the prodigal blogger

hey. sorry it's been ages. things are nuts. peanuts. brazil nuts. pecans. hazelnuts. even pistachios. i'm naming nuts.


nationals was pretty fun, although sporting team box athletico united came 6th. we had hoped to do better. coffs harbor was a small town and it rained on us. we had some injuries. (crime box, whale, huswald) we lost a huge game to the national team from new zealand. we won two great games in the stadium on the nicest grass i've ever played on. then we lost two games in a row to sydney's wildcard to get bounced out of the semi's bracket. we ended up 6th, and the 5/6 game was lost on universe point. here's a write up of the overall tournament. here's heaps of pictures if you've got the time to dig around (mom).






i had a great time playing with team box and i have some truly great friends on that team. i'll miss playing with them heaps.






mama and i had a great road trip down. we celebrated her birthday in byron bay and i had a lot of fun returning to some of the places jesse and i saw last july. we swam on the rocky beach, had some dinner, some sleep, a great massage and a great brunch. we are adorable:

and mama shares my respect for oral hygiene.

here's me at the major coff's harbour tourist attraction, the big banana

now on to other huge news. fatten your calves. i'm coming home. first for just a few days, and then for longer.


first off i'm coming back to north carolina to be in chip and jen's wedding. it should be great. i'll be in the great state of NC from may 25 or so until june 1. i'll get to see my parents at their beach house and my sister and my nieces. then, i'll head to greensborough for the wedding. once i've supervised the nuptials and partied with the best dancing couple i've ever known i'll fly back to melbourne.







then i'm rolling off my Telstra account on June 30. i'll be throwing a hella holla send off out of 301 in late june. book your fancy dress now. stay tuned.





I'll be back in NYC on July 2 or so. back in 29. i am getting amped. book out blue and gold for a week. who wants great jones? who wants veselka? who wants boca chica? bring it. i think i'll take some PTO to get re-acclimated to the northern hemisphere. i am looking forward to the subway and playing some disc with my ambush girls. and eating some gastronautical cuisine. i'll miss melbourne heaps, but right now, i am psyched about coming home. see you soon.



p.s. happy mother's day mom. you're the best mom i've ever had!

frantic

I'm frantic. Work is completely insane. There could be no worse time to be heading out for a few days off, but there's never a good time.

I'm off to coffs Harbour for Nationals in a few hours.

I am super psyched to be going with my team.

I have not packed. You know how I feel about packing.

Will there be live scoring again this year? I do not know.

If so, it might be here:

http://nationals.ultimatefrisbee.org.au/email.php

If not, i'll tell you all about it when I get home next week.

Happy Anzac Day!

i am still here

in australia. for a time.

all persists. work is still work. i am busy. laaaaate nights.

also, as usual there is some disc. i played in a co-ed tournament this weekend in ballarat. as they say here, we came second. the fields were crap.

tonight i won the division two league finals with the magic mushrooms and my team box teammate cat 'litter box' phillips and snail 'spring box' phillips. the phillips sisters and i then won the division one finals with twelve cheers for and more team box teammates: joy 'human beat' box and hussey 'this is not a' box. yeah league. twelve cheers for is the coolest coed team i have ever played with and it almost makes you consider co-ed. as an option. then again, all of our guys are open players, which i think is what made it so fun. they are also all 19 and the fastest MFs you have ever seen.

i watched the nuggets game cast today on a conference call. AI was huge in the victory over houston. i think the 8 spot is locked in now.

next up is nationals in coff's harbor with sporting team box althetico united. i cannot wait. it will be rad, assuredly. i'll be road tripping to nationals with mama, raging on the gold coast and then four days at the tourney with my St. Bau boxes. Might just be the best time ever.

An Ode to Brunch

It’s hard to explain why brunch is one of my favorite things. There’s not much that I enjoy more. Brunch is best after a big night. Brunch should be around 1 pm and should be part of a mild hangover cure. It’s best to pick up a coffee on your way to brunch so that you can wait patiently in comfort. You can’t mind a wait for brunch, as you’ll be lingering over your eggs as long as you want and for that privilege you need to be patient of the lingerers who came before you. My favorite brunches combine the sweet and savory. I like a biscuit with jam and eggs Oaxaca. Alternatively, I like some pancakes or French toast with a side of bacon. Whatever you choose, massive quantities are a must. Even more crucial is a veritable buffet of beverages. Coffee is essential and fresh OJ or grapefruit juice is advised. Probably my single favorite thing about brunch is Bloody Marys. I like them as spicy as possible with fresh horseradish and not too much salad garnish in my way. Some of my best days in (hazey) memory are those where I started out with a few bloody marys at brunch and drank them straight through to bed.

Brunch requires long and senseless conversation. You can review the breaks in last nights events and summarize the week’s happenings while you wait for your eggs to arrive, but the topics should quickly move to very mild super powers, the outcome of a hypothetical 1 on 1 between Moses and Carl Malone, or Moses Malone and Moses with the stone tablets, and things of that nature. Brunch in NYC typically involves eating in close quarters, so it’s a good time to break out the lies for the benefit of eavesdroppers. “Yes, I just interviewed for that job in the marketing department at NASA.” “My yoga instructor is offering a new underwater class for those with Scuba certification. I’m on the waiting list.” “I was at Butter last night and I saw Jacob Dylan throw a drink on Rachel Dratch,” “Yes, they served the antiviral salad dressing with the Yak meat.” "I've saved half of what I neeed to get those calf implants." You get the idea.

Brunch is a time for gluttony, and lengthy casual meaningles conversation. Done propely it consumes the better part of a day and prepares you for a golf or football nap.

This blog seems a kindred sprit and has given me plenty of ideas:
http://thebreakfastblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/best-breakfasts-2007.html

Tomorrow I’ll be having brunch with 6 or so of the gals from Team Box. I can’t wait.

In other news, I set up my wireless access in 301, so I can now blog from anywhere in my spacious apartment. Look forward to dispatches from my couch.

I’m watching TV right now and the sports announcer for the AFL game I am watching now just said, “One of the teams is going to lose in all probability anyway…” I suppose it’s comforting to know that sports casters worldwide are mathematicians.

On another channel is Crocodile Dundee 2, which doesn’t inspire the scorn here you would expect.

I went to see the Black Keys this week. The show reminded me of the last time I saw them, where I came to the conclusion that they suck. Unfortunately, I forgot that until I was reminded when they came on stage at the HiFi this Tuesday. It was crowded, hot and boring.

In other news, I still cannot find anyone here who can do my hair. My last attempt took up four hours of my Saturday and resulted in my hair being about an 1/8th of an inch shorter in some areas. After 3 hours in the chair and no noticeable result I was reluctant to ask more of my terrified stylist for fear she would cry.

Mail report: Thanks to Mom for the long lost package and Mara for another postcard. It’s not too late to get recognized here for sending mail. Get in the game!

Nationals Pics

http://digitalarts.mindsocket.com.au/gallery2/v/events/nationals2007/

Nationals Recap

Apologies for the delay. I was waiting to feel less exhausted to write this post, but I don't want to forget everything that happened and the current forecast for some decent rest is distant. Random thoughs I have on the Tournament:

Nationals was great. Thanks for everyone who checked in and was thinking of me over the tourrnament. There were professional photographers there taking photos daily and several of our games were featured, so I will post that link once those are up and you can check out the scene.

Our kit was all Patagonia. The jersey material is really nice. We liked them much better than Gaia. (I still recommend 5ultimate, but we needed a pretty quick turnaround so we went with someone larger and more established.) The patagonia shorts material was super light and thin. They looked great and dried very quickly. The only drawback was that they were so light they gave the impression of not being there at all and we were all saddled with the vague notion that we were wearing the emperor's new shorts.

We also had matching Team Box wristbands, supplied by Michelle, who morphed a former Nike swoosh into the bill and neck of a goose, perfectly completing our professional look.

We played 9 games over 4 days. We had a first round game EVERY day. I got a ride in two of the days and took the tram in two of the days. Either way I left very early in the morning each day and was very tired by the time to come back home. The tournament site was a good hour from downtown where I live (more by tram).

The tournement was well run. The fields were nice. Rounds started on time. Everyone was fed and watered. There were scoreboards, but no timekeepers.

For each of our games we did the same 60 minute warm up, with running, stretching, plyos, drills and sprinting. After each game we did the same cooldown with running, plyos, stretching, and singing.

Team Box pre-game chants included:
Get out of the Box and into the Zone, Team Box is going to take this home.
and
Open the flaps, get into the box.
and
1-2-3 - Team! 1-2-3 Box! 1-2-3 Go Team Box!

Team box had 15 year olds and women who haad been playing for 10 years. I asked Sophie, one of our high school kids what she was doing for school on Monday and Tuesday. "Oh yeah. I'm not going."

Team Box captains insisted on and stuck to a plan where no subs were called. Even in finals. On most teams this would have been a disaster, but everyone on Team Box got along and there were no disc hogs and I think we all had equal, fair playing time and everyone was happy about it. Those of you who don't play won't understand how remarkable this is. Those who do play will not believe me that this happened. This is like Joe Torre just telling the Yankees to bat in whatever order they all agree on, and it working out instantly and silently with no dissenters. It was great.

Wednesday was the final day of the tournament. It was a national holiday here in Australia (ANZAC day) which I think is something about World War One and Turkey. It's basically veterans day. Of the 4 women's teams in semis, 3 were from Sydney. We played the Sydney Southsiders at 9, and they were looking for revenge for the close pool play round loss we handed them on day 2. It was a gorgeous day with very little wind. Every point was hotly contested and we were down 6-8 at half. In the second half we came out with a junk/clammy D and scored 5 in a row to get to 11-8. After that we traded points to get to 15. I was in on several of those D points and it was so exciting to feel the momentum of the game shift. You could see it in the Southside body language that they just knew we had stepped up the intensity and they were going to lose.

In Finals, we faced the only team we had lost two all tournement, Wildcard. There were a lot of spectators. The finals were filmed and there were commenators calling play-by-play. It was all a bit distracting, and I think our youth showed as a team. We came out slow in the first half with some acharactertistic mistakes including a pull out of bounds at mid-field and a dropped pull. Wildcard played a force middle D that effectively shut down our horizontal stack offense. They took half 8-6. We played a little better in the second half and even had some little runs, but never really played our best. I think we were tired and a bit unused to adversity. Wildcard played very well and played low risk disciplined O. The game was filled with layouts and sic bids on both sides and many people in the crowd said it was the highest level of play they had seen at a women's finals.

After finals we had a team circle up, a birthday cake for Riss, and then we got some beers and barbeque and watched the men's final. After that, there was an awards ceremony where we all got our second place medals and our name called out. It was fun cheering for everyone.

After the awards ceremony we had some champagne, went out for dumplings, and then I went home to deal with having to go to work the next day. I had a great time this season with Team Box and I'm dissapointed that the season is over and wondering what else I can find as an excuse to escape work.

Finals Coverage & Team Pic

Team Box on Day 3


Finals Coverage

I am exhausted and very behind at work and all other aspects of my life like e-mail and mountains of molding ultimate laundry, but I will post more next week.

Nationals: Quick Re-Cap of Days 1-3

This will be quite brief as I need to go to bed, since I have Semis tomorrow at 9:00 AM. Go Team Box!

On Day 1 (Sunday): We went 2-1, winning two games quite easily against teams from Brisbane and South Australia. Then we lost a close, windy, zone based game against Wildcard from Sydney.

On Day 2 (Monday): We went 2-0 and won a very close game against Ishtar from Melbourne. We took half 8-3 and narrowly hung on to the second half 9-8. Then we beat South Side from Sydney in a close one as well.

On Day 3 (Tuesday): We went 2-0 and beat the Sugar Magnolias (from Canberra?) at 8:30 and narrowly beat the undefeated NoNoNo from Sydney (15-13) in a high speed, huck filled game. I caught a long goal and also threw a goal and got some Ds. NoNoNo are an experienced group of women that have played a lot of club and world championships and don’t bother with practice or plays. They are very talented. Winning that game allowed us to keep the 1 seed as, only 2 of the top 6 had only 1 loss (Team Box and NoNoNo) and we beat them head to head.

Day 4 preview:
At 9:00 AM, as the 1 seed, we will play the 4 seed: South Side (again) from Sydney. If we win that, we’ll play the winner of the other Semis: Wildcard (Sydney) or NoNoNo (Sydney). We are proud to represent Victoria and Melbourne in a comp that is otherwise dominated by that other city with a fancy opera house (who cares!). We are healthy, amped and skipping the party tonight to get some rest.

There will be pictures and more details later, but this is a quick update. I am having a great time.

Live Nationals Scores

http://olennick2.homedns.org/scores/

Choc Tiny Bears

Above is the view from Michelle's house, Michelle, the beach, a tide pool, with creatures and some of Team Box (incl. me) in the 'hot tub'.

Weekend away in Wonthaggi was incredible. It was a 2 hour drive from downtown Melbourne. Michelle’s family’s beach house is a property inside a cattle farm. You go through 4 cattle gates to get there. There is a no development clause, to keep it from getting commercial, but if farmers had existing domiciles they are allowed to lease them out. There was plenty of space for the team in the basic cabin.

I’ve attached some of the pics here and put more up on Flickr.

We hung out. Played on the beach, made up a song about a carton of snack cookies and sang it for hours, sat in a ‘hot tub’ made up of couches and blankets, played the secret game and lots and lots of box-lid-goose, which is like ro-sham-bo (box traps the goose, lid shuts the box, and the goose eats the lid).

We practiced all day on Sunday at a nearby cricket pitch that was available out of season.

The best part was going to the beach. The beach was rocky and complex. The endless tide pools were filled with snails, star fish, anemone. I could have hunted in them all day. I saw a washed up dead penguin. It was sad and I didn’t take a picture. There were so many good shells it seemed silly to bother picking any up. If I ever run away from home looking in those tide pools would be a good way to spend some time.

Regionals Champs!

Team Box is still undefeated. We are so awesome! This weekend was excellent in all ways and I have a lot to tell you. This post will be about the tournament. Another post will follow shortly about my adventures on my extra day in the wild Kingdom of Tasmania (but rest assured it is filled with more bragging about what an incredible time I am having).

You can check out some results from the weekend here and more will be here soon.

The tournament was great. The fields were nice, lined, grassy fields. The games were on-time and fair. There was a lot of great, free food provided. The fields were a 50 meter walk from the shoreline of Hobart bay, which is incredibly beautiful. The weather was perfect on Saturday with wind picking up on Sunday.

We had a great weekend. Everyone played hard and fair and well and got along well and had a wonderful time. On Saturday we played four games, of increasing difficulty. We started off with a nice warm-up against a team from South Australia. We rolled them. Then we played a new, inexperienced but very talented team from Tasmania in the battle of the vulgar slang: Team Box vs. Bush. ("Bush" is the term Aussies use for wildlife. A weekend of camping/hiking is a weekend "in the bush".) It was very strange for me to hear a group of women yelling "Go Bush!" and for me to not join in. I did accidentally cheer for them a couple of times, but we won the game anyway. Next we had a great tourney provided lunch.

After lunch, we played the two teams from Victoria that we beat in last weekend's scrimmage. These games were tougher but we pulled them out. First we played Honey. We won 11-8. The game followed this pattern. We would get up a few, decide the game was over, let off the pressure and they would come right back, then we would step it up again, get up a few... repeat. We were glad to put that one behind us.

For the last game of the day we played Ishtar. The tournament format for the 5 entrants was a round-robin. We were the only team not to have a bye on Saturday. As we warmed up for our fourth game, we were clearly feeling it. We ended up beating Ishtar soundly (11 to 2 or 3) but the points were long and ugly and we weren't running our offense as well as we had earlier in the day. After that game we had a nice team dinner at a Thai/Vietnamese place and went to the tournament party, which was pretty typical, except for the fact that we lost one of our juniors and didn't get her back until the next morning. She was fine.

On Sunday morning the other teams had their last round-robin game and we had a bye. Because we won all the games, we also had a bye in to the Final, so we played one game at 4 PM. We slept late, went out for breakfast and had a nice long warm-up and worked on some new defenses. The final was against Honey again. The game was very windy and both teams were playing a lot of zone. We played a lot of 1-3-3 which they call "puppy-fence" here without a hint of a smile. We were trading points in the first half, but stepped it up to take half 8-7 and never let up after that. We won at the cap 11-8 again.

This makes us the #1 seed for nationals in April. Look out! (Last year's champions are not returning and last year's runner up is Ishtar, which is why we get the #1 seed.)

I played pretty well all weekend and threw and caught some goals. As always, I had the most fun playing D as I was assigned to 'assassinate' a player on the opposing team and got some big stops.

The victory was followed by a celebration. We went out for some vegetarian Indian dinner which was quite good except for the bit about Joy (one of the captains) wearing most of her curry home on the plane courtesy of a clumsy waitress. After dinner there was a typical mad dash to the airport, made more exciting by the wrong side of the road for me. After I dropped the team off I started my Tasmanian exploration. More on that soon. I'm tired. I'll get the pictures up on flickr soon.


Note: Tho Hoyas won the Big East Tourney as well, so all my teams had a good weekend. Look for them to stay in a loooong time when you fill out your bracket.

Reunited!

Deirdre is all in one piece. She works great. I'm thrilled.

I had the best night in Melbourne yet last night. I hung out with an awesome girl from TeamBox and her boyfriend. Jess is a Physics PHD with sic speed who makes a lot of our long cuts. She showed me a bar close to 301 called Hell's Kitchen which made me feel at home. The bar has Cooper's Pale Ale on tap and is a close to a dive bar as Melbourne can afford.

Then we swung by 301 where she suggested letting the air out of the front wheel and pumping it back up, which saved the day and allowed me to put the front wheel back on. Apparently all you need to reassemble a bike is a Physics PHD. Maybe I would have studied harder if I'd known that.

Then we went out to dinner at a great Tapas place also about 1 minute from my apartment. We were joined by her boyfriend who is Luc Longely's cousin. No joke. The Tapas was great and then he showed us one more great little open air bar on one of Melbourne's many 'little street' alleys. I'll be heading back to all three places when I have a little more time.

Tonight is Team Box Practice and packing for Tasmania. I'll be flying out Friday after work and back Monday evening as Monday is the end of summer Labor Day holiday here. I'll be checking out Tassie (as it is called by Australians) for an extra day after the tourney. I have 1 day to explore an Island the size of Ireland. I'll let you know how it goes.

Dominator

Team Box is awesome. Sunday was an excellent day. We met up and had a good warm up session. Then we scrimmaged the two other local women’s teams, one of which came second in Australian nationals last year. We beat both teams handily. We were down 1-4 to Ishtar and came back to win 9-5. We beat Honey 13-6 but it wasn’t that close. Everyone got lots of touches and played well. I was called into a lot of strings and played well. I got to play a lot of short deep too, which is a key position in our ‘cowgirl’ junk defense scheme. It was a really fun time and the team got to know each other better. We went out for beers after the games to celebrate. I could not have had a better day.

(Work was very busy today. Typical Monday. It was a gorgeous day in Melbourne.)

Cashews, Pecans, Almonds

Things have been nuts. Work is very busy and leaves no time for Yahoo! or Courtneyspondence. No DSL installed yet at home means I am incommunicado avocado.

Do not be concerned. All is well. I had Team Box practice on Thursday and afterwards we went to a great casual bar with an open courtyard for a few beers. They were serving gourmet pizzas for A$4. I think that place will be a regular post-practice stop.

On Friday after work I went out for Korean barbeque. I was pretty amped since I love Korean barbeque at home and I figured this would be even better because we are so much closer to Korea. It was just okay. I’d probably say most of the places on the West 30s at home are better. I was especially disappointed that while the menu listed both O.B. and Hite the only beer they actually had was Heineken.

Today (Saturday). I went for a run, had some brunch, did some shopping, did more unpacking and did some work. On my run, I ran down the Yarra on my way home. I thought I saw some plastic bags floating in the river. As I got closer, it looked like the bags were swimming, which is atypical, even in Australia. Upon closer inspection I realized that they were jelly fish about the size of grapefruit, tons of them. I’ve never seen jelly fish in a river before, so I found this pretty odd. I had never considered jumping in the Yarra before, but now I am fully deterred.

Sunday Team Box is scrimmaging against the two other women’s teams in town. That should be really fun and I am looking forward to it. This is our last weekend practice prior to Regionals in Tasmania next weekend. I can’t wait to have a tournament weekend and to spend some time seeing more of Australia.

I have just a few minutes here to post some of the photos I took of my apartment. Hopefully the cliché will hold true and these will count for thousands of words. Have a great weekend.

My living room/den:

Note Deirdre still in pieces in the background. :(

The rat tail is alive and well in Melbourne.

Melbourne seems like a great town, but all towns have their shortcomings. NYC is the capital of the world, and the best place to live on the planet. Still, waiting for the subway in August when it is 104 underground can disguise some of the city’s charm. At press time, your faithful Courtneyspondent had counted 17 shameless adult rattails in Melbourne since noticing the phenomena and beginning a tail-counter on Friday. I’ve only begun to research this occurrence, and I can’t begin to explain it. Needless to say it is not encouraging.

Apologies for the blogging gap this weekend. I will have DSL at home soon, but at this point I do not have any internet connection at 301, so I could not provide any updates this weekend.

On Friday after work I went to a barbeque at the house where the 3 captains for Team Box reside. It was a great time. It was a short tram ride away, though I could have walked it. They have a nice house with big living areas and a good space outside. The party was well attended and there were people from all three women’s teams here (Team Box, Honey and Ishtar) as well as two men’s teams (Heads of State and Chilly). Everyone seems to get along well despite the natural adversarial position. There was much grilling, beer and salads. I met a ton of people and explained to them all that retaining David Hicks in Gitmo with no trial and no rights was pretty much my idea, and they better be nice to me or I’d have them locked up too. I also explained how my vision for Iraq has almost completely been realized. On my way home from the party I saw some of Melbourne’s loathed bat colony. I think bats are cool, especially since I don’t like mosquitoes, but for some reason Melbourners seem to universally dislike them.

On my way to the barbeque I learned a cool nuance about the tram service from a nice 7-11 clerk. You can buy an unlimited pass for A$6 or a 2 hour pass for A$2. The clock stops after 6PM for the trams, so you can pretty much ride unlimited after 6PM on the A$2 pass. This is the type of info that makes me feel like a local.

Saturday involved brunch, some work, a long run, some errands, setting up of 301 and some work on my window flower boxes (pulling out the long-dead previous residents.) Brunch was okay, but not a full success. I had a good omelet and toast and a great cappuccino. I cannot find anything that resembles a bloody mary in this town. I may have to make them myself beforehand and bring them in a little thermos. (Lynn, does this signify dependency?)

Sunday I slept late, called Mom & Dad, watched rugby and cricket on TV and went to practice. Practice was great and we scrimmaged another women's team at the end (Honey) and won. We worked on a new verticle offense and a play that remind me of the Cherry Bomb. After practice we went to a Belgian beer hall for, you guessed it, Belgian beer. I also had some fries. It was a good time.

Read me a bedtime story

I am home in 901 eating some brussels sprouts. There is no better vegetable. These are raw and really spicy and I cannot stop eating them and therefore am burning my tongue. It’s nothing like the wing-off we had at the wing factory at AOL, but it’s pretty bad.

Somehow, my laptop and I have become enemies. He takes for-ev-er to boot up and just as long to open any application or file. I ran my virus scan and my Accenture eSupport ‘Laptop Checkup’. Both did nothing. I think maybe he just doesn’t like Australia. I wish he would get over it.

I made it to work today. Some days are better than others. This was one of those days that was not as good as the better days.

After work I caught the tram down to Faulkner park for Box practice. Practice was fun. We are working on an offense where we always get the disc off by 3 and there are a lot of short cuts. It’s like a 7 women homina. I am learning a lot. We threw, played what was essentially mini and did some drills. After practice, I got a beer nearby with a few of the girls and had some french fries. They seem really nice. I am going out with some of them tomorrow right after work. We’ll see, but there may be NO FRIDAY POST. I’ve been warning of this possibility, but it’ll seem like crying wolf if I don’t occasionally skip a day. I am getting a little addicted to ‘publishing’ every thought I have, however banal.

You know how I can’t fall asleep in silence and I rely on sports talk radio. I am a total addict. I miss the Yankees call in shows. They knock me out immediately. Some fool in November wants to know the batting order or if some AA prospect might move up to AAA this year. I haven’t found an Australian equivalent. I have found a radio station that reads books to you. I am having trouble following the story, because I fall asleep right away, but I like it nonetheless. I make up the parts of the story I don’t know. The current book is some French love story from the 1800s where both of the people are being aloof. Nothing at all seems to happen in this book (except the couple’s successful avoidance of each other) so I fall asleep right away.

I’m off to listen to a paragraph or two of that.

Day 4: Dropping Names

Day 4 cliff notes for those of you in a rush: Day 4 was a lot like day 3. Carry on.

Oh, you have a few more minutes… Well here you go:

Today I went for a run, went to a bunch of meetings, read a bunch of business documents, ate good Chinese and very good Indian samosas and read some documents, in mostly, but not exactly, that order. The day went fine.

Mother wanted me to explicitly state that I am still in the hotel and have not found my apartment yet. Go ahead and operate under that assumption until I tell you otherwise. You’ll be the first to know when I get in my place.

Speaking of still being in the hotel, I’ve done a fair amount of living in hotels. I lived in a Sheraton in St. Louis for 8 months with Jack Sepple, Kimberly and Ivy. I lived in a Candlewood Suites in DULLes for 2 years that was a total dump. Based on my experience, tipping the housekeeping staff well is the difference between extra chocolates on my pillow and finding my toothbrush in the toilet. With that in mind, I’ve been leaving tips in my room, but housekeeping hasn’t picked them up. First I left them by the sink (my usual spot), then on my bed side table. Max, can you help a sister out with some tips from the hotel industry? What am I supposed to do here?

J-Christ, can you send me a link for the pics you took at my going away gathering? I need some evidence to confirm that I did, in fact, go away. (Thanks to Allison for sending me her snapshots, but I need to corroborate that story.)

On Sunday I’m trying out for a Women’s team here in Melbourne that apparently Andy Samberg named: Team Box. (One: Go get a box). I’m a little concerned, in that practice is on Sundays from 4-6 PM. Uh… Okay. When are the other 12 hours of practice? What I am supposed to do with the rest of my weekend, get some kind of “life”? Not interested. I’ll let you know how tryouts go.

Now for even more foreshadowing: There is a casino here, right downtown. I may see if they have a poker table this weekend. I’m also thinking of checking out the aquarium. Sarah, there’s a ton of art museums here too. I’ll hold off on those until you come here to visit and drag me from exhibit to exhibit explaining how you’ve seen the same installation in Helsinki and Barcelona. ;)