Delays, delays...

So, it's not going to be until late October that I actually leave for Brisbane. The delays with getting the visa have complicated the logistics of getting myself and the other guys who are moving down cycled through the apartment they've rented without overlap, so, they'll be extending the lease a month and I get to be the last guy down, instead of the second.

This isn't necessarily bad news, and, in fact, will be easier, as I'll have a more concrete date, and I can quit arguing with the management of the apartment I'm living in now. They wanted to charge me $3300 to break the lease early!

Heh...this was the coolest ride ever.

A couple of months ago, I took a ride up to the North Carolina/Tennessee border and rode a little piece of road we call "The Dragon" and is known officially as Deal's Gap. This is an 11-mile stretch of pristine blacktop, that also happens to contain 318 curves. It's quite the challenging ride, even for a cruiser guy like myself. The floorboards on my bike will never be the same (I must've scraped them 2-dozen times at least).

As it turns out, there are people that take high-quality pictures of all the people riding or driving on this road, and I found the ones of me. They are posted here.

Check out the Deal's Gap site: www.dealsgap.com

On a lighter note

I threw a party for myself a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to get all my work friends, and all my longtime, outside-of-work friends together at once. It was a great time. There were about 15 folks there, and everyone got along well. There was much drinking and carrying on. Wayne was the cameraman, but was also the bartender, so there aren't a lot of pictures, but some do exist. . .mostly of the drunken karaoke singing near the end of the night.

Here they are

Argh!

Ok, so, I'm going to kill the panel doctor who did my x-ray to send to the immigration department in Australia. After stringing me along for two and a half weeks before even sending the thing in the first place, it turns out that he failed to follow the instructions provided on the form I gave him, and now, I've got to have the stuff sent back here, so I can take it back to the doctor and have the stuff done correctly.

So, it's not looking good for me to be leaving before the end of the month. This is starting to be very frustrating. It's not like this is important or anything.

This is the first post!

Ok...

It's countdown to crunch time. The bosses are trying to get me down to Brisbane by the first of September. I'm very excited at this point, but also a little nervous. It's only THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD, after all. I'm sure that once I actually GET there, I'll be a little less anxious.

I'm especially not looking forward to spending a minimum of 24 hours in airplanes and airports. I'm going to probably wind up taking a flight to the west coast - Los Angeles, most likely - and then the leg from there to Brisbane is going to be around 12 hours. With the time change - 14 hours ahead of here - I'll basically lose 2 whole days in transit. That's banking on a minimum of a couple of hours worth of layovers. I looked at some flights that were 40+ hours of elapsed time. THAT would be miserable.