Entries tagged with memory lane

Current Location: Chez Canuck at last

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Airports are lonely places for me... America and Australia, not so much.

This is being written (but not posted) in San Francisco Airport where waiting for my flight back to Australia. That’s where I want to be right now. I’ve had my adventure, now it’s time to get back to something resembling normal life.

Of course, at the moment I have nothing to do but have some dinner and a local beer and wait, with occasional periods of feeling really alone. I’ve been in this same airport on three occasions, in 2005 when I was moving to Australia and had a lot to look forward to, in 2008 when I had 12 hours to explore San Francisco on a stopover, and right now. To be honest I’m in a pretty good mood, but parts of this trip have been so good that coming down feels like a crash. Getting on the airport monorail has been a relaxing experience and has allowed me to get away from the crowds of other travellers. Behold my aspie fascination with trains!

On the upside, I will be arriving in Canberra on Sunday morning with someone to pick me up and welcome me home. I have less cause to be lonely now than I have for a long time, and I have a lot to look forward to.

Looking back, I am surprised that it took me until the age of 33 to properly visit America. It was right next door when I was growing up, and while I kited off to Europe and India and Korea in my early 20s I scarcely gave the US of A any thought. I have really enjoyed my time here to the point that I have thought about the prospect of working and living here. I now have a few contacts which might at some point lead to that (though apparently because I have been on this tour supported by the US taxpayer, I have to wait for two years before I can get a visa entitling me to live or work in America, even if I married an American girl.)

I will be back. I have met a lot of people whom I would like to see again, I have contacts that could at some point become professionally useful, and I have a standing invite from a girl in Florida who has “a major crush” on me. After snubbing America for years, I think I still have a lot to make up for.

UPDATE: From the other side of the world after 14 hours of floating in a tin can.

Qantas does seem to have a policy of seating me in middle seats and denying me hot chocolate. Never mind. When their backs were turned I found in the unattended galley four half full jugs of hot chocolate and more marshmallow than I could possibly consume. Hooray!

I'm now back home. I could live in plenty of places in the world but this is my home, and it is good to be back to it. I felt the same way whenn I returned to London after a journey and I felt distraught upon leaving it. Now I scarcely ever think about moving back. There really is something to be said for having your networks of friends around. Wherever I have lived and wherever I end up living, local factors like that end up making a lot of difference.

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Leaving again

I've been away from Australia for quite some time, but I will be back on Sunday morning. It's time really. America was great and it was good to meet up with old friends in Calgary and to see my nieces again

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What others have observed

One thing that happens when you meet old friends whom you've not seen in a long time is that they make observations about you that can surprise you.

Observations made in the last day...

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I won't move again unless I have a good reason...

I bought a new camera today. Man technology is getting cheap! Just like me.

I also swung by my old university and went up to the history department. My MA thesis supervisor is now the department head and he was recently in Australia studying cattle ranches in the Northern Territory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as compared to the same experience in Canada. (Can you see why I decided a career in academia was probably not for me?) I may be seeing him if he comes to Canberra and introducing him to one of our Senators who knows more about cattle in the Northern Territory than anyone else I know.

An e-mail arrived today from America. It was from a guy who is part of a consultancy that uses data and demographics at a far more sophisticated and detailed level than I do. They have data goes way beyond the census and includes consumer information. I don't know how they get it, but it is far beyond what I do and it does interest me. These guys have helped target political campaigns just like I do, and have applied their analysis in commercial areas too. I've done pretty well starting up a demographic project on my own time with no support and part of me wondered if the fact that I have done similar work to them on such an independent basis would possibly be a window of opportunity in career terms.

I've gone on about having slightly itchy feet, but the idea of moving overseas again and starting over from nothing like I have done so many times before is really a non-starter for me. But if had set up opportunity to move into (even for just a few months) I think the experience would be great, and would mean I had reached a solid five on the list of countries I've lived in. I always preferred my holidays to be working holidays anyway.

Well, this is all just an idea now. It may not be practical, but even the idea of it has put me in a good mood.

I'm off to dinner with some high school friends tonight whom I've not seen in years. Hooray for Facebook!

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The stress of being nice

I spent a good portion of today visiting Independent MPs and having to be nice to people. It wasn't so bad. I didn't have to do it for too long in any one place and people were generally pleasant. Also, I didn't really have to convince them to support us. I just had to tell them in a professional tone what we were planning. It's much easier when you know you will almost certainly lose but that it doesn't really matter if you do.

I also visited some of the new crop of Liberal MPs and their staffs and gave them a hand with some of the demographic analysis that I do. Some of them didn't really seem to get it, but most seemed to be switched on enough for it to be useful. One of them gave off a bit of a creepy vibe and I came away with the feeling that I had just visited a used car lot. Another one, the youngest MP in Parliament, seemed to be pretty solid. It struck me that at the age of 20, if he were to go on a Parliamentary delegation to America, he couldn't drink. He is a Member of Parliament, but he's not old enough to drink overseas.

I had a look at some of the candidates in California and Florida and prepared some background notes. (OK, I copied and pasted from wikipedia.) There are some very interesting races with some interesting candidates. An e-mail was sent aroud today asking us not to blog or tweet or post on Facebook about the conversations we have in America. It's fair enough I suppose. We want people to be frank and knowing whatever they say in private is likely to be broadcast online will compromise our ability to have free and open conversations. Still, I suspect this doesn't mean I can't talk about the people I meet in broad terms.

I may be staying in my current desk after January when our new adviser starts. Apparently CoS knows who it is but is keeping quiet on the matter because this person's current employer doesn't know. While I'm away we will have a temp around (not in my job) who is the son of a fairly notable journalist, and who is legally blind.

I filed my taxes late last night, and I reckon I should be getting about $300 back. The ATO is one of the most helpful bureaucracies I have ever encountered. Also it looks like I might get my $168 visa fee that I mistakenly paid back from the American Embassy. Hooray for money!

I have had this song stuck in my head for the past few days. Now you can have it stuck in your heads too.

1, 2, 3, FOUR, 5, 6, 7, 8, NINE, 10, 11, 12. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo. TWELVE!!!

Yes, I learned to count from a psychadelic pinball machine.

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HA HA!!!

I was on Facebook this morning and came across the group for Pineridge Elementary School which I attended for seven years. In the process I saw a photo of the guy who tormented me during my walk home when I was seven (and small for my age) and he was nine. I can recall afternoons and evenings spent at home dedicated to acting out revenge fantasies that mostly involved me knocking him into next week.

Well I got my revenge after all.

( Revenge and Politics, in that order but not related. )

TW: Ring pullups, burpee pullups, upside down hang turns, 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of kettlebell swings and ring pullups, 50 medicine ball crunch throws. Also, on Monday I successfully did 63 situps in one minute and therefore got myself up to 100% on the fitness test courtesy of yurusumaji

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Meme Questions

Courtesy of yurusumaji.

♫ How did you end up in the business of politics?

At a very young age (about 5 years old) I was quite taken with the spectacle of a political convention on television, and as I grew up I became actively interested in the nuts and bolts of politics. I studied two degrees worth of it at university, and maintained an involvement and interest in it even though my interest in having a career as a politician waned. In the UK I kept up my interest in it (fueled by my latent Anglophilia) and wound up working in party HQ in the 2005 election campaign. When I came to Australia I got myself involved in a few campaigns which led to a job in Canberra, again working in party HQ. When I became a citizen I was eligible to change jobs, and moved up to work in the leader's office. And that's the story.

♫ What were you like as a young child?

Very quick to withdraw into my own little world. Stubborn. Energetic. An information sponge. In many ways much like I am now.

( Cut for photos of a young Luckycanuck )

♫ Did something specific prompt your manic exercising?

Nothing specific. I was always interested in being physically active. I played cricket for years until I decided I was rubbish at it and took up rugby instead. I started going to the gym seriously when I came to Oz. Now I get uncomfortable when I don't get enough exercise.

And while we're on the subject...

TW: Run nearly 2km to the gym. 100 leg presses, 100 openers, 100 closers, 100 kickbacks, 100 calf extensions, row 400m then 10 burpees - 5 rounds, then run home from the gym.

♫ Do you participate in regular summertime recreational activities such as camping, hiking, etc?

Regular activities in the summer? Not really. It's the rugby off season so I probably spend more time at the gym, and I get to the beach as often as I can when I'm in Sydney.

♫ Do you have life goals left to accomplish and if so, what are they?

Hmmmm. Once upon a time my life goal was to become Prime Minister of Canada (and in my late teens I was actively working out how to make that happen.) I have had it as a goal to get married and settle down, to find my way into a world beating career, to move to England, to move to Australia, and to get a doctorate in history. Some of these I have accomplished, and some I have not. To be honest, I'm not sure what my life goals are right now. Of the things on my list that I haven't accomplished, I'm not sure how many of them I would still want or whether they still mean the same thing to me.

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Stubborncanuck

Saturday was spent at the party conference, which was technically work I didn't have to do, but it did put me in touch with people who have left Canberra and whom I've not seen in a long time, including the guy who hired me in the job that brought me here in the first place. I've been in Canberra for four years and I'm in a different place than I was when I first came down. Having been exposed to politics full time for four years, I'm not as impressed/intimidated by the people I first met way back then.

There was some minor aspie stress yesterday, mostly in having to deal with new people, but nothing over the top. A group of people went out late last night (and wound up at the casino until about 5am, but I didn't join them. Being sent home with a few airplane sized bottles of dark rum was enough for me.

This morning there was a 10km run sponsored in part by the Canadian High Commission, but the twinge in my upper back was still bothering me a bit and I decided against participating (which meant no pancakes for me.) Later on in the day I did get to the gym though.

TW: 200 leg presses (40-30-20-10-10-20-30-40), 200 calf extensions, then row 400m and 20 marine pushups and 20 air squats - 5 rounds.

One of my old friends who is a Major in the army based in Darwin apparently also has an interest in Crossfit and we discussed the merits of burpees over the weekend.

( Click here for a trip down memory lane. )

Yes, even at the age of 10, I was a stubborn canuck.