Cranky baby

We've been going out quite a bit lately. Most weekends we seem to see something new in Manhattan. Unfortunately, there's a trend for Kyan to go crazy every time we get on a train. It's getting frustrating to say the least, especially given the fact that he loves trains so much, and even asks persistently to go on the trains each weekend.

This might give you an idea of what we put up with.



He was so much sweeter before he learned how to talk!

Don't say the C-word

As Christmas approaches, so do the holidays and the inevitable excitement of spending Christmas with friends and family.

Luckily for us, Marcel and Belinda have been able to get some time to come up from DC during the Christmas period. It will be good for all of us to share the Christmas spirit, even if that doesn't include having beer and prawns next to the pool. In the US, the beer's no good, the prawns are called shrimp, and the pools are probably frozen over by now. Either way, it will be great fun. It looks like there's not a snowflake's chance in hell (literally) that we'll have a white Christmas this year. The weather's been quite warm, relatively speaking, having only been below freezing about 6 days so far. Rain yes, snow no. Maybe next year, or the year after...

On the sad side, nobody wishes anybody a Merry Christmas here. It's a more generic Happy Holidays. If you thought political correctness was crazy in Australia, it's totally out of control here. You don't wish people Merry Christmas for fear that it will offend their Jewish or Muslim sensitivities. As a result, nobody gets a true Christmas. Even the advertisements on TV advertise holiday specials. It's almost like Christmas is an offensive word, not to be used under any circumstances.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Christmas isn't even just around the corner. Maybe it's not; perhaps they celebrate Christmas in the middle of summer too, just like back home. That actually makes sense; around June I'll start spreading my Christmas cheer!

Regardless, we'll be having a great Christmas at home, so MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Two kinds of rain

In my various ramblings over the past couple of months, I've had occasion to have a bit of a whine about the weather. In fact, we were unlucky enough on Thanksgiving Day that the weather outside was about 1 degree C, and windy and raining, so we didn't get to go to the parade. It really was miserable outside. The rest of the weekend was beautiful; still jacket and jeans weather, but nothing more. Well, it looks like that's finally over. The cold we've had so far was just a rehearsal. the real thing's on its way. There's a front coming from northern Canada, and it's a cold one.

The forecast for Friday in Brooklyn is around 32 F (0 degrees C), but as the cold front settles in, by Wednesday next week, we're expecting -3 C. Even worse, with the wind, rain and humidity, it will actually feel like -12 C. That should be fun.

I've now found out that there are two types of rain. The forecast predicts "Rain in the evening followed by rain and freezing rain late." What's freezing rain, and how is it different to normal rain? Does it come down in blocks? Do you need a helmet if you're out in it?

There's even mention of snow on its way. Not that I'll be able to ski to work or anything like that, but snow should be fun. I'll keep you up to date.

The three hour bargain!

Thanksgiving weekend's coming to a close, so the holiday season's officially underway. We've just had a four-day weekend, which really doesn't come often enough. I'm sure Alicia's covered the Thanksgiving goings-on in her blog, leishasblog.blogspot.com.

Today, we thought it would be good to get out for a while, so Alicia scanned the Entertainment Book and found something called Johnnyboy's in Queens, close to Flushing Meadows. We had a voucher for one free Texas Johnnyboy; didn't know what it was, but it was free so long as we bought another one. Being in the Entertainment Book, we knew it would be worth the trip. We also had a voucher for mini-golf in the same area, so it would be a good day out. The idea was that we catch the G Train and connect to the Q58 bus, and we're there; easy enough. So off we went and caught the G Train at Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, one which we've never been to before. It was only about 5 blocks from our place, but it took about half an hour to find the station. As it turns out, we actually didn't find the station, but we got on the train at the next station along the line. No drama - the G Train pulled up as soon as we got into the station.

We'd been on the train for about 15 minutes and things were looking good. Then the train stopped, the driver got out of his cab and told us that the train wasn't going any further. Fair enough, we'll just find a connecting train. So I looked at the map and figured the V Train will get us to the station we needed for the Q58 bus. We found the platform for the E and V Trains, and after three E Trains came and went, one of the MTA people kindly told us the V Train doesn't run on weekends (sounds like "the train doesn't stop at Bowen on Thursdays"). So we got the E Train to another station and connected to the R Train and finally got to the station we needed.

After walking around for about 10 minutes looking for the Q58 bus stop, we found it and things were looking better. Anyway, it showed up, we got on, and things were back on the original route, although our schedule had copped a hiding. We arrived at the intersection we needed and went in search of Johnnyboy's. We walked around for a while, but there were only light industrial shops (like glaziers, carpenters and the like) and a the back of a giant Home Depot (just like Bunnings, except bigger; of course). There was no way it was where it was supposed to be. The Home Depot was at the exact address, so we gave up and decided we'd have a look in Home Depot, and see if there was somewhere to get a feed. We went around the front of the store and found a semi-permanent hotdog stand. It turned out that was this was the Johnnyboy's we were looking for. We also discovered that a Texas Johnnyboy is a hotdog with cheese and onion.

By now it had taken us almost three hours to get to this place, and all we got for our troubles was a free hotdog. Even worse, because we'd spent so long getting there, we didn't have time to do the mini-golf we'd planned to do in the first place. We walked around Flushing Meadows for a while, had a look at the giant sphere of the earth (as seen in the opening credits of King Of Queens) and walked past the Arthur Ashe Stadium (where the US Open is held).

Rather than doing the reverse to get home, we went with what we knew and caught the 7 Train to Grand Central, connecting with the 4 Train, stopping just a couple of blocks from home. It took less than an hour.

So that's the story of my three hour free hotdog. It didn't taste very good either.

The etiquette of Excuse Me?

OK, so New York's a big place, and every now and then you're going to get in somebody's way or cross paths, as you would in any city I guess. What I'm trying to figure out though, is the etiquette around running into people.

At home (meaning Brisbane, not my apartment ), the etiquette is to make eye contact, usually with a brief smile, and say a quick 'sorry' and be on your way. In NYC, it's a little different. You'll say 'excuse me' in a very flat tone and push on through. It's not the wording that I'm having trouble with (I do have a background in speaking English), but rather what they actually mean when they say excuse me.

Is it 'excuse me, I'm sorry for being in your way'? I really don't think so. That's far too polite.

Are they saying 'excuse me, I thought we'd have enough room to squeeze by, but I guess I was wrong.' Hmm, I don't really think so - see above.

Is it 'excuse me, but would you please get out of MY way. I'm very important and I can't have you wasting my time by being in front of me'? More likely, in fact this is the winner so far. New Yorkers are a funny bunch; very driven and extremely aware of their own importance.

Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Perhaps saying 'excuse me' is a warning that they'll just barge on through regardless of fault or likely injury; in much the same way a car horn doesn't say anything, but its meaning is clear enough.

I'll keep on trying to figure this one out. I do know that 'sorry' and a friendly glance doesn't have a place in New York.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

It's been quite an uneventful week, but kind of eventful at the same time. As much as I want to go out ice skating again, the knee's still a bit too sore for that. It's usually pretty good, but when I hit it or go up or down stairs, it hurts. Hopefully by next week, I'll be fired up again.

On Tuesday night, we went to the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. It was a lot of fun to watch; there were floats and people dressed up as all kinds of spooky things. Kyan loved watching the people go by. Luckily, the weather was beautiful. It was around 63 (18 degrees C), so that seemed to bring the crowds out. Apparently there were 2 million people along the parade route, so we were lucky to get a good vantage point, although we walked for about half an hour to find it.

The next day, I was off to Chicago (again). Because it was an overnight trip this time, we got a hire car. More accurately, I got the hire car and the other guy just kicked back while I drove. No problems at all this time driving. It doesn't take long to get used to driving on the other side of the road. It's certainly not intuitive yet, but I'm getting there. On the morning of the second day, the car had totally died. While the AAA (=RACQ) was playing around with the car, I was standing around absolutely frozen solid. The actual temperature was 28 (-3C), but with the wind, the apparent temperature was 19 (-7C). To cut a long story short, I got another car and on my way to the client (about 10km), it started snowing. At first it kind of looked like raindrops that couldn't make up their mind if they were falling or rising with the wind. Once I got out of the car, it was pretty obviously that it was snow. It's not like the ground was white and people were in toboggans or anything like that, but apparently this was unseasonal for Chicago. I'm going back there tomorrow for a couple of days, but it's become warm again.

Yesterday, the New York Marathon was held, going through all five New York boroughs (Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Manhattan). It went straight past our place, so the street was completely blocked off, as was the entire 42 km route. It must have played havoc with traffic in Manhattan, because it certainly did in Brooklyn. It was great before any of the runners came through. It was the first time the place was actually quiet since we moved in. I've got a feeling it's going to be the last time before the marathon next year. There were 37,000 people participating. We were at about the 4 mile (of 26) mark, and the spread between the front runners and those at the back was about 5 hours. I can only assume some people are still going!

Ice Ice Baby

We had Marcel and Belinda visit us this weekend, so it was great to spend some time with good friends; something we've missed since being in New York. We also lashed out and got ourselves a car for the weekend. Because of the changing of the season (from cold to deadly), the trees are dropping their leaves, so we went for a drive to Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania. The scenery was quite nice, but the weather was awful, so we didn't really get any great benefit from the trip, certainly from a photos perspective anyway. On the way back, we went through Manhattan. Well, I can now tick that one off my list; driving in Manhattan. It was served with seven different kinds of stress. The driving was insane, and I was tired from a long drive. I even managed to try and go the wrong way up one of the streets right next to Union Square, even though there were cars waiting at the lights. I would have pushed through too, except for everybody in the car shouting "You're going the wrong way!!!" Apart from that, the battery on my PDA was going dangerously flat. We needed it to last until we got home. Without it, I would have absolutely no idea how to get home, and New York's such a big place that you can't just stop and ask for directions. Luckily, we made it home.

This afternoon, we went with Marcel and Belinda to Bryant Park, next to work. The best thing about Bryant Park at this time of year is that they have set up an ice skating rink in the middle of the park. It still costs $9 to hire your skates, but if you had your own, the skating itself is free. It's one of the best things to do in Manhattan right now. Alicia and Belinda skated first while Marcel and I looked after Kyan (he's too young to skate). After about 45 minutes, they brought out the ice machine cleaner type thing, so everybody was booted off the rink. So I took over from Alicia on the rink once skating started again. I was pretty wobbly to start with, but it was so much fun that it didn't matter. After a few minutes, I got my ice skating legs back and was flying around the rink. I only fell twice which was great. The first time was right in front of our spectator group, and nicely captured on film, but never to be released in public!

Unfortunately, the second time was a pretty serious stack. The teeth in the front of the skates dug into the ice while I had a fair bit of speed up. My feet effectively got stuck in the ice and the rest of me kept going. I landed on my left knee, which is giving me quite a lot of grief at the moment and is quite swollen. I'll take some anti-inflammatories for a couple of days and I should be right. This is definitely one horse that I'll be getting back on. It was a barrel of fun, takes about 20 minutes to get there from home, and well worth the money. We've still got a pretty good selection of other rinks to go to. There's one in Prospect Park, two in Central Park, and the Rockerfeller Center. It's bizarre having outdoor skating rinks, but I guess winter here is no problem for ice. Tonight, it's getting down to 2 degrees, so it's getting nice and cool, but very pleasant.

They switched off the air conditioner, but...

I'm off to the Stamford office tomorrow in Connecticut. I've been there twice now; it's a nice office, not too dissimilar to the Brisbane office, and since it's considered part of the NY metro offices, easy to get into and set up for the day. I'm working with a Director who is based there doing some work for a Chicago client. I went to Chicago for the day last Wednesday, and am likely to have another trip, probably two days, next week. It's nice to get around, and it looks as though there's more travel to come. What's best about the way things operate for travel over here, is that you'll rarely be away from home more than 4 days in any week; you can always come home. Short trips are great.

Until now, it's been quite nice outside during the day (and the night for that matter). It's been just like walking around in a giant air-conditioned city. But whomever's controlling the thermostat should be sacked. They switch off the air conditioner, but switched on the refridgerator instead. It's very cold out these days, and from what the locals are saying, there's a long way to go. Today's maximum was 12 degrees, as is the forecast for tomorrow. The days are nice; there's a light wind and plenty of sunshine, but that's there to fool you into thinking it's a nice day before you go out into it. When I left for work this morning, it was 6 degrees, with a windchill which took it down to 4. The locals don't believe that this is what the four weeks of winter is like back home. About two seconds after they deal with their disbelief, they laugh at me becuase it's going to get a lot colder. I'm not too comfortable with that. I keep getting comments like "do you have snowproof shoes?" Yeah, sure I do. I need them all the time at home. I don't even know what snowproof shoes even look like, let alone where to get them.

Things are about to get interesting.

The drought's on

So I've been at work for three weeks now and everything's cruising quite well. The tools and methodologies are pretty much the same as home, and the clients have the same needs (although much bigger needs).

Something I'm noticing though that's much different to home is everybody's apparent allergy to beer. Nobody ever has beers during lunch, during meetings, or usually even after work on a Friday. Very, very different to home. So much so actually, that the people I've spoken with can't even believe we have a beer fridge on the meetings floor in Brisbane. It's almost like any suggestion of having a beer during the day would completely remove any trace of professionalism and credibility.

We had an informal group meeting a few days ago, something which would, in Brisbane, start at 3:30 with beers and continue for a few hours, often progressing into a reasonably large number of beers once the meeting's over. Not here. We were offerred bottled water and iced tea. Hmmm. Things got wild when we went out to dinner though. Most people had one beer before dinner and then another one with dinner. To settle things down, we got back to iced water.

The social scene's quite different here, and it certainly doesn't seem to exist in the workplace, at least not as I've always known it. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just going to take a lot of getting used to. You never know; when I get back to Brisbane, I'll probably look at the office as a bunch of alcoholics!?

On the good side though, there's a convenience store over the street which sells local beer for 99 cents for a 710 mL can, so I can have a quiet beverage at home on the weekend. That eases the pain!

Other than my ongoing infatuation with alcohol, things are going great. We went to Central Park yesterday. That was our fourth trip now, and we still haven't been to the same spot twice. They opened up the open-air ice skating rink yesterday too, so we'll head over in the next few weekends for a bit of a skate.

The weather's turned quite cold now. It's what the locals call 'real Fall weather'. I call it the middle of winter. There's surely more to come. It is very pleasant though, until the wind comes up. We bought ourselves some nice overcoats through the week, so Alicia's been wearing hers. She looks like a true local. I'm holding out for some seriously cold weather before I give mine a run. There's been a fair bit of rain lately, which is still a novelty compared to life at home.

Still having fun,

Michael

Ikea. It's Swedish for pain.

What a weekend. We got our furniture delivered on Friday, so all weekend, we've been putting it together. We got a bed, sofa bed, sofa chair, computer desk, coffee table, TV table, a big cabinet thing, a big shelves thing, some bedside tables, and a few other things. And they ALL had to be put together. Needless to say, Alicia and I are in a lot of pain at the moment. We got it all put together, and the place looks quite good.

We've just got to get the TV and we're set. We're still waiting for it; delivery companies around here are useless. I've found somebody else's net connection which I'll borrow for a couple of days until ours is connected. By next weekend, we should be all sorted and be online properly and set up nicely in the new place.

There's not really too much else for this post. Work's still there, and home's just all about setting it up. Kyan would probably prefer to be out playing, but he'll get plenty of that once we're set up.

mjb

Hi ho, hi ho. It's back to work I D'oh.

OK. So I'm slack. To all those who have kindly mentioned the delay since my last blog entry, here it is, SO BACK OFF!!! Sorry, a bit of NYC attitude brewing there.

Things are going great at the moment. We're now in the process of moving into the apartment, getting our removalist delivery, the furniture delivered, and set up. Well, I've actually outsourced all of this to my darling wife, Alicia. I'm sure Kyan's doing most of the work for her though. We should be mostly settled by the weekend. Our new TV arrives on Friday (tomorrow) and the cable's connected on Saturday, just in time for the playoffs. That's baseball playoffs (I had to ask too), and I'm not sure who's playing off or what they are playing for, but I'm sure it's going to be great.

As for work, I'm there now, and it's going really well. I've met a few people in the group that I'll be working closest with and they're very friendly people with common interests and skills. I'm looking forward to working with them. My new partner is a fantastic guy, obviously very smart and focussed. I was amazed when I found out that PI has over 500 people in NYC. That's a pretty big group. There are a lot of amazing things about being here, but at the end of the day, it's still the same company and most of the processes and methods are the same so it shouldn't take too long to get up to speed.

I went down to Washington DC for my first day. The work itself was not too exciting, but seeing Marcel and Belinda was great. I hadn't seem them for over a year. We went out for a few quiet beverages and swapped stories, and I'm looking forward to their coming up to New York sometime soon.

The new office is in a great location. It's about five blocks from Times Square (but that's only for tourists), five blocks (the other way) from the United Nations, and close to the New York Public Library which has a lovely park next to it, which will have an ice skating rink in about six weeks. There are heaps of things to see, so when I'm not travelling outside NYC, I'll have plenty to do in my lunch breaks.

The weather's cooled quite a bit over the past day or two. It was 14 degrees outside at lunchtime today. People here really don't believe that that's what winter in Brisbane's like. It's the first fortnight of Fall (Autumn) here, so we're in for a pretty solid winter I assume. None of the locals seem bothered. It's great to wander around at the moment; it's like being in a giant air-conditioned room.

That's all for now. No particularly exciting things to report. I guess everything's interesting and new, but getting back to work's pretty big on my agenda right now. Thankfully, dealing with professionals is going much better than dealing with non-caring shop assistants day after day. Have fun. We are!

The home of capitalism, democracy and bad service

Whatever did the world do before the internet? Having (almost) been offline for two whole weeks, it felt as though our world was coming to an end. In my defense, moving to a new city does imply a huge need for current, instant information. Borrowing other people's internet with the PDA and hammering out my blog one letter at a time has also been a bit of a slog. But this is now a thing of the past!

We bit the bullet and bought a laptop computer. PCs are incredibly cheap over here (along with a bunch of other things), so last weekend when we were in New Jersey, we bought a new Dell computer, which arrived on Friday. Luckily, the apartment comes included with broadband, so we were online within about 2 minutes of its arrival.

It's great being able to surf the net and get ourselves fully organised before we head out each day. Especially so, given that on some occasions we had to head out in the rain just to find a wireless hotspot to send an email or slog it out in a dodgy net cafe to see if we had any money in the bank. Enough said; it's a computer. People have them everywhere.

Yesterday, we made the trip to Ikea to scope out what will be the bulk of the furnishings for the new apartment. The store itself was amazing, about treble the size of the Ikea in Brisbane. Even the restaurant was cool. It had live entertainment by a five-member band, which in itself was enjoyable, but best of all, it had awesome views of the Newark airport runways and curved windows so you could see the aircraft not only through the windows, but through the celing. To me, it rates as one of the best restaurants I've ever been to. Ikea itself was extremely boring (Kyan screamed himself stupid, yet again), but very productive. We (by that I mean Alicia) have a pretty good idea of how the house will be set up now. We're just looking forward to moving into it.

The Ikea's so huge that it has free coaches running to and from NYC, running every few minutes just shuttling people back and forth all weekend. There are a couple of things driving that; firstly, there's no Ikea in NYC and secondly, the tax rate in New Jersey's only 3.5% rather than 8.25%. If you're spending some serious coin, it makes sense to make the trip over the border to get the cheaper goods. It's kind of like duty free in a way, but you don't have to go to New Zealand to get $15 off a bottle of Bundy.

Alicia and Kyan went out today for some wandering through midtown while I stayed at home and did some tax returns (yay!). Other than that, it really was a quiet day. In the morning, I ducked over to Circuit City in Brooklyn to buy a wireless mouse. It's pretty much a mirror of Harvey Norman. After finding what I needed myself (nobody bothered to offer their help), I waited about half an hour in a queue to buy it. When I finally got there, there was a problem with their computer for that item, so without even asking me to wait, they just pushed it to the side and served the next customer. About five minutes later, they fixed the problem and asked me for the money as if nothing had happened.

After that, I went to Verizon to see if I could set up a mobile/cell phone. I had to go to some guy at a counter to ask my question. Once I got there, he was resting his head on the desk and just glanced up at me and grunted. Aparently, they don't do prepaid mobile plan, so he told me so. No suggestion of how they could help, just "we don't do that." And rested his head back on the desk.

Dead set, the service in this country is pathetic. Virtually every store I've been into, it been pretty obvious that the staff couldn't possibly care less about helping you out. Funnily enough, whenver they're working for tips (even though they're pretty much compulsory), the service improves out of sight. Maybe they should introduce tipping into retail stores to give them a reason to get off their bums and do something. Whenever we travelled, we would usually be humbled by the excellent service, both on and off the tourist track, and especially in Asia. Not here.

BUT, I'm visiting the country as a guest so I'll take the good with the bad. It's just going to take some time to adjust and find the stores with good service. I think I'll find the friendliest service on the internet...

The Guy In Charge of America

Things are settling into a pretty good routine now. We've found our sense of direction and are getting around without any problems.

Since the last blog, we've just been out and about seeing the sights on offer. In the past couple of days, we've visited the Cental Park Zoo (which Kyan loved), went out to Flushing, Queens where the US Open is played, and FAO Schwarz, a cool toy store with a giant keyboard you dance on to play music (it's the one in the movie Big which Tom Hanks danced on) - for Kyan's benefit entirely.

We had a bit of a stroll through Midtown and the Upper East Side today; both very nice areas, entirely unlike where we're moving to. While we were wandering, we walked past Michael Douglas. Alicia even got to see the back of his head once he had walked past and I pointed him out to her. I recognised him from that movie where he was The American President, and The American President fell in love with a lobbyist, and The American President's daughter liked her, even though the press thought The American President wasn't doing the right thing. I think it was called "The Guy In Charge of America". (Lara, you'll get it)

After struggling with the stroller, an agitated baby, and a peak hour expres subway train, we managed to get home in one piece, so are looking forward to a quiet evening. Tomorrow, we'll probably go and do a few touristy things, and on Saturday, we're off to Ikea for some furniture shopping.

Still having fun, and don't plan on moving back any time soon. We are missing home a little though, so are looking forward to getting the net set up properly to touch base with home.

mjb

We're locals now

Just a short one today, but there's news to be shared. We've now got ourselves a place to live!

We ended up getting pretty much what we were after, kind of near where we wanted for a pretty good price - good news in all. I don't have the exact address yet, but it's around the corner of St. Mark's Ave and 4th Ave in Brooklyn. It's incredibly close to the express subway line, so getting to work will be a breeze.

We went out to Parmus, NJ yesterday. There's a shopping centre (mall) with about 350 shops, so therr was plenty to look at. The transport was a killer. It took us a couple of hours each way, so we'll have to sort out a better way of getting around now that we're the proud owners of exactly zero cars.

On the way there, we stopped off at Greenwich Village, a very nice neighbourhood in South-East Manhattan. If and when we make the move to Manhattan, this has got to be the spot to be. It had tree-lined streets, little cafes, and a cool little park where people were selling their organic fruit and veg. Just like Park Slope, but nicer.

That's all for now - the weather's been pretty rotten over the last few days, so things have slowed down a bit. The weather's great today, so we'll get outside and explore something new.

Still having fun,
Michael.

New York - we're there!

We made it! After 28 hours, door to door, we have arrived safely in Manhattan. The flights didn't end up being too bad, and Kyan was a perfect little angel, except when we were leaving LAX, when his little body just couldn't stay awake any longer. Thank goodness for the pickup at JFK; we had 10 pieces of luggage and a baby to carry. Public transport was never going to be an option.

Day 1 (11 Sept) was spent generally seeing Manhattan. We did Ground Zero (which was a dud event unless you were a survivor or family), Times Square (including Toys'R'Us for Kyan), the Upper West Side and Central Park.

Day 2 (12 Sept) was reconnaissance day. We went out to Brooklyn to see if Park Slope was anything like my research said it was. Well, it looks as though the internet was spot on. It's a lovely area which will do us very nicely, if we can afford what's on offer. The streets are lined with beautiful big green trees, and the housefronts look like they're out of Sesame Street. A very pleasant neighbourhood, which I can certainly see ourselves in for a while. If you're interested, look up 11215 on Google Earth/Maps).

Day 3 (today 13 Sept) was quieter. We finally shook the jet lag, and for a change, Kyan didn't get up at 4am, like he did on the first two days. We had a relocation consultant talk to us this morning to give us the low-down on how this place actually works. It was a very interesting and useful conversation. Some things were new to us, but even the things that weren't were great to know coming from a local rather than relying on what we read or heard somewhere.

Tomorrow, we're hunting for an apartment, probably the most critical task of our three weeks. I don't hold particularly high hopes of finding a great place, but something secure and clean will do.

Hopefully, we'll have a free day on Friday and do a couple of touristy things then.

I hope you're enjoying the blog so far. I'm certainly enjoying being here to be able to do it.

Internet access is very scratchy at the moment; I'm lying in the floor typing this into my PDA using a 'borrowed' internet connection. I should have that resolved in the next couple of days, so send me an email and say g'day.

By the way, the Eno incident involved tipping an almost full jar of Eno into a half-full sink. It's not one of t ose treasured memories you hold onto forever, but it was certainly fun at the time.

Stay safe and well. mjb.

I think we're done...

It's been an extremely hectic few days getting everything done to get out of Brisbane. We had to pack up the house, clean it, settle all the outstanding bits and pieces and so on. It doesn't sound much, but living the hard yakka for the past few days hasn't been fun in any way.

On the upside, I did get to tip an entire jar of Eno into a sink full of water to see what would happen. It's amazing the experiments you can do when you're chucking stuff out. Sad as it seems, this was the highlight of the past few days.

Unfortunately, being busier than I'd expected has meant a few things have gone by the wayside. I was hoping to do one last karate session before leaving, but that doesn't look too likely now. I was also hoping to get all the admin out of the way, but I'll probably have to finish that up in the next week or so from New York.

However, things are looking up.

We pretty much cleared out the house tonight and one more small load in the car should finish it. Then we're on a break for a few weeks. It should be a good chance to spend some nice time with the family, pretty much like we did together when we were in NZ in April. I enjoyed that time a lot, so am looking forward to some vegging out in NYC.

Our Entertainment Book for New York arrived today. It's not really of the same quality that the Brisbane book is, which surprised me, but it should give us a headstart when we're looking for some tucker in the next few weeks.

I'm feeling ridiculously tired now, so must head off in search of beauty (that's why they call it beauty sleep). If my search for beauty is successful, I'll let you know in my next post.

I know I'll miss all my friends and family when we're gone, so if you're reading this blog and you fall into one of the above categories, I NEED TO SEE YOU IN NEW YORK. If you just stumbled across my blog because you typed my name into Google hoping to seek the meaning of life and the ultimate truth of all mankind (and therefore are neither friends nor family), I don't need to see you, but your cash would be appreciated. ...but I digress.

I think it's about to hit that we're heading overseas to live. Seeing the house totally empty tonight made me realise that this is a massive decision we've made; more than just deciding a long overseas trip would be nice. It really does change absolutely everything and we've not even moved yet. This will be the big one for us and I hope it's everything we dream it will be. It's cliché, but words really can't describe the maelstrom of emotion and anticipation I'm feeling at the moment. There's one way to find out - the day after tomorrow, it's all on. Only time will tell how things go. This will be great.

Stay safe. mjb.

New York, here we come!

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Not long to go now. Both Alicia and I have finished work, and Kyan's off to the family for the week, so we're madly scrambling to get the house in order (packed and cleaned) before the removalists come on Wednesday.

The To-Do list is finally getting smaller. That's not to say that it's getting any easier, but at least the jobs we have left can be done before we leave. Things like touching up paintwork inside the house, packing and cleaning.

It still hasn't hit home yet that we're shifting to the other side of the world, but I guess that's partly due to the fact that we always seem to be getting ready for holidays. Once we get a place of our own, things will probably change a little. It's actually pretty scary going to a new workplace, given that I've been in the Brisbane office for the past 7 1/2 years. This is my big chance to really make it in my career, so I hope it goes well.

Kyan's been very whingey the past day or two. We seem to think that he is getting upset to see his stuff being packed up. He's too young to understand about the move, but old enough to know when his things are being taken from him. It will be good to have him out of our hair for a couple of days and focus on the job at hand.

We're still dreading the flight. I guess if we're expecting the absolute worst, anything that happens will be better than our expectations, and therefore not be too bad. I just hope nothing crazy goes on in the wild world of aviation over the next week. If we can only carry on our passports, there's going to be trouble.

Well, no rest for the wicked. Back to work for me. I've got to get new tyres put on the Barina this arvo so I can get the roadworthy done. ...and paint the walls ...and disassemble the bed ...and clear the shed ...and pack up the entertainment unit ...blah blah blah.