Flat out...

...like a lizard drinking.Damn I've been very busy the past few weeks. Flying around Australia. (I fly from Perth today, and back to perth Monday. The system I work with is the flavour of the month here in Australia and just about everybody wants it.

Good for my air miles, bad for my sleep and peace of mind.

Today it was quite cold here in Perth and the striking thing is: many people wear very old-fashioned sweaters and Woolys. Really weird to see a bloke in a red and green banded sweater for the eighties.
Tony, a nice guy I met here, told me it was logical. He's a Scottich bloke who arrived here 15 years ago and he said: yep my sweaters are about 15 years old too and very much out of fashion.

Work, work, work

This time Townsville was all about work.
When I got there the server I was supposed to work on was in a state of decomposition. I mean it almost seemed that the IT service provider did this on purpose.

Having fixed that the IT-service provider basically stole all my credit stating: yep, we've fixed it, and asked for money to my client. What a bunch of fucking leeches. I can only say:
Outsourced IT = very, very, veeeery bad idea.

I had seen this before but... fucking hell, never this bad. It's like they're doing this on purpose: slow network, old computers, no access to anything, not understandable IT-helpdesk based in Pakistan.

Aw, well, I fixed it, installed it and got ready to deliver an admin training: I really like administrators, they're intelligent and I speak their language.
But right before I went to my hotel for a well deserved evening a manager came up to me and said: "you'll be giving a presentation on how to implement this from a Business Process Analyst's perspective". Before I could say: "NO, I don't wanna, fuck off", he added, the CEO would be attending so they expected great things.
Right, there goes my evening, night and morning. Who needs sleep anyway.
So Monday night (don't forget I got up really early to get the first flight to Townsville) I worked till very late to get this presentation ready.

The next few days were a mix of configuration, presentation, meetings and documentation. Really no time to sleep or eat.

I'll be back because they loved me. But next time I'll go a little easier.

RottNest Island

Another Island discovered by the Dutch (I said semi-proudly feeling Dutch). There are some marsupials on the island that if seen from a distance look like huge rats. It’s actually a small kangaroo with a naked tail. They’re quite cute, and very fond of sugar as I discovered (check the Photo it's trying to steal my winegums).

But the Dutch fellow decided it was a rat and called the Island Rattennest eiland… The English not being able to understand any language but their own, translated it to Rottnest Island.

You have to get there by boat (a 1,5 hour ride over the sea). There’s pretty much nothing to do in and around Perth (you need a 4 hour drive to the south or 2 hours flight to the North) so the Perthians are quite happy with this Island and regard it as a weekends retreat. To me it resembles the Veluwe by the sea. A lovely sea, lovely people, lovely Island, but still… not very impressive I don't think I'll return here.

Some Pics

Freemantle, 45 minutes from Perth is just a harbor city like hundreds similar ones in the world. The market is alright and resembles “la boqueteria” in Barcelona – Spain. I buy some a peach, a slice of melon and some pineapple.



The AQWA (Aquarium West Australia how smart) is just another aquarium like the dozens I have already visited. The Box Jelly Fish Foto basically says: The Box Jelly Fish is the most venomous marine creature in the world. A box-jellyfish can kill a human in less than a minute.


Perth has enormous parks and enough space for every one.

I had never swam in the Indian Ocean so I was quite exited to go. I went to Scarborough beach, and splash! Into the Ocean. The water was nice, a little cold.

Swans, the black ones

Swan Taxis, Swan River, Swan hotel, Swan café, Swan Opal Shops, the swan logo for the city council AND the local governor.

I’m guessing Perth has something to do with Swans. The emblem of Perth is 2 black swans. Oh yeah right! I remember: The discovery of a BLACK swan was very unexpected and shocked Europe. Even better, a Dutch man discovered it… Or did he, I’m guessing some aboriginal must have spotted the black swam a little earlier. Europe was under the impression that the only color you could get a swan was white, nothing was further from the truth

Anyway the Black Swan example is used as a principle in presentations as a warning for people who aren’t ready for the unexpected or change. This dogma is underlined by this discovery, the capture and the presentation of this freak of nature. Funny.

I did see a black swam in the distance but didn't get a picture.

Fishing

5:00 Sunday morning. Wake up. 5:10 Get a taxi to Hillary.
Yep I'm here, I'm going fishing today. Yaaaay!
I meet up with a couple of blokes working together. The Harley Davidson riders type of guys.
It's 6:15 and they're having a true Aussie breakfast. Beer. They offer me one, and as I want to make a good impression, I'll have one. (Just got Emma on the phone and she concurred... so hey... If the wife says it's okay :o)

Off we go.

The wind is off shore and rather strong, close to the shore this does not matter but 1,5 hour out at see -so far that land on the horizon is gone since long- the waves really kick in. Must be about 5 meter waves some of them bigger. One of the beer drinkers just turned green and is hanging over the side. (I didn't see that guy the rest of the day, he stayed in the cabin).

Okay, Lines out, its 85 meters here so drop 'm quickly. All of the sudden I see another guy running for the railing. Raaallfff, Baaarffff, Huuuurrrl. And another, and another. By now 4 guys are feeding the fish. Cool, more for me, space to fish and beer that is.

A couple of beer later, we're having fun. However the fish aren't hungry. Well, no matter...

At the end of the day we got 2 small fish and something bit my bait pretty hard and ran off with it, I lost all my tackle. Must have been a shark the captain reckons.

The run back to harbor is a long one, we've been drifting for quite a while. I watch the beautiful Indian Ocean and the guys regularly spurt, vomit an puke their intestines out. The captain smiles, I smile also.

All in all a good day, too bad I didn't catch anything.

I'm in Perth

Well what can I say? So far it’s been quite disappointing. It’s a huge city where thing do not get organized. I wanted to go fishing… too much wind on Sunday and overbooked on Monday. Damn. Ok let’s go surfing: I’ll need lessons so I mailed a surf school. Yeah sure, we’ll meet at the beach on Monday. Okay, Monday I’m there, the instructor is not. I call the number on the flyer: out of service. Back to the city center. It’s a 1.5 mio City so there Must be something happening in the city right? Wrong! Perth closes down like an oyster out of water at Eater. Fuck! So now what. Well Easter Monday, 17:00 I’m back at my hotel room. Okay, I swam in the Indian Ocean for the first time in my life. That’s gotta be worth something :o). I visited Freemantle, Hillary’s, Perth CBD and Scarborough beach so not too bad after all. Perth is nice but not a city I’d like to live. I’m happy I chose Brisie. Brisie Rocks… Perth does not.

I’ve won the Lottery!

Isn’t it fantastic that it’s possible to live and be relatively successful with just a reasonably healthy set of brains?
Of course I had to win the lottery first to get this: being born in a Western European family, having been raised in a fairly stable environment and been able to study at a high level. Once that’s done the world pretty much opens up.
My wife discovered this ages ago and has lived all over the world, so have a few of my international friends. I say this is the best time to be a Western European Young Professional. Enjoy the world!
My tools can be contained in a laptop bag: a Laptop with roaming internet, 1Tb external drive, a phone and a credit card. Another bag with my shirts, suits and shoes and I can work anywhere.
All you need is a little knowledge, some good bullshit and some luck. That’s it.
Can’t believe my luck!

St Patrick’s Day

I met up with Yolanda and Luis at the Pig ‘n Whistle in the centre of Brisie. Off to the parade we go!
The parade 10:00: The Irish community in Brisie, like in any great city, is tight and they take St Patrick’s day seriously. The Parade started in sunny hot weather… St Patrick decided that the parade should take place in true Irish weather so a shower came down for 20 minutes but in the midst of parade. No worries… the dancers kept dancing and the bagpipes kept playing. I spoke with an older man who turned out to be the manager of the largest Irish Pub in Brisie offered him a Guinness and he accepted.
We went in the pub and taste a couple of KillKennies and Guinness.

By now I’m slightly plastered and the sun is out again.

Second pub 13:00. Here most people are dancing and talking. I tasted green beer, a bloke with a powerful coloring agent was nice enough to change my beer’s color, I think my tongue will be green until St Patrick next year. Met a couple of nice people nice enough to provide me with a very silly hat. (I’m wearing green balloons, an Irish Flag and a silly hat and feel a little Irish)
Walking down the corridor to the loo I found an Irish overview of Celtic Families. And sure enough… there it was: the family name of my wife. Mc Cartan. Nice! I feel more Irish by the second.

By now I’m well done. Somewhere between a little drunk and letting all brakes loose.

Third pub 15:00 Good music here. A bagpipe band marches in and plays a set of evergreens, we dance to whatever rhythm we can discover in the music; we’re drinking beer and talk to anyone. A good atmosphere here, I’ll be back here.

Yep I’m now somewhere between stomach pumped drunk and heavily sedated.

Forth pub 17:00
All brakes are gone, the people are nice and the beer still tastes great. We talk to many Irish guys and gals (some of them 4th generation) and pretty much feel a brotherly bond between us. Oh yeah they love Amsterdam. Once I say I’m from Amsterdam the reaction is: tht’s a fucking awesome place… Let me buy you a beer. I must have had 5 beers just saying I was from Amsterdam. Damn I’m cool :o)

20:00 time to go home, I don’t think I can handle a Saturday night in addition to this day. Going out to the pub now sounds like suicide to me right now. I must be getting old.

Be Brave and Shave

There’s something strange going on today. People seem a little more rushed, running around with cake and pie, scissors, shaving gear and razors. What’s all this about then? On the Cat to work I see people with hair painted in all colors of the rainbow? What the fuck is going on?

Here in Oz the thing today is to shave your head bold. Years ago the leukemia foundation though of a good way to collect money for their cause. You ask your friends, family and colleagues how much dough they’d be willing to cough up to see you with a bold head, collect that money and give it to the foundation.
Some colleagues here are actually willing to pay a fair amount of cheddar to see some people with no hair. Most employers will double up the amount raised so there’s another incentive right there. At my office out of 23 employees 2 will get shaved today and 2 already got shaved last week, about half of all people have done it at least once. It’s really huge down here. Literally thousands will be shaved today, not only men but women as well.
Raise awareness and money… sure… but have fun at the same time? Somehow the Aussies have come up with a way of doing this.

The less heroic option is to have your hair painted in different colors. This is regarded as the weaker option but is not frowned upon by the diehard shavers. Not everyone looks great as a shiny cue ball. I think I’ll do it next year although many here would like to see a bold Dutchy run around this year. No way guys!

Airmiles

I’m flying to Perth on the 22th and will be back on the 28th. Now that’s a 5½ hour flight comparable to a flight from Amsterdam to Alanya in Turkey for a 4 day work week (I’ve taken 2 days to explore Perth a bit. Maybe I’ll go diving or fishing or surfing. We’ll see.
The week after that I’ll be in Brisie and the week after that I’ll be in Townsville from the 7th of April to the 11th of April (2 hours flight) doing a server setup, some consultancy and training. I don’t think I’ll stay the weekend.
The 6th of June I’ve planned a holiday with ‘da wifey’ in Cairns to go snorkeling and relaxing as Queensland enjoys yet another long weekend. I must say the pictures of Palm Cove (south of Cairns and where I’ll be staying) looks magnificent.
The Aussies take the plane easily and that’s probably why flying is so cheap down here. Mmmm wonder what my carbon footprint is.

International? you think so?

I was invited to a BBQ (what else?) this weekend by Patrick who is a Swiss bloke and his Mexican wife. I bought some Mexican 'Dos Eqios XX' beer and plenty of things to eat. Patrick, the host, has become a good friend and his wife is fantastic, they are truly International People as they have lived all over the world. Unfortunately they'll move to Calgary in 3 months. So I guess I got myself a place to stay in Canada. (It's only a 15 hour direct(!) flight).

Luis (Mexican) and his wife (Colombian) invited me to Saint-Patrick’s day with Guy (New Zealand), his wife (El Salvador) and a friend (Venezuela). So that's going to be a couple of Latino's, a kiwi and a Dutch guy celebrating an Irish festival in the China town part of an Australian city. It doesn't get any more international than that folks.

I guess that's pretty much the message here: international.
To give you another example: at work we have people from: Zimbabwe, Tasmania (we don't really count that as Australian, it's like the ”Friezen” in the Netherlands), New Zealand (the kiwis), South Africa, Swiss, UK, US (Alaska), Lithuania, Canada, China, Germany, India and the Netherlands. Now don't forget we are 22 in the bureau and only 6 are true Aussies.

You get some very exotic accents here. An Indian Taxi driver speaks quite differently than a Zimbabwean upper class bloke. The most difficult ones are the Chinese. Here are a couple of examples.

Dutch	Its four o'clock lets go for beers.
Chinese	èts fôh o'crock. Wrets gôh fôh beels, velly nâis.
Zimbabwe	Right'o chaps, its four o' lets go for a couple o' swift pints, shan’t we?
South Africa	Fuck! It’s fucking four man! I'm fucking off to pub to get fucked, real fucking fast.

Off to work!

I haven’t told this yet. I’ve got a new apartment since a couple of weeks. It’s very small and nothing like the other one but it has its advantages. The terrace is quite large and the sun comes in the morning (that’s 05:00) It’s in Kangaroo Point one of the most sought after suburbs in Brisie. There’s a pub just around the corner and best of all, I get to go with the City Cat to work.
The City Cats or Cats as they are called here are really fast boats moving over the river. They are quite famous in Australia and they’re the most popular means of transport around the city. Here’s a comparison a movie and a couple of pictures.

Netherlands: Run to car in the rain and darkness, wipe the windows for condensation, join the traffic jam and look at people picking their nose in the car next to you.

Brisie: Walk to the pier in the sunshine, board a City Cat and get a breath of fresh air, walk up to workplace in the sun watching people basking in the sun with a coffee and a cigarette.

Off to work, with a smile, it truly makes a smile come to your face.

Get Out!

There is a war going on when it comes to housing here in Australia especially here in Brisie. A colleague of mine got kicked out of his house with a, hang on to your seats, two weeks’ notice. So imagine you’re drinking a nice cold beer by the pool side and the mailman comes by with a letter on Saturday saying: "bugger off we’re selling the house, and oh by the way, you have 14 days to find a new house, pack, move and settle."
After chocking on your beer making your face turn blue, shooting the mailman’s head off, your face turns red with anger.

But hey, that’s the law down here. You can stay and fight it off with a lawyer for another 4 weeks but you’ll be registered as a squatter and your chances to rent anywhere else plummets to somewhere between ‘bugger all’ and ‘freaking no way’.

So now my colleague has cancelled his plans for the coming 2 weeks and is packing his stuff and ploughing the Internet for a new home. I hope I don’t piss off my landlord.

Castle Mountain

Townsville is known for 2 things: Diving and Castle Mountain. With the diving done, and a couple of hours left before the flight out I decided to climb Castle Mountain.

The promise was to see a beautiful view of Townsville and Magnetic Island. It was about 12:00 o’clock 37C and very humid. It promised to be a long walk about 2 hours of steep climbing. As a dumb European guy I started thinking I’d be fine in the sun from 12:00 to 14:00. Not a smart move there as I must have lost, without exaggeration, over 3 liters of water in those 2 hours. And burned my beloved, manly and beautifull nose.

On my way up I met up with Izzy the lizard (see the picture) and some fool running up the hill like a mountain goat. He probably thought he was doing something healthy but the heavy moaning and screeching panting told me otherwise. I thought I might have to carry this one off the mountain in a bit.

Anyway after a looong climb I find myself on top of a mountain with a fantastic view. (The refinery is circled) To my left, in the distance I can see the refinery where I worked, in front is the city and further out is Magnetic Island.
Not too bad. Right… now I’ve got to run and catch my flight back to Brisie.
All I can say: Townsville: Check!

Taking a piss

Here in oz, just about everyone takes a piss on just about everything. You cannot take anything seriously unless you’re positive it’s true. For example at a client’s there was a power fluctuation on Monday that made a backup generator kick in, this generator failed so the second backup generator started, this one burned out the master switchboard so the entire building was without power. Of course they blamed ProjectWise… After making a good case they explode into laughter… bastards :o)

It’s so bad here that there are advertisements on television warning parents… This is pretty amazing to me so: Picture it: little boy says: “Why was the Great Wall of chine built.” Dad thinks, smiles and answers: “The great emperor Nasi Goreng built this wall to keep the rabbits out of China. Big rabbit problem in China.”
The next shot is the kid standing in front of a class and the teacher saying: “Mark will now give a presentation about China.”
The Pay Off: “Don’t kid kids, they don’t know yet”.
My Pay Off: Never believe an Aussie: check first if he’s taking a piss and then check again.

Diving with Super-gropers

I am sitting on a terrace with a very tasty Cascade premium light beer sitting next to me while I’m writing this. The beer is cold and a lot of condense drips off it… I think I’ll drink it :o) and probably another one after that.

I just came back from a very good day of diving. The boat ride is about 2 hours and of course you see dolphins everywhere: they rode the wake waves of our boat for a small moment. Heaven! Or is it? I looked into the water and saw this huge yellow shark. “Aw that’s a Yellow Tiger shark said the captain. “Not really dangerous.” NOT REALLY? How’s that? Well, he said. I’ve seen a 29 foot White Shark. It was caught a few days later. 29 FOOT!!! Djzeezzuzz..

Alright, so I took the plunge anyway and came up against a very strong current. Dove down to 28 meters as quickly as possible and there she was the SS Yongala who sank a century ago, teaming with fish. There really are no words to explain how many fish there were. It was almost ridiculous. Clouds of fish, you can’t look 10 cm into because they are so dense. Absolutely incredible. The clouds are being split open by hunting trevalies, gropers, barracuda and other hunters. I have never seen so much action, everything was moving. I saw just about every fish in the ocean in that one spot.

Then suddenly: I found what I came to see a super-Groper. This one is called a Queensland groper, and its big, massive, the king of these waters. The one I saw was big enough to be very unkind so I kept my distance: It was about as big as a Volkswagen Beetle and weighs in at 500-600 kg. When I came up they said that the one I saw is called VW (what a coincidence) and isn’t even the biggest. The largest one is called Grumpy and has a hundred kilograms more.

The second dive was a lot easier, no more current as the tide had reached its peak. Again fish o’galore. Clown fish, sea snakes, trunk fish, the biggest trevalies on the planet, a huge stingray, sea turtles, a magnificent wreck and all of the sudden a beeeeeeeeep, buzz, buzz, buzz: my diving computer tells me: “get the fuck out now!”. Damn I’ve been in the water way too long, way too deep. I’m going to need decompression chamber if I don’t get out now, and more I’m flying tomorrow afternoon… This is not good, better hurry. So I reluctantly made my ascent (100 bars left) and got out. My buddy a guy from the Netherlands and I made the 2 longest dives of the day.

The captain and I talked a bit, I enjoyed watching flying-fish scatter off the bow and we even saw a fish ball being attacked from the air by sea gulls and from beneath by travelies and barracudas on the way back. What a day!

Townsville,

Townsville is about a 2 hours flight north of Brisie. I flew there this week and Internet is hard to come by here and very expensive in my hotel room. (12$ p/h) So sorry I’ve been away for a while.
I had done some work for a client so it was time to show him what I had made. I flew there, well dressed, suit, shirt, and shiny shoes, only to discover the site was a Nickel refinery site. So everything was dirty. The guys must have laughed their asses of seeing a white collar dude wearing a helmet, safety glasses, Iron nose shoes, an orange safety shirt AND a suit.
They refine huge, immense and truly gigantic amounts of nickel ore imported from New Caledonia. The Chinese buy everything and anything at any price these days so my client is doing pretty well. It’s a 35 minutes drive into the middle of nowhere and if you have no air conditioning in your car, you’re dead. Its 35C here and humidity is just about 400%.

The people here are so friendly that it’s difficult for me as a Dutch person (a tribe from the north plagued by reservations, remoteness and stand-offishnes) to remain cool. The guys I worked with came to like me and invited me to a restaurant (their treat). Isn’t that cool? One of the guys owns 2 jet skis and if I’m up to it, we’ll go jet skiing on Sunday.
In short the Hotel room : fantastic, view: fantastic, weather: waaay too hot. Work : waaay too much, People: waaaay too friendly. Had a good time. Tomorrow I’m going diving! I’ve heard there are giant gropers out there!.

Rum & driving on the left side

Mt Gay Rum. The best rum in the world. It’s a small brand made in Barbados. I was introduced to it by my lovely wife who dearly loves this elixir. I have imbibed massive quantities of this delicious drink preferably mixed with Coca Cola. Now this rum isn’t easy to come by, I’ve had it specially imported when we lived in Amersfoort by the local liquor store. Costs heaps as well.So I walk into a wine shop here to get some beer (the supermarkets don’t sell any alcohol) and what do I see? Mount Gay rum, not only that but it seems Mt Gay rum is the most popular one in Brisby! You can literally buy it on every corner of every street! This must be heaven! Bummer they don’t have any good Gouda cheese or Ouwe Kaas.

A couple of weeks ago I rented a car to do a tour. The first time you drive on the left side is tricky, dodgy and very scary they said. So with heightened senses a perfect concentration and a little nervousness I took the road. To be quite honest, the first 10 minutes are difficult, and after that there’s no problem at all. Quite easy actually. One thing remains weird, that’s when indicating direction every f*^%cking time the f&%*cking windscreen wiper would come up. The indicators are inversed.

Surf’s up

Body boarding Bassie, although my nickname is quickly turning into Bazz. (I think I'm fortunate not to have been born in Tasmania otherwise I would almost certainly be called "Bazz from Tazz").
Anyway I tried body boarding and after having swallowed a few pints of very salty water, being long enough under water for my face to turn blue, and being washed ashore like having been spat out by the sea itself, I finally got the hang of it. It’s really cool. There are plenty sharks out there so you’re not too comfortable in the water, but hey… this is the Pacific! it’s worth a risk. Next I'm taking up surfing.