Advetnure Menanti!

My wife is amazing. That’s not big news. Hell, that’s not even news to anybody that has met her. What you lot don't yet know is that she’s so amazing that Australia has decided to send her to Kuala Lumpur to be awesome at the Malaysians for 3ish years. And by ‘her’, I mean ‘us’. Yep, it posting time.

We are all moving to Kuala Lumpur mid/late next year.

Time to renew the passports and dust off this blog. It’s time to get my trailing spouse, or as I prefer ‘manbag’, on again. It’s very early days, so about all I really know right now is that we are very excited and that adventure awaits!

Two seconds. One Wasp. One Knife.

The other day I told Jane a memory from my childhood. It was an interesting childhood (tho the story that follows doesn't really go far towards establishing it as such) and Jane suggested that I ought to write down at least some of them. And so, as a wise and dutiful husband, I did as I was told. Had to happen sometime.

I mostly approached it as an exercise in writing. So, I'll be happy to hear thoughts on either the memory or the writing.

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I have killed a lot of insects. Be it by slap, heel, swatter or spray. In my idle youth, I made use of exotic means such as the water hose and magnifying glass. In my teen years I engaged 3rd party killers, feeding insects to the various reptiles that were in my charge. By now, in my forties, the count has to be thousands. Likely tens of thousands. 

I remember just one. It was a wasp and I killed it in Mexico during my mid-teen years.

At the time, we lived about 20 minutes outside Cabo San Lucas. It was the 1980s and conditions were 'rustic'. The luxury hotels that form an unbroken parade from the airport at San Jose to the arches of Cabo were only a mirage. We had no running water, but on the plus side the pit-toilet commanded a stunning view across the arroyo and down to the Pacific. Meanwhile, the surrounding desert was home to many wasps, and many of those wasps tried to take up residence in our home. Nests weren't really a problem. If we found one it would be sprayed with pesticide. Simple and done. A more common problem were the frequent visits to our kitchen area.  All our cooking was done in a area that was basically open-air. No walls and only partially covered by palm-frond roofing, allowing easy access for wasps wanting to feast upon whatever traces of food or drippings of fruit juice remained on the counter and cutting board.

You can't really spray pesticides on a kitchen counter or cutting board. Faced with this limitation I discovered a simple and effective way of dealing with our unwanted visitors. The thing about wasps is that once you disconnect the pointy end from the angry end they are a lot less scary and much easier to remove from the home. So, I dispatched many unwanted visitors simply by letting them land, get stuck into whatever they were intent on eating and then making quick use of an old broad bladed kitchen knife.  It was simple and easy. However, one thing I learned from my eight years working in the Casino is that any human activity, no matter how simple, repeated often enough will eventually be home to human error. Honestly, I doubt I'd even remember those wasps if not for just one mistake. 

As I said, it was quick, simple and easy. Until the day I missed. From the moment I missed until the matter was resolved, I knew nothing. Only after the fact did thought and understanding return to me in a rush. It was perhaps all of two seconds and it went like this...  I missed. The wasp, quite rightly, roared up and straight at me. I, quite instinctively, raised the kitchen knife to a vertical position in front of my face, skyward like a fencer's salute. The wasp hit the flat of the blade just inches from my eyes making a sweet, dull thunk of a noise. It then bounced off, and fell back onto cutting board. I did not miss a second time. 

So I remember this wasp, and only this one. Not the ones that got away. Not even the ones that got me. I have been stung by plenty of bees and wasps over my life, and none of them stand out. 

So I wonder, why this one?

...I drank what?

I had a terrific chat with Thomas yesterday in the car on the way to school. It started with him saying the difference between humans and animals is that humans drive cars. I engaged the Socratic method, and he abandoned that idea after I pointed out Gramper in Iowa was born around the time cars were being invented, and asked if people born before then were animals since they didn’t have cars. After a few more questions and answers, we were onto the use of tools and really hit the sweet spot. I asked him what is the difference between a bear sitting on a log and a person sitting on a log? Apparently, a bear just sits on a log, but a human knows what a chair is and is using the log as a chair. And so, Thomas now tells me that the difference is the way humans and animals think about things. I reckon he is in pretty good company on that track.

"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself"

~ DH lawrence

And no, its not a perfect answer. And yes, my questions were leading, but it’s still an position that one could find thrown around an under-grad philosophy class and I am very proud of the way he reached that conclusion. He was willing to abandon ideas when they were shown to be false (using cars = human) and moved to new conclusions supported by his considered answers to the questions I was asking.

Then he wanted to know if the Hulk is stronger than Superman. Fair enough, some mysteries are more important than others for a 6yrs old.

BTW - The  1st person that correctly identifies the source and relevance of the title for this one wins 5 internets.

Two birds with one stone...

Tomorrow is our anniversary. I ordered Jane's present well over a week ago and it was delivered in a timely manner, and in a largish cardboard box.

The present is a lovely little 4.5L proper oak port keg with a little brass spout. Even now it is going through the roughly 24 hour prep-process of cleaning/soaking with water before the 1st batch of port goes into it later this evening. All well and good.

Meanwhile, the children (especially Lillian) had designs on the box. Initially she wanted to make it into a giraffe costume, but Jane was able to turn the idea towards just making a giraffe. I provided one small (tho important) idea WRT the engineering to support the head & neck, but Jane clearly watched a lot of Playschool as a child.  Until such time as the kids need help taking down oldman Withers and his haunted amusement park, my own childhood TV experiences will be of little use. In any case, I thought the result was well worth sharing.

We interrupt this complete lack of activity...

 ...to bring you the following picture.

I am sure you will all agree that it was worth the interruption.

Ooooh Europe!

 My first ever European holiday started in the car. Before flying to Schipol and then onto Stockholm, we first had to drive to Toronto because the airlines always gouge you for flying out of Ottawa. The drive – unlike our one previous trip to Toronto - was largely uneventful. Luckily we gave ourselves plenty of time because the traffic for the last 20kms was terrible. We left the car at our hotel (2 weeks parking & shuttle to/from the airport for the cost of one night's accommodation – sweet!) and immediately set about checking in, clearing security, etc all of which was accomplished without incident. Even the flight across was nice enough. Jane got a really good deal on the tickets through a code-share arrangement between a Canadian & Dutch airline (Sunwing & ArkeFly). ArkeFly was easily as good as any flight I have ever had with United, Delta or any of the other usual North American airlines.

We flew out of Toronto about 6pm, and landed at Schipol in time for a proper dutch breakfast of ham and cheese on toast. I had never been to Holland before, and hardly consider it fair to make any judgements based solely on few hours in the airport. As such, all I'll say at this point is that it was a fairly unremarkable airport other than that every now and then an absurdly tall person would wander through my sleep deprived field of vision. Perhaps its an unconscious response after generations of living in a coastal country that is almost entirely below sea-level, but for whatever the reason there are an awful lot of very tall Dutch people.

Anyway, a few hours later we boarded our flight to Stockholm where we were met at the airport by Jane's family & a minivan. After much hugging we were whisked back to a hotel for dinner and sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep.

The next day was a bit messy. I found myself the designated driver of the minivan with Jane, her parents and our kids (plus associated baggage). OK, fine. It wasn't much bigger than our car back in Canada and the Swedes drive on the same side of the road as Canada. No big deal. ...unless you need to drive approximately 45 minutes to a ferry on the other side of a completely unknown city with all roadsigns in Swedish. Jane did her best to navigate from the Googlemaps print out we had been given, but (understandably) we still missed a turn and got lost almost immediately. To cut to the chase, we made the ferry but we spent most of the drive unsure as to whether or not we were actually going the right way. This is a very fraught way to travel when you have a hard deadline in a set location and I do not recommend it. To make matters worse, having reached our destination one of our backpacks was stolen at the dock. Thankfully it was not the bag with our passports. I lost the new Kindle I got in Iowa, and losing our camera on the 1^st day of my 1^st visit to Europe was pretty poor as well, but none of that was nearly as important as Jane's jewelry. Jane continues to jump through hoops for the insurance company, but even if she satisfies their needs the pieces that were lost carried considerable sentimental value. Their loss casts a long shadow.

Good thing the perfect antidote had been planned for the very next day...  

Counting Down...

And so, some two years later, here we are in a serviced apartment for the last couple weeks before returing to Australia. Nice enough place (free WiFi). Good views and located right on the edge of downtown. Plus, the kids love the pool.

Slowly but surely we are extricating ourselves from the life we built over the previous two years. Canadian kids are back in school this week, but Tom and Lilli are home with me. Jane is easing herself out of the loop at work. This Thursday will be my last trip to the store for games night. Friday night is our official farewell at the Australian High Commission. What started as a trickle of farewells is well and truly picking up pace.

I'll try to keep the blog going, but am not sure how much 'Jason returns to the 9-5 government job grind will interest anybody (myself included). If nothing else I have ample experiences from the last 2 years that I should have blogged but haven't. Que the flashbacks. First up, I'll try to knock out a few entries on the move and our recent trip to Sweden and Holland. Unfortunetly, most of the pics are on the desktop PC which is Canberra-bound in a shipping container but I'll do as best I can with the pics on the netbook.