The Joy of Things, including Christmas

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Our Christmas here was good - lots of food, had some fun, presents of course. Invariably people will ask me what I got, so here is a list of some things:

• A keyboard - earlier this year Liz and I were talking about playing music, and I said that if I could play any instrument it would probably be the piano. So, she bought me a keyboard for Christmas. I'm looking forward to trying it out - though am also quite intimidated at the same time...
• A beginner's keyboard book - luckily, because I had no idea where to start...
• DVDs - The Dark Knight, Hot Rod, Inception (jointly with Liz) (all of which are great movies), and Liz also got me the entire first season (also called Book 1) of Avatar The Last Airbender!!!
• A slanket
• A lot of Star Wars stuff (an apron, pancake molds, ornaments)
• A Clapper (for the lights, according to Liz "They're not just for old people - they're for all lazy people!")
• A shirt from Ireland
• More stuff that I won't list because the list would get too long

Also, yes, we did get a lot of snow. We didn't have a White Christmas, but instead it started snowing on the 26th and it didn't stop for quite a while, along with very strong winds. Reports about depth vary widely, the deepest point on our back deck was about 18 inches or so deep. I've never seen so much snow. Unfortunately due to "blizzard-like" conditions, there is no snow on the trees, which is often what helps add to the photogenic nature of it. We lost power, but luckily it was restored after about 25 hours.

On Sunday we made a quick run to the grocery store to get some food for dinners before the snow got too heavy. While there, a kid was climbing on a display, and their mother took them down of it. I looked down where the kid was climbing to see the item I was looking for! Still looking at the shelf, the lady looked at me strangely, like I had been watching her child suspiciously or something. I explained:

Russell: "Thanks! I was actually looking for that (pointed) and didn't know where it was!"

Lady (in thick accent): "You're from South Africa, too?"

Russell: "No, I'm Australian..."

Lady: "Well, they're all pretty much the same!"

Russell: "Hahahaha"

Note: I actually said "Hahahaha" instead of laughing. That was when I walked away.

Now, to the meat of the post. You'll notice later that that was a very punny statement to make.

We had ham as part of our Christmas dinner. It was absolutely delicious. Everyone knows that I think bacon is great, but the pig really needs to be given credit - it produces a lot of tastiness. When we were cleaning up, Andrew noticed a piece of ham sitting in the ham drippings/run-off. He ate it, and told me how delicious it was. I took some ham and dipped it in there. It was amazing - it was like ham coated in ham. So I took the run off and put it in the fridge. I decided I would dub it "Ham Concentrate".

The next day Liz and I were heating up some left overs for lunch, so I took out the Ham Concentrate and noticed that all the fat from it had settled on the surface. I scooped off the fat and noticed that the remaining Ham Concentrate was now like a jelly. I took some out and put it on top of the ham, peas and carrots and then put it in the oven. It was incredible - ham coated peas and carrots and hammy ham.

Tonight we made pizza for dinner. The plan was to make pizza for dinner last week, but the night we were going to, Friday, was Christmas Eve and we were busy and didn't get around to making dinner. So, I decided to modify last week's pineapple and onion pizza idea. Sure, ham and pineapple is a classic and the obvious choice here, but with the ham supplies dwindling in the fridge and the rest frozen, I reached again for the Ham Concentrate. I spooned some into a small pan and heated it over a low heat to get it liquidy again. I then put the pineapple and onion in there. A word of warning, though. Even though I dubbed it Ham Concentrate, it works best if you use a lot of it. Three spoons wasn't enough to flavor the pineapple and onion. Or, perhaps it works best on things that don't have much taste of their own or something.

So, next time you bake a ham, remember the Ham Concentrate. You'll be glad you did.

In case people wanted to see, here is a slideshow of pictures from the last few days, featuring Christmas, snow and Ham Concentrate.

Winter's here... damn bitch.

Winter has now arrived in the US. But you'd be excused for thinking it has been here for a few weeks already given the cold weather.

Yesterday was a day of rare occurrences. The one that was most widespread was a lunar eclipse. I love that sort of stuff, but was also really tired. Totality (the moon being completely covered) was supposed to start at 2:41AM local time, so rather than set the alarm I agreed with Liz that if one of us woke up during the eclipse we'd wake the other. I first woke up at 12:55 to see everything bathed in the glow of the full moon. Hadn't started yet, so I went back to bed. I later woke up at 3, and it was dark. "Awesome!" I thought as I walked downstairs. Unfortunately the darkness was because of the complete and total cloud cover that had engulfed the sky. I even went out the back for a few seconds (that was long enough in the cold) to check there weren't any breaks in the cloud. There weren't, so I came back inside. Liz was awake and asked me what the story was, so when I told her we both went back to sleep. I took this photo of the moon earlier in the evening, before it was eclipsed...

The second, more isolated incident, occurred in our kitchen. I was making breakfast, and I cracked an egg. Double yolker! Some people might not think that was too weird, but given the amount of eggs we use and the infrequency with which we see double yolkers it was certainly awesome.

Tonight I killed some time by taking some photos. It's good to get out and take photos for fun - something that I really should do more often. I didn't do it for too long tonight, the cold and the breeze were small obstacles. I took photos of the moon again, well, more things in front of the moon. They were of my Lego clone trooper captain.

The breeze blew it over...

Black Holes: They don't suck

We went to Hamden today, which is just outside of New Haven to visit one of Liz's college friends, Steve, and his wife Kristen. Tiff was also there and we went to the Yale Peabody Museum for a couple of hours. It was fun - they had a black hole exhibit. That's where I learned that black holes don't suck. Apparently you more fall into them if you get too close.

Other exhibits included the dinosaurs in the Great Hall, the mammal exhibit, meteorites and the birds of Connecticut. The birds were cool - every bird in Connecticut was represented (in stuffed form). I liked looking at the raptors. They also had skeletons for saber-tooth cats, prehistoric "homo" specimens and dinosaurs. I found out that the dinosaurs were skilled surgeons. When a human badly breaks a leg they would have a metal rod inserted in there to help the healing. There was a dinosaur specimen that had a big metal beam running through it's entire body, so to be able to insert that must have taken incredible surgical skills - and also metal working knowledge. They also had a massive prehistoric turtle skeleton.

We got kicked out of the museum at closing time, then went and had some Japanese food for dinner with Tiff.

Also, I must tell everyone about a cool movie we saw this week. Both Liz and I enjoyed it immensely - it is up there with the best movies I have seen this year. It was Scott Pilgrim vs the World. It was really cool. To me it seemed like a mixture between a movie, video game and comic book. I liked the style, the way people played their parts, the story and even the Universal logo and fanfare in 8-bit form.

One of the stars was Keiran Culkin - yep, Fuller from Home Alone. When the movie first started I said to Liz "I know that's Keiran Culkin, but he looks like someone else to me..." It took me almost the entire movie, but I finally announced to Liz "Why the hell does Keiran Culkin look like Tobey Maguire?!?!"

If you haven't seen it, you should - Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

Thanksgiving 2010

Today marks the 1st Wednesday of December. That means that last Thursday was the 4th Thursday of the month, better known as Thanksgiving. I could bore you with the history of Thanksgiving, but I won't, and will concentrate on what we did for the day instead.

Psyche! I found something interesting out about Thanksgiving, as long as you trust Wikipedia, which I do. Apparently, Thanksgiving is celebrated in Australia, but only on Norfolk Island (I know, who cares, right?!). From Wikipedia:

In the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the last Wednesday of November, similar to the pre-World War II American observance on the last Thursday of the month. This means the Norfolk Island observance is the day before or six days after the United States' observance. The holiday was brought to the island by visiting American whaling ships.

I looked into it further, and it referenced the Attorney General's website, so it's actually legit.

Now, Americans, that doesn't give you free rein to start running around saying that Thanksgiving is celebrated in Australia. To give a sense of scale:

• Norfolk Island is only 13.3 square miles (just over half the size of Manhattan). Australia, as a whole, is 2,941,299 square miles.
• Norfolk Island has an approximate population of 2141, compared to the nation's population of 22,540,116. That's .0095% of the population.

Back to the story of our Thanksgiving.

Because Thanksgiving dinner was being held at our place, preparation for us began on Wednesday night, when we cooked up some cranberry sauce and Liz produced some pumpkin pies. I say Liz produced the pies because as soon as the Ashes cricket started streaming I was out of the kitchen.

Cranberries in the saucepan...

...turned into cranberry sauce!

Thursday we woke up ready to cook. The turkey, which I took under my wing, took about 3 hours from start to finish. It was a 12 and a half pound masterpiece of meat and basting. After baking for an hour I started the basting process - every 15 minutes I would open the oven and put more liquid from the bottom of the pan over the turkey. It worked out awesomely well - the turkey wasn't dry at all.

The turkey, as it entered the oven

Basting - note the dollop of liquid under the baster

People - Richard, Barbara, Gail and Bruce (Gail's brother) - started arriving at around 2, so they got to witness the final preparation of sides and the carving.

Liz prepares to carve it up

The complete meal consisted of turkey, sweet potato and apple, gluten free stuffing, peas, mashed potatoes (from Gail), shallots, carrots and stuffing (from Barbara), parsnips (not pictured) and gravy. We also washed it down with sparkling (from Richard) and regular apple cider.

I've never been full on Thanksgiving, but I thought this could be the year. I started off with this:

After I ate that I loaded it up again. And then one more time for good measure.

After eating we needed a little time to digest, so we waited a while before having pumpkin pie and rice pudding for dessert. Some people had tea, and others had warmed apple cider.

Liz with a pumpkin pie

Mission accomplished: everyone fed and happy, and me, I was full for the first time ever on Thanksgiving.

Of course, there were leftovers. A lot of leftovers. Here was my dinner on Friday night:

Reheated and eaten from an oven safe dish. For convenience. We also had leftovers for breakfast and a full Thanksgiving dinner again on Saturday night. There are still some turkey scraps...

Very draining

Hello!

This week has been very draining. Actually, in a manner of speaking, this morning was draining, and the rest of the week wasn't so much. To fully understand, I need to take you back a few weeks. Our bathroom sink was starting to get a bit slow on the draining side. It wasn't so bad, but it was noticeably slower. We left it alone, but during this week it started getting worse. This has happened before, and so yesterday morning, as part of the Great Apartment Clean of Fall 2010, I disconnected the stopper from the sink and started digging around. I've done this before, and it has always helped. The usual suspects came out, some hair, some dirt, some still white soap. Satisfied with my digging, I connected the stopper again and ran some water through. Still slow. That's weird.

I walked out into the living room and picked up the new little flashlight (Australian translation: torch) that Liz got me for my birthday. It's a cool mini Maglite - it has different features such as strobe, SOS and a few others, that are all selected via a twist of the wrist thanks to an accelerometer (at least that's what the documentation leads me to believe). I disconnected the stopper again and looked down...

At that moment, I felt like I was in a movie. It was the type of scene where people at war see the opposing army and just how big it is, and they realize they're going to need a much bigger screwdriver and to change their tactics if they're to win the battle. We had so much more to do that I left it, and decided to finish the other tasks that needed to be done around here, and put it off until tomorrow. Basically, I sounded a temporary retreat to rethink my strategy.

Last night we brushed our teeth before bed, and the water just sat in the sink. I told Liz about the massive clog I had discovered, and that I was going to look at it in the morning. Luckily the water had all drained by this morning (we weren't sure if it would or not), so before I showered I readied for battle. I took everything out from the cupboard beneath the sink. It was an easy thing to do, because it is all in a sliding drawer. My plan had changed from yesterday: the new plan was to outflank it, catch the clog by surprise. I removed the stopper like yesterday, hoping to make the clog look up - it would never suspect a sneak attack from beneath. I put a bucket down, and removed the bending pipe beneath the sink. Armed with the trusty screwdriver, the longest we have, I started to dig. Small chunks fell out. I didn't want this to happen - now the clog knew I was onto it. Trying to end the battle quickly, I stabbed upwards - the screwdriver pierced something squishy. I twisted the blade and yanked it downwards.

PLOP.

The clog was massive - an entwined mass of hair, soap, dirt and a small rubber band for good measure - a couple of inches long. The smell of death (clog) filled the air. I called my trusted lieutenant.

"Liz..."

She stopped when she saw the clog, then began running water through the drain. The minions of the clog started dropping into the bucket - we were winning the battle. The screwdriver returned to make some more pivotal strikes, then, the battle was over. Connecting the bending pipe and stopper again, we ran some water, and it all drained successfully. The territory occupied by our hideous clog foe was free again. And, as a special bonus, there were no leaks. My lieutenant took the fallen enemies outside, and I showered.

I reflected on my victory - thinking about how this had to go on the blog, and about how satisfying it is sometimes to get things done around the place. No matter how small. We've actually gotten a lot achieved in the last 24 hours, which people may see the fruits of soon.

Now, if only I could change that light bulb in the bathroom. That, though, is a battle for another week.

Catch up

It's been so long since I posted... Most activities lately have revolved around the wedding, but I expected that they would. We've made some big decisions (bigger than charcoal grey) and should be in a position to make some announcements soon. It's good that we're trying to get so many big things done now, because it means that we won't need to worry about them later on and can take our time handling the small things. Apart from all the wedding stuff, here are some other things that have come up and would have been talked about on here, had I been keeping up to date...

Last weekend Richard came over and hung out for a while. He was talking to Liz who was also reading a wedding book at the same time. Sensing that she wasn't listening, he jokingly said "It's going to snow tomorrow!" Liz looked up and said "Very funny, Dad." The next morning she woke up, showered and checked the weather. Possible snow mixing with rain but probably not making it to the ground? That's pretty funny. Then, I got out of bed and looked outside - snow falling, to the ground. It turned to sleet about 5 minutes later, so, where I was at least, there wasn't anything on the ground. Except for on our back steps, which looked like a sno cone had been poured on them.

Been watching some TV too. I keep giving The Clone Wars a chance, but so far this season it has been tremendously disappointing. Continually jumping around the timeline, giving screen time to characters who really aren't that important, filling in boring story lines. Heck, Anakin has been in only a couple of episodes - he fought in one, in another he dropped Ahsoka (who hasn't died yet) off then flew away, then last week he played whipped secret husband to party-planning Padme. This is the guy who's going to become Darth Vader. I don't want to see him being told to make sure the droids buy fruit and don't get ripped off!!! Hopefully they'll turn it around soon. Starting tonight. Obi-Wan gets back on the screen after a few weeks away.

One cartoon that hasn't been disappointing has been South Park. Awesome all the way. The last 3 weeks have seen them carrying out a superhero story arc, which built on an episode from last season called "The Coon" (the Coon is Cartman's superhero persona). It told more of the back story of Mysterion (my favorite), and introduced characters like Tupperware, Toolshed, Mosquito, Iron Maiden, The Human Kite and Mint Berry Crunch, collectively know as the superhero organization Coon and Friends. One of the elements that I enjoyed about the episodes was the comics that they integrated into the story - they had the look of stylized story board sketches which I had seen for South Park before and looked cool.

We've been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender as well. I'm really into the show and keep wanting to know what's going to happen next. Good thing about watching a show years after its release is that you can watch more straight away. Right now I'm liking it much, much more than The Clone Wars. We've finished the first season and are now a couple of episodes into the second. It's already created a few questions for me, which Mike, who is a season or so ahead of us, has told me are answered later. Zuko is my favorite character - he's a banished Fire Nation prince trying to capture the Avatar to regain his honor.

Behind our building at work is a canal/inlet that leads out to Long Island Sound. From the fifth floor the waterway does not seem very wide, and a few weeks ago Brian thought he could throw a rock across. He couldn't, so now Mike is keen to try. I got some rocks at the beach last weekend, and Mike and I tried yesterday. Mike landed probably 80% of the way across, me about 60%. We're going to try again, but I know I won't get all the way. From our throwing point, the shortest distance to the other bank is around 80 - 90 yards at high tide - if you skew the angle a little, it blows out to 100 yards. I know I'm not throwing a rock 100 yards!

Tomorrow is the 4th Annual Queens County Chili cook-off competition and pig fest, which means we're making chili tonight. If it's anything like last year's contest it will be a lot of fun - eating chili and chili dogs - it's a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Mmmm... chili... but what I want most of the time is peanut butter. Here in the US a lot of peanut butter has junk in it, so we try to get stuff that has as little as possible in it. Problem with that is it can get expensive. We were getting an organic one when it was on sale, but it was still more than regular peanut butter. All it was was peanuts and salt, and it was good (in taste and ingredients). But then we went to Trader Joe's a couple of weekends ago and I saw they had organic peanut butter: cheap organic peanut butter (by that I mean inexpensive). Only ingredient - peanuts. It is great. It spreads well, even straight from the fridge (the other one kind of came out in big chunks, even though it was smooth).

I'm beginning to wonder if it is finally happening - I'm getting on the US peanut butter wagon.

One decision down, many more to go...

In amongst all our regular weekend activities, like grocery shopping, Liz and I managed to do some other stuff this last weekend...

Saturday saw us running errands, one of which was to return a book to the library. While there we checked out (multiple meanings of the words) some wedding books. The most beneficial one, I feel, that was picked up was "The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Being a Groom". I've read a little bit of it, and it's told me a couple of interesting things.

We also went to a Bush concert. It was pretty good. It was at the theater in the MGM Grand "Hotel" and there weren't a lot of people there. It got a bit over the top at the end as the lead singer, Gavin Rossdale I believe his name is, started pulling girls up onto the stage. They were all dancing while they played their last song. One girl thought she was in a strip club I think, because she was doing some pretty "I'm not in front of a large crowd" moves.

Saturday also saw us make our first decision about the wedding. It wasn't a large decision, but it was our first, and every decision, no matter how small, goes into making up the whole. We decided, wait for it, that grey is going to be part of our color/colour scheme. I'm happy about it; I love grey. To be more exact it's charcoal grey that made the list, so I guess people (at this stage that includes Liz and I) will see how it is incorporated on the day. Well, we'll have to decide before then.

On Sunday we checked out a couple of possible venues. One of them is no longer a possible venue because it wasn't very good. It didn't speak to us at all and wasn't what we were looking for. The other place is still a possibility, but we want to check out some other places as well, and find out more details about this place to make sure it will fit what we want to do.

We watched some more Avatar: The Last Airbender as well. We're 12/20s, also known as 6/10s or 60% of the way through the first season (based purely on episode count, I'm not counting down to the second or anything like that).

I should go make a start on dinner. Pizza tonight. Not taco pizza though. I'm going with bacon, pineapple and onion. I haven't had bacon in a while. I don't know why - bacon is great!

Hockey on Ice

Richard's car got ran into in a few weeks ago by a guy in a Hummer, pretty seriously damaging his door (damaged to the point he can't use the door). As a good will gesture, I guess, the guy asked if he liked hockey or basketball. Richard said hockey, so the guy gave him 2 tickets to the New York Rangers game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night. Given that he had 2 tickets and only one person, he asked me if I wanted to go along. My interested was piqued - my experience with hockey before then was restricted to Blades of Steel on the Nintendo Entertainment System and also to the epic grand final matchup of Green vs Blue that I watched in person at Warners Bay Ice Skating Stadium. Oh, and a little from the Mighty Ducks documentaries with the kids in them. Richard had been told the seats were supposed to be good, so he read me the ticket details: Section 77, Row A, Seats 1 and 2. I looked at this map:

"Yeah, they should be good seats!" I said.

I left work on Wednesday evening and called Richard from the train. He met me on board and we rode to Grand Central. From there we wound over to the Times Square Shuttle, then onto the 1 train downtown to Penn. We wandered up through Penn Station to the entrance to the Garden, arriving about 15 minutes before play was due to start. After avoiding the guy trying to sell me a ticket while looking at the venue map, we navigated the hallways until we found our gate and went down to our seats. This was what we saw when we sat down:

Checking the tickets, they were valued at $240 each, and were fancy enough that people came and offered to go get us food and drinks. We didn't take them up on it at any stage, but it was cool that it was there.

A few minutes went by and the Atlanta Thrashers, the Rangers' opposition for the night, started to come out. Some of their guys started clambering onto the bench, which was right in front of where we were sitting.

The backup goalie gets onto the bench

Next came the Rangers to loud cheers. Both teams lined up for the anthem. It reminded me of Blades of Steel. I kept getting Blades of Steel flashbacks all game...

The lineups, how they would have appeared in Blades of Steel

The teams got into position, and I could almost hear the 8-bit voice saying "Face off" as the puck was dropped.

The game was underway! It wasn't long before New York were on the offense, and something happened, I don't know the rules because Blades of Steel seemed to have "icing" as the only rule, and there was a face off near the Thrashers goal.

Less than a minute into the game, GOAL!!! Rangers 1, Thrashers 0. It stayed that way for a while until the Thrashers scored. It was 1 - 1 at the end of the first period. Not sure what to expect because Blades of Steel just went straight to the second period, I thought it was cool when little kids came out to play hockey. They would have skated circles around me, even the littlest kid who kept falling over.

The kids looked even smaller thanks to the comparison between them and the adult players.

The zamboni cleaned the ice and it was time for the second period. From what I remember the Thrashers went ahead before the Rangers quickly equalized. Anger threatened to spill over. Please, fight!

The striped shirt guy (I don't know if hockey officials are referees or umpires) broke it up, so I had to imagine it in my mind. Again, it ended up being Blades of Steel style...

Atlanta scored again, making it 3 - 2 and that was how it stayed until the end of the second period. I knew what was to come at this interval, because on Blades of Steel there was the space game:

I pretty sure I used to be able to destroy the big ship...

What?!?! No big space game? A kids penalty shootout competition instead? Fine... the kids didn't get many in, and the goal tenders didn't have to do much work. I kept wanting to call out to them to do the triple deek, because it almost always worked for the Mighty Ducks (that reminds me, does anyone know if Adam Banks went pro?). The penalty shootout ended in a 1-1 tie. I recorded video of it, but it ended up being not so dramatic with the tie and all...

The third period began, still 3 - 2, of course. In about 5 minutes of the third period the Thrashers scored twice, making it 5 - 2. All the Rangers fans started to get disappointed and dejected, including the ginger screaming girl who was sitting next to us. Luckily for my ear drums she was next to Richard. But that sparked something, and the Rangers tried to come back. They scored twice, bringing it back to 5 - 4. They had another chance, but it hit the bar. Both teams were frantic: the Rangers trying to equalize, the Thrashers trying to keep them out. But in amongst it all, one of the Thrashers' coaches still had time to draw. It probably relieved anxiety or something:

Coach (thinking): "What am I going to draw???"

Coach (yelling): "Hey, check it out! I drew a robot! Welch, look at my robot, damn it!"

(as the players/lines change)

Coach: "Check it out - I drew this robot. Yeah, I drew it!"

In desperation, the Rangers pulled their goalie, leaving an extra man on the ice but also an empty net. The puck got away from them and with 23 point something seconds left the Thrashers put the puck into the empty net. Having little faith in their team's ability to score 2 goals in 20 seconds the Rangers fans moaned and turned to leave. Richard and I hung out until the end and then left, timing our runs well to the subway and train home.

It was a fun night. Never having been to a hockey game before I was surprised at how quickly it went. And how warm it was in there, even by the ice. I'd go to another game, but probably wouldn't sit that close again, especially if I had to pay for the tickets.

Rich, if you read this, thanks for asking me to the game.

Now, if only I had a NES and Blades of Steel... an emulator just wouldn't be the same...

Note: Photos were taken by me at the game, all from our seats. The game screenshots came from other websites, including ign I think... and I know the colors of the uniforms keep changing...

Here's what people have been waiting for...

It has been a while, but it's because I've been distracted over the past 2 weeks.

On Saturday Liz and I went to the mall, and I got within 3 feet of Crazy Hat Man. I kid you not, if I hadn't proposed that afternoon Crazy Hat Man would have been the highlight of my day.

Yes, Liz and I are now engaged. I guess I could share the story of it. I won't say everything about it, but here's a trimmed down version.

We went for a walk on Saturday afternoon at a state park we go to reasonably frequently called Huntington. I've mentioned it before, and it's where I took the photo that is at the top of the blog. We went for a walk on one of the trails that we have never been on, and it was nice and quiet, no-one around. There were some very steep up hills to climb up and down, which had some loose dirt on the down slopes. At the top of the last hill we found a large collection of rocks, so we decided to sit and take a break for a while. We were hanging out talking and having a good time.

Liz had 2 wishes about a proposal - she wanted it to be outside and she wanted it to be a surprise. The more I thought about it the more I knew that right then and there would work. So, I asked her if she wanted to come for a walk over some of the rocks. We walked around, me looking for an area where I could ask the question properly, and then we were standing there.

I started my little talk, I didn't want to come out and just say it.

I said some things ("Why is he saying all this?" Liz later told me was what she was thinking).

I kept saying things ("He couldn't be... he doesn't even have a ring" she thought)

I dropped down on one knee and reached into my pocket ("He has a ring!!!" she realized)

I asked "Will you marry me?"

She responded "Really?!"

I already had the ring part way on her finger with the words, so I stopped. "Yes, really" I reassured her.

"Yes!" she said excitedly. So I put it all the way on her finger.

I stood back up and we had a big hug - "Can I look at it?!" she asked.

A few minutes later a family walked past, and we asked if they would take a photo of us. We didn't say why, and the father snapped this for us:

Once they kept walking Liz and I set up the tripod and stood on the rocks that we had been on.

As for the ring, I did a good job from what I have been told - everyone who has seen it has said it was nice, and the important thing is that Liz loves it. I've seen her a few times just staring at it, smiling.

I tried to take some photos, but it's hard and they don't do the ring justice. To get close enough to get detail requires close up filters, and they make the depth of field really shallow (that basically means that it's hard to get a lot in focus at the same time).

You can click on the photos below and get bigger pics.

I really think the easy part is done. Because now, we're planning a wedding.

Australia Trip 2010 - Take 5

What do you mean I haven't finished going over the Australia trip yet? Oh, yeah... I hadn't finished going over the Australia trip yet... better late than never...

Monday September 6th: We woke up with a big day planned - a walk and some fun at Tree Tops Adventure Park. We jumped in the car and headed for Kooragang Wetlands for a walk. We found a map when we first entered the area and decided where to walk. The trail though wasn't what we were expecting - it ended up being wide enough for a car to drive down, and made its way out under some power lines and then to a dead end through a field with nothing to see. We walked back to the car and decided to go further into the park to see if there were other trails. Nope.

A tree next to the path at the Wetlands

It was getting to the time when we needed to leave there anyway, so we drove to a supermarket and got ourselves some provisions for lunch. We drove out to Minmi, which is a small town about 30 minutes from Newcastle. The reason for driving out there was Tree Tops Adventure Park - an obstacle course through the trees. Should be fun.

We found a park that had some tables before going to Tree Tops and ate. It was all good stuff - homemade bread, pb and j and breakfast juice. But the best part of lunch was the entertainment. There were a lot of birds around the park we were sitting in, most notably kookaburras and magpies. The magpies are nesting, so they are very territorial, and when a kookaburra landed on a branch not far from our table a magpie took issue with it. They both sat on the same branch, staring one another down. The kookaburra opened its large beak in warning. The magpie leaned forward and raised its wings, looking bigger and more menacing. They stared each other down, I wish we had had the camera with us at that stage. After the stare down the kookaburra moved to fly away, and the magpie chased it, ramming it in midair. Kookaburra vs Magpie was awesome.

After eating we digested a little and then went around to Tree Tops Adventure Park. It looked not at all like the brochure. Of all the zip lines they advertised we could only see one - not very long, directly over the car park. The "tree tops" were perhaps 15 feet off the ground. We looked at one another and started our discussion. Tree Tops was going to be expensive, and based on this we had to work out if it would be worth it. I consulted a chart in my head that was something like this:

In case it isn't clear... you want something that is above/to the left of the diagonal, ideally, in the definite zone. You may be willing to do something lame if it is also free or very cheap. You may also be willing to pay a lot of money (expensive) if an activity is also high on the enjoyment scale.

Based on where Tree Tops sat, high on the expense scale and in the ever dangerous "Hells No" zone, we turned the car around and went home. It was a nice day outside, so we grabbed a change of clothes and headed to Catherine Hill Bay to walk at the beach. We stood watching guys practicing paragliding off the cliffs and getting our feet wet in the waves. Some bigger than expected waves came in, so we ended up getting more than our feet wet.

The beach at Catherine Hill Bay (Liz photo)

We went back to the car, still with a little daylight remaining and headed for the cliffs at Caves Beach, and were distracted by a cormorant along the way. We stayed until the sun was almost all the way down and then went home to work out dinner.

The view from the Caves Beach cliff (south)

The view from Caves Beach cliff (north)

It had been a long time since we had gone out for dinner together, so we started looking around for somewhere to eat. Places were either closed or didn't have things we could eat, so it wasn't looking good. But then Liz decided to chance it. She called Surtaj, an Indian restaurant we had eaten at before and really enjoyed, and asked them about their menu. They had entire lists of things we could eat. We walked outside to get in the car and looked up at the sky.

The sky above my parent's house

Finally, after almost 2 weeks, a night without clouds. I could see the Milky Way over the house, so we put dinner off for a few minutes while I set up the camera and took a couple of snaps. Hoping that we would come home to more clear skies, we went to dinner and it was fantastic. We had a really good chicken dish, some rice, but I think my favorite was the beef dish that we had. The lady who helped us out was the lady Liz had spoken to on the phone, and she was really firendly and helpful with our menu choices. So, if you're ever in Newcastle, try out Surtaj - they're friendly, have good service and the food is great (if you like Indian food). Leaving the restaurant we were greeted by still clear skies, so we went home and got the camera and went to the darkness of Croudace Bay Park. After an initial blinding from Liz taking a photo I got my dark eyes and started trying a few photos. A while passed, and Liz started to get a bit nervous. There were a lot of noises outside, and she couldn't see what any of them were, so we went home and I took some more photos outside before calling it a night.

Tuesday September 7th: We woke up early with the plan to drive down to a national park just north of Sydney for a day trip and hike. Unfortunately we woke up to some sad news that my grandmother had died earlier that morning. She had a stroke a few days after Liz and I arrived in Australia. We decided to still go to Sydney because the family were going to be busy with arrangements and things like that. Leaving a little later than anticipated because of the events of the morning and Jeb hanging out on the front lawn, we headed for Sydney. After about 2 hours we reached our dstination, Kuringgai Chase National Park. We drove through the park, heading for the visitor information office. Driving along the winding road something suddenly caught my eye, and I pulled over quickly. There was an echidna walking down the side of the road, so Liz jumped out and tried to take a couple of photos. Despite me saying it wouldn't be that fast it ran away quicker than I thought it would, so we kept going to the park office.

The echidna

The park office was in a place called Bobbin Head, which was a nice little area nestled in the middle of the park on the river. We paid our park use fee and went into the visitor center. The lady working there was nice and helped us work out a walk we could take that would chew up the amount of time we intended to be in the park. We ate some lunch then headed out for our hike. Walking through the marina next to the trail head we passed a sign saying to remove leeches before coming back into the marina. Leeches? Fun!

We started up the trail, which was steep but also pretty cool, with rock ledges and trees growing in weird places. Eventually the trail levelled out, but it levelled out onto a dirt access road, where the trail was wide and a bit boring. We passed some roadword/earthmoving machinery, and talked about how we should just drive it down the road. Once past it we lamented that we should have taken photos with it. Our chance to redeem ourselves was just along the road, with another piece of equipment sitting idle. Liz posed next to it, but the easiest way to get down was using the open door. She sat in there, pretending to drive, and it looked like it would have been fun.

Part of the trail going up the hill

Liz in the earthmoving equipment

The road seemed to keep going and going, so we started kicking a loose rock to add to the excitement. We kicked it for a long time, both in distance and time. When we saw a bird we couldn't ID we took some photos and I picked up the rock so that we wouldn't lose it - it had become a big part of our walk.

When the bird left we kept walking, and just before hitting the end of the trail we saw an ant hill. Luckily the walk we were taking was a loop, so no boring service road on the way back. Instead, we meandered our way past a recreation of the Sphinx that had been made by a war veteran who had been gassed. We took some photos with it, and then took some photos of the rock with it. We decided to name him Sphinxy. The walk back to the car was a lot more interesting that the walk away. We went downhill past a lot more interesting rock ledges and along the river. Liz took a lot of photos (all of the ones below) of the walk back.

Liz and I with the sphinx

Sphinxy with the sphinx

I had to stop when we got back to the marina though, to take another photo of me copying a sign. Liz took a lot of photos to make sure one came out, and I started smiling because I could see straight through a walkway to rich people sitting on a marina deck eating and drinking while I'm messing around laying on the ground only 10 yards away from them.

Bobbin Head

The plan from there was to go to my aunt and uncle's house and catch up with the family. Following a long-ish drive that involved getting caught in some peak hour traffic we arrived back at their house in Caves Beach. After catching up with everyone the decision was made to go get some food and eat dinner together. Liz and I went along to help with the decision making/purchasing process, accompanying my cousins, Rebekah, Stacey and Kiri. We went to Coles first and got some salad items. While there I saw a sign, and given my habit of reading signs I confused everyone when I said "For quality Coles is best. - A Current Affair". Looking puzzled, Liz asked "Why did you add 'A Current Affair'?", so I pointed to the sign. Head shakes all round. Coles, despite their apparent high levels of quality, had no quantity of rotisserie chickens, so we had to go to rival Woolworths for those. Rebekah, Liz and I went and did that while Stacey and Kiri walked to some Fish and Chip stores to try and get chips. ("We call 'french fries' 'chips'. Love Ringo" - Simpsons quote). We were back at the car before Stacey and Kiri arrived, chip-less, so I decided to have some fun. While Liz and Rebekah waited in the car I hid. When I saw them walking towards the car I made my move. Rebekah and Liz watched intently, knowing my plan, as I ran and dodged the reversing SUV. When I got to 2 yards away undetected I brandished the bags of rotisserie chicken and yelled "FOR QUALITY COLES IS BEST!!!!" Liz and Rebekah loved it. I loved it - I love scaring people.

After eating chicken and salad we hung out and shot the breeze with the family for a while before heading home - it had been a long day.

Wednesday September 8th: Our time had finished with the Hyundai rental car, and the Beast had been running OK for a few days, so I got up and took it for a run around the block. No shaking or stalling, so I drove it to Charlestown while Liz drove the rental. After dropping it off we headed for another walk at Awabakal Nature Reserve, near Redhead. It was designed to be a smaller, less strenuous walk than what we did the day before. We saw some decent views of the ocean, and on the way back we also saw another echidna! Echidnas are rare enough to spot, so seeing 2 in 2 days about 90 miles apart was pretty cool.

After our walk we hung out a bit and then went and sat under the tree at Croudace Bay in the late afternoon. Liz rued the fact that we didn't have the camera with us, because the tree looked cool with the late afternoon/setting sun on it. We decided we would go back the next day to take photos then.

We went for a drive that night because it was nice and clear again, and not cold, so we went by Matt's place to see if he was up for taking some photos and not being afraid of the dark. He was, so we dropped Liz off and grabbed our camera. We drove around looking for somewhere to set up - Speers Point wasn't the answer, Teralba didn't have quite the angle we needed. Warners Bay might be worth trying out. We settled at the foreshore and started trying some stuff out, taking pictures of the stars with the surrounding landscape. I was being frugal with battery power; given the problems we had had charging the laptop I didn't want to ruin the camera battery charger as well, and we were getting low on juice. It didn't stop me from having fun though and taking a lot of photos, but I can't wait to get out and try some other things with night photos. I haven't posted any in this post because they still need some work... At about 12:15 one of the local bakeries started taunting us by baking, and the whole area smelled with the wonderful aroma of donuts. That was our cue to exit.

Thursday September 9th: Our last full day in Australia, we were faced with the daunting task of repacking our bags and getting ready to leave. Jeef had called the day before to see if we wanted to do lunch, so we picked Matt up and let him have a drive of the Beast. Jeef called while we were heading to town and said that they were held up, so we went and took some photos of the car with the ocean in the background. When we got to where we were meeting Jeef and Mil Humid was there too. So it was cool that we were all heading out for lunch. We went to Beaumont Street, which has a lot of different placed to eat. Liz and I both got chicken satay, as it didn't have anything in it we couldn't eat. Humid was generous and bought our lunch, which was good of him. Thanks for lunch, Humid!

Heading back to the car it was time to say see you soon to everyone. Liz suggested a photo of everyone together, which was when we took the group shot of us on the Beast. We went for a quick drive around, passing Australia's biggest KFC and an awesome billboard:

Sid Fogg's Big Bus! Seats 73 adults or 105 children.

It's effective... now I want chocolate milk

We dropped Matt at his place and it was time to start thinking about packing. But, when we got home, Liz remembered that we still had some passionfruit that we had bought at a Farmer's Market a few days earlier. While I hung out and talked to the neighbors, Jarrod and Luke, she baked up a storm. I love passionfruit, and the vanilla cupcakes with passionfruit icing that Liz made absolutely rocked. It started to rain, which meant that we couldn't go and take photos of the tree. Next time we're there we'll do it.

Smelling the passionfruit and imagining what was to come

It started to get later in the evening, and we all still had to eat, so we started looking for somewhere we could all go. We decided to try an Italian place in Belmont called Selina's, who have gluten free items. I called to make a reservation and then we went. When we arrived they didn't have a table, which was a bit annoying. Eventually they seated us in a room on our own, which worked out for the best. It was a big table, like a dining room table, and there was a fireplace in the corner. Most of us got pizza - the one I had was a gluten free crust with bacon, beef, pepperoni, onion, pineapple and barbeque sauce (no cheese). It was fantastic. Adequately stuffed, I still had space for passionfruit goodness when we got home. Now, though, we had to pack. It took us a while, gathering things up, packing bags, checking weights, but come midnight we were done. Enough time for 3 hours sleep before we had to leave for the airport.

Friday September 10th: We got out of bed and got ourselves ready, much quicker than I thought we would but not quick enough to make our planned departure time. We snapped a couple of pics of and with Jeb and loaded up the car. We said see ya to Kel and jumped in Bil in the dark to start the drive to Sydney. As we got closer we started to hear reports about ferries on Sydney Harbour being cancelled because of fog. Driving through the city we couldn't see some of the taller buildings because of the shroud. We got all the way to within 10 minutes of the airport until the announcement came over the radio that Sydney airport was closed because of the fog. Figuring it would only be a temporary delay while the fog lifted it didn't change our plans much...

Normally you could see the Sydney Harbour Bridge from here, but fog covered it

We checked in for our flights and sat with Mum and Dad while they ate some breakfast. Making us hungry, we went and got the same thing, thanks to Mum and Dad because we were out of Australian money. We did some wandering through shops and then it was time to say bye to Mum and Dad. I'll admit that it was sad, especially with everything that had happened over the last few days that we were there. Clearing Customs and Immigration was easy, and before we knew it we were at the gate waiting to board. They were a little late boarding the plane, probably because of the earlier fog delays.

On the plane we had only been flying a little while before they brought out lunch. Oh, hell... more fruit platters. Neither of us were tired, and wanted to try and wait a few more hours until it was dark outside the plane before attempting sleep, so we watched a movie together, Kick Ass. It was completely not what I expected (I thought it would be comical, and in the end it was comical and violent) but I enjoyed it a lot. We then watched a movie called The Joneses before I decided to try and get some sleep.

4 hours later I was awake and didn't go back to sleep, which is the least I think I have ever slept on a Sydney - LA flight. More fruit platter was consumed and then it was time to land. Immigration in Los Angeles was faster for me than it ever has been, because for the first time I was able to go through with American citizens and residents, which are much faster lines. The trade-off was, though, that we spent more time waiting for our bags. We ended up having to go through 2 lines at Customs because we told them we had food. When we told them what we had they practically waved us straight through. There wasn't much time between flights again, so we had just enough time to brush our teeth and get to the next gate. On the next flight Liz had a window seat while I had the aisle, and we could see some stuff out the window.

I passed the time by watching "The Last Airbender". The movie was OK - I like the premise behind it. As such we have started watching the cartoon series it was based on on Netflix. About 15 minutes from landing at JFK the Manhattan skyline was visible, and I fell asleep for 5 minutes. It was a weird time to fall asleep given how long I had been awake.

Next we had to find out way to baggage claim and to the car rental area to pick up a car. Luckily both were easy to find. The car they gave us was huge, so we had plenty of space for our bags. Hungry after 3 fruit platters we went to Layla's on the way home, and the guy managed to upsell me into buying more than I had originally planned. But it was worth it. We pulled into the driveway and I decided to check the mail. Here's what our mail looked like:

I was a bit pissed, because there were things in there like debit cards we didn't know were being delivered while we were away, so if some of the mail had have gone missing we wouldn't have known and it would have been bad. We ate Layla's, watched some TV and called people to tell them: we were back.

So, that's the end of my Australian recollection. Just a few more random things that I remembered or was reminded of:

On the Thursday when I could remember what we had done we went shopping at the mall with the family.

The first day we were there someone came over to Mum and Dad's place, and Mum asked if they wanted a "cuppa". That means "Do you want a cup of tea or coffee?". The person replied "Yeah", so Mum asked what. They couldn't decide so I suggested they have both: hybrid tea/coffee, but you can't call it toffee. This was the first time the person had met me, so they didn't know how to take that comment.

Australian barbecue sauce is different to US sauce - it is not at all smoky and is sweeter. I got into a real barbecue sauce kick for a few days while we were there and was having it on a lot of different stuff, like steamed rice. People thought I was weird, but I was loving it.

If there were 3 occasions I wish we had had the camera they would have been for Liz at the tree, Kookaburra vs Magpie and the kid we saw that was about 4 years old and had a mullet all the way down his back.

Australia was fun, and it was great to see everyone again. We didn't get to see everything and everyone or do some of the things we had planned. Next trip: The Castle needs to be watched and cricket needs to be played!