Jim Travels The World

My company works with the Kangaroo Hoppet, Australia's largest cross-country skiing event. I built the registration form. On Friday I was to go with my coworker up to Mt. Beauty to assist with the race, to answer any questions they may have about the system when on-site. Well, the coworker got sick, so it was thrust upon me to rent a car and get up there myself. Normally, I would research a trip and find out what to do when i got there, but this was totally out of nowhere; I was expecting my coworker to be my guide. We drove out of Melbourne through the little country towns down into the beautiful valley around Mt. Beauty in Australia's "alpine country". Alpine country in Colorado means 10,000 feet. Here it means about 4000. Dinner in Mt. Beauty If you're wondering, I did not eat the Tavern Boner steak. But I'd be lying if i said I wasn't a bit curious. Alpine country here is crazy. It's like rainforest covered in snow. No pine trees like back home, ju...

with most things, Oz is behind the US in terms of technology. Broadband adoption and speed is slow, Aussie-made website are cluttered and unfriendly (especially the gov't sites). And then, in the midst of that, occasionally there are items so strangely high-tech it's like something you'd expect in Japan. This LCD monitor installed in a hand dryer in a men's loo is an example: so after you poop, the advertisers can getcha for that 5 seconds you're drying your hands.

Today, for the first time in 3 months, I got behind the wheel of car. For the first time in my life, that wheel was on the other side of the vehicle: It was a little crazy at first, Lisa had to be the watchdog during my first few turns in and out of traffic. But all that led us to Dandenong National Park and through the little towns of Melrose, Olinda and Sassafras. crazy tree in Sherbrook forest: and a panorama (click on it to see the full size):

to help paint the picture of the insanity of the area of town in which lisa and i live, when i was strolling down chapel street (about .5Km from our house) yesterday, this Lambo and Ferrari were parked a few feet from each other:

yes, the name of the construction company really is Hooker Cockram red bluff near sandringham beach street art in downtown melbourne

I've never been a "city person". I grew up in Oklahoma, and i dealt with that fact by getting high & drunk as often as possible for my first 24 years of life. When I grew up and left that behind, I knew I had to get the hell out of OK, so I moved to Colorado. Living near the mountains, I really thrived. After a few weeks in CO, I knew I'd never want to leave. So that's why it's a bit ironic that I've accepted this "dream job" in Melbourne, Australia. I've landed myself smack dab in the second biggest city in the country, a living breathing 4 million-plus metropolis. I live amongst the peoples, ride the train every day (and let me tell you, riding the train during 'rush hour' is a competitive practice), wait in lines at museums, delis, convenience stores; always surrounded by other people. that's why, even though this is an experience I'm glad to have and will never forget, a part of me just cannot wait until i can again b...

The Australian immigration museum is supposed to be a tribute to how Oz was bolstered by immigration throughout its great history. Instead I found it to be a bitter memorial to how the first white settlers to this country oppressed those who were already here, and any non-whites who came after (sounds familiar, eh?) if you can't read the text in the image, it's: RUBBING IT IN we take his country, ring his possum trees, and steal the carvings from his father's tomb, and give him in a grim exchange for these a blanket, and the whiskey of his doom; then turn him out an outlaw and a wreck, and later yet our hands thrust home the blow by hanging around his brown and withered neck a plate inscribed "king bill of so-and-so" when you think of that, along with the dictation test used by customs to exclude non-whites who came to this country, it's quite an eye-opening experience. One thing I learned from Lies My Teacher Told Me was that as Americans, we operate from ...