Please find on the side bar a link to Flickr, where I will be posting my photos in honor of Greenleaf. Anyways, I will be updating old posts with links to pictures (have done some so far), so keep your eyes out for them.
Assignment due tomorrow. Another update after that. I'm averaging once a month. Sad.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Better late than never!
"Tomorrow" appears to have meant something more akin to "about a month from now" but I shall strive onwards nevertheless.
The next two days were spent were roughly the same area. Wednesday, we traveled into an area where the dirt changed distinctively from red to white, which we later learned was due to winds blowing the sand in from the coast. The trip there was spent going over fair sized hills at fair speeds, with stomaches doing all sorts of somersaults (good times). We saw an area of rocks that had once been used by Aboriginals to paint themselves for ceremonies, with reds, oranges, and purples found in strange abundance. Then, it was onwards to Lake Gairdner, where there are semi-permanent tents set-up. I only mention these because their interiors looks like an up-scale hotel room, complete with toilets and showers. And carpets. And beds. Bizarre. Anyways, the main excitement of the day was salt lakes. We saw two that day, one of which is used by people trying to break land speed records. To our bemusement, both had water on them. The plus to this was that it was so shallow, we could walk on one in our boots, and the other by rolling our pants to our knees, leading to some cool pictures.
The other two sites worth mentioning are the Embankment and Kath's Castle (we think - our itinerary changed around a bunch, but it was either Kath's or Pildappa Rock). The Embankment was an old, fairly small dam (20 - 30 ft tall). It still was functional, however, with a reservoir behind it, in which some of us went swimming, while others gathered some melons found scattered about, and threw them at one another (we were told they were good for nothing else). Kath's was a ravine that led up to a series of very climbable rocky outcroppings. A quick scaling found us over looking the ravine and being able to see kilometers in most direction (the hill crested behind us), with a number of prickly bushes dotting the top (I promise there will be pictures soon to make these descriptions less vague). Of course, tall grass led to Jurassic Park references, and whether or not our IES group on the top of the hill could fight off a raptor, and whether a cassowary or a raptor would win in a battle royale.
The nights at the bush station, which I forgot to mention until now, were filled mostly with campfires, food, and being in bed no later than 10 (by our own choice). Activities included making s'mores, star gazing (I can now find the Southern Cross), and being entertained by a boy of 6 or 7 named Toby who was a ball of energy. Switching back and forth between being the director of an acting company and a game show host, he would have us march like a robot in one direction, then do something else heading back, or quiz us while sitting around the campfire with questions "How many motorbikes?" context not provided. Oh, and at one point he was metal, invisible, and attacking us with an invisible chainsaw. Chris died and was resurrected by Brian ten times in about two minutes.
Day four, we packed up camp and then drove to see wombat holes (wombats are like a badger than looks more like a koala). Then, we drove off towards Streaky Bay. I should mention that when we had stopped for gas on day two, I had mentioned to someone that one of the trailer tires looked low. They told me that it was supposed to look like that. In Streaky Bay, Bill (the leader) sided with me, deciding that a repair was necessary. As a result, we fished off the end of a pier for a while using nothing but line, hook, and cockles (shell-fishies). While some succeeded in catching a few of the small guys, I was mocked constantly by the ability of the fish to take my bait without getting hooked. Anyways, modified our plans and stayed in Streaky Bay for the night. Played some Australian Trivial Pursuit waiting for dinner, and then slept on a beach.
More forthcoming. Need to figure out how to get pictures into this.
The next two days were spent were roughly the same area. Wednesday, we traveled into an area where the dirt changed distinctively from red to white, which we later learned was due to winds blowing the sand in from the coast. The trip there was spent going over fair sized hills at fair speeds, with stomaches doing all sorts of somersaults (good times). We saw an area of rocks that had once been used by Aboriginals to paint themselves for ceremonies, with reds, oranges, and purples found in strange abundance. Then, it was onwards to Lake Gairdner, where there are semi-permanent tents set-up. I only mention these because their interiors looks like an up-scale hotel room, complete with toilets and showers. And carpets. And beds. Bizarre. Anyways, the main excitement of the day was salt lakes. We saw two that day, one of which is used by people trying to break land speed records. To our bemusement, both had water on them. The plus to this was that it was so shallow, we could walk on one in our boots, and the other by rolling our pants to our knees, leading to some cool pictures.
The other two sites worth mentioning are the Embankment and Kath's Castle (we think - our itinerary changed around a bunch, but it was either Kath's or Pildappa Rock). The Embankment was an old, fairly small dam (20 - 30 ft tall). It still was functional, however, with a reservoir behind it, in which some of us went swimming, while others gathered some melons found scattered about, and threw them at one another (we were told they were good for nothing else). Kath's was a ravine that led up to a series of very climbable rocky outcroppings. A quick scaling found us over looking the ravine and being able to see kilometers in most direction (the hill crested behind us), with a number of prickly bushes dotting the top (I promise there will be pictures soon to make these descriptions less vague). Of course, tall grass led to Jurassic Park references, and whether or not our IES group on the top of the hill could fight off a raptor, and whether a cassowary or a raptor would win in a battle royale.
The nights at the bush station, which I forgot to mention until now, were filled mostly with campfires, food, and being in bed no later than 10 (by our own choice). Activities included making s'mores, star gazing (I can now find the Southern Cross), and being entertained by a boy of 6 or 7 named Toby who was a ball of energy. Switching back and forth between being the director of an acting company and a game show host, he would have us march like a robot in one direction, then do something else heading back, or quiz us while sitting around the campfire with questions "How many motorbikes?" context not provided. Oh, and at one point he was metal, invisible, and attacking us with an invisible chainsaw. Chris died and was resurrected by Brian ten times in about two minutes.
Day four, we packed up camp and then drove to see wombat holes (wombats are like a badger than looks more like a koala). Then, we drove off towards Streaky Bay. I should mention that when we had stopped for gas on day two, I had mentioned to someone that one of the trailer tires looked low. They told me that it was supposed to look like that. In Streaky Bay, Bill (the leader) sided with me, deciding that a repair was necessary. As a result, we fished off the end of a pier for a while using nothing but line, hook, and cockles (shell-fishies). While some succeeded in catching a few of the small guys, I was mocked constantly by the ability of the fish to take my bait without getting hooked. Anyways, modified our plans and stayed in Streaky Bay for the night. Played some Australian Trivial Pursuit waiting for dinner, and then slept on a beach.
More forthcoming. Need to figure out how to get pictures into this.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
El Easter Breako, dias uno y dos
Tried to add some culture into the title by incorporating other languages into it (not sure on how well it worked yet).
This update will come in two parts, representing two weeks of Easter Break (yes, it was nice; yes, I actually did work over it). May as well start the story by describing the pre-break madness with tests and papers and what not. Thursday was an econ test, Friday had a 4-page computer architecture paper, and then a 2500-word history paper due before we left. I won't bore you with many of the details, but the history paper deserves a mention, as it was written in Grinnell-style. I woke up Sunday morning to write it (I had done the reading) (also note that the IES trip to the outback left Monday) (the parentheses serve no purpose other than to make 3). I wrote about 600 words by noon, and was feeling confident. Unfortunately, I wrote maybe 100 words all afternoon. After dinner, I managed to get to 1000 by 9 pm, when I left to go watch 300 with some other Lincolnites. Got back to the computer lab with three, large, 'Strong' iced coffees and started working again at midnight. Seven hours and one and a half coffees later, the paper was done, with a word count of 2300 and change, plus two people proofreading it (one of whom was Jeff Witz, also pulling an all-nighter). Left the lab at 7:03 am, showered, packed (from scratch), and made it out to get picked up by 7:20 am. Oh, and I didn't forget anything.
First day was a fair amount of traveling, driving up to Melrose near the Flinders Ranges. After unloading our gear, we drove up to see Mount Remarkable and hiked the Alligator Gorge trail. No, I don't have explanations for any of the names. The walk was quite pretty, but also fairly uneven and painfully steep at parts. After dinner, went and saw the Melrose courthouse and police station, which is apparently one of the oldest in Australia. Run by an elderly gentleman who kept making random, semi-humorous comments such as "Anyone know what this is? Girls? This is an old rolling ruler." We couldn't figure out why the girls should know this, but he made a similar comment as we got to old housewife things, like a wash tub. In any case, we all slept very well in the bunkhouse that night.
That night in the bunkhouse would be the last time I would sleep indoors for the remainder of the trip. Second day was up again at 7:00 am. More driving soon found us in the 'outback,' though apparently we saw the outback the greenest it has been in some time, as it had rained a few days prior to our trip (more on this later). A few hours of driving got us to Mt. Ive Station, where we set up shop once more. Unloading the trailer, we drove off on a dusty trail, red dirt following our every move. We then proceed to hike around near the station, where the landscape reminded me of the Black Hills in ND - sparse, scrubby vegetation. The flies also deserve some mention, as the were everywhere. The trick, we learned, was to let them remain on your hat/chest/back, as then they wouldn't swarm your face. Jeff Witz had some troubles with the flies - he wound up with a wash towel like a bandanna across his face in addition to hat and shades, just to keep them away from his face.
That night, we Americans had our first introduction to swags. Think of a sleeping bag for a sleeping bag. Ours were canvas sheathes with a zipper down the side and a small sleeping pad, on which we could put our sleeping bags. Then you zip them up, with the top and bottom open, and it keeps your sleeping bag from getting covered in dirt (there was plenty of it) and from wet from dew / rain (not that big of a threat, but still possible). In short, there were awesome.
While I know I said this would be a two part update at the top, I have realized that doing that would require massive posts, and most of you don't have the attention spans to make it through it all (Grinnellians, I'm looking at you). As a result, I have altered the title slightly, and will continue with a staggered post scheme tomorrow. Cheers.
This update will come in two parts, representing two weeks of Easter Break (yes, it was nice; yes, I actually did work over it). May as well start the story by describing the pre-break madness with tests and papers and what not. Thursday was an econ test, Friday had a 4-page computer architecture paper, and then a 2500-word history paper due before we left. I won't bore you with many of the details, but the history paper deserves a mention, as it was written in Grinnell-style. I woke up Sunday morning to write it (I had done the reading) (also note that the IES trip to the outback left Monday) (the parentheses serve no purpose other than to make 3). I wrote about 600 words by noon, and was feeling confident. Unfortunately, I wrote maybe 100 words all afternoon. After dinner, I managed to get to 1000 by 9 pm, when I left to go watch 300 with some other Lincolnites. Got back to the computer lab with three, large, 'Strong' iced coffees and started working again at midnight. Seven hours and one and a half coffees later, the paper was done, with a word count of 2300 and change, plus two people proofreading it (one of whom was Jeff Witz, also pulling an all-nighter). Left the lab at 7:03 am, showered, packed (from scratch), and made it out to get picked up by 7:20 am. Oh, and I didn't forget anything.
First day was a fair amount of traveling, driving up to Melrose near the Flinders Ranges. After unloading our gear, we drove up to see Mount Remarkable and hiked the Alligator Gorge trail. No, I don't have explanations for any of the names. The walk was quite pretty, but also fairly uneven and painfully steep at parts. After dinner, went and saw the Melrose courthouse and police station, which is apparently one of the oldest in Australia. Run by an elderly gentleman who kept making random, semi-humorous comments such as "Anyone know what this is? Girls? This is an old rolling ruler." We couldn't figure out why the girls should know this, but he made a similar comment as we got to old housewife things, like a wash tub. In any case, we all slept very well in the bunkhouse that night.
That night in the bunkhouse would be the last time I would sleep indoors for the remainder of the trip. Second day was up again at 7:00 am. More driving soon found us in the 'outback,' though apparently we saw the outback the greenest it has been in some time, as it had rained a few days prior to our trip (more on this later). A few hours of driving got us to Mt. Ive Station, where we set up shop once more. Unloading the trailer, we drove off on a dusty trail, red dirt following our every move. We then proceed to hike around near the station, where the landscape reminded me of the Black Hills in ND - sparse, scrubby vegetation. The flies also deserve some mention, as the were everywhere. The trick, we learned, was to let them remain on your hat/chest/back, as then they wouldn't swarm your face. Jeff Witz had some troubles with the flies - he wound up with a wash towel like a bandanna across his face in addition to hat and shades, just to keep them away from his face.
That night, we Americans had our first introduction to swags. Think of a sleeping bag for a sleeping bag. Ours were canvas sheathes with a zipper down the side and a small sleeping pad, on which we could put our sleeping bags. Then you zip them up, with the top and bottom open, and it keeps your sleeping bag from getting covered in dirt (there was plenty of it) and from wet from dew / rain (not that big of a threat, but still possible). In short, there were awesome.
While I know I said this would be a two part update at the top, I have realized that doing that would require massive posts, and most of you don't have the attention spans to make it through it all (Grinnellians, I'm looking at you). As a result, I have altered the title slightly, and will continue with a staggered post scheme tomorrow. Cheers.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Pubcrawls and dropping the ball
Since we last left our hero, leagues started for frisbee. This has resulted in my hamstrings tightening to a degree where I could probably turn coal into diamonds with a leg extension. It has been a blast, though, and I went to the last day of try-outs for Adelaide Karma, a club team that competes at Nationals in Australia. Despite my quite sore state, I was selected as the reserve player for the team, which was apparently weighted by their desire to build the team over three years and me just being here for a semester, not as appealing. None the less, I was quite excited. Olson will also be glad to know that the Lincoln College basketball training has begun, and the captain said he is going to have me start doing plyos so I can be the center (despite him being taller, bigger, stronger).
The Adelaide Fringe Festival, a smorgasboard of music, comedy, and all things unique, has been going on since the beginning of March. Like anything you'll eventually get around to, nearly all of the Americans (and Australians, for that matter) hadn't gone to anything, despite a lunchtime act browsing one day after we missed the Future Music Festival. Well, one of the bands, Neo, had flyers up on campus, and when I checked them this past Tuesday, I realized that their last show was that night, so throwing caution to the wind, I left frisbee a half hour early with another American, showered, called a cab and, grabbing Witz on the way out, proceeded to Thebaurton. Turns out this group was exactly like their posters had looked like--Australian jam band. Show was awesome, and we talked to them afterwards about Bonnaroo and recording shows for distribution. I'd link one of their songs for all to listen, but Filezilla refuses to sftp, so it will have to come later. Last night, we saw the Zooma Zooma Late Show, which was a largely a Louis Prima tribute bad. The singer had the songs down so well that we were convinced that he was American until the between song banter was distinctly Australian. Both the guy who came with me and I really wanted to swing dance, but as we had gotten no girls to come with, it was hard to get anything started. We did find out more about the local scene, though, so that was exciting.
Final interesting bit for this week would be the Engineering Society's pub crawl, which went down on Friday. This crawl tries to take the title of largest pub crawl in the Southern Hemisphere, which may or may not be true, as it tends to draw 1000. The theme this year was Ninja Turtles, which was funny. Basically, people, everywhere. True story. The Lincoln people ditched me part way through, but luckily the frisbee players were there to save me from loneliness. All in all, quite an experience. No Dad, no good beer was involved. Though there was an excellent James Squire Porter at the Neo show.
That's all for now. I guess I should have mentioned that I will not be updating this too regularly as, though I may want to, if I do, it will make Greenleaf look bad. Sorry to everyone, but you guys know how sensitive he is about these things.
Sarcastically yours,
DUI
The Adelaide Fringe Festival, a smorgasboard of music, comedy, and all things unique, has been going on since the beginning of March. Like anything you'll eventually get around to, nearly all of the Americans (and Australians, for that matter) hadn't gone to anything, despite a lunchtime act browsing one day after we missed the Future Music Festival. Well, one of the bands, Neo, had flyers up on campus, and when I checked them this past Tuesday, I realized that their last show was that night, so throwing caution to the wind, I left frisbee a half hour early with another American, showered, called a cab and, grabbing Witz on the way out, proceeded to Thebaurton. Turns out this group was exactly like their posters had looked like--Australian jam band. Show was awesome, and we talked to them afterwards about Bonnaroo and recording shows for distribution. I'd link one of their songs for all to listen, but Filezilla refuses to sftp, so it will have to come later. Last night, we saw the Zooma Zooma Late Show, which was a largely a Louis Prima tribute bad. The singer had the songs down so well that we were convinced that he was American until the between song banter was distinctly Australian. Both the guy who came with me and I really wanted to swing dance, but as we had gotten no girls to come with, it was hard to get anything started. We did find out more about the local scene, though, so that was exciting.
Final interesting bit for this week would be the Engineering Society's pub crawl, which went down on Friday. This crawl tries to take the title of largest pub crawl in the Southern Hemisphere, which may or may not be true, as it tends to draw 1000. The theme this year was Ninja Turtles, which was funny. Basically, people, everywhere. True story. The Lincoln people ditched me part way through, but luckily the frisbee players were there to save me from loneliness. All in all, quite an experience. No Dad, no good beer was involved. Though there was an excellent James Squire Porter at the Neo show.
That's all for now. I guess I should have mentioned that I will not be updating this too regularly as, though I may want to, if I do, it will make Greenleaf look bad. Sorry to everyone, but you guys know how sensitive he is about these things.
Sarcastically yours,
DUI
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Great Taste, Less Filling
Seems appropriate, especially with this blog I created one day to start telling everyone of my happenings here, and then the only post made to it was a note a friend wrote in the text field while I was out of my room. My original goal was to bring my personal journal up to date and then fill you all in with the fun bits, but seeing as the hard copy is falling further and further out of date, I decided to bite the bullet and give you all a little something now.
The problem is that so much has happened (about a quarter of it interesting to anyone besides myself) that I cannot write about it in one fell swoop. As such, we are going to use the Momento style of story telling, and tell you about the end first. And by end, I of course mean what's going on right now.
Nah, instead we're going with general information. Let's see - I am currently in Adelaide, city of 1.2 million or 1.4 million, depending on who you ask. The metric system and Celsius temperatures run rampant in this place, and the weather while I have been here has ranged from over 40 C during the day down to a couple of chilly nights where I have no idea what the temp was, but the sheets and blankets in my room were not enough. People here do drive on the opposite side of the road. It is mind boggling, though is becoming less so only recently. The sun is a beast. You can feel yourself baking in the 15 minute walk to Uni, and I know people here that have gotten sunburned in transit.
Speaking of 'here,' I am staying at Lincoln College, a residential college of just over 200 people, where Kinnear seems to have assured that all the oldies (people who have been there at least a year) knew my name. For those who are curious, I am staying in Hambly, third floor. The food, while not anything really less in quality than Grinnell, has a distinct disadvantage in much fewer options being available in much smaller quantities (you get one serving, period). Suffice to say, I have been assaulting the salad bar in order to keep my figure. And for those of you who didn't know already, the internet the college provides costs $.05/MB downloaded, apparently instituted to attempt to control torrenting and various other downloadings. Luckily, local traffic is ok, so we can steal each others movies with no consequence to the pocketbook.
I am now entering my fourth week of classes at Adelaide. I am taking International Trade, Computer Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, and Migrants & the Making of Australia. The amount of PowerPoint lectures has been at 100%, making taking notes difficult. All of the classes except for also draw 100% of what is in the PowerPoint from the text, making taking notes difficult. There are weekly readings/problem sets for various classes, but half the people seem not to do them, as they aren't graded (yes, parents, I am doing them). The Migrants class is very interesting, I try to pay attention in my two CS courses, and I have given up getting anything from my econ course, though I heard the last lecture he did was good (the one that I missed, of course).
Now, the important bits. Yes, I have petted a kangaroo--soft fur, reminds me a soft lab. Yes, I have petted a koala--falls somewhere between afro and shag rug. No, none of the Australians look like Aden--it must have been genetic engineering. Yes, all of the Americans have been taking advantage of the lowered drinking age (examples to follow in my retrospective), but what is most important at this point is that you all know that alcohol is a LOT more expensive (Bindman, your Malibu runs about $30; Olson, a 24-pack runs $30-$40 for the cheap stuff; Fenster, they don't even have 40s, though they do have 750ml, which is kind of fun to say). The High Life of Australian drinking is boxed wine (goon), bought in 5 L boxes for around $11 a piece. Two of the Americans took up a gauntlet on St Patty's, when some of the oldies said that they couldn't do a power hour with goon. Of the three participants, two were ill and passed out by 9 pm. On a completely unrelated note, there is a nice beach 40 min from the college that we can take a tram to, and many a hot day has been spent there, though our frisbee attempts have been battered by winds.
I have joined the Adelaide team, and starting this week I am playing ultimate four days a week, with leagues on Monday and Wednesday and practices on Tuesday and Thursday. I am hoping this will put me back into shape after having a terrible number of run-ins with Christmas cookies over break. We even have a version of Jesse (meaning player who looks much older than us, but still plays as well) who introduces himself as Wombat, and he coaches the men's team.
Most importantly, they do not put shrimps on the barbie here. They just don't. Aussies are all about 'snags' (read: sausages), which come in both beef and chicken varieties. I'll let you mull that over until my next posting.
Down Under Ian (as opposed to Greenleaf)
PS: Yes, I did pick this background just to imitate Ian's and blur the line between us even more.
The problem is that so much has happened (about a quarter of it interesting to anyone besides myself) that I cannot write about it in one fell swoop. As such, we are going to use the Momento style of story telling, and tell you about the end first. And by end, I of course mean what's going on right now.
Nah, instead we're going with general information. Let's see - I am currently in Adelaide, city of 1.2 million or 1.4 million, depending on who you ask. The metric system and Celsius temperatures run rampant in this place, and the weather while I have been here has ranged from over 40 C during the day down to a couple of chilly nights where I have no idea what the temp was, but the sheets and blankets in my room were not enough. People here do drive on the opposite side of the road. It is mind boggling, though is becoming less so only recently. The sun is a beast. You can feel yourself baking in the 15 minute walk to Uni, and I know people here that have gotten sunburned in transit.
Speaking of 'here,' I am staying at Lincoln College, a residential college of just over 200 people, where Kinnear seems to have assured that all the oldies (people who have been there at least a year) knew my name. For those who are curious, I am staying in Hambly, third floor. The food, while not anything really less in quality than Grinnell, has a distinct disadvantage in much fewer options being available in much smaller quantities (you get one serving, period). Suffice to say, I have been assaulting the salad bar in order to keep my figure. And for those of you who didn't know already, the internet the college provides costs $.05/MB downloaded, apparently instituted to attempt to control torrenting and various other downloadings. Luckily, local traffic is ok, so we can steal each others movies with no consequence to the pocketbook.
I am now entering my fourth week of classes at Adelaide. I am taking International Trade, Computer Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, and Migrants & the Making of Australia. The amount of PowerPoint lectures has been at 100%, making taking notes difficult. All of the classes except for also draw 100% of what is in the PowerPoint from the text, making taking notes difficult. There are weekly readings/problem sets for various classes, but half the people seem not to do them, as they aren't graded (yes, parents, I am doing them). The Migrants class is very interesting, I try to pay attention in my two CS courses, and I have given up getting anything from my econ course, though I heard the last lecture he did was good (the one that I missed, of course).
Now, the important bits. Yes, I have petted a kangaroo--soft fur, reminds me a soft lab. Yes, I have petted a koala--falls somewhere between afro and shag rug. No, none of the Australians look like Aden--it must have been genetic engineering. Yes, all of the Americans have been taking advantage of the lowered drinking age (examples to follow in my retrospective), but what is most important at this point is that you all know that alcohol is a LOT more expensive (Bindman, your Malibu runs about $30; Olson, a 24-pack runs $30-$40 for the cheap stuff; Fenster, they don't even have 40s, though they do have 750ml, which is kind of fun to say). The High Life of Australian drinking is boxed wine (goon), bought in 5 L boxes for around $11 a piece. Two of the Americans took up a gauntlet on St Patty's, when some of the oldies said that they couldn't do a power hour with goon. Of the three participants, two were ill and passed out by 9 pm. On a completely unrelated note, there is a nice beach 40 min from the college that we can take a tram to, and many a hot day has been spent there, though our frisbee attempts have been battered by winds.
I have joined the Adelaide team, and starting this week I am playing ultimate four days a week, with leagues on Monday and Wednesday and practices on Tuesday and Thursday. I am hoping this will put me back into shape after having a terrible number of run-ins with Christmas cookies over break. We even have a version of Jesse (meaning player who looks much older than us, but still plays as well) who introduces himself as Wombat, and he coaches the men's team.
Most importantly, they do not put shrimps on the barbie here. They just don't. Aussies are all about 'snags' (read: sausages), which come in both beef and chicken varieties. I'll let you mull that over until my next posting.
Down Under Ian (as opposed to Greenleaf)
PS: Yes, I did pick this background just to imitate Ian's and blur the line between us even more.
Friday, February 16, 2007
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