Sunday September 7: Travel day

Time to leave Sydney. Me for Singapore, co-instructor for home. So of course it's a stunningly beautiful spring day in Sydney. Absolutely perfect. We walked two blocks from the hotel into the side of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Saw huge number of giant bats. About a two-hour leisurely walk down to water's edge, along the water to the Opera House, up to Circulay Quay, and a couple blocks on up to the hotel again. Off to the airport at noon.

Note: I'm doing some throw-down blog posts to outline the events of the last three weeks. Details will follow as I have time to load pictures and do the writing.

Saturday September 6: Saturday in the park... in the rain

Free day in Sydney. Co-instructor had been to Australia about 10 or 15 years ago (touring in a band!). He needed pics of the Opera House. Started out with shopping in the QVB, then subway to Circular Quay. Absolutely pissing down rain the whole day. I found out my little windbreaker isn't much good in true rain. Sat in the hotel bar nursing some Australian Pinot Noir most of the afternoon.

Note: I'm doing some throw-down blog posts to outline the events of the last three weeks. Details will follow as I have time to load pictures and do the writing.

Friday September 5 Customer visits

Co-instructor and I flew to Sydney on Thursday evening. Travel inside Australia is like a flashback to ten years ago. You show up at the airport, walk thru the metal detector, and get on the airplane. The only thing that had to come off or out for inspection was the laptop. No removing of shoes. No pulling out of the baggie of liquids and gels. I remember when it was this easy at home.

We're at a Sofitel again in Sydney. The Sofitel in Melbourne is much nicer than the Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney. The rooms are crackerboxes

The entire day Friday was devoted to customer visits. It drizzled on us almost the whole day. Except when it was downright pouring. I had an umbrella until the wind between buildings turned it inside out.

This is the day that filled me with angst. I'm still a pretty introverted person and my job is slowly sliding me into stuff that has been outside my comfort zone. Doing sales calls, even in a technical role, is right out there. But it actually went quite well.

September 1 to 4 Teaching class in Melbourne

From Monday through Thursday I taught a about some of our software products. I had a co-instructor for this run, someone with more experience with the main subject of the class than I have had. It was a nice, small class of eight students. All very involved and asking good questions.

And that's about it. Really. Here I am in Melbourne, Australia for the first, possibly only time. What do I see? Hm... The hotel, one block walk to the office, a food court where we eat lunch, the conference room where we do the class, and a handful of restaurants. When I have the chance on these trips, I'll stay in the city for a weekend to get a chance to see some sights. But for this one, we're booked on a flight to Sydney Thursday night so we can do customer visits there on Friday. Melbourne looks like a really nice place, though. I hope I get back some day.

Couple of pictures. The top one is a nice sunrise out the hotel window, which is where I took almost all my pictures in Melbourne. Hot air balloons seem to be a popular advertising medium. Several would drift across the city early in the morning. I'd see them out my hotel window. I guess they were advertising.

September 1 is the official first day of spring in Australia. No worrying about the equinoxes for them. The park that our classroom/conference room overlooked has trees planted in the shape of the Union Jack. All done back when they were a colony, of course. You can make out sort of part of it in the picture. It's the trees that haven't yet leafed out.

August 29 to 31 Long travel day to Australia

I love Australia but I don't much enjoy the process of getting there.

This trip is especially excruciating since we added on a jump from our original destination of Sydney down to Melbourne. We built in a long-ish layover in Sydney to allow for any issues in customs or late arrivals of our flights from California.

Not a whole lot of interest here so feel free to look at the pictures and move on.

My first flight leg was on Continental from Houston IAH to Los Angeles LAX. Because of all my travel last year I've got "status" on Continental so I get a better choice of seats, can use the short lines, and do early boarding. Not so the rest of this trip where I'll be on Qantas. For some insane reason, Qantas doesn't do anything except airport check in. I managed to get an aisle seat way in the back. I used to do window seats but ... aging... need more trips to lavs. Sigh.

My flight leaves LAX about 11pm Friday night. Fourteen and a half hours later and across the international date line, I'm on the ground in Sydney at 6am Sunday morning. My co-instructor for the Melbourne class arrives a bit later on a flight from San Francisco.

Customs is very busy but a breeze. A visit to the ATM, then we hunt down the transfer to our Qantas domestic flight to Melbourne. Coffee in one of the few things open. "Skim milk" does not register with the girl at the counter, "skinny" does.


Short 90-minute flight to Melbourne and a taxi ride to the Melbourne Sofitel arriving around noon. It's about 28 hours since I left the house in Pearland.

The Sofitel is a very nice place! The hotel lobby is on the ground floor but rooms start on the 35th floor and go up to the 50th. The floors between the lobby and the 35th are an office block. I'm on the 48th floor looking more or less south.

After all that travel last year, this is the first trip where I've got a working phone. Got a company-issue Blackberry a month or two ago. Not just a working phone, but full function email, web browser, Google Maps, etc all work here in Australia.

We scout out the building where the company office is and then wander down a random street in search of food. And wine. Most things in the area seem to be closed but we find a little Italian cafe. Good food, a glass or two of nice Australian red wine and exhaustion hits.

I spend the rest of my day going over material for the class.

Tweeting...

Finally took the time to sign up on Twitter. If you think the blog here isn't enough info about my mostly boring life, get even more boring details by following my tweets here.

Oregon trip for Dad's 80th

Did a short trip to Oregon for Dad's birthday on the 25th. He's in good shape, thankfully. Still very active. Still can't sit in one place for more than about 5 minutes. I hope I'm in that good of shape if I make it to 80.

I got to see my brother, Mike, and his new girlfriend, girlfriend's children, and girlfriend's grandchild. But I didn't manage to see Mike's kids or ex.

The trip was short because of my impending trip to Australia and Singapore. Arrived mid-day on Saturday and left Tuesday morning. I did the air travel on miles and managed to snag a first class ticket for the trip home. That brings my Continental miles down to ... not enough to do anything.