Earwax

I don't remember earwax being a problem two years ago.

I'm sure my shower routine hasn't changed. Shower at least once a day; preferably twice but who has the time, what with blogging and drinking and watching movies? :-)

Drench with hot water; lather up the face and shave (I've never shaved with a mirror and I wouldn't know how). Scrub the soles of the feet and soap between the toes. And so on, you can fill in the details, this isn't an erotic cabaret :-)

But of late I've been noticing an excess of earwax. Not enough to make candles but rather more than I remember. Another sign of advancing years? *shrug*

There's something wrong with the map

the one that shows visits to my blog, up there on the left.

Given that blogging is the ultimate expression of narcissism it shouldn't come as any surprise that I check the numbers. If it ever drops to 2 visits a day it'll be time to stop; I'll know that the only reader is google.

So one clicks around the map, only to notice a strange omission on the North America map. I think I have a reasonable grasp of the geography of North America, particularly of the United States. Show me a map and I can point to Orlando, Los Angeles, Chicago, Coeur d'Alene, Manderson, Montana and so on. Yes, there is a town in Montana called Manderson. I've been there! :-) Can do it almost as accurately as I can point to Cairns, Anglesea, Adelaide or Proserpine! Geeze, I can even recite the names of the states along the southern border in order though I don't do so well on the northern border. It helps the memory to have visited the places.

But there's something missing on the North American map. The Great Lakes! Don't take my word for it, go look[^]. Given that I find my way around a map of the Northeast via the lakes it's a sad loss. I can't even see the mitten, which would tell me I was looking at Michigan, from which reference point I could go west and pick Chicago.

I suppose I shouldn't complain, their map of Australia doesn't even pretend to show the state borders!

For the record, I paid for a 2 years subscription. If I'm still blogging when it expires, assuming I can come up with enough material, I'll renew; if not, not!

A really silly joke

which I admit I nicked from a post that David Wulff made on Codeproject[^] a few days ago.

I've been chuckling over it ever since reading it. And yes, I probably word it a little differently than David did. I ran it by my wife a couple of nights ago; she exploded in laughter. So then I ran it by Andrew. He didn't get it. Ran it at the office today and everyone but for one guy got it. *shrug*

So here it is.

Mary had a little lamb,
She also had a duck.
She put them in the yard one day,
to see if they would play!

It probably says much about me that I find it quite as funny as I do.

Who needs soap opera

when you have my domestic situation?

I used, a long while ago, to watch The Bold and the Beautiful[^]. Chalk it up to boredom and nothing else on TV at the time. One can only listen to opera so many hours a day! But nowadays I seem to be living in a soap opera. Unfortunately the end credits don't roll and the actors don't go home to uncomplicated lives.

I just know this is going to turn into a rant; forgive me. Sometimes one has to let off steam.

The cause of the steam is, as always, Morgan, the bitch from hell. If we could harness her power to create steam we'd solve, at a stroke, the entire worlds energy requirements with some left over for space travel!

She's taken up, again, with a former boyfiend. An intentional misspelling. He's the one I wrote about a while ago[^]. This'd be bad enough but when I came home from The Philippines two weeks ago it was to discover that the bastard's in residence. My wife excused it as being for 'only a couple of days'. This is the fourteenth night that I know of. He may or not be the father of the fast approaching infant. Morgan certainly doesn't know and if she doesn't what chance has the rest of the world to know?

Where I come from a 'couple of days' means 2 days, 3 at the outside. It doesn't mean 14 and counting.

My wife makes a brave show of it; she promises, day after day, that this will be the last day he darkens our door, that she's had 'the' talk with Morgan. But I understand where she's coming from; if he's on the premises there's a reasonable chance she'll be under the roof by 2 AM. Personally I don't care if I never see her again but I understand a mothers love.

I'm trying not to make life impossible for my wife; she sees her daughter as someone sadly led astray by the wicked world whilst I see someone who is best left to her own self destruction.

But damn it's difficult to bite my tongue when I see Morgan, night after night, reduce her mother to tears. When I see the freeloader stalk through the door yet again and pass upstairs. When I hear the arguments coming down the stairs and hear Morgan yet again resorting to her 'little girl' voice that melts Mums heart.

Will Mum listen to reason? Hell no. No matter that Morgan and the freeloader once emptied our bank account because Mum trusted Morgan with a debit card linked to our account. 10 days of rice and spuds until payday and a big hole in the mortgage.

Morgan doesn't have a debit card linked to our account any more; and my wife is in no doubt whatsoever that she shall never again have that level of trust.

No matter that the freeloader is a known small time drug dealer. A year and a half ago we missed the chance to be rid of him; he was responsible for Morgans second pregnancy but we decided not to press charges of statutory rape. Bad decision in retrospect!

Meanwhile Morgan is showing all the symptoms associated with Battered Wife Syndrome[^]. My wife even drew Morgans attention to a few web pages about the subject. Morgan, of course, dismissed the subject. I can't be too harsh on that particular matter; I have a blind spot where cigarettes are concerned!

I alluded to the arguments coming down the stairs a paragraph or two ago. You might have imagined the arguments were Morgan and Mum. Not a bit of it. It's Morgan and the freeloader!

A couple of nights ago he stalked out in a rage; Morgan packed his things into a cardboard box and left them outside. My wife breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn't so optimistic. Sure enough, at 1 AM, Morgan raced outside for the reconciliation. Freeloader walked back in. Last night they argued again and Morgan screamed her usual mixture of broken english and profanity. Tonight they're reconciled again.

Now tell me, just how, as a step father, I solve this whilst remaining on speaking terms with my wife? I'd be delighted if Morgan moved out; so would Andrew. But as the step-father I can't force the issue unless I also want to move out. Morgan gives birth in about 10 weeks. I fear for the future of her child. I know we're going to be reporting her to CPS[^] within the year.

I just checked. Yes, I do still have a pair of balls. Doesn't help much.

Underpants on the head day

It was Sunday night as we sat down to dinner again. Earlier my wife had asked me if I wanted to wipe the outside table down. It's now warm enough in Phoenix that we can eat outside; two months from now we'll be eating inside again enjoying the air conditioning; but for the gap we'll eat outside.

I said it seemed like a good job for Andrew and besides, I needed to prime myself with underpants. My wife laughed.

So Andrew was summoned from his room; a few complaints later he was Windexing the table top and grinning.

Came dinner time and we sat down to spaghetti and garlic bread. I did the usual thing by now; 'what day is it?'. They sighed in anticipationa and admitted it was Sunday. 'and you know what that means don't you?'. 'Yes' they chorused, 'it's underpants on the head day!'.

Andrew, thinking he had me, asked 'would you wear underpants on your head if we were in New York?'. 'You better believe I would' was my reply as I donned them. He laughed.

I'm getting on very well with Andrew these days.

Paperwork

All the hullabaloo going on here in the US about immigration, legal and otherwise amazes me. On talk radio this week I've heard both Arizona senators display something which is either incredible cynicism or ignorance of the law.

The misconception is that it's possible to 'just' aquire US citizenship. Talk radio in Phoenix has been full of the suggestion that the law be changed to require a test in US history and form of government, in English, be administered and passed before the candidate can aquire citizenship. It may have been possible to become a US citizen without this a century and a half ago but things have changed since the 1850's.

Both Arizona senators, on talk radio, have agreed that the law ought to be changed to require this.

You know what? The law already requires this. There are some limited provisions to bypass the English language requirement, if the candidate is over 50 and has been legally in the US for more than 20 years, or similar variations on that theme but, for the most part, not being able to read and write English and communicate in the same language is going to pretty much bar anyone from aquiring citizenship. Don't take my word for it though, here's[^] the relevant page on the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service) website.

For a senator to agree that the law needs to be changed to require something already required by law tells me that either the senator is ignorant of the law or they're playing to the audience. Does either condition foster confidence in the senator?

Congress is getting into the act with various proposals ranging from an amnestyguest worker program to proposals to build walls along the US Mexican border. Interesting idea, Bush's America rebuilding the Berlin wall!

I have to resist the temptation to call in whenever some talk radio host spouts off about the need for the test aforementioned. I know it'll just raise my blood pressure to no good end for either myself, the radio host or the audience.

I filled out my N400 form today, my application for Naturalisation as a US Citizen. Quite a form to fill out. They provide space enough for 10 trips outside the US in the qualifying time period (3 years in my case as my wife is a US Citizen). Not nearly enough space given my job. I count 18 trips outside the US during the last 3 years. It adds up to 239 days.

Initially I misread the guidelines for time spent outside the US and thought that it was a limit of 180 days. Bugger thought I, 239 days? We worked out that I'd have to wait until October 2 this year with NO trips outside the US before the 3 year total dropped below 180 days. Fortunately I'd misread the site; it's 18 months, with no single trip of more than 6 months, approximately 540 days, so I'm well within the guidelines.

They also provide space for two marriages for me, my current one and one previous marriage. I have two previous marriages. One space for my wifes previous marriages. She has 3.

Two excel spreadsheets later and a couple of hours spent poring over my passport matching up the entry and exit stamps to the Philippines, France and Australia I had it all in place.

Along the way I discovered the names of my wifes previous previous husbands. Not that I care all that much but it was interesting in a morbid kind of way :-) As evidence of how little difference it makes to me I've already forgotten the first two names; I'd have to look at the forms again to recall.

For the rest it's pretty straight forward. My alien number, various other questions such as my address, have I ever been a member of the communist party, you remember[^] the drill.

I need to send 2 passport style photos with the application so I went to the local Kinkos and stood in line. When I came to the head of the line the young guy asked if I was there to pick up a parcel. 'No mate, I want passport photos'. He didn't understand. So I repeated it, a little more slowly and loudly, dropping the 'mate' and enunciating more carefully. He still didn't get it. So then I pointed at the sign and he got it. Apologies; 'I'm a little hard of hearing.' he said. So I smiled and said 'well the accent wouldn't have helped would it?'. He agreed but, attempting to placate me, said, 'but I have an English Uncle'. Sigh. I corrected him about my current nationality and he said, doubtless thinking it was a good save, 'ah, a Kiwi!'. 'No mate', I said, 'that's another country!'. Well at least he placed me in the southern hemisphere!

We'll send the form in on Monday after the banks reopen. Never ever send a personal cheque to INS; only send bank cheques.

April Fools day

Alas, I don't have a good Aprils fool joke to share with you that I perpetrated. We did the usual peurile stuff when I was a kid though I can't even remember the exact details. I seem to remember it relied on the extreme youth of the victim and his inexperience. It also seemed to be the rule that one had to perpetrate such tricks before noon; for some reason I never knew a trick played after noon didn't count.

Andrew is young enough to still do the 'pinch and a punch, the first of the month' thang when he remembers. Morgan knows better than to try that one on me!

In Australia in the 1970's if you wanted a 'Big Dick' there was no need to check your email for spam. Sufficient merely to go to Dick Smith Electronics (DSE hereinafter) where you could purchase a DC power supply. Good thing too; we didn't have email in those days! They also sold the 'Little Dick' which was also a DC power supply. I bought one or two of each for various electronics projects. It felt incredibly silly going into DSE and asking for a 'Little Dick'. But that's what marketing is all about; I certainly knew at the time what a 'Little Dick' was though you could torture me today and I wouldn't remember the power ratings.

DSE was originally targetted at hobbyists and they advertised largely in the two Australian Electronics Magazines of the time, Electronics Australia (EA)[^] and Electronics Today[^]. DSE has long since been taken over by one of the Australian department store chains but I'm damned if I can remember which one. No matter; I stopped being a customer sometime around 1983.

In, I think, 1973, they ran an ad in the April issue of EA where they announced a new technology, the PRIC. PRIC stood for 'PRinted IC' and the ad, supported by editorial material, touted a wonderful new process recently invented that allowed for the creation of integrated circuits using special inks and printing technology. The ad itself was represented as a free sample and included instructions on how to activate it. Cut the ad out, soak it in a saltwater solution for so many minutes, glue it down to a non conductive backplane and attach the leads here and there and we'd have an amplifier. Sounded good.

The editorial blurb touted the new technology. It went on to advise we hobbyists to hold the ad up to the light so we could see the intricate patterns printed onto the paper; patterns which would become live, working, electronics.

Sounded intriguing so I followed the instructions. Fresh water with the requisite number of teaspoons of table salt, soak the bugger, hold it up to the light.

And there it was, clear at last. 'April Fool'!

Gilbert and Sullivan

It was inevitable that I'd admit that I'm a big fan.

Clever clever words and just as clever music. As I write I'm listening to 'The Gondoliers' which isn't my favourite but the only one I have on CD (and by extension the only one I have ripped on the laptop). I have another CD of highlights but it's not the same as a complete performance.

There was a time when I could sing along with 'The Sorcerer'. I still remember 'Number seventy simmery axe'. ("My name is John Wellington Wells, I'm a dealer in magic and spells') though it's thirty years since those times.

My introduction to G&S was HMS Pinafore in 1976. I was, at the time, a subscriber to 'The World Music Club'. So many LP's per month. My orders were extensive. Rachmaninoff, Mahler, Bruckner, Shostakovich, Nielsen, Beethoven, Scriabin, Khatchaturian. Most of it unheard before ordering. They mailed out a glossy booklet each month listing what was coming in the next year; I'd read and order and, as regularly as clockwork, a new package of LP's would arrive and I'd listen to another new composer. Yep, I'd order as much as a year ahead.

The ABC[^] produced and ran a program during the second half of the 1970's called Certain Women[^] of which I was a fan. One of their stories covered a school production of The Mikado. I particularly remember how they did 'Three Little Maids from School are we.'. Enough to pique my interest!

And so it was that I ordered and received HMS Pinafore. You'd imagine that I'd order The Mikado, which I did. But WRC had their schedule and Pinafore came before Mikado and so that was the order in which I received em. Love at first hearing! I was living in a bungalow behind a house shared with my sister. Given that some of my readers live in Britain I think it only fair that I explain. In Australia one has a house on a block of land. On some of those blocks of land there might be a separate, much smaller and usually single roomed structure, in the backyard and in which people live. That structure is called a bungalow. My sister had the house; I had the bungalow. Worked for both of us :-)

One afternoon not long after I'd recieved my copy of HMS Pinafore I was playing it, loudly. 22 year olds don't think of the neighbours! Dave, a Turtle Video friend and my sisters then boyfriend came by, heard it and, after laughing, danced outside my door. I laughed too.

My girlfriend at the time took me, on my 23rd birthday, to see a performance whose name eludes me at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne. It was one of those modernish works where they relate the life of someone and illustrate it in music. The someones in this case were Gilbert and Sullivan and it was a wonderful performance. I particularly enjoyed their version of the 'carpet quarrel'.

In 1984, Sue and I went to the Princess Theatre to enjoy a performance of Princess Ida. I haven't been to live theatre as much as I'd like (if Sue reads that line she'll laugh bitterly) but I did enjoy that performance! Our seats were first row right. Very much to the right. Much further right than my politics!

In first row right we were directly above the orchestra. Imagine my surprise to see that one of the cellists was the brother of a childhood friend.

Twenty two years later I still remember the fat sweaty bastard on the right of the chorus singing his heart out. Don't know why his face sticks in my mind but it does.

My favourite G&S is Utopia Limited but I'd place The Mikado second. Wonderful music. Just listening again to 'The Gondoliers' reminds me of how much I like G&S.

Even a bad performance of G&S is fun, which no doubt explains how suburban theatre groups get away with it.

I really must repurchase the entire collection!

Beep beep beep

Personnel rang me at my desk today. Lest that sound like I work for a multi-thousand person organisation I do; it's just that the piece of the company I work for has maybe 30 people in the office. The vast majority of the employees are in Malaysia and Singapore.

'Rob' said our personnel person (PP from now on). 'Is there a problem with your swipe card? You seem to be entering the building a lot'

'Ah' I said, 'let me come to your office and explain'.

About 3 seconds later I'm in the PP's office explaining! 'You remember when we moved to the new building and Ed made a song and dance routine out of swiping our cards? How we should never tailgate?' PP nodded. 'Well, it seems to me that if swiping the card once is good then swiping it twice must be better. And if twice is better then 25 times has to be bloody fantastic!'.

PP made a brave try but I fear she couldn't resist a smirk. Once the dike had been breached the flood turned into laughter just as my boss walked by. He stuck his head into the office in inquiry and shared the laughter once he knew what it was about.

You see, a week or so before Christmas last year we were busy crating ovens outside the building.

The oven I refer to is a big big box; I'd guess, never having actually measured it, about 12 feet wide, 8 feet deep and 12 feet tall. Weighs a couple of tons. It's big enough that it comes with anchor points so it can be tied to the floor in case of earthquake. A naked oven will just barely fit through the door of the new building. Unfortunately Ed didn't allow for crating; the crate with all the required padding etc adds just enough height that a crated oven won't fit through the door; it's 2 inches too high. So we crate em outside the building. Fortunate indeed that it doesn't rain often in Phoenix.

Remember that I'm talking 2 tons of metal inside a wooden crate robust enough to survive travel halfway around the world. How strange then that it was felt necessary to inveigle one of the employees to nursemaid the crates overnight armed? Yeah, I can see it now; an opportunistic thief with all the equipment necessary to hoist 2 plus tons onto a flat bed truck and drive away with it. And there's quite the black market for our product! How many times have you lain awake yearning for a semiconductor burn-in oven? Sometimes paranoia can go too far.

Anyway, there we were crating the buggers. I wasn't helping; not my area of expertise by any stretch of the imagination. I was smoking and swiping my entry card again and again and again. And again! My boss was overseeing when he became aware of the steady beep. One glance at the source and he cracked up laughing. Suddenly I was the focus of attention as I continued swiping the card. Then my bosses boss, the head honcho, strolled over and handed me his entry card. I swapped cards and continued swiping! :-)

Another employee once stuck his card onto a cordless drill, set it to the lowest speed possible and held it over the card reader. It registered maybe once every four revolutions but it ran the numbers up amazingly!

Treat me like a child and I just might make a childish response!

Fortunately it seems that the Ed era is over. I wrote a few months[^] ago that I'd met Eds before and outlived em; Methinks I've outlived another one. We have now returned to a reasonable state of affairs regarding time-keeping. I can, if I have no prearranged early morning appointments, start work pretty much when I want. As long as I get the work done that's all my boss asks.

Of course I still don't think I'm paid nearly enough for this job but it's getting better.

They got me!

I wrote a few weeks ago about Andrews iPod[^] little imagining at the time that I was soon to join the ranks of those who pay for music downloads.

It happened as a result of ripping a Delius CD to the PC. If you're familiar with Windows Media Player (hereinafter to be referred to as WMP) version 10 you know that when you rip a CD the next step is to hit the 'Find Album Info' button, which downloads the track listings (if the CD is known to MSN) and the album cover art. Nice freebie and I'm much impressed, not so much at the technology, which is trivial, but at the realisation that someone actually thought to do it :-) I'm easily pleased sometimes.

Once you've done the 'Find Album Info' thang it's tempting to click on the 'View Album Info' button which is a misleading name. That button leads you to a web page hosted within WMP which attempts to seduce you into buying music downloads!

Bloody thing worked didn't it! For what did I see listed as available for download for a mere US$1.98? Nothing less than Havergal Brian's[^] First Symphony 'The Gothic' which just happens to be a work I read about in The Gramophone Magazine[^] about 34 years ago. That was way before the CD era and all I could do was read about a piece of music. I searched record shops for a couple of years before giving up.

I'd completely forgotten about the symphony when I clicked on 'View Album Info' but I reckon it took rather less than a second for the memories to come flooding back once I saw the name.

It's a 2 CD set, just 8 minutes shy of 2 hours of wonderful music and an absolute bargain for $1.98 even if it is DRM'ed. It's been a while since I've enjoyed a new symphony as much as I enjoyed this one!

So I've become a music junkie again. I can think of worse things to become!

People believe what they want to believe

which is as true as it's trite.

Case in point; In my more realistic moments (which is most of the time) I'm happy to admit I'm an alcoholic. Rare indeed is the evening when I go to bed with less than half a dozen glasses of wine inside me. I'm not talking wine-bar sized moieties either; I'm talking glasses I filled myself.

This should not come as a surprise; there have been enough hints in my blog over the past year and a half!

I've even done the AA thing; 'My name is Rob and I'm an alcoholic'. That was about 5 years ago when I was still living in Melbourne. In 2001 I went without a drink for 25 nights in a row in April/May and 58 nights in a row from early August until late September. In 2005 I once went all of 4 nights in a row without a drink! I think I've done it once this year so far.

I can't describe how good that first sip of wine tasted and felt on the 59th night!

Over a drink in Baguio a couple of weeks ago we were talking about drinking and I said I was an alcoholic; the reply from one who doubtless wants to think of himself as an alcoholic about as much as I do was 'well, your drinking doesn't interfere with your work so you can't be'. Nice thought I suppose.

I even felt virtuous on my final night in Baguio, last visit, and the one before that and the one before that..., stopping after two glasses because I needed to have a shower, check out and travel down to Manila. 'Oh no', I thought, 'I'm obviously not an alcoholic; I can say no when I need to'. And most nights I don't need to?

My wife tolerates my drinking; she knew about it before we were married; it's exclusively, when I'm at home, late night when the rest of the house has gone to bed. Out of sight out of mind? If I'm out with the boys it's strictly social level drinking or less; I know I need to drive home and that's a powerful incentive to wait until I'm home. And if I'm in Baguio or elsewhere on company travel I drink in the hotel; walking distance to the room. *shrug*

My wife tells me she's an alcoholic. Based on the evidence of my eyes I have to say not; I think the most I've ever seen her drink is a single beer but remembrance of those AA meetings tells me that perhaps she is but has better control of it than I do. Given that she was 49 when we met there's much scope for earlier drinking since controlled :-)

My wife told me about Morgan's comments regarding my drinking early last week. I'd just got home from the nth trip and was relaxing over a glass of wine and some classical music. Cheese and crackers were probably also involved along with an importunate cat demanding her share of the cheese! Anyway, apparently Morgan said that she didn't think I was a drinker at all; all I did was sip at the wine. Well, most nights she goes to bed a lot earlier than I do; she doesn't see the quantity; nor does she see the travel from this seat to the up stairs light switch followed by the grope in the dark for the down stairs to the bedroom!

Nicely put; but perhaps, being a teenager, Morgans experience of drinkers is limited? I went through what I imagine as the usual 'of age' drinking experience; you have no idea how powerful this stuff is so you drink it like it was milk only to have the mother of all hangovers the next day! I had one hangover in 1973 that lasted three days! Enough to put me off the idea of drinking entirely for about 15 years!

So perhaps, if Morgan's only experience of drinkers is of 'one pot screamers' she might see the way I drink as not 'real' drinking at all; merely because 18 years or so of drinking teaches you a thing or two about controlling the outward manifestations.

When I returned to drinking, at age 33, I was somewhat more careful. Not careful enough perhaps, as witness the sight of me at 51 unwilling to consider the idea of a drink free evening. Nonetheless, by 33 I'd seen the legal system tighten up on drink driving to the extent that I don't drive if I've had just one sip of wine. I know there's a bottle waiting at home! And believe me, I do know there's a bottle waiting at home; I make sure of that. Almost the first thought when I fly into Phoenix is to wonder if there's a bottle waiting; the second is to call by the bottle shop (liquor store) on the way home just in case I've misremembered.

Classic alcholic wouldn't you agree?

Of course, Morgan wants to believe that I'm not an alcoholic almost as much as my wife wants to believe it and almost as much as I want to believe it. I justify it by remembering how I don't drink and drive; how I drink little on the evening I leave Baguio.

My wife justifies it by contrasting me with previous husbands; how I don't get angry when I drink; how I just write blog entries and listen to opera and watch ancient movies and just generally do harmless (and silent) things.

Morgan? She has the example of her father before her. The example of various boyfriends. I've seen her father so drunk at the local petrol station that he can barely stand up to operate the pump; and then get in the car and drive away. They don't seem to do booze buses and random breath tests here in Arizona!

Why didn't AA work? Two reasons. The first, and most important, is that I really don't want to stop drinking anymore than I want to stop smoking. For reasons that I may blog about sometime in the far distant future I felt pushed into AA. If you choose to believe that those reasons involved a woman long since gone you wouldn't be far wrong! If you imagine that the woman was a wife you'd be very wrong! :-)

The second? It's a Christian organisation. Since I don't believe in the God of the Christians nor in Yahweh or Allah that was a barrier. Given that I don't believe in ANY god no matter what her name the insistence of AA on the powers of God was somewhat hard to stomach.

I don't often find myself

wishing I had some lipstick handy. Never had much use for it.

When I checked into the Baguio Country Club three or four weeks ago the person doing my booking didn't book me for a smoking room. Normally I do my own bookings; certainly I do when travelling to Dallas. But this is a Country Club and you can't do your own bookings unless you're a member of the club. Nope, one must be 'sponsored' by a member. It's a long and tortuous route from me to the sponsoring member. Hardly surprising then that the vital need for a smoking room is lost in the chain.

At the office they expect that we will let the receptionist book our flights and hotel rooms. Time was when I let the receptionist and the travel agent do that but stopovers in LA of 12 hours got to be too much. My experience is that even though Noël knows quite well that I smoke she forgets when booking my hotel. So I don't let her. I do it myself.

I got, for the first night of that trip, a room on the fourth floor valleyside, non smoking. By the time I arrived they had no smoking room available, or so they said, so one does the best one can. In this case it wasn't too bad; every single room in the hotel has a balcony. It's quite a spectacular view from the valleyside rooms, and if we have a balcony we have an outside area in which one can smoke. Disposal of the butt is problematic but the toilets flush quite vigorously! I can't bring myself to just flick the butt over the balcony onto the ground below.

Up there, fourth floor valleyside, the minibar is stocked with a range of goods; no such luxury down there golfside second floor. A prominent sign advises that if we ring such and such a number they'll stock the minibar but I didn't bother. The bar is enough for me. Well, it is most of the time, but sometimes, nearing midnight, one hungers for a snack but it's too late to ring.

Valleyside might sound like Utopia but it has its drawbacks. Roosters who seem unaware of the hour crow throughout the day. It's quite a cacophony. Didn't bother me much but it annoyed the heck out of Frank.

Up there, valleyside, the taps controlling the shower are prominently marked. Hot on the left, cold on the right and it's easy to tune the water temperature. Golfside the taps aren't marked and I can never seem to remember which one is hot. Given that I can remember such trivial details as the dates of the birth and death of Gustav Mahler this seems, even to me, a strange defect of memory. I note that if I live until May 3rd of this year I will have lived longer than he did. Won't have achieved a hundredth as much as he did but that's a different story!

Hence the lipstick. I wanted to mark the tile on the left hand side with a prominent H as a reminder, for the remainder of this week, that hot is on the left. Perhaps then I would be able to emerge from the shower bearing less of a resemblance to a lobster than I managed for most of the preceding week.

Even blokes sometimes have a use for lipstick!

Hello Garci

I don't pretend to understand American Politics let alone Filipino Politics. It's all I can do these days to keep up with Australian Politics. Somehow it seems to have happened, behind my back, that Kim Beazley is yet again the leader of the Labour Party. How and when did that happen??? Or have I merely misread the Australian newspaper websites?

Thus I learned, from the newspapers, that there was a foiled coup attempt in the Philippines in late February. It seemed to be all over bar the shouting by the time I travelled there for my ninth visit in early March and, with the prospect of yet another trip to that destination I certainly wasn't going to mention the fact to my wife. She, bless her, finally caught up with the news, about a week after I'd arrived, and sent me a panic email or two. I have to say that I saw nothing much out of the ordinary travelling from Manila to Baguio and I reassured her.

I want to be careful how I word this. I have no opinion on the politics of the Philippines. I don't know enough to have one!

It seems that part of the reason for the discontent is a widespread dissatisfaction with the incumbent Filipina president. Like I said, I don't pretend to understand the local politics but it seems that one of the reasons is that apparently there was a phone call, taped, between Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the president, or, as she is styled in every newspaper I've read here, either GMA or PGMA and some election official nicknamed Garci. Allegations of cheating etc.

Almost every mobile phone I heard in my most recent trip to the Philippines rang thus;

'Hello, Garci!' in the presidents voice!

It seems to me that the mechanisms for dissent have been helped by technology. Try to convince the Finns that their product ought not to allow the user to set their own ringtone!

I was reading a Filipino newspaper a week or so ago; an op ed page. Writing this a week after reading I can't remember the term used for the underground newspapers published in the Philippines during the Marcos years but it struck me that the writer was really talking about 'samizdat'[^], the term used for underground newspapers in Soviet controlled territory. As an English speaker I translate that term as 'same as that' which, if I remember rightly, isn't all that far from the truth!

The fear of lint

I googled a bit to find the official word, if such exists, but I couldn't find it.

Tonight my wife and I went to see a performance of Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of being Earnest'. She emailed me a fortnight or so ago when I was in the Philippines, wondering if I'd be back in time. Given that it's almost impossible to accurately predict whether the work will be done to the customers satisfaction or not I had to make the unsatisfactory reply that it was best to delay a little.

A few days later and it seemed likely; a few more and it became a lever. 'Sorry boss, I have to be back in the US; my wife and I have theatre tickets'.

So off we set tonight, to the Herberger Theatre[^] just up the road from Symphony Hall.

I have to record that it was both good and disappointing. The disappointment was that it was performed by a mostly British cast so the accents sounded right. I'd been almost looking forward to a second layer of comedy; listening to American actors trying to do the accents.

Ok, that's the flippant view. It was an immensely enjoyable performance that had us laughing most of the way. It did prove that I don't yet know enough of American politics to be trusted with the vote; in the scene where Lady Bracknell inquires into Jack's politics and he answers 'I'm a liberal' the audience laughed in a way that I don't quite understand.

Good stuff and quite the best live performance I've ever seen (I've seen the play performed more than thrice).

I'm going to resist the temptation to compare it to this film[^] though I do note that the bloke who played Jack in the movie was the father of tonights Lady Bracknell. 'Nuff said...

Whilst standing in the foyer just before the doors were flung open to an eager audience we were people watching. There were two thirty something guys, perhaps a trifle overweight, dressed up in dinner jackets, standing by the wall. Every few seconds one or the other would flick at his lapel and examine it minutely in the manner of a man removing lint. It was quite the performance especially as every so often one would turn and let the other inspect the back of his dinner jacket!

I don't often do this

and I certainly don't plan to make it a regular thing but I've been reading Lucy's blog for the last few months. She lives in Melbourne which is reason enough :-)

She's been doing a semi-regular 'Friday Statuary' series and this week it's one of my favourite statues in Melbourne. She does it better than I could so without further ado, Queen Victoria[^].

Yes men

On a recent trip to The Philippines (I won't identify which one) I was dining alone. No big deal; I was happy with a glass of wine, a peppered pork chop and some Charles Dickens.

I prefer, when in The Philippines, to stay at the Baguio Country Club. It goes without saying that whenever I'm there I'm working on just the one site so I'm always, when in The Philippines, in Baguio.

I need my sanity time; it can become quite wearying to be on site and so I'm not always in the mood for company. You might have guessed from my writings that I'm perfectly happy to be on my own.

I also prefer to dine at the Par 7 bar rather than the Cotterman Verandah. It's cold out there on the verandah! And the wine is closer at Par 7 :-)

So on this occasion I walked into the bar only to discover a very noisy collection of blokes from the customer site, occupying a very long table. 16 of the bastards in fact; every one of the 15 determined to impress, it seemed, the 16th with how loudly he could laugh at the jokes of the 16th.

You understand that, no matter how loud they were, they were, for the most part, speaking in Tagalog and so I had not much of an idea about what they were saying. There were a few key words in english; Dallas, American etc. Didn't much matter; it wasn't hard to see that the guy at the head of the table was the number one man and all the rest were yes men.

Lest this seeem overcritical; once I'd realised that these people were from our customer site I started wondering if Bing was going to appear. I should have known instantly that he wasn't; if he'd been invited the head of the table would have been left vacant for him. The guy occuping that spot is only number 3 in the Filipino organisation.

The thing is that the day before Bing had put his arm around my shoulder and said in friendly yet unmistakable terms that if my software wasn't ready the next day there would be hell to pay. Where I come from you don't put your arm around the shoulder of another man unless you've drunk beer together!

Now I can be as pissed off as I want but that doesn't change the situation any. If the head honcho of the production site makes threats I have to take them seriously. Or at least I have to behave as though I take them seriously. It so happened that I was within a bees dick of finishing so I had no hesitation in telling him it would in fact be ready tomorrow. I tend to be very conservative in estimating software; most programmers aren't but I'm not a programmer anymore; I'm a developer :-)

Yes, it was ready the next day. Of course they still have to run a few production lots through. Hmmm, and I said I wasn't going to identify which trip! :-)

This is getting ridiculous

You know how I feel about meetings[^]. It was bad enough when it was just the one meeting a week. But now I discover, having finally fronted at the office today (Friday) after a three day break, that I've been nominated as a 'core' member of a trouble shooting team.

I won't go into the detail of what we're trouble shooting; that would be both longwinded and telling tales out of school. It doesn't really matter, for the purpose of this post, what the problem is anyway.

What galled me is the way things are expressed. We 'core' team members are required to attend daily crisis meetings held at 5PM and which may run as long as 3 hours. This team has been going for a couple of weeks now so it was fairly easy to establish that the 3 hours is a baseline. I think I got off lightly today; the meeting only ran for 2 and a half hours! The email I received announcing my nomination to the 'core' team started out with the statement that attendance was mandatory and went downhill from there.

I think you know me well enough to know that, having established with my boss that this meeting was a daily occurrence at 5PM, I told em not to expect me in the office before 11 AM. Gotta set some rules and stick to em!

The really interesting thing, though, about the problem we're trying to isolate is that the hardware guys think it's the hardware whilst I have a sneaking suspicion it's the software. There's a switch for you! Usually we point the finger at each other.

Talking of Beethoven

yeah yeah, I know we weren't but you'll see why I chose that title.

I had a girlfriend in late 1978 who insisted on referring to Beethoven's 3rd symphony as the 'Erotica'. She must have seen it in my collection! I didn't much mind; Erotica is so much more delightful to a 24 year old than 'Eroica'. :-)

A decade later and I was living in a street in Brunswick. The couple a few doors up the street must have been living an interesting fantasy life; they had his and hers number plates on their cars; 'Erotica' and 'Exotica'. I never did manage to discover whether it was she who was 'Exotica'. For all I know they may have been a gay couple. Good luck to them!

You can see, having read the post, why I didn't call it 'Erotica'. That would have invited some of the stranger people to my blog through the magic of search engines.

Well, that was easy enough

Over the beer with Vern that I enjoyed last night we shot a lot of bull. Blokes do that when not in the company of their wives and when lubricated with the amber fluid. Which is not to say that we drank a lot; far from it; we were both driving and whether law enforcement in Phoenix is vigilant or not on that particular subject (they aren't by the standards of my home state) I am. I may be an alcoholic but I want to be enjoying a glass or three of wine a decade or two from now. One pitcher (jug) of beer stretched over two hours intermixed with a lot of iced water does not a drunk make!

Amongst the many species of bull we shot last night was a question from me, the newcomer to Windows XP Media Centre Edition to the self proclaimed expert, Vern. Can it support two tuners? He assured me it could support more tuners than my motherboard will let me plug in! And so it proved.

Adding the second Hauppauge PVR150 tuner was an exercise in no brains whatsoever on my side whilst showing just how good Microsoft are at plug'n'play. Plug the bastard in, fire it up and it was just there! It probably helped that my first tuner card was also a PVR150; MCE shares the drivers and away it went. I spent more time buying a four way splitter and the extra cable!

You might wonder just why I need two tuners. I'd have asked the same question a month ago, living as I do in the land of 108 channels of TV and nothing to watch!

But it's amazing how often a movie will appear in the 'guide' and I select to record it only to be told it conflicts with the recording of 'Married with Children' or 'Becker'. Though I enjoy both series I regard them as sacrificable; if upwards of 20 hours a week runs here on cable in Phoenix each week I'm pretty sure that missing an episode this month will be compensated for by catching it two months from now. On the other hand, will I be alive in two months?

I've been playing with this technology for about 40 years by now and I'm STILL amazed at the things they come up with. It just gets better and better. It can remember that I recorded episode 232 of series X a month ago and won't rerecord that episode unless I tell it to. It even tells me that it's skipped recording an episode because I've seen it recently. No wonder the advertising people are moving into product placement!

I want to live

I've just been watching I want to live![^]. Harrowing movie and I don't mind admitting that I sobbed at the end and the tears were streaming down my cheeks.

I don't think I've made any secret of my opposition to the death penalty. I couldn't carry it out personally; and if I can't do it I certainly won't ask anyone else to do it on my behalf.

Don't bother to make comments about bleeding heart liberals. I've heard most of the arguments but my opposition to capital punishment is absolute. If we as a society decide that murder is something to be punished then we cannot be consistent in demanding state sanctioned murder as a punishment. If I hold that position then can I possibly hold the position that other crimes than the deprivation of life deserve the deprivation of life? I don't think so!

My country of origin last held an execution in 1967 and my home state, Victoria, was the last to legally eschew the death penalty in 1974.

As you may or may not remember, on December 2nd 2005 an Australian was hanged at Changi Prison, Singapore. I posted about it[^] a few days before the execution. What I said then still stands; I cannot even begin to imagine how I'd feel if I were in the same position.

The hanging took place at 6 AM Singapore time. That's 3 PM the previous day Phoenix time. I made sure I was outside at 3 PM that day; I remember seeing striated clouds and the odd jetplane flying high overhead; whilst knowing, having been in Singapore Airport at that time, that it was still dark there. I remember picturing, never having seen it, his last walk.

I wasn't fit company for an hour or more afterwards.

Flying out of Singapore Airport early this week, knowing that Changi Prison is close by, I looked to see if I could see it. Not sure. A collection of buildings over there that might have been the prison but could as easily have been a customs depot.

I don't care that Nguyen was caught carrying 394 grams of heroin. No crime is so great that the only appropriate punishment is the theft, by the state, of the only thing that cannot be replaced; life!

Music is where you find it

You haven't been reading my blog very long if you don't know that I like music; and you haven't been reading at all if you imagine the music I like is mainstream. Though that does beg the question of what constitutes mainstream. I still get a laugh out of M*A*S*H when Hawkeye and BJ take offence at Charles' music on the grounds that it's 'longhair' music. M*A*S*H is set in the very early 1950's when it might have been true that 'longhair' music was classical. Indeed, I remember people in the early 1960's using the same term to mean the same thing. Then along came the Beatles!

What constitutes 'longhair' music these days? I have no idea.

What I do believe is that whilst the music you like might strike me as trivial in the extreme it's equally likely that the music that moves me might strike you as trivia in extremis. Thus we learn as we get older to live and let live. I cannot deny that I got and get immense pleasure out of listening to Aqua's 'I'm a Barbie Doll'. I don't even feel the need to defend that enjoyment; it's still very real. The fact that I also enjoy Mahler's 10th symphony in no way boxes me into only enjoying po-faced orchestral music. The pleasures are of differing kinds but pleasures nonetheless.

On a recent trip to The Philippines (it was in January) I was sitting in my hotel room slaving over a hot keyboard. It was just before sunset and I'd managed to escape the site whilst still having a shitload of work to do.

A former colleague who lives in Dallas was delighted, one day, to hear me describe something as a 'shitload'. His delight was at learning that there is at least one other place on the planet where a large number is described, in slang, as being a 'shitload'. Australia and Texas! Well, we both of us have big egos :-)

On that occasion, last January, I had a room on the car park side of the Baguio Country Club. Nowhere as salubrious as Valleyside or even Golfside but one goes where they put one when a guest :-) Fortunate I was to have a Carparkside room that afternoon; a group of Filipinos were on the road clanging their bells. Very melodious. It went on for at least half an hour and I opened the window to hear it better. I couldn't see them but it made no matter. Quite enjoyed it as dusk fell.

At dinner later that evening in the Par 7 bar Steve was complaining about the noise. I couldn't convince him that I'd enjoyed it. Well maybe I convinced him that I'd enjoyed it but it was a conviction of wierdness as much as anything else! Since I won't vote Republican when I become a yank that's enough reason for him to think askance of me :-)

*shrug*

I have no idea why or what they were celebrating; I don't think it was a day of religious significance.

In 1996 when I was working for Unisys Australia I was based in the City, Collins Street to be precise. If you're going to have a City address in Melbourne Collins Street is the one to have. It's nearest competitor, St Kilda Road, hasn't half the snob value! All the rest aren't even on the same spectrometer. And if you're going to have a Collins Street address the lower the number the better. We were at 459 Collins Street. To my American readers that sounds low.

When I first became aware of American street addresses, a third of a century or so ago, they sounded unlikely. 2900 Semiconductor Way (the address of National Semiconductor). Or 16287 Mockingbird Lane. I made that one up though the number is well within possibility. If I drive north from where I live along Tatum Boulevard it's nothing unusual to see houses with addresses in the 30 thousands. Puzzled me mightily, given that I was used to the Australian system. The last house I lived in in Australia was 142 Something Street. A street about a kilometre long and I was at the extreme end of it. Under the American system I'd have been in the first block if you went by the street number!

I didn't live in Something street, nor have I forgotten it's name; I just choose not to name it :-)

Indeed, I remember asking my American friend Bob, an exchange teacher, if the streets in the USA were long! Silly question but I couldn't think of a better way of putting the question. This was before I'd been to the US the first time. His explanation made sense; so did seeing it with my own eyes!

I find the American system very logical; if someone lives at 142 Something Street you know exactly which block to go for. Under the Australian system you have to make a guess at which cross street to start from and then work either up or down depending on the street numbers.

All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that, even though we had a Collins Street address it was at the less salubrious end of town. Hmmm how else was I going to work in a discussion of American street numbering versus Australian street numbering. You couldn't (according to Collin Mac you wouldn't) pay to get such variety :-)

In, I think, early 1996, there was a blockade by truck drivers of the Victorian Parliament. Parliament house is at the low numbered end of town but the blockade extended across the entire city area. I don't remember the reason for the blockade; what I remember is how the city was gridlocked with stationary trucks, each blaring their horn.

Surrounded as we were by 30 and 40 storey buildings on all sides the horns raised a most amazing cacaphony. I first heard it through plate glass windows on the 6th flooor as a very faint braying. Intrigued I looked out but saw no particular reason for the sound. A little later it was smoke time; we, Heino, Chris, Joe and myself, made for the elevator. On the ground floor this strangely musical sound was louder; when we emerged into the city air it was wonderful to hear many horns echoing off the buildings in a long, slow melody. Some horns playing a long resonating blast, others doing short toots; each at its own pitch!

I can picture it to this day; each driver, angry or resigned as his personality took him, randomly or deliberately hitting the horn. I don't think a one of them thought of what they were doing as a piece of music; it fell to me as the outsider to percieve it that way.

That was one of the few times, as we lit up, that I didn't encourage the joking; I wanted to hear that sound. I wish I could find a way to notate it.

Music is where you find it!

Good evening, Sir Robert

is the way that Victor, the other waiter/bartender at the Baguio Country Club greets me.

I'm not a knight of the realm and, as a prospective US citizen, I doubt I ever will be. But even without that prospective new citizenship I doubt I'd ever be knighted. Benighted maybe!

I do have an honour[^] I value much more highly :-)

I know it's just a form of address from hotel employee to hotel guest but it still makes me feel uncomfortable. The first time I was ever addressed as 'sir' was sometime in 1971 when, all of age 17, I was searching the bookshelves of Collins Booksellers, Swanston Street Melbourne, the site of Melbourne Central Railway station these days, in search of the novels of Lyndsay Norman.

The guy who addressed me as 'sir' would have been pretty much my own age and I'm sure he had been instructed to call all customers sir. I'm just as sure he was as uncomfortable with following instructions as I was that he had!

I had the name wrong, I was really looking for Norman Lindsay but my stepfathers first and middle name are Lyndsay Norman. An understandable mistake. Some smarmy bastard maybe my own age came up and asked if he could help me 'sir'. I made the same reply then that I do now when addressed as 'sir'. 'I didn't realise I'd been made a knight of the realm'. That makes em stop and wonder and gives me enough time to escape!

Diffidence and disdain borne of experience. Even today I imagine that any Australian who put on airs and graces would be invited to 'come out from under yer hat!'. God only knows how I'd fare as a member of the military; a fellow employee who is a military 'brat' calls everyone 'sir', even the women! I know Brad means well and he's one heck of a nice guy but man I wish he wouldn't call me sir!

Ok, maybe I exaggerated on the women! :-)

I couldn't very well put Victor on the spot and ask that he not address me as 'Sir Robert'. Everyone here at the hotel does. They do at the Manor Hotel (the hotel I stayed in until I discovered the Baguio Country Club) too.

So I tried a different tack. Walking into the Par 7 bar a night or three ago Victor addressed me again as 'Sir Robert'. 'Good evening Sir Victor' I replied. A momentary expression of puzzlement and then the smile.

Sir Victor seems to enjoy his title. Good luck to him!

I found the novels of Norman Lindsay (1879-1969). Redheap, A Curate in Bohemia, Dust and Polish, The Cousin from Fiji, Saturdee, Halfway to Anywhere and so on. Wonderful novels and my copies accompanied me in my baggage from Australia to the USA when I made the flight to my new home. The very few things I owned that did. I think I've said this before but for me Saturdee is the best ever boyhood novel. It out Tom Sawyers Tom Sawyer and I say that as a kid who read Mark Twain from cover to cover more than several times!

Of course I had a problem in that first reading of Tom Sawyer. On the very first page Aunt Polly threatens Tom with a switch! I, as an urban Australian lad in 1964, knew only one meaning for the word switch. How, I wondered, was it possible to threaten anyone with a light switch? I also puzzled mightily over Mark Twains description of young men pushing their toes against a wall to get the right turn-up. A puzzlement long since solved at the sight of a step-daughter starving herself to maintain a most unladylike resemblance to a pipecleaner. It's long since past the day but I remember asking Morgan if she had to dance under the shower in order to get wet!

In early 1975 there was a bookshop in Nicholson Street Footscray that had the entire set of Norman Lindsay novels, paperback, in the window. The problem was that the owner had recently died and the shop was shut. There they were, every novel of his in a row and no way, short of breaking the glass in the small hours, of obtaining them.

Of course I didn't break the glass; it was plate and who knew how many bollards I'd have had to throw! :-) Patience and by June of 1975 I'd found all of them in remainder shops. I remember laughing myself sick over the trials and tribulations of the curate as I lived in a caravan behind the local ministers house in Williamstown.

Good days!

Making progress

My friend Vern[^] with whom I plan to drink beer tonight ran a joke on his blog the other day. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.

Not a great joke nor yet a bad one; it played on the difference in perceptions between President George W Bush and a horses arse. Naturally, the horses arse is seen as the better of the two alternatives. For the record, I'd vote for the horses arse before I'd vote for the current incumbent of the office!

Reminded me of the old Australian joke about a bloke who wants to change his name. The judge asks him what his original name is. 'It's John Winston Howard Shit, your honour'. The judge smiles indulgently and says he quite understands. What do you want to change it to? 'John Shit, your honour' he replies! Replace 'John Winston Howard' with that of any politician in the world and you have the joke in essence.

Armed with Verns joke and an American audience could I wish for more as I sat down to dinner tonight? The first time we've dined as a family in a few weeks? So I ran it by them. My wife, who has voted Republican laughed. Andrew scratched his head a few moments until it dawned and then he laughed.

'Mom.' said Andrew, 'I told you he'd have some new jokes when he got back.' Far be it from me to disillusion the lad and admit I nicked it from Verns blog :-) That's another way of saying I'll take the credit and run!

A little later Andrew smiled to himself as I took him to task over leaving his poker table out in the living room. A little defiance, just enough to establish his place in the household but no truculence that I could detect.

It's really starting to feel like he's glad when I'm around. He said as much last night, just after I'd gotten home and taken him to task for leaving the phone lying on the desk next to his computer. Hangdog look with a faint smile and the agreement that he'd stuffed up again. 'Don't apologise' I said, 'just don't do it again.'.

Morgan said the same thing this afternoon but, to be frank, her saying it doesn't make me feel the same way. There was no accompanying sheepish grin; no sign of contrition; just the feeling that she was saying the words. I may be judging the girl harshly and, if I am, I'll be sorry, but going by history I don't think I'm wrong. *shrug*

Make it twenty

My wife spent most of the afternoon planning an excursion to the Chicago area to be undertaken at the end of July. It'll be just the three of us, Andrew, my wife and myself; Morgan will be busy looking after her new baby about then and she's not coming.

Part way through the planning she said 'I hope you don't mind; I've assumed the three of us will be staying in the same hotel room.'

Andrew was there earwigging; I couldn't resist saying 'but you know that means we won't be able to have sex!' Andrew smirked. Then I had a happy idea. 'But, you know, we could always slip him 5 bucks to go to the local McDonalds!'

Quick as a flash he piped up. 'Make it twenty!'

Cheeky bastard! :-)

It seems that the vice president is staying here tonight

Not, I'm glad to say, the Vice-President of the US, Richard Cheney. Nope, it's Nole De Castro, Vice-President of the Philippines.

I have to say I'm glad it's not the current holders of those positions in the US. Whenever President Bush visits Phoenix the result is a major traffic jam. Detour Dan, the KTAR 620 traffic guy makes fun of it; it seems that whenever President Bush is in town the airspace above Phoenix becomes so holy that the Alamo Rent-a-car traffic plane is grounded. I've seen the black helicopters flying above Mummy Mountain and over where Lincoln and 32nd meet.

Whenever President Bush is in town my drive home from the office becomes a nightmare. My drive takes me north along 44th street across Camelback Road. To the left is the Biltmore district which, as far as I can make out, is THE part of Phoenix to be in. I think of it as South Yarra. To the right is the Phoenician resort, apparently THE part of Phoenix to stay in. I think of it as Toorak. (My Melbourne readers will understand).

Whenever President Bush is in town they cordon off the Phoenician to the right and impose road blocks around the Biltmore to the left. 44th Street goes through the middle and whenever I have to drive it during those times I see motorcycle police at every corner from about Thomas Road up to Lincoln Drive.

Given that there are only 4 viable routes from the office to home and two of those are freeways and the third has traffic lights every half mile for about 20 miles, I'm sure you can see the problem. I don't drive Arizona freeways. Strangely enough, I will drive Texas freeways. That should give you an idea of how bad an Arizona freeway is :-)

My room here at the Baguio Country Club is on the second floor. Today, when the room staff came to make up my room I went, as is my wont, to an open air plaza on the same level, overlooking the entrance. I don't want to stand around like a spare part while they make my bed and I'm quite sure they reciprocate the feeling! It takes them about as long to make up my room as it takes me to smoke a ciggy so I smoke two, just to be sure they have a decent getaway!

So there I was, about 11 this morning, smoking a ciggy and, having gazed my fill on the lower village, I turned my gaze to the entrance. Just in time to see a convoy of vehicles rolling up, sirens blaring from the leader. Uh huh I thought, the mayor's come for lunch. Nope. This was the advance guard for the Vice President. I knew this because of the large banner over the entrance that I read backwards, welcoming the Vice President.

Then came the security sweep. Armed men with the kind of face that tells you not to mess with them! As you might have guessed from previous writings, I'm from a place where guns are not terribly evident; there is no state in Australia where you have the unambiguous right to carry a weapon. On the other hand, this is my ninth visit to the Philippines; I'm certainly used to seeing armed men patrolling the hotel, the customer site and Shell Petrol stations! They even have the Shell Logo on the stock of the guns there!

Have I actually clapped eyes on this protected dignitary? I doubt it though I wouldn't recognise him if he shook me by the hand. But dinner tonight at the Par 7 bar was so ordinary that, had I not seen the motorcade and the banner, I would not have known that we have a dignitary in residence.

I wish President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would or could make so little impact when they visit!