Life is Never Normal at This Time of Year(s)

Michael Crichton said it better about global warming than I ever could. Check it out if you have 20 minutes to read what he had to say about it....and pay attention 'cause it gets pretty deep in some places.

I took the Guru out on the road yesterday. It was the first time it has been outside in over three months and it behaved like a champ. I didn't get on the aerobars until I was about four miles out so I could get used to the bike's sensitive steering again. After a brief 15 miles, I was riding it like I'd never been gone. I had to get Scooter to take a look at the headset earlier since I was having problems tightening it up after putting a shorter stem on the handlebars.

Today I made a visit to a local podiatrist to get a look-see at my right foot and my left ankle. As to the ankle, we both agreed to give running a rest for a while after the duathlon this Saturday and see how it responds to lots of rest. He thinks it's probably a couple of deep tendons that have been aggrevated but if things don't improve after the rest we'll do an MRI and see what we can see. Regarding the right foot, he confirmed the tailor's bunion I have and, after looking at the x-rays, he commented that the fifth metatarsal bone under the little toe was definitely flared out too far to the right which makes my foot look wider. But he was really interested in the fourth metatarsal which was also flaring out with the other one. He had heard of the condition but had really never seen one! He talked about it a lot. Surgery is an option (as was leaving it alone) but it'd require me to be on crutches for 5-6 weeks because I wouldn't be able to put weight on those small bones. But he wasn't recommending surgery, at least not for now....he admitted that he'd be hard-pressed to make a decision either way. He told me to that it's probably better to do nothing right now since I'm still an active person and that maybe this is something we'll deal with when I'm in my late 60's and not as active...unless the foot decides to make a case for surgery earlier than that. But it looks like surgery on my right dawg will happen some day. Just like I believe surgery on my left shoulder...1997 bike crash....will happen some day. But not today!

After three weeks of long daylight while we were in Australia, we're still struggling to get used to these days of shorter daylight back in Louisiana. Trying to wake up in the morning while it's pitch-dark outside is really tough!

It's a busy week for me. I'm trying to take care of uniform issues for the bike club, the college club, and the triathlon club. I also picked up a new art job...yes, I'm still doing the free-lance thing even though I'm slowly weaning myself away from it. I won't be renewing my membership to the local ad club and won't be entering anything in the Addy Awards this year.

Wind...yah.....

Lots of wind today, in the 20-38 mph range all day today. I didn't bother to ride since I didn't need to get knocked around on the wet roads by that wind. So I spent 48 minutes on the wind trainer out on the back patio just spinning away to the tunes on the Nano and let the wind be my natural fan to cool me off. It was only 48 minutes because my back tire went flat and I didn't feel like fixing it. Save that for later. Jonnene went off for a short run and her knee got aggrevated just a bit...she's really getting tired of that.

Saw "BOLT" tonight at the theater and it was a fun movie to watch. We have a guy on our bike racing team who goes by that nickname and when the movie came out we told everyone it was all about our Bolt's life story. Funny thing...he doesn't look anything like the Bolt in the movie.....

Recovery

Jonnene had to work today. I met her for lunch and she's part of a small staff working the day after Christmas. She's had a full day already. I worked on the new carport door, painting it and applying chalking wherever it was needed. Still more to go...doors take up a lot of time if you want them done right. I want it done right.

We had rain overnight which makes me even less trustful of the meteorologists now. They said no rain until Friday afternoon. Instead we get rain early in the morning with plenty of humidity (the carport floor is sweating like crazy) and no rain is forecasted for the afternoon. Storms are moving in Saturday but we already knew that. These guys can't predict weather 24 hours from now, yet we're supposed to believe them when they say the earth is set to undergo drastic human-caused climate change in 10-20 years? Don't you ever believe it. I don't and won't. Nobody's shown me why I should.

Because of the wet weather I bailed on doing a bike ride. I had no desire to go slip-sliding across the roads and to wash my bike again so soon after the last time I hosed it down. I did a run instead and knocked off practically a full minute from my time a week ago. I still feel like I'm running too slow but the clock don't lie and my distance is accurate. The Dustbuster Duathlon is 8 days from now and I'm sure I'll turn in an ugly performance but it'll be a good workout at the least. I just need some outdoor bike time!

Merry, Merry, Merry

We survived Christmas 2008, the first in our new house. We had the immediate family over which included the Mom and step-Dad, the Dad and step-Mom, the Brother and his family minus a niece and husband up in Colorado plus a boyfriend of another niece. We worked to make the house look nice and we did a good job. The tree looks fabulous with the combination of our ornaments (first time we've been able to merge our Christmas stuff) along with some ornaments we brought back from Australia. Some of my stuff hasn't been used in 15+ years and it was good to see it out making the season bright once again.

After all the food I've consumed over the past 36 hours, I have vowed to eat nothing more until New Year's. It's time to get into shape again for the racing season coming up and a duathlon race in nine days. Well, maybe I'll have some fudge.....

A Sorta Recap (Part Two)

I did my first outdoor bike ride in four weeks last Saturday. The ride itself wasn't bad...got in 37 miles and kept the pace sane. However, with all the crappy weather we've been having...spotty rain, high humidity, weird temperature changes...the roads were wet and well-traveled by trucks hauling dirt and water tanks from the local oil & gas wells, tracking lots of mud on the asphalt. In other words, we got DIRTY!! When I was done, I had a nice coating of this green-brown mud/dirt all over my Bradley and some of it on me, too. Yep, got to use the garden hose on the bike when I got home. Back to the ride: the first 4-5 miles felt a tad uncomfortable since I realized I had too much air in the tires for the wet roads, so the bike felt a little skittish plus I had forgotten how sensitive the Bradley's steering was. But after that I had my handling skills back and I was cruising like the old pro that I am. It was just that thing of dodging all the "rooster tails" that were coming off the bikes in front of me.

Jonnene and I put in an easy one hour ride on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. It gave us a break from all the things we were doing to prepare for Christmas Day and having all the immediate relatives come over for our first Christmas in the new house.

Anyway, back to the Aussie trip before I forget everything...

OZ Factoid (for those who've never been to Oz): When you get into a "lift" (elevator) in a multi-story building in Australia...from street level...you will be on the "ground" floor, not the "first" floor, as you would be here in the States. The buttons start with a G instead of a 1. The first floor is above you...where the second floor usually appears in the States.

Our flights from Los Angeles to Alexandria were pretty much uneventful. Since we arrived at LAX a couple of hours later than we were supposed to, that meant we only had to hang around the airport for less than three hours before our flight to Houston. I'm all about spending less time in airports by this point in our travels! Weather was still moody...cloudy, rain in places, just dreary overall...heck of a thing to return to after all of the mostly pleasant weather in Perth. Our flight from Houston to Alexandria was QUICK! We had only 9 or 10 people on our little Embraer jet and the pilot announced that we would be there in 30 minutes! Sure enough, we could feel the tiny jet gaining altitude for the first 15 minutes, then you could feel the plane pitch over and we headed downhill the rest of the way. My brother and one of the nieces met us and drove us to their house where we spent the night before driving home. It was fantastice to lay down in a horizontal position to go to sleep! We hadn't done that the previous 36 hours and I would have to recommend this to everybody...if you haven't slept lying down before, try it, you'll like it.

After we got home on Sunday morning, we unpacked everything and began delivering souvenirs. We tried to get back to normal as soon as we could but we were dragging for the first couple of days. Jonnene had to go to work on Monday and I had plenty of errands to run and things to catch up on. It felt like I was going non-stop on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday morning I went down to see the senior project presentation of the high school student I had been mentoring the last three months and, outside of some obvious nervousness, he did a great job and I think he got good marks for his efforts. I was proud of him...maybe the experience will be a positive mark on his life and give him some needed confidence. It'll be interesting to see how the next few years of his life goes.

A Sorta Recap (Part One)

This was our last view looking west over the Pacific Ocean as we came home from Australia. The sun was setting about four hours after we left Melbourne and wouldn't be up again until we were about 2-3 hours from Los Angeles. We breezed through customs and immigration...that was good.

We finally got out of Melbourne about 2pm Saturday afternoon, about two hours later than we were supposed to, which meant we had to hang out at the airport for about nine hours! Jonnene and I found an empty gate in the international terminal to hide out in where we laid out on the benches and got a few bits of shuteye. We had arrived about 5 am on the red-eye from Perth which we both agreed we'd never do again (this was my fifth time). From now on, if we go west-to-east across the country, we'll fly into the east coast the day before and spend the night. THEN fly out!

Early Saturday morning in Melbourne and I'm shooting pictures of wet airplanes.

Here's what I got...not too bad, huh?

It was raining in Melbourne when we arrived, reminding us of how it was raining when we arrived in Perth only 18 days before. It was just gray outside and we decided to forego a trip to downtown. We'd just get wet and we didn't need that before a 14-hour plane ride to the States. The Melbourne airport is pretty much barren at that early time of the morning but around 8-9 am it gets busy, with plenty of Asian travelers standing in these incredibly long buzzing lines that wind around the front area of the international terminal to the counters for the various Asian airlines that operate there. Now, there's plenty of other travelers, too, by that time but the Asian folks are the ones you can't help but notice. They're trying their best to carry everything they can onto the plane as carry-on luggage...which they can't. We saw one guy with a cart full of cardboard boxes of various sizes trying to wheel it through the doors into immigration and being told he had too much stuff (apparently, they like to buy lots of things when they travel). He'd have to find a way to reduce the load to a simple carry-on bag! Good luck!

Jonnene and I came into immigration carrying one full carry-on bag each. The guy weighing everything told her that her bag was about 3 kilos too heavy while mine was around 3 kilos under the limit. So he allowed us to switch items from hers to mine and in we went! The official was constantly turning away most of the Asians because their bags/boxes were just too much....lots of complaining going on but we kept walking. We found it funny that we had to switch stuff around in our bags but we were still carrying the same weight onto the plane.

We're Back!

Yeah, yeah, we're in. We're tired. We're going to bed. I'll do an updated post real soon.

Glad to be home...had a great time. We're trying to distribute the souvenirs.

Not Having Fun Yet

Well, we made it to Melbourne, really tired and worn out. Now we're dealing with delays in our Qantas flight to LAX. It's already been delayed about two hours due to cleaning and prepping the aircraft. That'll make close to nine hours we've been here! The weather has been raining and lousy so we didn't make it to downtown...didn't want to get rained on while walking around.

Well, we'll see what happens. We're supposed to take off in another hour......

Nearly Time to GO!

Well, it's about 6 hours or so before we head off to the Perth airport for our return trip to the States. Jonnene and I have spent most of the afternoon trying to fit everything into our bags and make the weight requirements for travel on dem big aeroplanes. International travel allows us 70 pounds per piece of check-in luggage while US domestic air only allows 50 pounds per piece. That can leave you with a problem...mainly that 50 pounds is our limit no matter what. So we have carefully packed and weighed our bags over and over. Then we checked the rules for both Qantas and Continental regarding luggage restrictions and limits. Here what we came up with:

We're going to bring an extra check-in bag, one of Jonnene's that she left here a couple of years ago. Basically, we're going to be over the 50 lb per bag limit with the two bags we have now, plus all the stuff crammed into our carry-on bags. What to do? There's no problem with the Perth to Los Angeles flights since they allow up to 70 lb per bag and two bags per person (the rule's changed but after we had already bought our tickets, so we're gold). But on the LAX to Alexandria flights we'd be charged $50 per overweight bag...$100 total...not good. But on those domestic flights, we'd be charged $25 for an extra bag. Hmmmmmm. We decided to bring the extra bag and save $75 while relieving the weight of our other bags. Yeah, it's more to carry but we're bringing a lot of stuff back. Things like the tons of souvenirs we got for ourselves and others, things that Jonnene had to leave behind when she moved here 23 months ago. A couple of wedding gifts, bike carrier towers that'll fit her Rav-4 (score!), things like that.

We also had some clothes with us that we never wore....and that was after we had culled down the clothes we thought we'd need before we left! But I now have more clothes to pack since I bought some items to deal with the cooler weather here that we weren't expecting. Anyway, the next trip we'll bring even less clothing with us as long as we have washing facilities somewhere to use. We could get down to 20 pounds a bag...and maybe on just one bag...if we do it right!

Another bonus for the return trip....the weather in Louisiana this weekend will be almost like what it's been in Perth this past week, nice and warmer. They've had snow in Louisiana this week and it's been freezing but it'll change as we return so that'll be nice.

Yeah, the last few days have been a rush. Thursday was probably our busiest. Errands to run that morning, lunch with Steph and Tim (she sang at our wedding), met a friend of Jonnene's, Elena, for a half hour at a nearby mall, picked up nephew AJ from school and took him to Raelene's house, dropped in on Jonnene's old next-door neighbor Shirley, and then buzzed over to see Brett and cousin Kim for the evening before woofing down a quicky Red Rooster meal for me! Today we went to a pilates class at 6 in the morning (I'll feel that by tomorrow), had breakfast with some of the triathlon group, ran errands, and now packing. Later we'll see Christine and Eddy...Christine and Jonnene used to walk their dogs together...and their dog, Ben, then we'll have the family over at Raelene's for a good-bye dinner before we head off for the airport.

What do you think? Busy enough? I'll try to post again when we get to Melbourne tomorrow morning.

Hectic

It's Wednesday night, about 48 hours before we leave Perth on our way back to the States. It's hard to believe all this time has gone by so quickly...or at least it seems quickly now. We arrived here on the 24th of November and we had more than two-and-a-half weeks to spend here, plenty of time to get things done. Now we're short-timing it and trying to get what's left on the list accomplished. Right now it's mostly getting to see remaining friends and family here and we're managing to see many of them. But it's getting tight!

For instance, we had lunch today with Christine and Eddy. I first met Christine during my first visit to Oz in 2003 where she and Jonnene would walk each other's dogs together at the park oval nearly every evening. Christine's dog, Ben, a border collie, and Jonnene's dog, Sophie, were running mates until Sophie came to the States with Jonnene 22 months ago. In fact, we were told that whenever Ben goes by Jonnene's old house, he still turns into the driveway expecting to see Sophie and go into the house. Anyway, we knew we had to see Christine at some point during the trip and it was great to see her and the new guy in her life. We liked Eddy. He seems to be good for her. And we're going to see them again for a little bit late Friday afternoon and see Ben. He's had both hips replaced and he's not doing so good, so we wanted to see him again since we weren't sure he'd be around the next time we're in town. I'm looking forward to seeing him.

Then we hit the downtown area for more souvenir shopping and it wasn't much at all. We did a lot of it the first couple of days we were here so now it's finishing up those last couple of names on the list. This will be the last time we, of our own volition, will get souvenirs for everyone back home. On our future trips to Australia (and probably anywhere else from now on) we'll only get souvenirs for those who specifically ask for them. If they don't ask, they get nothing! I think we're down to only two or three folks to get something for, and we'll get that job done.

Tonight we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant called Anna's in the Leederville section of town with some of the group from the Revolution Pilates studio where Jonnene had learned to become a pilates instructor. She's already had three sessions there since we arrived, including a semi-private this morning with Neil, the studio's owner. Anyway, we met up with Neil, Tristen (also an instructor) with his wife Sonja, and another instructor Julie. It was a fun dinner as we ordered up our meals and placed them all in the center of the table where we picked up servings from each of the plates for ourselves. There was chicken (three types), fish, vegetables (which I didn't touch), and something else I don't remember. The sauces in the dishes were amazing and, as I like to say, dem boys was tasty. Plus all the personalities made the dinner funny as well as some interesting conversation. Definitely a good way to top the day.

A Sunrise in Perth

Perth has a lot of bike riders. It's true. We got up early this morning to see the sun come up over the Swan River from the vantage point of Kings Park. We had some clouds this time so it made for some great picture takin'. In the meantime there were numerous bike riders in groups and alone riding all over the place. Some were training, some were getting their exercise in, and others were out for the air and the view. And there were a lot of runners, too. Made me feel like I had been slacking. Thing is, I'm using this trip to slack on purpose! Now I want to get back to riding and running again!

The city skyline of Perth, Western Australia...around 5:45 am on Tuesday morning. Our last Tuesday in-country before we head back to the USA.

As the sun rises, the first passenger plane of the day leaves Perth's airport for some place out there over the horizon.

The Wife walks among the karri trees in Kings Park to get a better camera shot of the sunrise.

The ANZAC War Memorial at Kings Park as the sun rises. Normally there are many flowers growing around the pool with the eternal flame but we caught the park between re-plantings. It was still a beautiful and powerfully silent place to be. On ANZAC Day this area is covered with people who are here to remember Australia's war heros and to honor their military living and dead. Much like America's Fourth of July but I think, as a whole, the Aussies are much more reverent about their holiday.

A Saturday Sunset

I'll have to admit, the cool thing about living on the west coast of Australia is that you get some great sunsets. I've seen good ones every time I've been there. Last night (Saturday) Jonnene and I headed down to Scarborough Beach to enjoy the sights and watch the end of the day.

Walking along Scarborough Beach we got blasted by a strong wind that blew sand into our shoes and against our bare legs like a sandblaster. All the shells near the surface of the sand were exposed and there were plenty of them all around us.

This was cool to watch. A number of wind surfers and kite surfers out on the water...cold water, I might add since all of them were wearing wetsuits. We saw several of the kite surfer guys take off into the air when they got a good gust of wind and travel a couple of hundred meters. Some of them got about 30 feet into the air!

The sun went down directly over Rottnest Island, about 12 miles west off the coast from Perth.

After the sun disappeared from the horizon you could clearly see the outline of Rottnest Island in the distance. You can see the silhouettes of the buildings and the lighthouses.
Just spectacular.

More Pretty Pictures

Just got back from the Kalamunda Markets (above, Jonnene at far right) east of Perth. These markets are higher-end flea markets held the first Saturday of each month up in the small town of...you guessed it...Kalamunda! Lots of items for sale: jewelry, pottery, wood products, clothing, trinkets, gimmicks, you name it. There's quality stuff here and we did a little bit of damage there for sure. Jonnene's sister-in-law, Olga, came with us along with her parents, Galena and Alexander, in town for a few weeks from Russia. There was a bit of a language barrier but I like them.

Here's a couple of shots from our trip down to the southwest coast earlier this week:

From Elephant Rocks...you can see from the shapes why this formation of rocks is called what it is. Here's some spreading foam between some of the rocks after a big wave blew through.

Also at Elephant Rocks...lots of cracks in the formations that revealed this tinge of orange stone.
As with most of the photos in this blog, if you single-click on the image a bigger version will pop up in another window.

That's $1,020 in USA Dollars!

Saw this in a shop window when we were down in Busselton. Just one of the many things to do with the Ironman Triathlon that we saw.

And this is a good triathlon bike, too!

Pictures and Stories #1

Sorry about the delay! I'm just going to post some photos with copy below each one. That might be easier than typing up something and then placing the pics to fit.

Jonnene crosses the finish line at the triathlon she did in Perth last Sunday morning. It was a cold morning (this has been unexpected for me since it's supposed to be summer!) and I didn't envy The Wife having to go into that water for the 400-meter swim in the bay. Fortunately, the current was with the participants and most would have personal records for the distance when it was over. She didn't take any warmups, just handed her sweater to me and entered the water with the rest of the wave of females. She came out of the swim about 2/3's of the way back, running about 100 meters to the transition area to change for the bike which was a 4-lap 16-mile ride along the shoreline which included a big hill each lap. Her front derailleur got stuck in the big chainring, making the climb harder, but each lap got faster and she passed a lot of other competitors. Into the run Jonnene had a good start on the 4 kilometer distance with 2 laps of 2 kilometers each, but going into the second lap her right knee started hurting. We were hoping that wouldn't happen but we suspected pushing that big chainring on the bike might have aggrevated it. A projected 24-minute run turned into 29 minutes which dropped her to 13th in her age group at the finish (could have gotten 7th if the knee had behaved). However, she got 75th overall among the 300-odd participants for the sprint distance!


Monday thru Wednesday we took a road trip to southwest Australia, down to Peaceful Bay, which is between the towns (shires) of Walpole and Denmark. We stayed at a beach cabin that belonged to a business partner of Jonnene's brother, David. David and his family would be coming down on Wednesday to stay through Friday and we'd trade keys with him. It was a really nice place to hang out though a bit rustic and spartan. I had to light up a fire in an old water tank (see the above photo) to heat up water for showers and other things you might need hot water for! This also meant I had to split firewood, something I hadn't done in years. By the end of the stay I had remembered how to split wood...I actually did a pretty good job of it...and was able to start the fire using only one match. Once you had the water heated, it would stay that way for almost a full day before you had to re-start a fire again. I knew those old Boy Scout skills would come back to help me someday.


Here's a Big Red (kangaroo) we spotted early on our last morning in Peaceful Bay. We were in the car at the time and we slowly followed him as I tried to get a good photo. He finally disappeared into the shrub to the left. We had also spotted a group of three kangaroos the day before in a pathway near the cabin, as well as seeing a wallabie (small version of a kangaroo) during a visit to some of the sights in the area.


One of the reasons we were up so early Wednesday morning was that we wanted to see the sunrise over the bay but no luck. It was cloudy with some spotty rain. But we went to the beach anyway to see what we could see. I got a good picture (above) and we could see some rosy areas in the clouds but no sun. It was still beautiful out there, with a fishing boat in the distance and the waves coming in.


Coming back to Perth, we stopped in Busselton where we had to make a visit to see the jetty, shown above. We got a chance to visit with Jonnene's cousin, Sally, who had a break with the kids in school and her husband, Cam, at work. It was quite windy with lots of small waves breaking on the beach.


One of the reasons we stopped in Busselton was to check out the Ironman Village where we spotted the unassembled finish line for the Western Australia Ironman Triathlon being held on Sunday, December 7th. We took in the Asics and Jaggad stores that were already set up in the expo tent where the expo itself would open up the next day. And, yes, we bought lots of Ironman gear mostly for friends back home although we did get one or two things for ourselves! It was fascinating to see all the huge circus-sized tents on the grounds and see the transition area for a genuine Ironman event. Too bad we'll have to miss it Sunday but we've got a week left in our trip and many things to do in that time.