I was down at Circular Quay yesterday with Torbin and Judy (friends of my mother's) and I heard someone playing the Super Mario Bros. theme on a tuba. It reminded me of my friend Tyler who is a sound designer for EA. On our sojourn through the botanical gardens, we ran into a guy who works for Condi Rice, who was apparently down here at the time.



There were helicopters buzzing about like mad all day. Torbin and Judy opined that they were there to offer protection to the sec-state. After her time in Sydney, she went down to Melbourne to watch the commonwealth games. I watched a little of the games on the TV. England and Scotland compete separately for these games, and Australia dominates the swimming and the bicycling.

I took a number of pictures of the opera house when I wasn't being rudely shooed away by foreign tourists with their own, apparently more important, cameras:

(...many pictures behind this cut)

I am now in Sydney, finally. I had a fun weekend in LA with Tyler. We did all the usual kind of stuff, except when we were playing video games I was getting a professional tour.

I had originally wanted to go to San Francisco and see Joanna and Padraic as well, but I needed a lot more time in Salt Lake to finish things up in America than I thought. Hopefully I will be able to see them on my next visit to America. It doesn't seem strange to talk about "my next visit to America," at least, not yet.

There is a wonderful view of the opera house and the bridge from our apartment. When I get a faster Internet connection I will post some pictures. Right now we are using some kind of neighborhood wireless connection which is real slow and tends to cut out from time to time.

The company my friend Mike works for just got bought by google^[1], so now I know someone who works at google. They were already working closely with google, but I think this will be even better.

More later.

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[1] http://www.sketchup.com/index.php?id=1439

Well, I'm leaving Utah finally this afternoon. In LA for the weekend where Tyler and I are going transform into trains and drive around. Then I will be down under! Amazing!

Next Friday I'm flying to LAX. I have seven days to wrap everything up. Beyond that is the unknown. While Brad and Sherry were out here, they told me that my mum was really nice (response: I'm partial to her). My mum told me that my friends were really nice and that I had chosen well (response: I didn't really choose them; they chose me).

I made it to Salt Lake City! I'm tired.

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.

I've been an ex-IBMer for a couple of days now. I may therefore reveal that "The Company" = IBM. I am pretty sure that comes as a surprise to nobody.

Today is the first day that I would have gone to work if I hadn't signed those papers on Friday. My last day I felt oddly detached. I was immune to things and people that ordinarily bother me, like my manager and Jeff. On the other hand I went around and said good-bye to people. It's harder to go wrong with that.

My going away party was on Saturday at Brian's house. I will be seeing people this week, but it is probably the last time that I will see "everyone" together. (Not that it could really be everyone without Sherry, Megan, Joanna and Padraic). I got to say goodbye to Sherry over lunch a week or so ago, and I hopefully I will get to visit Joanna and Padraic in California before I leave.

Everyone should come out and visit me in Salt Lake City for a ski holiday (I'll be there about 6 February to 8 March, with a short trip to New Mexico sometime the week of 22 February), or in Australia (anytime starting May 2006).

What was 2004? It was a year of stolen and disputed elections in Georgia and the Ukraine, the rise and fall of Howard Dean and John Kerry, the first private space flight and the end of the "X-Prize," disaster in Darfur, prisoner abuse in Iraq, expansion of the European Union, the death of Ronald Regan and a month of flags at half mast, the return of Greek Olympics and a very smug presidential victory. In less political but tragic terms, the worst natural disaster in my memory has occurred in Asia as Tsunami death tolls top 135,000 according to CNN.com.

For me, the year started out as a bleak one in the coldest New York winter I have ever experienced. My mother came to visit me for her birthday. We stayed in Manhattan and it was bitterly cold.

Lowel and Johanna

I took a lighting class at Dutchess which was a blast. Some of my friends from Black and White II were taking the class and I met some other cool people. It was so much fun working with those people, including the teacher, Lowel Handler.

(Read more...)

In Short, 2004 was A Great Year and I have high hopes that 2005 will be even better.

Yesterday we went up to visit my mother's friend and mentor, Clare, at her rustic cabin home which looks over Bear Lake. Last July I took a photograph which now is on the welcome page of my web site up there. For "Christmas" dinner, we had fish. Although I am not a fan of fish and I did not have seconds, it did taste pretty good. We also drank lots of Australian wine; that probably helped.

(The Sublime)

In short, our range of topics was both wide and deep, and intellectually stimulating.

Then we drove back to Salt Lake City where we attended the annual Christmas Eve party for Don's (my step father) family. Gosh... where to begin. (The Ridiculous)

Yesterday we went up to visit my mother's friend and mentor, Clare, at her rustic cabin home which looks over Bear Lake. Last July I took a photograph which now is on the welcome page of my web site up there. For "Christmas" dinner, we had fish. Although I am not a fan of fish and I did not have seconds, it did taste pretty good. We also drank lots of Australian wine; that probably helped.

(The Sublime)

In short, our range of topics was both wide and deep, and intellectually stimulating.

Then we drove back to Salt Lake City where we attended the annual Christmas Eve party for Don's (my step father) family. Gosh... where to begin. (The Ridiculous)