Seasons

Sunday November 22nd I was at Coogee beach with some friends. It was about 41C (106F), I put on heaps of sun block (SPF 30, which is high for me), and played in the water. And by play I mean, got beat up by the breakers and occasionally body surfed on the waves. It was a very busy day at the beach, but Ann, Annie, and I had fun, and later got sushi near bye.

And a few days early at Manly beach with work we made a giant turtle, lead by master sculptor Katie.

From there I travelled to the United States, in a whirlwind tour that had a stage in Boulder, CO. Sadly I don't have pictures from this awesome time.  It was snowing when I got there and I wanted to have a 4WD car, sadly I didn't reserve one originally (had asked for a Toyota Corolla) and so I had to do a hideously expensive upgrade to a Cadillac Escalade, which I endearingly named "The Tank". Hey, it's all that was available on midnight after a snowy day. Here's a picture of an earlier model:

Apparently it's one of the most fuel in-efficient cars and in 2008 was 13 mpg city / 17 mpg highway. That said, it was huge, had great traction, and I definitely felt safe. Even if I did hit something I was confident that I wouldn't be the loosing party in that crash. And with 7 seats, 4 with seat warmers, several thermostats, gps, and many other crazy features it was a nice ride for the team. I needed it to get through weather that while cold and snowy, wasn't quite this:

Now a week or so later, I'm back in sunny Australia in some nice and hot 90F weather. On the whole, I'll take the summer. Now to go out and enjoy it.

The smell of heaven

I walked to work from my hotel today (it's only about a 3rd of a mile, seems a waste to drive even when I have a car. A man needs some exercise). This is a fairly cold walk. According to the internet, it's about -4F (or about -20C for any Australians who some day stumble upon this blog), without wind chill. I did bring one warm fleece, a hat, and some gloves to help me survive. Perhaps I should have brought a scarf and some thermal underwear, but I didn't so there. Most places are nicely heated.

Anyway, so I have my short cold walk, I come into the office, and permeating the whole building is the smell of freshly cooked belgian waffles, one of the best smells in the world (possibly beat by the making of waffle cones). My first thought was that this was the smell of heaven. I can certainly say that right now, belly full of waffle, I'm much happier than I was when my frozen body managed to make it's way into the building. Now to go tackle a work project where things just like to keep getting worse. But it can't take away my waffles!