Greetings from Down Under

[TireSmoker]

After I talked to you, I used another life-line and phoned a friend. Googled it and came up with Happy Birthday To You, which sounded right when I played it. After wrecking the vendor, I took it from his dead hand, just to add some authenticity.

-Dave

[MostMint]

LOL - but which hand was it?

[TireSmoker]

Well, it's now been three weeks since I've had my hand on a throttle, and 6 weeks since I've driven a car. The public transportation here is actually useful and decent, but I'm starting to go through withdrawl. The last time I went this long without driving was my first quarter at Ohio U, when I went 9 weeks, I think, without driving. I hear a lot of V8s running around here at night, and from what I see when I'm walking around, I believe a good percentage of them are the ute's. They seem to be the ones most likely to at least have a modified exhaust on them.

I was going to try to head to Calder Park (drag strip) a few weeks ago, but they only seem to be open on specific weekends. It also looks pretty expensive to race there -- $80, but that's for 1 driver and 1 crew member. Not sure what they charge if you show up solo.

Motorsports coverage on TV is actually good, considering I only have about 10 channels. F1 and MotoGP qualifying and events are covered live. WRC is also well covered, and of course, the Aussie V8 Supercar series. But on the other end of the TV spectrum, there are reruns of Alf in the early evening. Alf?!?

As I mentioned in email to some of you, I won myself a seat in the Melbourne Poker Championship Main Event yesterday. That seat is worth $1100! I'd be playing on May 28. If I end up leaving the country before that, there's a fellow who said he'd buy my seat for $1000.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to getting back home so I can twist a throttle, spool up a turbo, drop the top on the Vette, and smoke some tires in the Chevelle, -- and most of all, see my family and friends again. If nothing changes, my return flight is June 4.

-Dave

[MostMint]

baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet - Australian style:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Ic3RqPIJo[/youtube]

[wxo]

It's good to have an update from Studly Down-under. I'll bet you are going to miss the G'days,
football, meat pies and Holden cars when they ship you back state-side.

[TireSmoker]

Well, I'm in my final week Down Under. I'll be home sometime in the evening on Friday, June 4th.

Well, of most importance, I survived Day 1 of the poker tournament! "Day 1" was actually divided into 3 groups and played across three different days, Thu, Fri, and Sat (May 27-29). I played in the Friday group -- we were given the choice of which day to play when we won our seats. Friday turned out to be a good choice, as there were only 156 players in that group. I went to the Casino today (sat) and there were 280 players in today's group 1. Everyone started with 20,000 in chips, and I ended the Day with 60,000. Sounds good, but the 'average' stack was reported at around 67,000, so I'm shorter than average.. shorter than average, imagine that!

I talked to one of the casino people and she said that roughly 50 players from each Day 1 group would survive. I'm not sure how they make it work out that way, but whatever. So, I'm expecting to see roughly 150 people tomorrow (Sun) for Day 2. Day 3 (Mon) will be the final table (10 players). The payouts will be begin with 53rd spot, which will make $2360. 1st place will pay $118,000.

Playing in the casino has been a lot of fun. The entire Crown Casino facility is really nice, much nicer than Mountaineer which is the most recent one I've been to.

On my walk home from the casino, I ended being part of a street show. I was walking along the Yarra river and heard a popping noise in the direction I was heading. Sounded like firecrackers. As I got up to it, it was a guy doing some sort of sidewalk show based on Indiana Jones, and the popping was him cracking a whip. For the big finale, he had this 12-15 foot circus pole that he performs on top of. The pole is steadied by three ropes, with each rope being held by two people, as he just pulls people from the assembled crowd to assist. Then he has two people in the middle (which where I was at) to also steady the pole. Me and the other guy in the middle had to do all these ridiculous muscleman poses, etc. Just part of the show. But in the end, our most important role was to stand facing each other, with our arms crossed. "Arizona Jones", as the entertainer was called, made sure neither of us had back issues, and then basically used us as a human step-ladder (climbing on our crossed arms) to get on top of the pole. From the time I started watching the show till it was over was probably 40-45 minutes. See http://www.arizonajones.net

There's not much else to report on. I'm very much looking forward to getting home. I'm having a lot of trouble sleeping down here. The only time I'm seeming to regularly fall asleep is around 6-6:30pm, when I usually end up napping for 30-90 minutes in front of the TV on the too-short loveseat. Whenever I try to go to bed, I end up laying awake for at least an hour, sometimes more. That happens even if I go to bed at 2am. One night I tossed and turned till almost 5am.

In my phone conversations with friends back home, the weather there is clearly better than it is here. It's definitely long-sleeve weather here, but I'm not complaining. But I'm ready to enjoy summer, at home. I miss my bed, my dog, my friends, my 'stuff'. My 'throttle withdrawal' is getting severe.

-Dave

[MostMint]

You are in late fall season there no?

As far as the game, the Friday start might have put you in with more pros -not sure but to play on Friday you have to take a vacation day and that would probably reduce the number of regular guys who show up. Not everyone has an assignment like yours.

[wxo]

Speaking of your assignment, how did that go? Early on, you spoke of boredom with nothing to do. Did that change? will you be leaving with a sense of accomplishment?

[TireSmoker]

You are in late fall season there no?

As far as the game, the Friday start might have put you in with more pros -not sure but to play on Friday you have to take a vacation day and that would probably reduce the number of regular guys who show up. Not everyone has an assignment like yours.

In that case, I would think Thursday would be the toughest day. I'm sure I'm not the only one there with a job who decided to use Friday as the start to a long weekend. Also, anyone who went out on Thursday or Friday could buy-back in on Friday or Saturday. I imagine anyone playing in an $1100 game is willing to make scheduling adjustments as they see fit.

Yes, late fall season. For someone from Cleveland, the weather here really couldn't be better.

As for the assignment, I'm still bored. Very little to do, which is part of the reason I didn't mind taking a day off during this trip to play poker. I still felt pretty odd trying to explain to my manager why I wouldn't be there on Friday, though -- "I won't be here Friday because I'm playing in a poker tournament." And I just get this odd sort of But in a meeting on Thursday involving my manager here and bank's people, it was mentioned that I was leaving next week and there were a few questions about what kind of video conferencing capabilities I had, in terms of being able to participate in future meetings. They seemed slightly surprised when I mentioned the 14 hours time difference as if they hadn't really considered it. I could go into a long diatribe about the odd ways in which my company operates, but I'll spare you my rant.

-Dave

[MostMint]

Do you have any video or pics from this adventure still to post?

[TireSmoker]

I really took very few pictures overall down there. There's probably not much else interesting to post.

-Dave