One last Australia photo

Maybe my favorite Australia vacation photo. GP in her new bikini.

Close up? - UPDATED

UPDATE: I was going to point out that all of the atoms are carbon, but I thought some people might check the file name.

Yes, it is diamond. If you want a close up of the metal, take out the 1/4, 1/4, 1/4 atom positions and change all of the atoms from C to Au and Cu.

Also, the Australia photos are up on Yahoo Photos, but no descriptions. It took 2 days just to get the photos up.

And my international TV only 1/2 works - I'm getting 2 Jesus channels (including Jesus music videos) and 1 Philipine channel.

*****

Natalie asked for a close up. She forgot to specify (to a materials geek), how close up.

A pinnacle in my life

A Reuters article tying beer with metallurgy.

Only naked women could make it better.

Excuse me, I've got something in my eye .

A short funny

Sometime during our Australia trip, GP didn't something silly and I called her "goofball" such as I would with many other people (friends, family, etc.).

The second time I said it, she said "Why do you call me golfball?" I laughed and refused to correct her. She caught on later, though, and learned it is not "golf" but "goof" and we found a definition for her.

I slipped and called her goofball again last night as I cooked dinner, and she said "if you call me goofball, I will call you "mothball"". I laughed and asked why she would call me that. She replied that goof (or golf) ball sounded like her family name and my (Chinese) family name is Ma, so she blended it together. I laughed some more and explained mothball to her.

She got the last laugh when she pointed out that mothballs are smaller than golfballs, so she can smash me.

Ah, fun with language.

Australia trip report (rev 1)

I'll write this in bits and pieces. Probably reediting this post, not making a new one, so tune in often!

We left very early Friday morning. The car picked us up at 5:00am, my standard drive-to-Pudong time for the 8:45am flight to Singapore :p Not so bad - I get to sit in back, call my mom, and sleep.

I had chosen our seats ahead of time on the interthingy. So nice to be able to do that on Singapore Air. All four flights I chose the 2 seat sections in the middle or back of the plane. It means we got to sit without someone beside us.

Unfortunately, there are still people in front of you. On flight #1, the guy in front of GP (apparently Indian) had been jogging and not showering for, I'd guess, 4 or 5 days straight. We both felt a little sick from his BO and I asked the stewardess if we could move. There were no other seats, but she sprayed some air freshener for us. Luckily, he didn't move around much during the flight, so we didn't smell him again until landing.

On flight #3, we had some Aussie obnoxious family in front of and around us. Two or three generations of "Orange County Chopper" types - talking loud, bouncing their seats (the one with my video screen in it) and generally being obnoxious. These were the lowlights of the trip, so I won't complain too much.

We arrived in Sydney about 6am, went through customs/immigration and found the train to the city. Circular Quay station is about a 200 yard walk from our hotel (see photo below), so everything was pretty easy. We were able to check in early and get a nice, long nap before sight seeing.

Time for a break. More later.

Some of the photos

It's arduous, but I have a public which, I know, demands Australia photos.

I've got them sorted, I rotated the rotated ones, I made 800 pixel copies to send to Yahoo and the cute, 400 pixel copies (31 photos) to post here. They even uploaded to friend Ray's site ok tonight (happy belated birthday, Ray).

Now the task of putting the damn HTML code together :p Maybe I'll pretty it later, but you can at least see some photos now.

Ok, it's a little prettier now. Click some of the links to see more about specific items.

GP gets Haagen Dazs in Singapore
I don't know where the pose came from. It just happened.

Cockle Bay at night

Cockle Bay again

The Opera House at a different angle than usual.

The bridge and 2 tourists.

Bats, thousands of bats in a big, famous park near the Opera House.

It just screams "Sydney"

The Russell Hotel,
The Rocks, Sydney. Walk across the street and you are looking at the Harbour.

A very lucky photo on our second night.

GP waiting for the train to go to the Koala Park Sancturary

Matt at the Koala Park (as if you needed this comment).

Blue penguin!

Sleepy Koala

GP and 'roo

My kangaroo imitation

GP likes crab. She really likes crab.

GP and koala. They are amazingly soft. The koala, that is.

Kanga with baby roo

This was a big surprise when we walked around the corner from our hotel.

The Carrington Hotel, Katoomba, Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains, 2 hour train ride from Sydney. As nice as, but different from, Estes Park or the Poconos.

Matt at the visitor's center

GP and The Three Sisters

Matt, GP and Three Sisters.

GP hiking

It's true; black is slimming.

Giant staircase to the first of the Three Sisters

A cute little house for sale in Leura, Blue Mountains

Spiderman. Just catchin' some rays.

GP on the plane home. I wish I could sit so comfortably on an airplane.

Back from vacation - happy days they were

Australia was a great time - I suggest everyone go. The photos will be up later this week (I sure hope) and a trip report might be put together. We'll see how much I can remember.

To whet your appetite, highlights include:
a smelly man on the airplane about made us gag with his BO
food was delicious and I finally saw a king crab - freakin' huge!
Bondi Beach is very nice, but it was too cold to do much
GP is smaller than all Australians. Australians may even be fatter than Americans.
Clarke Quay (Singapore) does not serve good food between 2pm and 6pm
All hotel rooms in Australia are too noisy to sleep (extrapolated from 3 hotels)
Hotel beds in Australia are very comfortable!
Australia's most popular restaurants (by number seen): Japanese food and gellato

More later. If I ain't too lazy :)

Two more days to Australia!

Don't get your hopes up, but I'll try to have a trip report and photos when we return from Australia. The schedule is: Friday fly to Singapore, spend 6 hours in transit (time to go into the city and have SG crab), then to Sydney, arriving Saturday morning.

Sat, Sun, Mon nights in Sydney at the Russell Hotel near the harbor, opera house, and all that cool stuff. Tues-Fri nights . . .undecided :) Maybe stay in Sydney, maybe fly to Darwin, Brisbane, Cairns for warmer weather. Don't know and we'll decide when the time comes. Time to pack and get there.

I come back to work for 1 week, then we go into the May Holiday week - no work. And then the Quarterly Review for work is the next week. Hmm, I guess I am working a little during May HOliday :p then I have to see about a trip to Israel to learn how to do my job better. My shortcomings are becoming more obvious, so I'm doing what I can on my own to learn project management, productization, etc. Maybe I should have gone to MBA school with Becky ;P

My May return to the US is being delayed until sometime in June. GP is going to try again for a US visa early June and I hope (and think) it will happen this time. The tentative plan is fly to Chicago, drive to Omaha (stop in DSM on the way) then go to Philadelphia for at least a couple of days. Time permitting, she'd like to see NYC and DC, but that's a lot of travel. We will see. Most important is showing her the old homestead and letting her see Joshua in person. I've convinced her that she doesn't really want to eat his face and she shouldn't say it in from of mei mei (my little sister).

The weather in Suzhou is warmer, the flowers and trees are looking beautiful and my allergies aren't too bad. The traffic, I believe, is getting worse. The food is the same, though there is a nice, new grocery nearby which has the best produce selection I've seen. Two different kinds of lettuce! At only 3 times the price as the US :p But at least I can have a salad.

More after Australia. I'll try to send postcards. Just like I try to do many things that might not come true :^D

And, to get back into the birthday wishes, Happy Birthday to Lily! I think she will be 11 on April 12. I'm not sure the years are right, and I made up the date, but it's nice to give her happy wishes nonetheless.

Fine, here's a damn update

:)

But wait! There's more!

Weather here last week was becoming very nice. Breezy, sunny, up to about 80F by Friday. Oh, I love Spring! Then cooler Friday night, cold and windy Saturday, cold and windy and rainy Sunday :( I don't like Spring.

This morning it is cool, breezy and I don't know what we are looking forward to. In the US, I get my weather from TV and radio. Here, I get Chinese from TV and radio. Most of my weather reports come from my driver. "Ming tian xiao yue?" "Will it rain tomorrow?" If the answer is simple I'll understand. Questions about temperature are circumspect. "Comfortable tomorrow? 18? 20?" I don't know "Celsius" or "temperature", so I talk like this. And yet I get compliments on my Chinese, easy crowd here.

I'm planning a small party for the end of May, Memorial Day weekend as a matter of fact. If anyone will be in Suzhou, let me know and I'll send you an invite.

I keep introducing GP to Mexican food. Last night was bean burritos and Spanish rice. Would have been enchiladas, but the leftover sauce from last time was fuzzy. The pronouncement was "Mao - ha ha ha" mao, in this case, means hair.

If it ever gets easier to post pictures, I'll try to post again. For now I have a heavy week of meetings to look forward to. Next week is the CEO visit, then, Australia! Then 1 week back, then 1 week off for May holiday, then quarterly reviews. Crud. I need to get a lot done.