Fortune Green Road

Every good superhero needs a hideout. Safe in the knowledge that no doers-of-evil would ever use the internet, I can reveal that my London lair will be located at 58 Fortune Green Road, West Hampstead, NW6 1DT. It is located above a scooter store, making quick getaways rather convenient (in a race across London, I would choose a Vespa over the bat-mobile anyday. I imagine afterburners are of limited effectiveness in gridlock, and the turning-circle on that thing didn't look great). It's nice and close to West Hampstead tube station (even superheroes have to use public transport sometimes), and Fortune Green (Green = Park) is right across the road (you've got to stay in shape when you wear spandex to work).

Sure, the fact it is has three decent-sized bedrooms (i.e. their dimensions are greater than a human lying horizontally) and two bathrooms meant it was a long way in front of the pack to start with, but the deal-sealer was the terrace. Admittedly, on days like today, with a maximum temperature of 6 degrees celsius and a minimum of 0, it isn't the place to be. But come summer (I'm told England has one), I'm sure it will come into its own.

And, we have a sofa-bed and a camp-bed downstairs, so if anyone needs refuge from the cold streets of London, just send up the bat-signal.

Tahoe

I suspect it is because I grew up in a climate in which a snowball wouldn't have a... well, a snowball's chance in hell; but something about seeing that fluffy, white, frozen susbtance covering everything turns me into a little kid.

We spent the 22/02 - 25/02 in the chalet pictured at Lake Tahoe. I think the picture captures M-A's trepidation at navigating the driveway, and rightfully so. Doug parked the car when we first arrived, and after unloading the gear into the house, we returned to find it had slid off the driveway! Naturally we wedged the wheels from then on. We headed out on the saturday morning to Northstar ski resort.

Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that in order to be truly proficient in alpine sports, you need to travel to the snow more than once every 3-5 years. Perhaps the black-diamond run wasn't the best choice of warm-up? Apparently the snow-plow technique's effectiveness diminishes as the angle of descent increases (the quad-burn, however, certainly increases). Doug and Geli had no such problems. Doug on his snowboard managed to comfortably outpace M-A and I, while travelling backwards and filming us. And Geli was just a purple-colored blur on skis! Check out the attached video for a sample of our style, as filmed by Doug. OK, so we may not make the next Warren Miller film, but it was steeper than it looks, I promise ;) That's Geli in the purple that goes speeding past us.

I also have to make it official that I am never staying in a chalet without an outdoor jacuzi again. Sitting in a steaming bath, with your beer being kept cold by a cup-holder dug into the snow, after a long day on the slopes is about as good as it gets.

Saturday night it continued to snow. There was some disupte as to how much was actually dumped, but you can take a look at the cars below and judge for yourselves.

This certainly made for some interesting skiing on the Sunday. Powder is fantastic up to a point, past that it actually becomes a hindrance. Taking a fall into a metre of snow certainly makes for a soft landing, but getting back to your feet is a challenge. And 3 feet of visibility was a stretch of my limited abilities. The Irish coffees Doug and I shared at the end of the day went along way towards thawing me out though. Doug graciously offered to pick up the bill - an act I think he may have regretted slightly once he saw the price. I think they came in at about $US9 a pop. Although in typical American style, they did come in containers that would be more accurately described as buckets than cups. Also, the canteen was at the very top of the mountain, so then we had to navigate down. Despite, or perhaps because of the whiskey boosting my courage and impairing my motor-skills, I made it down.

By Monday morning the storm has passed, and as far as snow-days go, it was about as good as it gets. Blue skies and plenty of snow. The pciture on the right is the view down our street! Geli took M-A and I to Alpine Meadows ski resort, and we all had a brilliant day (despite me initially releasing that Doug's snowboard I had borrowed was configured for a goofy-footer. Now I know why they call it goofy; because that's how I felt when trying to ride that way).

All up, three sensational days. Not much else to say...

IT Mecca

There is a sacred duty which requires all abled-bodied members of the Muslim cult who can afford it, to travel to the city of Mecca at least once in their lives. Likewise, all abled-bodied IT professionals (no, its not an oxymoron) should make the pilgrimage to Silicon Valley at least once in their's. Thanks to Doug, Geli and their friends (thank-you again Martina) I was fortunate enough to have guided tours through the headquarters of Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, and to have lunch in the cafeteria of a little known internet start-up called Google. And I'd have to say, the religous fervour of Muslim devotees has nothing on that of the members of the cult of Google.

If the Google-flavoured umbrellas and sweaters (despite the fact there is no uniform) weren't enough, the hundreds of matching Google bicycles gave it away. And like any good cult, the brainwashing mechanisms are extremely effective; after spending a couple of hours there, I was ready to be baptised! We drove in past the vans providing hair-dressing and dental services to employees, walked past the fully-assembled Tyranosaurous skeleton, continued past the LCD screens showing live search queries and into one of the many cafeterias serving endless amounts of some of the best food I've had anywhere. Apparently, Larry and Serge (the Google high priests, aahh...I mean founders) liked a particular Mexican resteraunt so much that they bought it and installed on the campus for employees to enjoy! I also had my closest encounter with a multi-billionaire when Larry Page walked right by us having lunch.

So at least now when I complain about whatever workplace I happen to be in, I can do so knowing that the Google grass is in fact greener (at least for now; I have to wonder if financial times ever get tougher (like their money-tree gets termites), what will be the first to go; the free haircuts or the jumping castle?)

My only regret from my latest trip to Silicon Valley is that the Computer History museum was closed the day I wanted to visit it. M-A was also devastated (at least I think that's what she said?).

Invincible

If I stop to think about it, I am aware of how fragile life is. I know, as Richard Dawkins has written, there are infinitely more ways to be dead than there are to be alive. But often my experience of every-day life does not seem to concur. In fact, sometimes I have to conciously remind myself that I am actually not invinvible.

Ten days ago, back in Brisbane, while cycling to work on a Monday morning I was hit bit a car. Well, to be strictly accurate, I hit a car. I was cycling along the side of Ipswich Road (the only reason I was riding in that location was that road works have destroyed large portions of the south-east bikeway, but I won't get started on that here). I was travelling perhaps 40km\h, when the car beside me decided to turn left into a driveway. As I was directly beside the vehicle on its left, I was trapped with nowhere to go other than hurtling into the passenger-side front door. I had almost no time to brake, and the majority of my velocity was still present at impact. As it was a 4WD-style vehicle (an SUV as they would call it here in California), my head struck the passenger's window (chalk one up for mandatory helmet laws) and I found myself lying on my back on the road - my kinetic energy having been very quickly transformed into a lovely cocktail comprising a splash of noise, a sprinkling of heat, a dash of gravel-rash and a side-serve of bruised hip. Having assuaged the occupants of the vehicle of their fears that they had done me some permanent damage, I continued on my journey, cursing my bad luck and the fact that I was going to be five minutes later to work. It wasn't till a few hours later that I began to reflect on the many, many ways this could of turned out much, much worse.

Fast-forward six days, and I am in California with Doug and Geli (M-A's brother and his wife). Doug decides he and I will go mountain-biking for the day, up in the Soquel Demonstration Forest. Now Doug is a far more experienced mountain-biker than I (as is anyone who has ever owned a mountain-bike, sat on a mountain-bike, or even played a mountain-biking video game), but I wasn't about to let this deter me from trying to keep up with him. Perhaps, in hindsight, the result was predictable.

A warning for the kids at home: don't attempt a somersault while riding a mountain-bike.

Although this did get me to slow down considerably for the remainder of the ride (unfortunately, but not suprisingly, this fall happened rather early on, in the less difficult terrain), the fact is I completed another few hours of similar, but even more dangerous behaviour than that which had just caused me to part with some of my own blood. Once again, this most obvious of sensory feedback (in the form of physical pain) that the activity I was undertaking was a potential threat to my existence did not cause me to cease it. Once again, it was not until a few hours later that I reflected on the fact that had those sprockets, which made a series of punctures both above and below my eyes, taken a slightly different path across my face, things could have turned out significantly worse.

As humans have evolved, we have developed a few useful mechanisms to give us the maximum chance of survival.
Pain; the body telling the brain 'I am being physically damaged, please attempt to stop this from happening'.
Fear; an emotional response to a threatening situation that causes a number of physical changes in the body, proven to increase the chances of surviving the situation (ideally by removing oneself from the location).
Why is that modern humans not only ignore these inbuilt warnings, but actively pursue them in the name of recreation? Do we really think we are invincible, or our day-to-day lives so boring that we need to remind ourselves we can die in order to remind ourselves we are alive? Is adrenaline addictive?

I don't know, but the day after we hiked up to a place called Castle Rock, in the Santa Cruz mountains and went rock-climbing.

And tomorrow we leave for Tahoe to go snowboarding.

Invincible!

Homeless and unemployed

In 1770, Captain James Cook, aboard the Endeavour, extended a scientific voyage to the South Pacific, charted the east coast of Australia and claimed it for the British Crown.


And what did the Brits decide to do with this vast land, abounding in nature's gifts and girt by sea. This land with a unique set of flora and fauna found nowhere else on this planet. A land whose climate, it would surely be admitted by the most patriotic Englishmen, is more suited to human habitation.


They made it a penal colony, of course.


They then spent the next 80 scraping the bottom of the Brittish barrel, and hearding up the societal sediment onto ships bound for Oz.


Little did they suspect that 200+ years later the decendants of those convicts would have their revenge (and not just by beating the English at every sport they ever invented). It seems to have become a right-of-passage for every Australian, at some stage between the ages of 20 and 30, to voyage to the ol' dart, spend a few weeks\months\years there whinging constantly about the weather\food\beaches\etc, then fly back to Oz with pasty-white skin and as many pounds as they can carry (pounds being used here to measure both currency and weight).

And so it is that M-A and I take our place in the queue.
We have left our home, jobs and almost everyone who cares about us behind, and departed for London, England (via a few weeks in sunny California). Here we go. . .