From the “Wet dog” series

From the “I feel better with him garding the coast” series

e and d came out for a few days. I'm sad because now that they are gone again I realize it will be a long time before I see them again. Tell me again why I can't just bring my friends to Australia with me? e said she would try to come out within a couple of years. It's going to be hard getting used to not being able to meet up with her and Jack after herding practice to go for a hike in New Jersey.

On the bright side, It was great to see them, and I was pleased that e finally got to meet my mum. The first day they were here we went skiing at Brighton. d said that he actually liked skiing so he may be back for more at some point.

That night we had Posole (prepared by myself) and invited Clare and Val over as well so we had an interesting discussion about whether or not Biology could ever be a predictive science or not. We also discussed the stupidity of large organizations, such as IBM and LANL, and how open systems are safer to closed ones.

Everyone had seconds, and some even had thirds. Right before I left New York, e told me that she likes Mexican food... all these years I thought she was just being polite and eating the food that I make for Enchilada Night. Seriously.

The second day we took a drive to Park City to see two photography galleries. We drive through the mountains and took a number of pictures and had lunch at somebodyorother's Grill. That night e and d took us to the Red Iguana, where we had more good Mexican food.

My last week in New York is pretty much over. I'm not ready to go, I could use at least another week. However: ready or not, I'm driving out of here on Wednesday (weather permitting). I am going to disassemble my network tomorrow, which means my access to the Internet will be spotty at best until I get to Salt Lake.

My friends took me out to lunch on Wednesday. Everyone has been buying me lunch lately. It makes me feel special, and it is a reminder of the good friends that I have made here. There are so many people that I am going to miss. I'm even going to miss Jack. I won't miss Jeff, however.

I forgot to invite the cute Indian girl to my going away lunch a week and a half ago, but I had lunch with her on Thursday -- this was probably better :) I'm sorry that I hadn't gotten to know her better before I quit The Company. She's smart, is interested in cameras and understands computers. Maybe we can keep in touch via the Internets.

I tell my friends that they should come and visit me in Australia. I know some of them will, but many of them will not. To Americans, Australia is impossibly far away; it might as well be on the moon. To me, Australia is such an important part of my life, I can't imagine not going there. I'm not saying I can't imagine not going to live there either; if it weren't for the fact that I am moving I couldn't imagine not visiting.

Yellow Rust

My friend e, who lives in New Jersey and works in Manhattan, called me up this week to see if she and Jack could come up to go hiking with me today (Sunday). I always like to see e, so I told her that I'd love for her to come up for a visit. She didn't call, however, on Saturday, as I had thought she said she would, so I assumed that she wasn't coming after all, until after a lazy morning I got a call from e saying that she had just gotten off the thruway (about fifteen minutes away) and oh by the way how do I get to your place again?

Quick shower before she arrived and decided we would take Bull Hill trail which goes past some old ruins which I always find interesting to photograph. There was a large group (like 30 ) up ahead of us that we were eager to avoid, so we took evasive action onto a less trekked trail which took us to the top of Bull Hill and back around to her car. This actually worked out even better than the trail I had planed to take.

The whole time, of course, Jack was running up ahead and then running back to check on us. This helped tire him out, as by the end of the hike he was doing less of this. Jack, I should mention is e's German Shepard.

Then at four I was due to help a friend of mine unload her contents of her old home into her new home in Wappingers Falls, which not coincidentally is also her boyfriends home. We watched the SNL debate, which Joe had recorded from the night before. I thought it kind of sucked compared with what I remember of the SNL debates, and post election satire four years ago. Then again, they had more material to work with. We had a one sided political discussion. I have very strong opinions, but I prefer not to talk about politics, because I find it only affords me the opportunity to get me into trouble.

I'm tired, going to go to BED!