Birds in Adelaide

Toby!!!!

2009-11-10T21:46:00.002+10:30

Today at school, Toby visited!!

Who is Toby you may ask? He made the last 5 of Australian Idol, and then pulled out to let someone else have another chance. He's a local school teacher, and eventually decided that teaching was more important than being an Idol. What a guy!

Needless to say he charmed everyone. Gemma gave him a card from all of us, and he answered questions from both Sam and Alyssa (he thinks Stan will win).

We've been following Toby's progress on Idol as he's related to someone in Gemma's class.

You've heard of 6 degrees of separation? Well, Adelaide has only 2!

Our Dad went all around the world and all we got was ...

2009-07-27T21:36:00.002+09:30

A DALEK!

Yes, the inflatable Dalek shown in my photo of the Stamp Centre on The Strand in London somehow made it back to Adelaide! And it didn't take long to attack the kids.

A Few Spots Along the Way

2009-07-25T21:49:00.000+09:30

Although the trip was largely business, there were a few opportunites to see the sights. While in LA, we stopped at Griffith Observatory, where there's a great view of the LA Basin, and it isn't that far from Hollywood.

In Alexandria VA, I stopped by the old neighbourhood, and drove past our old church. This year's VBS subject is AUSTRALIA!
In London, first stop was my favourite store in all of Europe, the Stamp Centre which sells all manner of SciFi paraphenalia.

Nearby is the Australian High Commission which was flying the South Australian Flag. It is a much more impressive building than the Australian Embassy in Washington.

With friends out for my last night in London, we went to a Malaysian Restaurant, then walked along the bank of the Thames past the Globe and were confronted with this view.

On my final day in London, I visited the Science Museum and Museum of Natural History, two places I hadn't been before. Here's two of my favourite exhibits from the Science Museum, Stephenson's Rocket and Thomson's cathode ray tube - I know geek, geek, geek.

And then I came across this exhibit, and I thought I had been time warped. I've used most of the stuff on display here (and still own some of them!)

Here's the main hall of the Natural History Museum, very iconic.

Around the World in 18 days

2009-07-25T21:40:00.005+09:30

I recently had the opportunity to travel around the world in 18 days, stopping off in LA, DC and the UK. And the great thing was every spot I stopped, I had friends that I could catch up with and spend time with.

Los Angeles

Alexandria, VA

London UK

Flat Stanley in Adelaide

2009-03-09T18:04:00.002+10:30

Gemma and I drove to Windy Point to show Flat Stanley the view of Adelaide. Windy Point (and Mt Lofty provide spectacular panoramic views of Adelaide - very few other cities in this world have these sorts of views).

As you can see we have taken good car of Stanley, to the extent of making sure he wore a seat belt on the drive.

The Return of the Red Dwarf

2009-03-08T19:21:00.000+10:30

Those who know me well, know that one of my favourite TV shows is Red Dwarf. So when we recently bought a small red Suzuki Swift, the custom plate was an obvious choice.

All this to look forward to.

2009-03-05T20:30:00.002+10:30

How would you like to find out what the future holds for you? Well Sam found out recently.

In unpacking our stuff, we found an old class photo of mine from when I was around Sam's age. Sam thought we had a photo of him! (you may ask what happened to me - Sam did)

More Flat Stanley

2009-03-05T17:36:00.001+10:30

Today Flat Stanley went to school with Gemma. He was introduced to the whole class and made to feel very welcome! Gemma also read out his letter to the class.

Flat Stanley

2009-03-04T22:10:00.005+10:30

We got a visitor from the US in the post today. Flat Stanley arrived from Virginia. Gemma was very excited. She will be taking him to a few places over the next few days, but tonight he saw the lounge room and the front yard, with the BIG tree that we have.

Rain at last

2009-03-02T18:20:00.008+10:30

It's been 8 weeks since we landed in Adelaide and since then just 0.6mm of rain has been recorded officially. A couple of times we've had just enough to make the cars dirty but nothing to make the ground wet. Until this afternoon. Finally wet roads, wet ground, and maybe enough to put some water into the rainwater tank. Here's some video I've just shot in our front and back yards. You can hear some of the native birds that are excited too about the weather. Not a heavy downpour, but it's a start.

Marchfest

2009-03-01T16:43:00.002+10:30

Marchfest (instead of Oktober fest - get it), is a family fair held by the kid's school each year in March as a fund raiser. It's got a German/Austrian theme so everyone dresses appropriately (I wore my Bayern Munich soccer jersey).

The school seniors do micro credit and sell their services as part of the day. The boys were into coloured hair.

These boys had some goofy animals for sale.

And Alyssa and Co. sold pens decorated (they were in high demand).

There was also some dancing and each of the kid's classes were involved in dances (think heel-toe or chicken dance). I took video, and will try and blog it eventually.

Rain

2009-02-20T17:30:00.000+10:30

It rained today. Not enough to get the ground wet, and from this first photo you couldn't even tell.

But these close ups of the car show that it rained just enough to make a mess of the car!

Family Service

2009-02-20T13:38:00.002+10:30

Alyssa's class was involved in a family service today, along with the kids from the school's Early Learning Center. The younger kids were more interested in just about anything else than singing, but Alyssa's class made up for it nicely.

Hot, Dry and Dusty

2009-02-16T20:17:00.002+10:30

We've now been back in Adelaide 5 weeks. To a large extent we've plugged back into life here at school, church, Liz's work and the house (I return to work tomorrow so that will be a major change). We've got a house full of furniture and our stuff both from before and from the USA and places we visited while away. But there are a few noticeable changes.

Adelaide is brown. Like Arizona is brown. Due to the increased heat in summer and water restrictions, there are very few lawns left that are green. I'm doing my best to bring part of our front lawn back to life, but it will be a slow process. To date, Adelaide has had 1mm (that's 1/25th of an inch) of rain for the calendar year (normally it's over an inch by now). What this all means is that it is an incredibly dusty place. We recently opened the windows in the house one night during the hot spell to cool everything down and are still cleaning the dust and dirt off everything! I bought a car last week and it has taken less than a week for it to be covered in dust and dirt even though we store it undercover. And of course there are restrictions in how it can be washed!

The kids are all back into music lessons and Sam is playing B Grade cricket with his school (a separate post will appear). We're back at church as well, but we're yet to commit to anything as of yet.

Adelaide itself has changed very little in the two years we were away. The trams now block the rest of King William Street and part of North Terrace.

After regularly travelling large distances, we are yet to leave the Adelaide environs since arriving back. We may venture as far as Kangaroo Island for a holiday later this year, but our plan is for a very quiet year. We'll see how that pans out.

First Cricket Game

2009-02-14T13:10:00.011+10:30

Today is Sam's first real cricket game for his school. Whites and all. Here you can see some of the protective gear he has to wear. Not bad for a truly non-contact sport, all to protect from a little red ball.

Here's his batting stance.

And suddenly it's time. He walks out to the crease. It's a lonely walk. Notice how green it is here. Public grounds such as the local oval are the only places with green grass any more here. We've had oly 1.6mm of rain so far this year! The oval is situated on top of a hill, and surrounded by beautiful Australian bush.

His first run off the bat, as he deflects the ball past the wicket keeper.

A few overs later, the ball bounced high and he hit it into the air.

The fielder waited.

And waited.

And held it. So Sam was out for 2. Not a bad effort first up.

Time for his team to field. And here he is bowling.

Sam was the only bowler to claim a wicket (the rest were run outs etc).

Although his team lost on the day Sam had a great day and can't wait until next Saturday morning for the next game.

One Day Cricket

2009-02-10T21:40:00.004+10:30

It hasn't been a good summer for Australian cricket. Losing the Test series and one day series to South Africa, the Chappell-Hadlee series against New Zealand offered a chance for redemption. But Australia was 2-1 down in the best of 5 series coming into Game 4 at Adelaide Oval today.

I took a day (well afternoon/evening) off from unpacking to spend the day at the cricket. Given it was a Tuesday, the crowd was small, but the weather was fine and the view great from the southern hill.

The flags were all at half mast in memory of those who died over the weekend in the tragic Victorian bushfires. All proceeds from today's game went to the Bushfire Appeal.

Here's the Australian team observing a moment's silence before the start of the game.

New Zealand won the toss and batted first. Here's Nathan Bracken (Australia's current best one-day bowler) going through the motion.

These balls reach almost 100 mph!

This is the famous Adelaide Oval scoreboard, which has resisted modernisation over the years. Everything you need to know about the state of the game is on the board somewhere. What's unusual about this photo is some yobbo who's climbed on top of the bar in front of the scoreboard to rescue an inflatable toy they'd been throwing around. He got up there quickly, but took more than 10 minutes to get back down.

New Zealand recovered to score an impressive target of 244 runs.

Here's the show that was put on as the sun set. The flight path to Adelaide airport passes just to the north of the Oval and you get a great view coming in.

Australia came into bat and started well, but lost some quick wickets, including a ridiculous run out of the in form Brad Haddin by David Hussey. Fortunately he focussed and got on with the game and lead Australia towards victory.

The electronic scoreboard next to the 'old' scoreboard is used to graphically display when something goes on.

There's also a third umpire who uses video to determine the result of a near decision with the help of the 20 million cameras situated around the ground. We waited anxiously for this decision near the end of the innings.

YES!

And Australia comfortably won, with a 6 winning the game with 10 balls to spare. No problem.

It's Here

2009-02-05T21:22:00.000+10:30

Our sea freight has finally arrived. Lots of boxes, just when we had fit everything into the house, another 124 items show up! We'll be living with boxes again for another few weeks!

Hot in the City

2009-01-28T21:12:00.002+10:30

After making comments to friends how pleasant the first few weeks back have been, summer has hit. Yesterday was 43.7 (110), the hottest day in Adelaide for 5 years. And today, with a forecast of 44 (110) again, we hit 45.7 (114), the hottest day in Adelaide for 76 years. And the forecast for the next 4 days is above 40 (104) and above 38 (100) for the next week!

Back to School

2009-01-28T09:03:00.000+10:30

3 weeks and 1 day after we hit Adelaide, the kids went back to school. And there was much rejoicing. Didn't help it was already 36 degrees (97F) when we took this photo at 8:30 this morning. But the kids had a great day at school, catching up with their friends.

Australia Day

2009-01-26T19:59:00.002+10:30

"Australians all let us rejoice for we are young and free."

Today is Australia Day, the day we celebrate the arrival of the first fleet in Australia in 1788.

The tradition is to have a BBQ and we did just that today at a friend's place today, with a pool as well. The kids didn't leave the pool all day apart from time to eat.

Tour Down Under

2009-01-23T17:46:00.001+10:30

This week the Tour Down Under has been held on the roads of Adelaide and neighbouring hills. It is Australia's version of the Tour de France and this year had extra impact with the return of Lance Armstrong to professional cycling.

As part of the Tour, their is a day where anyone can ride the same course (or part of it) on the same day as the professionals. The bike group that I used to ride with before heading to the US (and will again once my bike arrives back) known as Mud Sweat and Gears entered as a team and had over 50 members riding, as young as 11 and as old as 83. There were three distances available - the full 155km, 97 kms or a 30 km loop. The majority of our riders did the 97kms.

Here's the group photo for the group doing the 30 km ride.

The jerseys look cool, especially with the team name on the back.

On the way to the ride.

The finish line for today in Angaston in the Adelaide Hills.

Some of the team's riders as they approached at the end of the ride.

A family affair.

This guy had an L plate on the front. At to make it even better, a photo taken of him made it to the front page of the Advertiser.

Some of the team still had enough energy to celebrate their completion of the course.

The gentleman in the middle of this picture is 83, and did the 97 km ride. He was the center of a story on the local current affairs program earlier in the week.

We even had a foreign import from northern California who found out via the internet about the ride and joined us (there were also a couple from England but one was an expat Australian).

This gentleman currently reads the weather on the local television channel, but found time to do the ride with our team.

The group photo (although there were still a few missing/AWOL at the time).

The weather was perfect for the ride and the scenery through the Barossa Valley was spectacular. I'll be riding next year.

We're Here!

2009-01-06T09:16:00.000+10:30

We touched down on time, with ALL our luggage in sunny Adelaide to be greeted by a host of thousands (well tens) of family and friends. Great trip, but a long time from Rome to Adelaide (about 40 hours!), wiht 14 hours in the QANTAS Club in Hong Kong.

More later!

Back Home

2009-01-05T15:19:00.000+10:30

Here's a blog for us once we're back home. We're not there yet! Check out http://birdsindc.blogspot.com/ until we're back.