Gonna run now

One random day in June of last year, I was overcome with the urge to run. I have no idea why, but I just felt like I needed to do it. So I ran. And in a development that I'm sure would be absolutely inconceivable to the Andy of two years ago, I kept running. Not so much a Forrest Gump-style of "kept running", but more of an every other day kind of "kept running."

Strangely enough, it felt good. Well, let's clarify that. For some people swear that they love to run. Love the feeling it gives them. Something about endorphins. Me? When I'm in the act, I absolutely despise it. It's awful, every single step of it. But I push myself, and I force myself to get through it. Because I know what awaits me at the end of the run is a sense of accomplishment and knowing that I've done something that's good for me. And it's that that makes me feel good, that keeps me at it every few times a week.

As I've run more, the thought of running an official race has intrigued me. Not so much to run it on any sort of a super competitive level, but more so just to do it, to be part of something bigger than just me out there in a park by myself, you know, running. And late last year, someone told me about Sydney's City2Surf, the world's biggest "fun run" (bit of a contradiction of terms, in my own estimation), which happens every August.

On the spot, I determined that that was going to be it. City2Surf! I was actually excited. For it's a beautiful course (as you might be able to guess from the name, it starts in the city and ends at the beach), and at 13km and with a hill dubbed "Heartbreak Hill" in the middle, it would push my limits a bit.

But then, calamity. Or not so much. More of just your run-of-the-mill conflict. For I realised after booking my trip to the US that I'd be out of town for the race. But as much as I wanted to run it, I wasn't about to reschedule the trip. So there that went.

But all was not lost. Because just over a month later, Sydney is having its annual Sydney Running Festival, a day with a few races and headlined by its marathon. The marathon, I'm not doing. The half marathon... no, not doing that. But the bridge run, a 9km course from North Sydney, across the Harbour Bridge and ending at the Opera House... that I'm doing. And should be able to do it relatively easily. I think.

So this Sunday, it's on. How fast will I be able to do it? I'm actually not so sure, because when running casually, I don't keep close tabs on how quickly I run. So it'll be interesting to see what time I can do the course in. At the moment, the loose goal is 50 minutes, which I think is pretty achievable. And 45 minutes would be great. Any faster? Probably not gonna happen. But we shall see!

Results to be posted here next week.

It's about freaking time

Summer hinted at its imminence this weekend, with a nice and warm Saturday. And then today, it burst forth with a vengeance, with temperatures getting into the upper 20s. (Believe me, that's warm.) We're not completely there yet, but we're close. Real close. I freaking love it.

One year and one hundred posts

This absolutely bewilders me, but this post marks the crossroads of two achievements, mostly unrelated to each other, yet both significant in their own right.

First. This is the one year anniversary of my (third) coming to Australia. For it was a Friday night, exactly one year ago, that I deplaned my, uhhhh, plane and set off on this adventure that I've documented on this blog.

Second. This is my 100th post on this blog. One freaking hundred.

Of these two achievements, the most surprising, without doubt, is the 100 posts. Yes, I've been slacking on updating this thing recently, but that can really be attributed to a rough patch at work and a mild case of writer's block. This will change. And I'll get back to something that resembles a routine, with a couple of posts a week.

But 100 posts?? Still displayed on the right, in the "What is AK All Day?" section that I should probably get around to updating one of these days, I say: "In two months, the easy money is that I won't have updated [this blog]." Believe me, at the time I wrote that, I had every reason to fully believe that statement. For despite how brilliant and witty and inspirational and beautiful my words may appear, let me assure you that they don't come easily. Oh no, my friends. Maintaining the quality of writing on this blog, to the level that you've all come to expect and respect, is work. And work is hard.

Now, back to the first point: being here for a year. Surprising, this is not. For unless I simply couldn't find work here, the plan was always to be here for at least this long. Notable, however, this absolutely is. For it's been a fantastic year, full of new people, new adventures and new places. And it's with this in mind that I'd like to take a look back at some of the posts that have led up to this one, as I review my One Year in Sydney:

Welcome to Andy Blog 2.0
Kicking off a new era in style, with an immediate reference to zombo.com. In case this hasn't already been made abundantly clear, at zombo.com, the only limit is yourself.

A precursor
Do toilets in the US and Australia really flush in opposite directions? This was my first foray into this mystery. And much to my glee, we've yet to get a conclusive result.

The defence against hating cricket
Includes the comment, "I can't see how I personally could ever warm to [cricket]." Twelve months later? I've been in a freaking cricket winter league and played a position that I really had no business even attempting.

This is the story of seven strangers...
My first official accommodation! And a nominee from myself to myself for one of my best-written entries on the blog.

Portuguese Chicken Wars
Yikes, this one has gotten me into a bit of trouble as of late. Without a doubt, this is -- or I guess because of some recent revelations, was -- the winner of the People's Choice Award for best blog entry. Friends constantly asked me about it, and if there had since been any developments. Random people who somehow found this post online sent me strange and somewhat creepy emails about it. And well, let's just say that with these latest revelations, things have changed. More on this in the next few days, I promise.

The weekend trips have commenced
My first foray outside of Sydney on this trip, and a weekend full of randomness, with debates about shrimp/prawns, naked ninjas jumping off of cliffs and a movie about a gang of tap dancers from Newcastle. As well as the first appearance of the AK All Day Face in a post!

Two pictures tell a thousand drunken words
Still depresses the hell out of me.

There are cane toads, there are kangaroos... and then there are cassowaries
One of the recaps from my trip up to the Great Barrier Reef, detailing the horrifying night drives, with especial consideration given to the terrifying cassowary.

Melbourne -- there's an angle in here somewhere
The epic recap from my weekend trip to Melbourne. A fantastically awesome weekend that also contained some pseudo awesomeness and some not-so-awesome stuff.

A new home. And the grueling agony of an impossible choice.
The move into my next house! Which was a monumental decision to make at the time. And in hindsight, it worked out in every conceivable way possible. I don't think it would be an understatement to say that the entire course of the universe was influenced by that decision.

Worst idea ever
I still have nightmares from which I lurch out of bed in a cold sweat.

Meeting and exceeding expectations, Vol. 1, Vol. 2 and Vol. 3
Every other weekend trip up to this point had offered a nice bonding experience with a friend, or perhaps the chance to experience some culture. This was just pure raunch. And I loved every minute of it.

A postcursor... of sorts
The follow-up to my study on which way the toilet flushes in Australia. The video here? Anything but conclusive.

The toilet flusheth again
No more finality here! Will there be in the next video I post? Yeeeeaaaahhhh, probably not.

Bringing it full circle
Changing accommodation again, this time into my current place! I'm thinking a video tour is due sometime soon.

Back in America
Most of the entries on this blog -- including this current one, unfortunately -- are written and posted far too quickly, without enough time devoted to the crafting of my words. Because if there's one thing I know that people are expecting out of this blog, it's Pulitzer-caliber writing. But "Back in America"? It's easily my favorite of the 100 that have appeared on the blog to date.

And we'll end it on that! One year, one hundred posts. Where will I be on September 14, 2009? No idea. Will I have made it to two hundred posts? Or maybe just a hundred and two posts? I have no idea. But for now, we know I have to cover at least a few topics: some Portuguese chicken, some more flushing of toilets, a few Kleinballs here and there and many, many, many more AK All Day Faces.

So there's that.

Flying the crap skies

Is it just me, or in my year away from the US, has air travel there somehow gone from awful to hell on Earth?

I've always thought I've been relatively lucky with air travel in the US. Never been stranded anywhere for too long, never lost my luggage for any long period of time and every time I've gone up in the air, my flight has landed safely. This day in age, that's pretty much all we can ask for, right?

Well. God. Flying in the US on my trip in August. Yeah... jeez.

Let me start by saying that the good folks who work on the ground at Continental aren't God; they can't control the weather. (Or is that Mother Nature's jurisdiction? Maybe Al Roker?) And second, they're people. Like you and me. So they have feelings. And are allowed to get frustrated. So let me direct this at the ass clowns at Continental who don't work on the ground: When a freaking hurricane is baring down on one of your major hubs, you take measures to prevent delays. You add more staff. And not only staff at the airport, but maybe a few more people at your call center. Because, you see, there's a freaking hurricane baring down on one of your hubs. And as I'm sure it's happened about every other time in the past, that's going to affect things. Negatively.

Anyway, it was Day #5 of my trip to the US, and I was heading from LA to New York. Nonstop. Meanwhile, in the middle of the country, Hurricane Edouard was baring down on Houston. Which -- just to make abundantly clear -- is neither LA or New York. Or anywhere close to either of those cities. Yet there I was at LAX, well over an hour before my flight, and it was chaos at the check-in counter for Continental. Because most of their flights go through Houston. In fact, as far as I could tell, all of their flights on this particular morning, outside of mine and a nonstop to Honolulu, were going through Houston. So hey, that's going to cause some problems, right?

Yeah. Let's skip over most of the other crap. People were cranky. The staff on the ground were not all that pleasant. Wrong information was disseminated. And as I finally got to the front of the line at 8am, half an hour before my flight was scheduled to leave, I was told it was too late. Which resulted in my releasing of a groan that reverberated throughout the airport. Good times.

So I called Continental* to book a new flight, get placed on hold, and wait. And wait. Aaaaannnnnnd wait. And finally get on the phone with a human. Who subsequently told me that because I booked my ticket with frequent flier miles from Delta, I'd have to call them. Even though Delta decided to pawn me off to their friends at Continental. So that was fun.

*This isn't exactly the most astute or groundbreaking of observations, but I've always been bewildered by the whole call-the-airline-from-the-airport thing. I don't really think this requires any further explanation. Yet it has somehow become a time honored tradition for anyone stranded at the airport.

Whatever. I finally got through to Delta. I booked a flight for four hours later. I checked in. And I waited. And started drinking at 10am. And made it to JFK, where we sat outside the gate on the tarmac for about thirty minutes. And then waited another 45 freaking minutes for any bags to come out. What shit.

In New York, I shared my horrific experience with people. And was quickly seconded by Robert and Regan, who shared their own stories of awful flight experiences that weekend. I'm not talking about a bad flight experience at some point in their life; we've all had those. I'm talking about bad experiences that weekend. And their woes had nothing to do with Edouard. No, no. For it seems as though when you now fly domestically in the US, something will go wrong.

These fears were of course confirmed on my return flight from New York to LA, when the fun actually started three days before the flight. Because of all of the fun with my menage a trois with Delta and Continental, I called the good folks at Continental to confirm my flight. And what do you know, there was confusion. Continental had my reservation from Delta, but not a ticket. Delta was like, "Yo dude, we sent the details to Continental, it's not our problem." Continental said, "Hells no! Those punks need to send us some ticket info!" And around and around we went.

Whatever. I solved that. And on the day of my flight, after a nine hour trip from Martha's Vineyard to Woods Hole to Bourne to Providence to New York* to Newark Airport -- that's right, just to get to the airport -- my flight boarded an hour late. And then we sat on the tarmac for at least another two hours, as the pilot told us that we were 4oth in line to take off! FORTIETH!!

*I had the honor of passing through Port Authority while in New York. And in the ten minutes I was there, I had a man wish death upon me, purely because I refused his offer of directions that I neither wanted or needed. That's the Port Authority I grew to know and love for my four years there...

We eventually took off, I labored my way through Made of Honor and finally landed in LA, to be greeted by Erika, Mike and an In N Out feast. Which just about made my whole trip from LA to New York and back worth it.

Let me second that

Yikes, what a horrifying, horrifying, horrifying week it has been. Which is following up what was a horrifying week. The jet lag is fortunately gone, but work is unfortunately still kicking my ass. So I'm seconding my "Bleh" post from last week.

I don't know, that's really it. I have nothing interesting to add. Just wanted to post something on the blog so no one's mind would wander and think that I'd been hit by a car.

More to follow next week. Maybe.

Bleh

Yeah, that's about how I feel: bleh.

I had these visions of grandeur for the blog while I was in the US, that I'd write many updates of a paragraph or two every day or so. Almost like a running diary. And then, well, stuff happened. A lot of stuff. Not that that's a bad thing, so I'm not exactly overwhelmed with regret. Yet my last entry on this thing was on my first day in the US. And now I'm back in Sydney, over three weeks later. Bit of a gap there.

It's strange, as the trip came to an end, I found myself really not looking forward to coming back. I mean, it was the end of my vacation! And unless you're in Vegas, Amsterdam or Trona, CA, you can never have too much of a vacation. But then I thought, I'm going back to freaking Sydney! How is that a bad thing? But as someone astutely pointed out, Sydney for me is not the Sydney for most Americans; for me, it no longer holds the mystique of some sort of exotic locale. Now it's just home, and that's never very exciting.

Anyway. Back to the trip. It was great. Or pick your own favorite synonym. That's what it was. Some highlights, with potentially more detail to follow in later posts:

LA, Part I - Spent an impossibly long day on August 1 (41 hours with the time change) helping Vern shop for a dress. Then her pseudo 30th birthday on Saturday. Gian Paolo said my name about 18 times.

New York - Started off with a miserable day of travel. (Yeah, definitely a separate post on this.) Much, much good food. Many good nights. A ridiculous Thursday that included a Mets game, pitch and putt, and the Astoria beer garden, with far too many beers at each stop. Paid for this consumption on Friday morning. Great night on Saturday. (Yeah, there will also be another post on this.) And a great night of wine tasting and feasting with the one, the only, Bubbles.

Martha's Vineyard - A week that should have been full of relaxing turned into many nights of alcohol. (Again, not that I'm overwhelmed with regret.) Highlighted by Friday night, when the 20 somethings got into a raucous game of flip cup... with my 70 year old uncle. Sailing the sunfish. Eating lobster and clams. Getting some relaxing in on the beach. And the biggest birthday cake you've ever seen.

LA, Part II - A quintessentially American dinner of hot dogs, coleslaw and baked beans. And a final day with Bay Cities and Father's Office. Oh ma gourd.

A 14-hour flight later, and I'm back in Sydney. At least physically. Mentally, my brain is nowhere to be found, for the jet lag is killing me. Killing me. Hence the "bleh". Just finished my second day of work and I'm not sure I could be more useless.

But despite all the "bleh", it still is good to be back. For I'm back to some normalcy and am in my new apartment, and I'm loving it.

For all those who I saw back in the States, it was great to see you. Wish I could have spent more time seeing and talking to everyone, but I guess that's the way it is. So whenever I'm back again, whether that's in April (maybe) or next August (at the latest), we'll just have to do it again.

The Kleingaroo has landed

It was a beast of a flight, my back was killing me the whole way and I hardly got any sleep, but I've made it to LA!

I've only been here for 9 hours so far, but I have to say it's already been absolutely fantastic. Great weather, and great to spend the day with Hannah and Vern, even if they essentially dragged me around to shop for a dress for Vern's 30th birthday party tomorrow night. I guess that's just the price of admission for the party, which oddly has a Ja-Mexican theme. Yeah, that's right -- part Jamaican, part Mexican. I don't know.

I'm currently on what's probably my eighth wind of the day, and that's sure to fade in an hour or so. Gonna be fantastic to get some quality sleep.

Pumped for this weekend, pumped for next week in New York, pumped for the following week on Martha's Vineyard. Yeah, it's fair to say I'm pumped.