The Joys of Friday Take-Away

For the most part Leah and I try and live frugally.  We do our shopping on the weekend and try and plan our meals for the week.  We both pack lunches daily and avoid eating out.  Our dinners are home cooked and we enjoy the time together since we're apart all day.  However, one night a week we order take-away.  We're really enjoying the variety in our neighborhood.  There are plenty of options within a few minutes walk from our front door.

In the last few weeks, we've eaten at two different Chinese restaurants, a phenomenal Indian restaurant (twice) and the best Thai food I have ever had.   In fact I'm sitting here right now sweating from a combination of green curry and Moo Pud Prig Khing (pork with curry paste and green beans) and dreaming of the next time I can eat it.  It was that good.  

There are Asian restaurants aplenty that's for sure, but I have yet to find anything that you could call uniquely Australian.  I need to find a kangaroo steak somewhere.  Further research to follow.

On a different note, I've finished my fourth week of work and am feeling much more comfortable in my new job.  There are still some growing pains but I feel pretty good considering.  Nothing has made me feel at home here as much as working.  Plus, being around and having real conversations with Aussies all day gives me plenty of practice on my accent.  Which at this point varies, in the opinion of my coworkers, from "pretty good" to "weird".  I reckon by the time we've been here for two years I should be able to fool most locals.  We'll see.

My Internet Tubes are Clogged With Lard

Um yeah, turns out really slow internets are most annoying.  I'm not sure I'm gonna make it to Monday like this.

At the moment we're sitting in our apartment and sweltering from the heat.  Our aircon decided that it doesn't like us and refuses to cool us off.  We don't actually use it very often but the last few days have been particularly hot and almost unbearable at night. Have we complained loudly about the heat yet?  It's bloody hot and humid.  We've been told that February is the worst month as far as heat goes.  Here's hoping it isn't.

Today at work Kevin was picking my brain about America and we somehow got on the subject of roasting pigs.  You know how I love me some roasted pork, so I was telling Kev all I know about the subject.  Well, Kev, being the enthusiastic sort, decided that he really wants to roast a pig for his birthday next weekend.  He did quite a bit of calling around today and we found a place to buy a whole pig for $8.50 a kilo.  We're looking at a 20 kilo piggie (44lbs).  We also found a spit roaster to rent for $50.  It's on now.

Of course while on the subject of pig roasts we also discussed beverages. The idea of getting a keg was totally off of Kev's radar and now I know why.  We did some calling around and found the only place in Brisbane that sells kegs for private parties.  The price? $315!  That's including the $75 tap rental (non-refundable).  Some quick maths told us that is the same price as buying beer in bottles before we thought about ice, cups, a bucket etc...  What a shame.  Back home I was buying a keg of PBR for $56.  And I'm not even going to mention all the partial kegs of Sierra Nevada that we took home from parties. (What up Grand Lake Crew?!?)

And that, friends, is why you need not worry about us not returning to the US. Like I told the guys at work, I really like it here, but the price of beer is a deal breaker.

Some observations for today:

-Maths = Math

-Whinging = Complaining loudly, whining about stuff

-Struth, Bloody Oath = Yep, You Betcha

-bludgering = slacking off at work

Wha happen?

Whoa, we missed a day there, sorry about that.  Yesterday was in fact Australia day and we celebrated like a couple of true Aussies.  We spent much of the day on Skype, drinking with friends in Denver.  We started about ten am and didn't get done with Skype until almost five pm.  By the time we were done talking with Sarah and Dave we were both feeling pretty drunk. (looking at the fridge today, we put a serious hurting on the carton of beer we  bought)

After the marathon chat slash drink-a-thon, we went out to the back yard where one of our housemates was having a bbq.  We met some cool people and had several more beers with them.  When the sun went down we grabbed a quick bite and then walked over to the pub to meet some of Leah's new school friends.  By the time we were finished at the pub neither of us was in any shape to write the blog.

Five thirty am comes pretty early when one has been drinking and today I felt a bit rough around the edges.  Thankfully I wasn't the only one.  Just about everyone I work with was hungover and the collective mood was pretty chill.

I had intended to post a few photos tonight but, unfortunately, we have run over our download allotment for the month and our internet speed has been slowed to a crawl.  I just spent the last fifteen minutes trying to get one photo uploaded and abandoned it in frustration.

Our internet usage was quite high because I had to download all of the software updates for my new hard drive and Skype does tend to use a lot of data.  We've decided to give ourselves a couple of months to gauge our average usage and if we keep getting slowed down at the end of the month we'll upgrade our internet plan.  For now though, I'll not be able to post photos until February 1st.

I've been itching to post some photos from work actually.  When I first started I had to put all the parts away from our stock order.  When the parts are shipped from Honda, many of them have tags held on by rubber bands.  I, of course, took all the rubber bands and made a rubber band ball.  I've made a rubber band ball at every job I've had since working with Ben in VA.  I didn't really think too much of it at the time.  I mean what else do you do with a hundred extra rubber bands?

Kevin, who sits next to me at work saw me bouncing the ball off of the wall by my desk and imediately became fascinated by it.  He asked me to show him how I did it, so I helped him get one started.  Little did I know that Kevin would be a rubber band ball overachiever.  Very quickly we had used all the rubber bands in our office and Kev was calling his grandmother who lives in the area to bring us some more.  Kev's Nan brought us two really large bags of rubber bands and soon his ball was twice the size of the one I had made.  Of course most of the dealership makes it's way through our office during the course of a day, and I soon started to see other people with rubber band balls.  It was hilarious.

Now that was over three weeks ago.  Every morning Kev comes in and opens his backpack and hefts out his ever growing rubber band ball.  The guy is seriously obsessed at this point.  I've been documenting the ever growing mass of latex and the other day we got the idea to weigh it.  The thing weighs over two kilograms! That's about four and a half pounds. The diameter is over six inches.  It's massive. I haven't asked him yet but it must be getting close to fifty dollars worth of rubber bands.

I've done a GIS (Google image search) for "rubber band ball" and Kev has quite a way to go to break the record, but he's off to a good start.  I look forward to documenting the progress.

I'm off to bed early tonight, it's been a long day.

Taco Monday?

It's a little after ten pm.  Leah and I had dinner at the neighbor's tonight, but this time we cooked.  We made carnitas tacos and guacamole.  I think they really enjoyed them.  Tacos are sort of hard to come by in Australia and usually don't go much beyond the realm of ground beef and taco seasoning in a packet.  I'm convinced that if you set up a stand in one of the weekend markets you could make a killing with an authentic taco stand. Ah, to dream.  We usually have Tacos on Tuesday, Taco Tuesday, duh, but since tomorrow is a holiday we bumped up the schedule.

Tomorrow we have the day off for Australia day.  Jan 26th is the anniversary of the landing of the first colonial expedition that landed in Sydney.  Mush like the 4th of July back home, most Aussies will celebrate by drinking and barbecuing.  I think there are fireworks planned but I'm not sure where they are going to be. I do know that you can get just about anything you could ever want with the Australian flag printed on it right now. Every other car is flying a flag or two and shops are bursting with flag printed party supplies.  There's a real sense of nationalism in the streets.

We are quickly settling into routine with school and work.  It's nice, frankly, after months of not working and being rootless, to settle into familiar.  I'm enjoying my job.  I like the guys I work with and am learning a lot.  Leah is busy with school and I feel she already finds it challenging.  Of course she is not the type of person to procrastinate or take things for granted, so she gets after school pretty hard.  She seems to like it so far and is starting to make some friends.

Back home the NFL championships were played today, the Australian open is the big sports story here, but they are showing the games on TV.  I missed the Vikings (sorry Chucker, looks like you were right about Favre) and Saints and the Indy NY game just started.  I think I'll watch for a while even though I already know how it turns out.  This seems really weird for me to say, but I miss Football way more than I ever would have expected.  Those of you who know me well know that I'm mostly a baseball fan and football falls a distant third after Hockey. But it's so prevalent back home that you can't help but follow it.  Here, it's totally an afterthought, horse racing gets more attention.  And the lack of constant football coverage has left a void in my life that I am really surprised of.  And Hockey, as in NHL, might as well not even exist here.  You never see hockey here unless there is a really really brutal fight.

I'm still getting our photos arranged back on the computer so I don't have any to post tonight.  I've just about gotten back to where I was with the computer before the crash.  It won't be long now and we'll have the blog cranking again.  It feels like it's been a long time since I was writing every day.  Hopefully it won't take me too long to get back in the swing of things.  Being at work has given me a whole new perspective on living in Oz and I look forward to writing about it for you.

Enjoy your Monday. We'll be celebrating with our new country.

And, We're Back!

It's 1:30 am.  I got my hard drive today and started loading it after work.  I've just about got everything I need loaded on it.

I'm not going to write a bunch tonight, but just wanted to let you guys know we're back to being connected.  I'll also let you know we are taking steps to insure that we are never out this long again.

If you are friends with us on Skype, keep your eye out for us as we should be around some this weekend.

We have some stuff to write about but it will have to wait for now.

Enjoy your Friday, it's Saturday here and I'm sleeping in!

Holding Pattern

Hi guys sorry we have been MIA for so long. I'm still waiting for my new hard drive to get here. It's supposed to be available on Friday and I should get it Saturday morning. The way my luck has gone with things of this sort I'm not holding my breath.

Assuming I can get it on Saturday it should take me most of the day to get it loaded and ready. We should be back up and running on sunday.

I hope you understand, it's kind of a pain typing on this teeny tiny keyboard.

We have had a few adventures since we last posted and we've been taking some great pictures so hold on and we'll satisfy your curiosity as soon as we are able.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPodtouch

Two Steps Forward...

Last night when I got home from work my computer wouldn't start up.  I used all of my Jedi trouble shooting skills to determine that my hard drive has taken a dump.  Needless to say I'm feeling a little annoyed right now (read: furious).

I sent an email off to HP tech support and they've responded and asked me to do a couple of other trouble shooting steps that I hadn't taken yet.  After doing that I still have an inoperable computer sitting on my desk just asking to be smashed to bits.  I'm keeping my cool.

This could turn interesting for a few reasons.  HP never sold this particular model of computer in Australia, so I'm dealing with HP USA, who are being helpful right now, but we'll see what happens if they have to ship me a replacement.  And there is something in the wording of the warranty about being out of the USA.  I'm not going to go into that just yet because the implications make me want to cry.

The implications for you, dear reader, are my posts are going to be hit or miss for a while.  I usually write them in the evening and since we only have one working computer now Leah's school work comes first. Also, Leah's laptop doesn't have a web cam so Skype sessions will be on hold until I can get mine up and running.  Hopefully it won't be too long.

Leah is already super busy with school.  In fact she's gone over to the Uni this morning to write a research paper.  She has three papers due next week alone.  Turns out graduate school is demanding.  Who knew?

So that's it for today, I'll try and keep you posted about what's happening.  In the meantime, you can still reach me at the usual email addys, or leave comments on the blog.  In fact feel free to leave more comments slash questions on the blog in general.