Madness of March / Of lemmings and me

So I figured I needed to write again, its been a few weeks. But as I sat down, I can't think of what I should write on, or what "theme" I could do. There are all the funny native place names here (Wagga wagga, Booti Booti, Woolloomoolo, Ku-ring-gai and others) and their juxtaposition against the starkly Anglo names (Sutherland, Georges Hall, Regents Park, Hyde Park, Gosford and others) or even car types (the previously mentioned Ute and who know Daewoo makes cars??) but nope, can't figure out what to talk about. So heres a little bit of what I have been up to lately.

Well the end of February is the official end of summer. And your useless fact of the day is that this year February had 5 Fridays, there haven't been 5 Fridays in a leap year since 1980 and there won't be again until 2036. Most of summer it has rained here (something like 40 of the 80 days of summer). There have been floods and I have seen the Forrest Gump type rains (you know...

"One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath."

Trust me, walking to the train for work in that rain sucks. I end up walking a few kilometers a day to and from things. Took me a week to get used to it, but now its kind of nice to get out and away from everything. Except the lemmings.

You see I got here and used to almost wonder about the sanity of everyone. Rushing in their suits and work clothes to the trains/buses to and from work. The majority of people with the ubiquitous white ear buds in (Ipods are still the must have accessory / body modification). Now I realize I almost became one. Yes I gave in and bought an Ipod. The real differences are I refuse to wear a suit just to wear one, or even a tie for that matter. If I have client meeting or a presentation then yea, I'll wear it. But I won't put the jacket and tie on until I get right where I need to be. And really who wants to rush to work. I know I don't. So yea, I am the slow walking guy in the fast walking side walk. But they can all give themselves a heart attack running to meetings. I prefer to walk at my own pace and not worry. Besides, I give myself enough time to make it where I need to be without rushing. So you see, when I look out the window and see the people in the street, it reminds me of the lemmings following each other into oblivion.

Also, with all the rain we have had, one thing that really annoys me. People with open umbrellas when they walk under store awnings. There are streets that for blocks are covered by store awnings. But apparently some people seem to think that either they are just too precious to get even one drop of water on them or that the awnings are going to collapse and drown them. You see when the side walk is packed and they walk by everyone around them gets wet from their umbrella and people have to squeeze by. So yes, I have asked people if they were afraid they were going to melt. Or that I was glad they had their umbrella open, I didn't realize it could rain under the awnings. Or if they walked with their umbrella in the stores too, you know just in case it rained in there or the sprinklers went off. Yes ok, so this does get me a bit annoyed.

All of those seemed like halfway interesting posts but a bit more interesting to me was what I was missing at home. Yes Carolina basketball. They won games with Q running point and without Lawson playing? Made it back to No.1? And going into this weekend the game against Dook will decide who is the regular season champions... Sad thing to miss, box scores, SI and tarheelblue.com articles only do so much. So I had to get a basketball fix. I went to see the semifinals of the NBL (Aussie NBA) and am going to the two championship series games here in Sydney (its a best of 5 series). I saw the Sydeny Kings (but they wear LA Lakers colors) play the Perth Wildcats. Each team is limited to two US players (Kings have Dantye Draper and Isiah Victor). They also happen to be the only black guys on the team. It was actually a good game for Sydney (they killed Perth) with alot of history (the teams hate each other). And fairly cheap - good tix only $30 and beers are only $6. So yea got my fix, but Sunday I will have to settle for watching the stats for UNC/Dook round 2. No one here is showing it. So don't be surprised if some of ya'll get a phone call from me about the game. Go Heels!

Sidebar - found out my old high school wrestling coach just retired. Learned a lot in those years. And my friend and old teammate is the new coach, kind of makes me feel old. Thanks Matt, good luck Joe.