lake Mungo overnight, then off to Broken Hill.  Two nights in Broken Hill and then back to Adelaide.  One night in Adelaide and then we're back Monday night.

Since I'll be taking the laptop with me, I hope I'll be able to keep up with our journey as it happens instead of trying to remember it two months from now.

-EP

Acupuncture = voodoo?

Way back in December, we were playing kickball on the last night of derby practice.  It just so happened that Ruthie fell and bruised the inside of her kneecap in the process.  After two months’ rest, she finally went to the physio*, who fussed at her for not having come earlier, and ultimately told her she needed sever restriction of movement in the knee combined with some stretches for the muscles around the knee, to heal up.  It’s one of those injuries where there’s not a lot of blood flow in the area, so healing time is significantly increased.  Ignoring the rest order only exacerbates inflammation.  However, the issue quickly presented itself that in order to severely limit movement to the knee, she’d be losing all attempt at cardio [even copious amounts of walking inflame the knee].  Presented with this conundrum, the physio said she could go swimming with a pool buoy, to which she’s begun doing. 

In the mean time, we’ve also begun to seek out alternative methods of treatment.  Australia, or at least Melbourne, presents an interesting opportunity for us in situations like these because there is a really big blend of eastern and western medicine available.  Being friends with some really sporty people helps in that we know some people who have had to recover from injuries in order to keep performing, and it was through one of these friends that we were referred to an acupuncturist, with the recommendation to also look into dry needling.  Now, I’m fairly sceptical, about needles accessing my qi, and changing the flow of my energy.  But, I’m willing to have an open mind.  In fact, I’m actually eager for my mind to be changed, and in particular because both of us really want Ruthie to be able to skate [and thus bout] for the remainder of our time here.

Ruthie’s been tasked with making an appointment, and so we’ll see what happens.

*Physio, short for physiotherapist, which, as far as we can tell, is a physical therapist, but a bit better/more knowledgeable.  For example the physio that we have on our derby team went to school for eight years.  The only thing that would match that in the US is a Doctor of Physical Therapy [to the best of my limited knowledge].

No shoes for you!

Lately, I’ve had some unfortunate luck when it comes to ordering things from the internet – shoes in particular.  Way back in November, feeling the need to embrace the warming weather, and after having spent some time consulting a podiatrist about a. the wart on my foot and b. my gait, I ordered myself a new pair of shoes.  Except those shoes never arrived.  Fast forward to January, and I went through the unnecessarily tedious task of trying to track down those shoes.  Long story short, I won’t be ordering shoes from RoadRunnerSports again any time soon, but at least I got my money back. 

As an aside, without searching through all that I’ve written, one of the glorious perks of living here as an American detachment with a consulate close by: US shipping rates.  Whatever it costs to send a package to LA is what it costs to send a package to Melbourne.  Sure, it might take anywhere from 7 to 27 days, but when your shipping is occasionally free, it’s totally worth it.  Not to mention most things – even with additional S&H costs – are cheaper from back home than buying here.  For example, Red Chuck Talyor All Star: AU$89.99, US$55.00.

Anyways, having spent the Christmas break as well as a number of other days out pounding the pavement with my aging Brooks, I decided another attempt at ordering some replacement shoes was in order.  This time, I went with Zappos.com, and I think the error is my fault.  Our zip is 96551.  A day or two after I’d completed my order, I realised that the shipping address was listed as 96557.  I have no idea if it was a typo on my part, or somehow electrons got crossed and a 1 turned into a 7, but it was suddenly too late: the order had been shipped.  Some searching on USPS proved that I had remembered correctly: package interrupt existed.  A call to their 800 number opened a case on my behalf, and I was provided with some additional instructions as to the form I could fill out and take to my post office.  Seeing as how the shipment was already on it didn’t seem necessary to fill out a form at my post office, so I waited a day or two more for someone to call me back about the case I’d opened. 

When no one did, I called the 800 number again, promptly got someone on the phone, who kindly explained that my case was being investigated and gave me the direct number to the USPS LA claims office which was handling my issue.  With that number in hand, I sat at my desk the morning of Jan 31^st and multi-tasked while I waited on hold.  90 minutes I was on hold.  90 minutes.  And when someone finally picked it up, the woman told me that the other lady who was the case worker handling my issue wasn’t at her desk, and would I be willing to hold longer [she did acknowledge that I was on hold for a while, at least].  Unfortunately, no, I could not as I had a meeting to go to right then, and I asked for a call back later with an update.

I got busy, and nothing came of it.  I had continued to refresh the tracking info from Zappos, and the information now showed that the shoes were in HI.  This is both good and bad – usually things that go through Honolulu hit a delay and take a bit longer to get sorted and distributed.  Great, I thought, I’ve still got a chance to do a package interrupt. 

Nope, another call yesterday morning of 50 minutes’ worth of time spent on hold to tell me that a letter had been shipped to our DPO box explaining how to use the military mail inquiry system.  I’m sorry, what?  You sent a letter to the DPO box about a package that needed to be interrupted?  Yeah, thanks for that.  Look, I get that the USPS is underfunded and understaffed, but I would’ve gladly paid a fee to have my shoes caught mid-route and shipped here instead of to 96557 [which, as I far as I can tell is just another DPO zip, so it’s not like the postal service can easily figure out that I’ve put the wrong city with the wrong zipcode]. 

I’m even more than willing to admit that the zipcode mistake is my fault.  Even if that’s the case, it’s the first time I’ve made a mistake writing my address for an online order [in years, if ever] … it just so happens to be on the second attempt at ordering some shoes.  I’m starting to think that these shoes just aren’t meant to be.

-EP

Cheater cheater

So I had a backlog of posts I'd written on my Word document where I've been composing entries.  So instead of being 4 months of nothing and then a handful of posts all at once ... I back-dated a handful of entries.

So sue me.

-EP

Arms Giving and more

So the other day, Ruthie and I had the opportunity to attend an “Arms Giving” [although I believe he meant Alms Giving] ceremony at a Sri Lankan Buddhist temple.  In our journey to branch out and try new things, I’m rather glad we went.  I truly had no idea what was going on for most of the time [chants were in Sanskrit and the majority of the service was in another language – I’m guessing Tamil?], but it was still very pleasant.  Fortunately, the monk gave the “homily” in English, which was nice to have it explained at my level – even if it was obvious that the kids and maybe an adult or two weren’t so excited at the ELI5 break down.

The drive back from the temple sparked an interesting conversation for Ruthie and me about what to do with respect to our progeny and exposing them to religion.  Both of us were raised Catholic; Ruthie due to a private Catholic education being better than public schools in her area, and me due to a Catholic family.  However, neither one of us is always so fond of mass religion.  Without going into too many details here, it’s safe to say that on a personal level, the act of attending church is what got me to stop going. 

Now, switching religions isn’t necessarily the answer, as attending a service is still participating in an organised religion.  But, going back to the college days, I was rather intrigued by Buddhism and Taoism, which still have their group ceremonies, but aren’t quite as rigid about the best way to practice.

Fast forward to now, and the ceremony we attended was one in remembrance of a co-worker’s father, who passed away five years ago.  While I liked the notion of it, I think Ruthie got a bit more out of the purpose of the ceremony than I did.  Sure there are candles and you can have dedications requested at mass, but it’s different than the Buddhist ceremony we observed. 

So this raised the question of Why not look into it a bit more while we’re here?  After some internetting, we learned that there is way more to it than simply attending a Buddhist mass [picking a tradition alone is a daunting notion].  But even still, there’s a bunch more exposure here than there is in America, so why not?  So perhaps we’ll continue our explorations and try and attend a few more ceremonies/masses/gatherings/meditations and see what happens.

-EP

2012 in Oz - A calendar year down under

Wow, it’s been far too long.  As always, I’ve been meaning to update this several times since I last did, but I had been writing entries up during down times at work [it sounds lame, but I prefer composing at a proper keyboard as opposed to my laptop] and I’ve actually been fairly busy. 

Now I’m at work in the quiet period between New Year’s and when people actually get back from their holidays.  So let’s see if I can’t crank out a few things worth posting.

I suppose the easiest thing to do at this point is try to some sort of 2012 recollection post.  The problem with this is I have a crappy memory.  And I’d look through my photos on FB, except, oh wait, I’m six months behind on them, too.

Instead, let’s start with something more acute: Christmas.  I know this is our second Christmas down under, and I can’t entirely recollect my thoughts on how Christmas felt last year … but I really had a hard time getting my head around the fact that it was Christmas this year.  Sure, Ruthie put up a decorative tinsel tree, and we exchanged a few presents [pressies], but I still struggled. 

Contrary to last year, though, I did run next to the beach on Christmas morning.  This year we spent the 24^th-27^th at Apollo Bay with some friend at a quartet of villas [we only stayed in one villa, of course] called Chocolate Gannets.  If nothing else, it was pretty breath taking.  The main room overlooked the beach and the ocean, a mere 100m away.  Even though it was a bit chilly most of the time we were there, it was still worth it to have the windows open, listening to the water. 

Christmas also brought a new board game, Ticket to Ride, into our lives courtesy of Ruthie.  It got played a handful of times while we were there, and is a big success. 

Also, thanks to the restrictions being lifted on lithium ion batteries being shipped in the mail, Ruthie got me a Kindle.  I’ve already read one short story on it, Mile 81, but then received some Halo books in the mail, so I’ve moved back to proper paper for the time being.

Anyways, continuing with the warm holiday weather, Ruthie and I went for a day-long ride out to Hepburn Springs on the motorcycle.  We broke it up well, so it wasn’t an all-at-once ride, starting with a stop off in Hoppers Crossing for some brunch and stretch of the legs.  But it was really quite an enjoyable ride [despite some really crappy road conditions – you notice that there are some roads in serious states of disrepair when you’re in the car … but it’s rather amplified when you’re on two wheels], and so I hope we can get a few more good rides in this summer.

NYE displayed yet another fantastic showing of fireworks across the city skyline.  These Aussies really do love their fireworks.  They show footage of the Sydney fireworks, and the do them over the harbour, including some launched from/on the bridge.  Melbourne uses the skyline, launching synchronised fireworks from rooftops.  It’s pretty cool.  I think I read somewhere that it was close to $2M for the fireworks this NYE.

And just like last year, we’re in the middle of a heatwave and its 40 degrees today.  Yay, heat!  Truly, it’s almost a year to the date that we hit 40 – I think it was the 2^nd last year instead of the 4^th. 

Ruthie and I have decided we’ve gone to the other end of the spectrum as far as understanding accents is concerned.  I feel like I’ve been there for a while, but Ruthie only recently has reached this conclusion: instead of having difficulty understanding the accent [although at times, it’s still a bit rough], it’s actually more difficult noticing the differences between American and Aussie accents.  It seems a bit silly when I put it in text, but I reckon our brains have just blended them all together, and so it actually takes a moment to process that we’re hearing a fellow American.  Meanwhile, while I’ve still got no hope in identifying a Queenslander vs a Victorian, I feel like I’ve made progress distinguishing a Kiwi from an Aussie based on their intonations.  Perhaps this is because I’ve now grown accustomed to the Aussie patterns so much that other accents actually sound foreign. 

Because derby continues to be a major part of our lives, it’s worth noting that I’ve continued my role as Head Coach of WestSide Derby Dollz.  And, we had our deb’ut [get it, debut bout] the day after my birthday.  And we won!  I don't have much more to offer other than it's been a great, yet sometimes stressful experience.  When we went back in October, I actually had a minute or two where I actually missed them.  

And on that note I'm out of things to say.  Generally, I think it's pretty awesome that we can say we spent a full calendar year in a different country [if you don't count October, that is].

-EP