'Journey' versus 'The Cast of Glee'

While in the city doing some last minute shopping for the New Zealand trip, I noticed that the version of "Don't Stop Believin'" playing on the store music system was actually the cover by 'The Cast of Glee' (the TV show). I was really surprised that they were playing that version and not the original Journey version. Don't get me wrong, I think that the Glee cover was well done, but it's still not the original...

Off to NZ tomorrow!!

Williamstown

After speaking with Mom this morning via Skype and catching up on some travel planning, I went in search of a rainproof jacket for my trip to New Zealand. I managed to find a camping/backpacking store that had exactly what I needed. It was actually a really fun store to explore. I think that they probably had everything you could possibly need/want to go on an extensive backpacking tour. Anyhow, I was glad to have finished up one of the last remaining pieces of the puzzle that I had to fit into place before heading off to New Zealand on Monday.

After I returned from my shopping trip, I was looking through some travel information trying to see if I could decide on something to do for the later afternoon and evening. I came across a column written about Williamstown and decided to go and check it out. A relatively short train ride later, I found myself in Williamstown and I was off on my way exploring. Williamstown is located right along the western shore of Port Phillip Bay and it turned out to be a really fun place. A lot of the buildings have an older feel to them, and they are all located around quite a stretch of shoreline tracks and marinas/yacht clubs. It was fun to walk around and get some great photos of the moderately distant city skyline.

I made my way through town and went out to the waterfront park (a more remote area where you can walk right along the water's edge). The scenery was great and there were not many people there (adding to the overall effect of the walk). The coastline was rather rocky, but there is a relatively thin strip of sand that made walking along the shore much easier. A few people were out in the water playing with their dogs and the overall atmosphere was very relaxed and nature-centered. I saw several washed up (and, thus, dying) jellyfish along the shore. Some of them were huge! I tried to get a few photos of some of the more impressive ones. Some of them were more than 2 feet wide (or long depending on how you look at it). I haven't seen many jellyfish in my time, but I have never seen them this big. It definitely did not make me want to get in the water...

After my trip around the water's edge, I came back into the town and started the process of scouting out a good restaurant for dinner. I wanted to go somewhere that would offer some good, fresh seafood. After a few trips up and down the main drag, I decided upon The Dock's at Williamstown. This was a street-side restaurant and I was in luck when I got there since there was 1 empty table in the outdoor seating area. I promptly took that table and began enjoying the view of the bay and the surrounding town. I decided to have their herb-crusted salmon for dinner. It certainly was the best salmon I have had in recent memory, and may have quite possibly been the best salmon I've ever had. The fish was juicy and tender and the sauces and crusting were excellent! The fish came served on more-or-less garlic mashed potatoes with a side salad featuring a light citrus dressing. Everything was really good and I really enjoyed the entire meal.

Seminar at CSIRO

Today marked the end of my 3rd full week here in Australia. Among the usual daily proceedings, I had the opportunity to give a seminar at group meeting this afternoon. After a brief personal introduction, I spoke on the membrane program at UT and gave an overview of the work that I have been doing as a graduate student. It was fun to prepare the personal introduction slides because it gave me a reason to dig back through a lot of older photos to select some good highlights for the slides.

I believe the seminar was very well received by the audience and I thought it went very well! We had quite an extensive discussion after the presentation and I felt as though it was a very productive discussion. I will certainly follow up on some good suggestions/ recommendations for future work. Aaron managed to get a few photos of the meeting. Here I am during the discussion session that followed the seminar. I am having a discussion with Dr. Richard Hannink (sitting next to Anita on the left edge of the photo) about some of the data shown on the screen. Aaron also managed to highlight our stash of beer, wine, soft drinks, and snacks that makes its way to each of our group meetings. I still haven't quite gotten used to it being okay to drink at work (or during a meeting), but it makes for a nice, relaxed Friday afternoon!

Today was also Bijan's last day at CSIRO. Bijan is the 15 year old son of a Monash University professor who collaborates with Anita and the group at CSIRO. Bijan will start school again next week after the summer holiday here in Australia. So, as a result, we took the opportunity to take a group photo with most of the CSIRO group present (some folks had to leave early to catch buses and trains).

I am still in the process of planning some events for this weekend. But I definitely have some errands to run before I head off to New Zealand on Monday. It was strange telling Anita and Tim that I would see them next week in a different country! I also need to finalize my talk for the conference (probably sooner than later)... Anyhow, today was a good day and I am looking forward to a nice weekend!

CSIRO and Penn State!

Today was another routine day in the lab for me, but I brought my camera along to take a few photos of the place where I have been working for the last couple weeks now (it is amazing that it really has been that long now). The first stop on our tour is my temporary office. As you can see, it's pretty empty (I keep my backpack and laptop bag on the desk to make it look less empty). The window views are great though and I have enjoyed having a nice amount of space to spread out. I guess the office belongs (or will belong) to a new-hire who hasn't arrived yet to start with CSIRO. In any case, it works out well for me!

I have talked a bit in the past about the PALS analysis that I am doing here in Melbourne, so I decided I would get a photo of the experimental equipment. When all else is working as it should, the experiment is very simple, but the electronics (housed in the tall cabinet) are incredibly complicated (all of that equipment goes with one spectrometer) and sensitive. The sample is placed between the two detectors (vertical black cylinders, with the yellow radioactive label, to the left of the equipment rack and monitor). My understanding is that the equipment consists primarily of components to delay signals and assign them to specific channels that the computer can then understand as time intervals. I hadn't really thought about it before, but distinguishing time events that occur on the order of picoseconds is not trivial. The computer would not be able to process the data stream if the detectors were patched in directly. In any case, I've been doing work in this room for the past few weeks. The room itself is surrounded by lead because a particle of gamma radiation is produced for each positron that is emitted from the source. Luckily, the intensity is pretty low so we just take appropriate precautions to protect ourselves.

I worked with Cara today to go through all of the UT samples (the ones that aren't mine). We have been working as hard as we can to run samples, but it is pretty apparent that we won't be able to run all of them in the time that I am here in Australia. The experiments are relatively easy to set up, but they take a solid amount of time and no amount of extra effort will be able to change that. Unfortunately, it will become Cara's responsibility to run the samples after I leave. I say unfortunately, because I can empathize with her for having someone else's work dropped in your lap. That is a double-edged sword about working in a lab that is the best in the world at doing a particular type of characterization. On the one hand, you are working in an excellent place where you can learn a lot and do great science. But, lots of people around the world want you to characterize their materials - and this simply takes time. We run into the same situation in Austin since we often get samples from companies or other research groups for characterization. I have been in the position of having to do work like that and, since it takes time, it can be a bit of a drag at times. I think the key is to involve the person who is doing the work so that they are able to gain something through the experiment. Nobody likes to run a black-box experiment where they don't really learn anything. So I started working on that with Cara today and hopefully the work will benefit both her and our folks at UT.

Dinner tonight was interesting... I found out that I don't really like artichoke. My dinner ended up being a lot of bread, salad and rice tonight, but that's okay. We'll have to see what tomorrow brings! Speaking of tomorrow, I will present at group meeting for Anita's group at CSIRO. I have been working on my slides all day and I hope I have put something together that will be accessible for the audience. In any case, I am looking forward to the talk!

It's hard to believe that I'm leaving for my New Zealand conference/sightseeing trip in a few days... I still have to get a few things done in order to be ready to go, but things are coming along nicely.

In other news, I saw someone walking down the street with a Penn State t-shirt on!!!! I was on a tram, so I couldn't say anything. But that definitely made my day! The Nittany Lions are everywhere :) Interestingly, this was also the first person I have seen (since I've been in Australia) wearing clothing featuring an American university...very cool!

Australia Day!

So, today was Australia Day (comparable to the 4th of July in the U.S.) and, as such, I had the day off work. One of the group members at CSIRO, Matt, invited me to an Australia Day cookout. So I joined many of the other CSIRO group members at Matt's house for a fun afternoon of socializing and eating!

My day started around 9am or so when a pair of F/A-18 fighter jets screamed over the graduate house at low altitude. The thundering roar certainly woke me up quickly. The jets circled around a few times before heading home or moving to another location. So, I figured I would just get up and start to get ready for the day. I had to take the train to get to Matt's house, so I decided to walk to the center of the city (where I would later catch the train). I thought it would be fun to get the feel for the day - especially since the Melbourne Australia Day parade was going to be starting soon.

The city was full of people and the energy and spirit of the day was great. Lots of people were running around with Australian flag shirts/shorts/flags/swimsuits (pretty much you name it and they had it). I would think that the environment was probably pretty similar to what would be observed in a big American city on the 4th of July. I could see that they were starting to close off Swanston St for the parade, but I had to catch the train and, unfortunately, missed out on the parade.

Matt, Yani, and their young daughter Audrey's house is great! They have a nice backyard and the house is very open (good for entertaining lots of people). Probably 25 or 30 people were at the cookout and it was a lot of fun to meet some new people. In particular, I met two of the Italian students in the group at CSIRO. They had been traveling when I first arrived in Australia.

The food was great, I had a meat pie (standard Australian dish) as well as chicken wings, sausage, and assorted salads. Everything was excellent. I spent most of the afternoon into the early evening talking with folks and enjoying the day off. Finally, around 7pm or so, I decided to head back to the Graduate House and spent the rest of the night unwinding and getting ready for the upcoming day at work. All in all, it was a fun holiday and I was glad that I could take part in it!

South Yarra and the Royal Botanical Gardens

Today, I decided to take a trip to South Yarra to experience what is billed as one of the particularly trendy suburbs of Melbourne. I took the tram/train to get there. I really like having an unlimited monthly public transportation pass. It is so much easier to get places using the trams and trains and it always seems like the timing just works out well.

I arrived at the South Yarra station and made my way to Chapel St, the main street in South Yarra. The (long) street is filled with all sorts of shops, restaurants and cafes. I simply walked up and down the street - stopping along the way in a few shops.

I went in a few sports apparel stores. It was interesting to compare their selection to what you would find in the U.S. (at a store like Dick's or Academy, etc.). One thing I have noticed is that all of the sports shops in Melbourne have a wide selection of wetsuits and surfboards. It seems to be a very common thing and so I guess there must be a lot of surfing that goes on down at the beaches that are south of the city. Anyhow, I also saw a lot of jerseys for Australian sports teams (cricket, rugby, soccer, etc.). I saw just a few NBA jerseys. The tennis section was far more extensive than anything you would see in a general sports store back home. I saw some scarves that featured sports team logos. It made me think of the quidditch match scenes from the Harry Potter movies. My feeling is that you could probably buy a scarf for sports teams in the U.S., but something about these just seemed very British - I can't really describe it any better than that...

So, I made my way through a few other stores, including a collectables store that had all sorts of strange/old/random things for sale. It was interesting to look through the very odd collection of stuff. I finally reached the end of the street (about a 2.5 km one-way trip) and turned around to head back toward the train station.

On the way back, I stopped off at Cafe Sienna for a late lunch. I had an excellent chicken salad with avocado, bacon, tomato, and walnut served with a vinaigrette dressing. Along with that, I had a coffee flavored milkshake - all was very tasty! While I was waiting for lunch, I got the chance to pick up the newspaper and read for a little while. The writing style that is used here is certainly different than what is used in the U.S. I often get a kick out of some of the language that they use in their articles here.

After lunch, I walked back up to the train station, but instead of taking the train back to the city, I hoped on a tram that would take me past the collection of gardens and parks that are located just south of the Yarra River and the center of the city. The parks and gardens are quite extensive and it was nice to be able to just walk around and enjoy the scenery and experience of being there. I took many pictures as the grounds are well kept and feature good variety of plants and ornamentation.

While walking through the gardens, I came to an Australian Veteran's memorial. The rather large monument was built up on a hill and featured a solemn shrine dedicated to the veterans. An inscription upon reaching the area read "Let all know that they walk on holy ground". The main monument had a balcony area that afforded exellent views of the city. I stayed up on the balcony for a while and I took several pictures. The weather really couldn't have been better for enjoying the day and being able to take good photos. The grounds were dotted with several smaller monuments including an eternal flame lit by Queen Elizabeth II in 1954. While passing by a statue of a soldier holding a rifle with a bayonet, I heard a kid (who was probably no more than 7 or 8 years old) ask his dad "why do they need to stab people if they can just shoot them?" I believe the kid was essentially asking why a soldier would need to have a bayonet if he already had a gun. The question was posed with a complete sense of innocence. I didn’t stick around to hear how the kid’s dad was going to answer the question. But the innocence of the question struck me. Sadly, there are some parts of the world where children wouldn’t find it necessary to ask such an innocent question as that…

Following that moment of reflection, I made my way over toward the Royal Botanical Gardens. I walked through an area known as Kings Domain. The foot paths were lined with flowers and trees and the walk was very pleasant. I managed to get a few pictures along the way. I came across a type of flowering plant that stood about 7 or 8 feet tall. I am almost certain that these were the same plants that Lilo would plant in gigantic planters around the B.S. Pool back when I was a lifeguard in high school and college. I never learned what they are called, but they always looked very nice. The only problem is that, to plant them in a pot, you need a really big pot with a lot of (heavy) dirt. One night (during my tenure at the B.S. Pool) some kids broke in and dropped one of these potted plants into the 8 foot deep section of the pool. I was one of the first lifeguards to get in for the day and so I helped Tom and a State Trooper pull the plant and pot (which landed perfectly upright on the bottom of the pool) out of the water. I was able to pick it up under water and get it to the surface (thanks to buoyancy effects) where Tom and the state trooper held it until I could hop out of the pool. It took all 3 of us to actually get the water laden plant and pot out of the pool. We flushed the soil with fresh water as much as we could and, somehow, the plant actually survived the whole ordeal.

Anyhow, back to my walk to the Royal Botanical Gardens. I finally arrived at the gardens (which are extensive) and began working my way through all sorts of intricate foot paths. The plants were very nice and the grounds were well maintained. A lot of folks were in the gardens relaxing in the sun or by one of the ponds. I have noticed that people (particularly couples) like spending a lot of time outdoors lying around in the sun. I have also noticed that those couples are often not too shy about public display of affection (though everything is still PG or perhaps PG-13 at the worst)… I spent probably about an hour walking through the gardens and then made my way back toward the city by walking along the south bank of the Yarra River. Along the walk back, I noticed several public grills along the walk way. Several people were out along the river having picnics and cooking on these public grills. I thought it was a neat idea and it was cool to see that so many people had were making use of the picnic areas.

Eventually, I made my way back to the arts precinct (just south of the center of the city). I walked around the Southgate/Southbank area. Here there are many shops and restaurants just south of the river. I saw a few street performers and eventually made my way back to the train station where I caught a tram back up to the Graduate House. Altogether, the day was very nice. My feet are a bit sore from quite a bit of walking, but it was definitely worth it and I was glad that I was able to get out of the downtown area of the city and experience another suburb of Melbourne. Now, I’m going to unwind and get ready for another week of working at CSIRO…

Pizza at the Civic Center in Hartford, CT...

So, now that the holiday break is more or less over here in Australia, the food service is up and running at the Graduate House (it actually has been since Monday, the 18th). I just returned from Sunday brunch in the cafeteria downstairs. As I was sitting there, I was reminded of Saturday and Sunday brunches at Penn State. The 'roll out of bed and into brunch' game plan still applies (more or less). And, the food is good but not great.

This morning, they were serving pizza in addition to assorted fruits and breads (okay, so Penn State takes the edge on variety and selection). Now, in my mind, the Civic Center in Hartford, CT (pep band trip, 2004 NCAA women's sweet-16 / elite-8, Penn State versus Notre Dame and UConn respectively) still holds the top spot for the absolute worst pizza I have ever eaten. This morning, the Graduate House made a run for the title... In the end, they came up a bit short. The pizza this morning had noticeable non-cardboard flavor. I really shouldn't complain about food that is made by someone else. So I don't intend for this to be a lament; rather, an opportunity to remember a fun trip and a terrible piece of pizza in Connecticut.

Mobile Phone

I talked to Mom and Michelle via Skype this morning. It was a lot of fun and it was great to get to talk to and see my family. Hopefully we'll be able to do that again and I might even be able to Skype with other friends provided that we can work around the 15 or 16 hour time difference (CST or EST respectively). After that, I worked on data analysis for work. I spent a good amount of time doing that because work stacked up a bit last week since I was busy doing all sorts of fun things.

Following work, I decided to run a few errands in the city. As of this afternoon, I now have an Australian mobile phone. I have a pre-paid plan with a phone that previously belonged to a group member at CSIRO. I was shocked that the process of purchasing the pre-paid SIM card was so easy. I thought for sure the folks at the store were going to try to get me to buy a huge plan or upgrade the phone that I had (as would probably be the case in the U.S.). Instead, the guy in the store showed me the different pre-paid plans that they have and didn't pressure me when I chose the least expensive plan. If only the mobile phone companies in the U.S. could figure that one out...

I walked around the city for the afternoon and was amused by the book sale that was being held at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. I decided to check out some of the side streets that I hadn't seen yet. I found more stores and restaurants and did a little bit of window shopping along the way. Finally, I came across a British Pub that looked like it would be a good place for dinner. So I went in and asked someone whether I should I should seat myself or wait to be seated. The person I asked snapped back at me with some comment about me being by myself - so I promptly left the establishment and resumed my search for a good dinner spot.

I ended up eating at a place called Lounge Downstairs. I think it ended up being a great find because the food was really good. The place was very trendy and the food was definitely prepared to look good in addition to being prepared to taste good. I ordered a lamb burger with beet root, lettuce, mint yogurt, and onion. The burger itself was stacked to be very tall, but the diameter of the burger was not that large. This made the burger impossible to eat traditionally, so I just cut it up. The presentation though was so good that I really didn't want to ruin it by eating it. Anyhow, the burger and fries (or chips as they are called here - owing to the British influence) were certainly more than enough food and they were very reasonably priced.

As I was walking around the city, I passed several people who were wearing tuxes or comparable evening attire. I wonder what was going on? Perhaps a show or concert of some type? I walked through the Arts Precinct and it didn't appear (at least on the outside) that anything was going on. Though it may have been too early to know whether something was scheduled for the evening.

I have seen several street performers since I have been in Melbourne. A popular thing to do here is to bring a battery-powered amplifier and play either guitar or electric piano along a sidewalk or in one of the public park areas. Some of the performers even hook up microphones and sing. I heard a couple playing this evening (the guy was playing guitar and the girl was singing). She was an excellent singer. I hung around and listened for a little while - as did many other people. I think it adds a lot of character to the city and it is kind of fun to walk down the street while listening to piano music for a change. In any case, it was another beautiful evening for spending time in the city!

The Australian Open

Today, I decided to leave CSIRO right after setting up my last sample of the day so that I would be able to catch the late afternoon / evening matches of the Day 4 of the Australian Open. After a nice walk along the Yarra River, I arrived at the site of the Australian Open. I figured I'd try to see if I could get tickets to see Serena and Venus Williams, but as I sort of expected, they were sold out. I probably could have gotten them last night had I been willing to pay the rather large price and be willing to sit in the nosebleed section of the arena. I just didn't want to commit to that without knowing how work and the weather were going to be today. In any case, I purchased a ground pass and bounced around between several games for about the first hour that I was there.

The setup was a lot of fun. The competition area is more like a little village complete with shops (that are surprisingly not as overpriced as I thought they would be) and all sorts of passageways connecting the various outdoor grounds courts. They had many smaller courts with just a few rows of seating around them for the matches that were the least likely to draw crowds, but they also had 3 large 'stadium type' courts that were used for the bigger matches that didn't quite qualify for the arenas where the likes of Federer, Nadal, the Williams' sisters, etc. play.

The first thing that impressed me was just the sheer speed and force of the shots. I had never been to a professional tennis match before (and certainly not a grand slam match). It was pretty cool to be able to get right up next to the courts where some of the players were hitting 110-120 mph serves. The level of play was impressive (I can't imagine what the really good players are like) and it was a lot of fun to be able to move from court to court and pick and choose what I wanted to watch. I don't know how the girls can stand tucking an extra ball in basically their underwear when they play. Maybe they do it that way because they practice that way all the time? I dunno, it seems strange to me that players at such a high level (where they have ball boys and girls) would do that. Speaking of, it was interesting to watch how the ball boys and girls were organized. They had clearly been given very specific instructions about decorum and appropriate gestures and positioning. I noticed that any time that they were giving a player a towel or a ball, they always stayed just ahead of the player, walking backwards if necessary. Also, they had a very specific procedure for changing crews where the new team would process out almost like a marching band, move into position, and then the old crew would move out in similar fashion. Considering that most of these kids are probably pretty young, I thought it was impressive that they managed to organize that so well.

It was also fun to see the folks who had traveled from overseas (or even the Aussies who were decked out with flags and other forms of country pride). I saw a few Americans from a distance but I think the lack of Americans playing outside on the grounds today made the American fans (perhaps) more sparse.

Then I decided that I would actually go to a full match. I ended up just picking one of them in one at one of the stadium courts. I didn't really recognize any of the names so I just made a guess. I think I did okay picking out what ended up being a pretty good match. I watched Montanes (ESP) def. Robert (FRA) in five sets. I'm not sure whether to consider the match to be a good come-from-behind win or a big choke. In any case, it was exciting and there were plenty of good, exciting points. I particularly enjoyed the net play - the reaction time is so impressive to see in person. The match ended up finishing around 8pm (the match was about 3 hours and 20 minutes long) and honestly, by the 5th set, I think I was just cheering for someone to win because I was soooo hungry for dinner. In any case, I was a little disappointed that Robert didn't even try on the match point. He served with his feet on the ground and just let Montanes return the lob shot for the win. I think even if you know you realize that you're probably going to lose, I think you should always play like you can win - I dunno, maybe that's just me.

Afterward, I wandered around for a little longer and visited the gift shop. I caught a glimpse inside the major arena where Federer was playing - it was absolutely gigantic. I don't see how you could see what was really going on from the upper sections of the arena. They had a jumbotron setup on the grounds so that people who had ground passes (like me) could sit out on the lawn and watch the big matches while sitting next to the venue. I enjoyed walking around a bit more and soaking in the environment and then decided to make my way back toward The Graduate House (and dinner).

The walk back was nice. It was another nice evening to be out in the city. I walked back to Federation square (more or less the center of the city) and found that they had a large jumbotron setup there too. Several people had assembled on the square to watch the Federer match. I don't think I've really seen or heard of anything being done quite like that in the U.S. I finally managed to find some dinner and am now back at the Graduate House.

I was surprised to find out that, due to international copyright laws, I can't stream any TV shows from the American networks or Hulu... I was kind of disappointed in that I was looking forward to catching up on a few show for a least a bit this evening. I have not watched any TV since I have been here in Australia. It's kind of weird, but at the same time, I've been so busy that I haven't really missed it. Plus, I'm sure that the things I'm doing here are more interesting than TV anyhow.

Dinner Party on the Yacht and International Diplomacy...

Last night was a busy night. After a good, full day of work, I went out to the marina for a dinner party on the yacht with Anita and several of her friends.

I had to get a ride over to the marina with Dr. Jeff Sellar of the Monash University materials engineering department. He was quite a character. A few years ago he worked in Philadelphia in the materials science and engineering department at Penn as a visiting scientist. So, we spent a fair amount of time talking about Pennsylvania. I enjoyed our conversation on the car ride over and we stopped off at the biggest wine shop I'd ever seen.

Dinner on the yacht was great! We had sushi, sashimi, pork, and other snacks/sides for dinner. It was a very good spread of food and Anita did a great job of planning all of it and then setting it all up. It was fun to meet the others who were there at the party. I met Dr. Brad Ladewig, a membrane researcher at Monash. He remembered me from ICOM (to my surprise). Unfortunately, I don't remember him from the conference - but I met a lot of people on that trip... So we talked about membranes for a while. He works on gas separation membranes and is also interested in doing some work with anionic membranes for fuel cells.

The sunset from the yacht was stunning. It was so peaceful to be out in the marina for the evening. The wind (and thus the water) was calm and so you could really soak in the experience and just enjoy some fantastic scenery and good company. We had been concerned (earlier in the day) that the weather wouldn't be so good but, the weather cleared up well and the sky looked great! All in all, it was a really fun party and I was glad that I was invited to join in. We stayed on the yacht until about 11:30 or so when we finally decided to pack everything up and start making our way home.

As we were leaving, two of Anita's friends invited us over to their house for more drinks. Anita decided that she wanted to go (and since she was my ride, I went too). Their house was something to see in that it was very classic Victorian style. The husband is actually an artist, so much of his work decorates the house and everything had a very homey and personal feel to it. We talked for a while and had good conversation about a number of different things and everything was enjoyable until the conversation turned to world affairs...

We were discussing the situation in Haiti and I commented about it being such a tragedy. I quickly found an adversary (he is not named in this blog), who piped up and told me (not necessarily in these words) that I was full of crap because clearly (in his opinion) the only reason that the U.S. is responding in Haiti is because they want to conquer the country and add it to the 'American Empire'. I was understandably taken back that someone would make an accusation like that. It took a fair amount of effort to stay calm, look him directly in the eye and say "I could not possibly disagree with you more." After a few more heated comments back and forth about his thoughts on 'American Imperialism', I managed to learn that he thinks that the U.S. was wrong to rush into Haiti with aid and troops to try to maintain order. He thought they should have waited for the U.N. to direct the effort. I disagree. I think that in a disaster situation, anyone who can help should help as soon as possible. The U.N. is not known for acting quickly and the U.S. was close and able to help out. I fail to see how helping people out is a bad thing. The provocative 'discussion' evolved (for about an hour) through several other topics and issues that I will omit here for the sake of brevity.

Adding to the intrigue of the conversation was the fact that Anita grew up in Chattanooga, TN and went to undergraduate and graduate school at Duke - her extended family still live in the U.S. So when my adversary finally got to the point where he flat out said (with a bit more colorful language) that he hates Americans, Anita and I were both playing defense for Americans. All in all, I think we did a good job of standing up for the U.S.

It was a very different situation than I have ever been in before. I believe I was necessarily firm, though civilized. I was surprised that someone would be so bold and disrespectful - especially to a friend of a friend.

I understand that there will always be people who will dislike America and Americans and that this will be true regardless of who the American president is or what Americans due to make a positive impact on the world. So, I certainly agree that everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But it seems that most people have a decent sense about when it is appropriate to express certain opinions and when it is better to just keep your opinions to yourself. It's one thing to have a discussion or a debate about issues, but insults and attacks are un-called for. In any case, it made the visit much less pleasant. I would have walked out if I would have been able to get home.

After what ended up being a rather late night, Anita said, this morning, that she thinks he was just trying to see how I would react and that he didn't 'really mean' what he said. I'm not sure that I completely agree but, I can imagine how I would feel if I was in her place... One way or another, it was a good exercise in patience and restraint and seems to make for a good story.

So, that made for an interesting evening on Tuesday. Today was a slow day since I was running a bit short on sleep. After dinner, I went for a walk for about an hour and a half through the city. It was fun to just walk around and absorb the city culture while sipping on a cup of coffee - and the weather could not have been better. I may try to get over to the Australian Open tomorrow (depending on how experiments go). We'll have to see what happens. Anyhow, I think it's time to unwind for the evening and call it a night early to make-up for last night...

Crazy Weather and Other Comments...

Well, today was a pretty normal day as far as work was concerned. A few highlights though; the cafeteria here at the Graduate House opened up today. So now I can eat breakfast and dinner just downstairs with the other folks who live here. The meals are included with the room, so it's nice to have food that is made by someone else and paid for by someone else. The experience today was okay. It's not quite as good as some of the food I have been eating recently, but it is certainly not bad.

Today I experienced perhaps some of the craziness of Melbourne weather. I must say that this week is probably going to be a good week, because luck was certainly on my side this morning. I had pretty much just stepped onto Anita's covered porch when the skies unleashed an enormous amount of rain and hail. Thank goodness it hadn't come about 5 minutes earlier when I would have been walking between the train station and her house... Anyhow, it was pretty impressive. They day continued much in the same way; ferocious rain, hail and wind separated by pleasant sunshine and bright blue skies. I guess it's nice that the whole day wasn't rainy, but I feel bad for anyone who got caught in the rain.

I did laundry for the first time today. I finally managed to find some detergent (or washing powder as it is called here). I probably spent more time picking out that box of detergent than I ever have before. I spent quite a bit of time making sure that I was buying something that would be suitable for colors, and clothes in general. It's amazing how much brand power really exists in society. I do not think that many people realize how programmed they are when it comes to common household brands. Even little kids in the states probably know that Tide is laundry detergent. But here, many things are different, so I find that I need to spend more time making sure that I'm buying the right stuff. I also learned that people here apparently don't use static dryer sheets...oh well.

A few other things worth mentioning from recent days. At the cookout the other day, I had the opportunity to eat part of a whole fish. I had never actually been served a whole fish (i.e. where the whole fish is literally laid before you and you have to pull the skin off, de-bone it, etc.). It was an interesting experience. The fish was baby snapper and it was pretty good. But it is a little weird when the fish is just kind of sitting there looking at you - haha. Also we had corn on the cob, but in Australia it is apparently not common to put butter on corn on the cob. Rather, folks squirt lemon on the corn and then salt it. Maybe people do that in the States too... I'd never seen it before, but it was surprisingly good.

I also think it is interesting to note some of the differences in how people say things here. For example, I went into a restaurant a week or so ago and ordered a fillet of something. The waitress looked at me funny and eventually she figured out what I wanted. Later, after talking with Anita and others at this cookout (with the baby snapper) I learned that fillet is always pronounced here with a hard 't' sound. This is in contrast to the way that I have always pronounced it - with a long 'a' sound at the end. It made me wonder whether that is a British remnant (or maybe a British snubbing the French thing) - who knows.

I suppose that's about it for now... I'm going to go head to bed and get ready for another day!

The University of Melbourne Campus

Today was a more relaxed day for me. I needed to take care of some travel planning issues and other things loosely related to work. Luckily, the weather cooperated and the day has been steadily oscillating between periods of rain and periods of brilliant blue sky. After catching up on some much needed sleep, I had a very productive afternoon.

I wanted to get out at least a little bit today, so I figured I would walk over to the University of Melbourne since I haven’t been there yet. The university is just north of the Graduate House and a 2 minute walk is all it takes to be on campus. As it is Sunday and the university is still on holiday, there weren’t many people around – so it was a rather peaceful place to take a late afternoon stroll. I was struck by the contrast in architecture. Some of the (presumably) older buildings were constructed in beautiful old-English architectural styles while some of the newer buildings and (surprise, surprise) most of the engineering buildings have a 1970s or 80s feel to them that just makes you wonder how anyone ever thought that looked good.

I came across many unique areas of the campus and I tried to get a few pictures, though the clouds were starting to return. In particular, I came across the old quadrangle – a grassy area with some trees surrounded by arched walkways. It had an ‘Ivy League or Cambridge’ type feel to it and it was a lot of fun to walk around. This entire experience has really been rejuvenating in that I almost feel as though I’m younger again, starting college for the first time. Just walking around the university brought back some of those exciting feelings of exploration brought about by finding oneself in a new exciting environment.

I’ve always enjoyed places that convey feelings. As I was walking around the older buildings, I was reminded of the time when Laura took me through the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. I remember feeling a great sense of motivation and general desire to learn all wrapped up in the unique old-world architecture. These were the same sorts of feelings stirred up by my walk through the university today. I like being able to take a break from the craziness of work and school and escape to an environment suitable for recharging and reminding myself why I’m doing what I am doing. I have the feeling that I will enjoy many future walks around the campus of the University of Melbourne while I am here…

Busy Day

This morning I woke up early to go out exploring more of Victoria. In particular, I planned to go see parts of the Mornington Peninsula. I got an early start from the Graduate House driving Anita's car and I made my way out to the town of Pearcedale to go see the Moonlit Sanctuary. I had read about this location in a travel magazine that Anita had given me. It sounded like it would be good, so I decided to check it out.

The drive was pretty uneventful, I am really getting the hang of driving here and the differences don't concern me so much now. Once I got out of the Melbourne metropolitan area, things opened up quite a bit. It definitely felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. I didn't really get lost, but the directions that I had from Google were not correct (incidentally, I have had a lot of trouble recently with directions from Google maps; everything from wrong turn directions to roads that don't exist). Luckily, I had a big map in the car and was able to plan out the rest of my trip from that. About an hour and a half after leaving, I got to the sanctuary. The place was nothing fancy. There was a small building that acted as the gate, restaurant, and gift shop. Beyond this, was a rather large open area where the animals were.

One of things that attracted me to this place was that they let several of their animals lose in this big wide open area and so you can walk around while interacting with and even feeding many of the animals. So, I set off with my bag of food and map. They had enclosures for some of the animals (I would assume to keep some animals separate). I saw a few dingoes who were sectioned off from the rest of the population (for obvious reasons). They had several birds and a collection of frogs. I saw a Tasmanian devil sleeping (they are nocturnal). The main attractions (at least from my perspective) were the wallabies and kangaroos.



They had an area called the wallaby walk where the wallabies and kangaroos spent most of their time. They must have had more than 15 wallabies and at least 8 kangaroos. The cool thing was that they were very accustomed to people coming by and so they were very friendly (and interested in being fed). Most of the wallabies were very social. Shortly after I started walking down the trail, I encountered 3 of them just sitting along the trail. They saw me and I was pleasantly surprised that they weren't scared off by my presence. Once they knew that I had some food for them, they became very interested in me. It was fun to see them jump over to where I was standing and they were very curious. I found out that, even though they look rather small when they are jumping around on the ground, they can actually extend themselves quite far while still standing on their back legs. The bigger of the 3 could probably reach about 3 or 4 feet off the ground just by 'standing up straight'. I got scratched a little bit since they would often reach up with their paws to hold onto my hand (thus securing their food). Then never dug in with their claws, but some slight scratching was probably inevitable.

I moved on from the first group of wallabies and ran into several others along the trail. Many of them were resting in the shade or around fallen trees. The flies were pretty bad and I had to keep swatting them away from my face. As I was doing so, I became somewhat distracted and, upon looking down again, saw that I was only a few feet away from what was, by far, the largest wild snake I had ever seen. I don't know much about snakes, so I have no idea whether it was poisonous or not. However, I think assuming the worst is probably the best way to go in cases like that. The snake saw me and picked its head about a half a foot to a foot off the ground and stuck its tounge out at me. I started to attempt to move around it and I think that scared it because the snake decided to slither off the path back into the trees.

Following that encounter, I made my way over to where the kangaroos were hanging out. Unfortunately, the kangaroos were much more timid and less trusting of humans than the wallabies. I approached a few of them and they jumped away. The sound that they made when they move is pretty funny - they bounce with a pretty loud thumping sound. Their back legs are pretty big and it is fun to watch. I was determined to make contact though, so I just took my time and moved very slowly toward one of them that had decided to lay down under a tree. As I moved closer, I was startled by a few leaves that dropped on me from the tree. Then I thought about tree snakes and I tried very quickly to reassure myself that it was probably pretty unlikely that a snake would fall on me from a tree. Anyhow, I kept moving slowly toward the kangaroo and finally came close enough that I could extend a food filled hand toward the kangaroo. I was surprised that he didn't get up and jump away, but rather, came forward to eat out of my hand. Eventually, I tried to pet him (the wallabies liked this) but the kangaroo did not like that. He quickly jumped up and moved a few feet away. I walked over to where he was now standing and was still able to feed him a little more before he decided to bounce back into the trees with the other 6 or 7 kangaroos that were all just kind of hanging out.


After spending quite a bit of time with the wallabies and kangaroos, I went back to see the koala (and managed to get a picture with him. Apparently, koalas sleep about 20 hours per day. So they're only awake for a few minutes here or there most of the time. In this case, the koala was comfortably cuddled up with a eucalyptus tree and clearly taking a nap for a while. In any case, it was still a cool photo opportunity. Following that, I made my way out of the sanctuary and was off to the next stop on my trip!

Next, I drove to the Red Hill Estate winery. This was a recommendation from Anita and the view certainly did not disappoint. Getting there was not trivial though... I was driving on all sorts of back roads and I pretty much felt like I was going to fall off the face of the Earth a couple times. In particular, there was a dirt road that I had to drive on for a few kilometers. Luckily, Anita has a Land Rover (that is pretty much a tank). So I didn't have too much trouble with the dirt road. But the ruts in parts of the road were so bad that the car was almost slipping and moving all over the place. In some cases, it actually seemed worse than driving on ice. I just went slowly and was glad when I finally made it back to a paved road. I finally arrived at Red Hill Estate and promptly made my way to the wine cellar to taste some of their wines. They had quite an extensive selection of wines encompassing almost all of the 'major' grapes - and they were all very very good. I tried most of what they had to offer and decided to buy a bottle of sauvignon blanc for Anita as a 'thank you' for letting me use her car. Then, I went up to the restaurant and enjoyed a very nice lunch with a fantastic view. I decided to splurge and have their filet mignon. It was absolutely excellent and I was glad that I treated myself to something a little bit nicer (even if it was just lunch). As Dr. Freeman often likes to say, "things could be worse."

After Red Hill Estate, I made my way over to Ten Minutes by Tractor. Another winery, Anita had also recommended this as being a good place to get Dr. Freeman a bottle of pinot noir (shhh, don't tell him, it's supposed to be a surprise). They had a more restricted selection of wines. They had several grades of chardonnay as well as several grades of pinot noir. I tried many of them and finally made a selection. Then it was time to head back to Anita's house for the evening's festivities. Anita had invited me to a cookout at one of her friends/co-worker's house. First, I had to make it back to Hawthorne...

This proved to be more difficult than it ever should have been. It turns out that not only were the Google directions totally worthless, but the map that I had wasn't accurate either. I was traveling on a road that was supposed to dead-end at the road I wanted to be on (so I figured, no problem, right?). No, turns out they added on to this road (maybe?). In any case, after a while I ended up overlooking the harbour that is south of Melbourne. About the only thing I had going for me at this point was that (pretty much just by sense of direction alone) I knew that I was on the western portion of the peninsula, so I knew which way was north. The map didn't list any of the roads that I was on, so I finally just picked one and started driving more or less north, hoping that I would eventually run into a town or something that was on the map. After about 15 minutes of driving along a road that didn't intersect with any other road (in the absolute middle of nowhere, of course) I came to a road that I recognized from the map and I was able to identify where I was! (incidentally, the coastal views of the harbour were spectacular... I wish I would have stopped to get pictures, but I was running behind schedule and I was a bit concerned about having no idea where I was) So, finally, I made it back to the freeway that would take me back to Melbourne. I eventually arrived at Anita's house (a little behind schedule) but we were still able to get out to CSIRO to change samples in the lab and then make it to the cookout.

The cookout was nice. There were several professors and scientists there from CSIRO and other local universities. It was nice to meet those people and their kids. Among other things, we had excellent lamb and an Afghan dish called mantu. The food was fantastic. After dinner, we played cricket. I had never played before, so it was definitely a learning experience for me... I'm still not entirely sure that I understand the rules completely, but I did get the general feel for the game and it was fun to play and get some exercise.

After the cookout, I took the train from Anita's house back to Melbourne and eventually back to the Graduate House. There were a lot of young people on the train clearly going out for a night on the town. It was fun to make some observations about that. First, apparently it is at least moderately acceptable to carry around and drink from open bottles of wine and beer (even on the train). Second, I find the styles and choices of clothing to be comical, at best. Melbourne is definitely a more formal city in that people dress up a bit more to go out. But at the same time, probably 80% of the people who I could identify as 'definitely on their way to a club or some other nightlife activity' looked as though they were going to an 80s party. At first, I thought maybe they were going to some themed event. But I kept seeing more and more people dressed that way and eventually came to the conclusion that it must be normal... I'm glad I didn't ask anyone on the train if they were going to an 80s party - haha! I wish I could have gotten a representative sample of photos to explain this better, but I don't think taking random pictures of people on a train would be such a good idea. After the train ride, I walked around downtown for a bit to get a feel for the nightlife scene (at least from the street). I'll have to get a more 'inside' look at it some other time. Eventually, I hoped on a tram and made the rest of the trip back up to the Graduate House. After a long day full of exciting activities, I think it is time for bed...

Another great taste of Italy...

I just returned from an excellent dinner on Lygon St. I went to an Italian restaurant and had gnocchi toscana. While I still think that my homemade (family recipe from my grandmother) gnocchi is better, this was pretty good too. The sauce was excellent (and the waitress, from Paris, was pretty cute too)!

I ended up sharing a bottle of wine with Tom and Rowena, a couple from north of Brisbane who have been vacationing in Melbourne. They felt bad that I was sitting alone, so they invited me to their table to help them finish their bottle of cabernet shiraz as they insisted that it was more than they wanted to drink. They were very nice, Tom is a graphic arts professor at a university near Brisbane and they have a daughter who is studying in France this semester. They gave me their contact information and insisted that I phone them if I come up to Brisbane and/or the great barrier reef. It was really nice to have a casual conversation. Tom was originally from Scottland, but moved to Melbourne more than 30 years ago. They were very conversational and we actually ended up talking a good deal about world issues of water and energy (stemming from a discussion of what I do).

Time to read up on where I am going to try to go sightseeing tomorrow!!

That was pretty cool...

I just returned from work today capping off quite an exciting week! It's hard to think that I've been here in Melbourne for over a week now! Time is going by quickly.

For my return to the Graduate House today, I ditched the public transportation system. Anita let me borrow her car and so I drove back. Apparently, automatic transmission is not at all common here, so it was really different not only driving on the left-hand side of the road, but also doing so in a manual transmission vehicle. Shifting with my left hand was quite a bit different. Luckily, the peddles are in the same order as they are in an American car. Things might have been really crazy if those were reversed. Anyhow, after some intense first few minutes of trying to figure out what I was doing, things settled down quite a bit. It really wasn't hard at all to do, but it is a little different realizing that a left hand turn is the simple turn whereas a right hand turn is a little more complicated. In any case, it was a lot of fun and I made it back without a problem.

Anita's generosity with loaning me the car will make it easy for me to go do some sightseeing this weekend! I haven't decided what I'm going to do exactly. I need to read up on a few options and then look at the directions and see what I feel comfortable with.

Today started like a usual work day with taking the train out to Anita's house, talking over coffee, and then catching a ride with Tim into CSIRO. The day was pretty normal in terms of getting experiments done. I had a nice lunch with Matt, Michele, and this other kid whose name I can pronounce but can't spell (yet). We had a good time talking over lunch and coffee and it was interesting to see the different perspectives. Michele is from Italy and has been in Melbourne for about a month now. He will finish the Italian equivalent of a master's degree in the coming months and then return to CSIRO for a Ph.D. The other kid whose name I can't spell is actually a 15 year old high school student whose Dad works at CSIRO. He has been working there for the summer and will actually be publishing a paper on his results. Apparently the kid is an absolute genius... I know I wasn't thinking about writing scientific journal articles when I was 15...

We had group meeting in the afternoon. Group meetings here are quite a bit different than back home. First, we had food and wine in the meeting. Dr. Freeman often points out that we could probably get away with that once at UT and then they would cart him away in handcuffs... Anyhow, the discussion was great. Most of our group meetings lack in depth discussion, but here we talked quite a bit. It was nice because I was able to contribute some insight from our work at UT and even teach some basic thermodynamic concepts as they relate to polymer swelling! All in all, it was a good experience and I am looking forward to my group meeting talk in a few weeks!

Beautiful Evening for a Walk...

After making the trip back home from CSIRO, I went out to get dinner. As I was walking to dinner, I realized that I have been out to eat (either at a restaurant or some other function) every day since I have been in Melbourne and, in that time, I have not frequented the same location twice.

I wasn't about to break the trend and so I decided to try another Lygon St. restaurant. I chose the quail special - mainly since I've never had quail and it sounded interesting. Well, this may have been the last time that I will have quail. The taste wasn't particularly remarkable (it tastes like chicken). The pieces themselves actually look essentially like big chicken wings. However, unlike chicken wings, quails have many more bones and these are exceedingly difficult to separate from the meat. If I had been at home, I would have just eaten with my fingers, but I felt that would be inappropriate in this setting. Anyhow, getting the meat separated from the bones was quite an ordeal and I was disappointed in the overall meal. Oh well, you win some and you lose some.

On the way home, I walked through the garden that is just across the street from the Graduate House. It's very peaceful and I have brought a few lunches there to eat since I have been here. I really like all of the parks and scenic areas of the city. I really don't feel so much like I am in an urban area (though it does become much more urban and city-like as you move south into more of the city center). I think I am going to take things easy this evening and either get caught up on some things, or just sit and read. Either way, it will be nice to lay back and relax for a bit.

It really is Thursday already...

Time seems to be going by very quickly since I have been keeping myself so busy... It is hard to think that tomorrow will be the end of my first week in Melbourne. I have had so many opportunities and experiences so far, and I can't wait to see what is yet to come!!

I started the day by getting to Anita's house. After coffee and a discussion, Tim picked us up and we made our way into CSIRO. I had to get some samples started, but then I had the opportunity to sit down with Tim to discuss some work that he had done for Linda on the BPS-32 material. It was great to get to talk with someone who is so crazy smart. I don't really remember much about NMR, but Tim helped to explain the results.

The weather in Melbourne is absolutely beautiful today. The temperature is mild and the sun is shining! I had a burger and chips (fries) for lunch. I think 'burger' here does not specifically indicate the meat that will be in the sandwich. The burger that I ordered today was really a chicken sandwich, but it was good and probably better for me - so I'm not complaining.

I have spent most of the afternoon getting caught up on sample analysis. Tim ran aluminum solid-state NMR on one of the samples that I brought with me. It is great to have that capability. There aren't many places in the world where you can do that... Other than that, I've been doing more PALS experiments. I get a kick out of using antimatter to probe the free-volume in my samples. Essentially the experiment is all about monitoring millions of matter-antimatter reactions that are taking place in the sample when you irradiate the sample with positrons (antimatter). It is a little weird to have to constantly be checking samples and lab benches with a Geiger counter to make sure that the radioactive antimatter sources aren't leaking. But things seem to be going pretty well, our 'antimatter containment systems' seem to be holding - haha.

I am looking forward to a more calm evening. I have so many things to do and I am finding that there just aren't enough hours in the day. At the same time though, I feel like I've been taking full advantage of the opportunities available to me since I have been here. I'm sure the busy schedule will continue, but if I continue to have as much fun as I have been having, that'll be just fine!

Turn the Bow into the Wind...

Today was a busy day. Anita and Tim were going to a funeral this morning, so I took public transportation the entire way to CSIRO. This involved a tram ride to Flinder's Station, a train ride out to Huntingdale, and then a bus ride to Monash University. All in all, the trip took around 1hr 15 minutes. It was a little long, but I had very little wait time between legs of the journey. The public transportation system here is pretty good in that sense.

I was the first to arrive at the office and spent quite a bit of time digging around trying to find the light switches for the office. I looked everywhere and just could not find them. Finally, I just decided to give up and work in the dark. Fortunately, Matt came in shortly thereafter and showed me where the switches are. It turns out that the architects chose to hide them around the corner and down a hallway. Not exactly straight forward.

I had lunch with Aaron and Michele. It was good to meet Aaron, I hadn't met him when he was in Austin back in July, 2008 (after ICOM) because I was home for Skippy and Sarah's wedding. In any case, he is doing his postdoc with Anita here at CSIRO and he is also organizing a conference in Wollongong (I will be presenting there).

Anita and I left work early to go sailing in the harbour. Richard and his wife Jill came to pick us up at CSIRO and we drove the the Royal Brighton Yacht Club. There we met up with Dr. Brian Cherry and his wife Miriam (the owners of the yacht). We were at the yacht club to take part in the Wednesday pursuit race. Brian and Miriam's yacht was pretty impressive. Though I don't know exactly how long it was, it displaces 11 tons and had quite an extensive below deck configuration. I worked with Anita and the rest of the crew getting the yacht ready to race and finally we pushed off to get underway before the race.

I knew essentially nothing about sailing before today. I found out that you have to learn quickly, especially if you are racing with a crew that wants to win! We took the yacht out of the marina under engine power and then turned the bow into the wind to raise the main sail. This, it turns out, was not a trivial operation. The sail has to go up correctly and it can take some iteration (up/down) to finally raise the sail. I was standing out on the bow forward of the main mast trying to help keep the ropes straight while also trying not to fall off. (the photo was taken while we were in the marina before we got underway)

Once we did this, we could turn the engine off and get underway using wind power. The wind was particularly strong today and, as such, the waves were pretty impressive. We were navigating through 4 to 5 foot high waves. As such, the yacht was pitching and listing wildly. In some cases, it took almost all the effort I had to not get thrown off the boat. As we would go over waves, the boat would dive down and the next wave would crash over the bow, spraying us with water. I hadn't really expected the ride to be quite this rough...

Finally, we extended our forward sail and ran a few tacking drills before we were ready to get under way. Our handicap was 4 minutes and Brian and Miriam did a good job of getting us to the start line almost on the dot. The race was a (relatively) short loop. The wind was strong, so this made the process of tacking much more demanding. It took me a while to figure out how to position myself such as to not fall off the yacht or get hit in the head with the boom as we were tacking.

I found the experience to be quite fun! Although I felt like I didn't know what I was doing half the time. I suppose I'll learn if we do this a few more times. Our boat took 3rd place in the race and we had a close finish beating out another yacht - that was pretty fun to see how that played out. After the race, we took the boat back into the marina and shut everything down for the night.

We had dinner at the club (along with many of the other crews that we had just raced against). The dinner was really good and it was very nice of Anita to pay for the meals for all of us and it was nice of Brian to pay for the wine! I had a great time talking with Anita, Miriam, and Malcolm (a former CSIRO scientist who joined us for the race as well).

After dinner, Anita and I took trains back to our respective homes. I got back to the Graduate House and took a shower (to wash off all the salt) before getting ready for bed.

Finally, I figured out how to trick the CSIRO system into letting me use the internet from my UT laptop. I had to first log in using my CSIRO login information and create a visitor account for myself. With that, I could log on to the internet via the visitor wireless network. Apparently the wonders of IT exists in Australia too...

Today after a full day of running samples in the lab, I decided to go out for a nicer dinner. I went to a relatively nice place on Lygon St. and had braised lamb shanks. They were really pretty good. It was nice to have a good sit down dinner like that. The weather was quite cool in the evening and we even got some rain.

Heat Wave in Melbourne

I tossed and turned and got some sleep during the night, but eventually (at 5:45am) I decided to just get up and do some work. When I checked the temperature, I saw that it was still 31 degrees Celsius at 5:45am!! (roughly 90 degrees Fahrenheit) It turns out that last night was the hottest night in Melbourne since 1902!! So, it should be easier from here on out. It made sense to me why keeping the window open didn’t really do anything – it was far too hot outside to ever have any hope of cooling my un-air conditioned room down to a comfortable temperature. Luckily, the low tonight should be around 18 degrees Celsius (mid 60s). So, sleeping should be much better tonight.

I took the tram and the train out to Anita’s house this morning. Upon arriving at the train station, I was interviewed by a TV crew asking about my experience on the train. I told them I thought it was fine and they looked surprised and the cute TV reported made mention of the fact that I was clearly not from Australia. She asked what I thought of the public transport system and I said I thought it was better than what it is in the U.S. (I felt like such a traitor later – but I do believe it to be true). In any case, I don’t think I gave them the answer they were looking for.

I eventually got down to the appropriate platform and started to realize why they were interviewing people. The trains were running late and 2 of the trains that I could have taken were cancelled all together. Eventually I got on a train and made it to Hawthorn station and, a short walk later, Anita’s house. I had a nice talk with Anita over coffee and then Tim came to pick us up. We drove into CSIRO to start day #2 of work.

I spent the day running samples and taking care of miscellaneous items. I still do not have internet access at CSIRO and I spent a fair chunk of the day on the phone asking about that. I had lunch over at Monash a little before noon (since I was sooo hungry after having breakfast around 6am). Unfortunately, some of the other kids in the group went to lunch around 1pm. I guess I’ll have to try to go with them tomorrow. While I was at the Monash union, I found out that they have a small Apple store there. I was surprised (though pleased) to find that they carried the FireWire 400 to 800 adapter that I have been looking for (I need the adapter to be able to charge my iPod since I left the wall charger at my office in Austin). I made my purchase and subsequently was able to charge my iPod! I also topped off on cash and picked up a café latte to help keep me going on a less than good night’s sleep.