To Mo or not to Mo....tis the question....

So, the guys at work have convinces me to participate in Movember. What's Movember you ask ? good question. I asked the same thing...you can go here for all the gory details:

http://au.movember.com/whatismov/content/What-is-Movember/

Basically it's a charity event where men grow mustaches and collect donations in the name of raising awareness of men's health issues. Seems like a good excuse to have a facial hair growing contest.

However, being somewhat facially hair challenged it may prove to be an excersize in just how silly I'm willing to look. I'll try to keep you updated with pictures of my progress...feel free to suggest what style of Mo may suit me best. Here is a list that was circulated at work:

http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/MustacheStyles.aspx

If you would like to donate on my behalf go here:

https://www.movember.com/au/donate/donate-details.php?action=sponsorlink&rego=1764021&country=au

Sushi Session with Akiko

Jeff is working with a consultant from Japan named Akiko. She offered to give us a lesson on making sushi - I was VERY excited! After another trip to the Melbourne museum, we picked her up from her serviced apt. in the CBD (she is in Melbourne for one month, then back in Japan for 1 week, and so on...makes it hard to get to know people and feel settled). The whole way over the kids were saying her name and asking about her (they had not yet met her) but of course as soon as she gets into the car, not a peep from any of them! We picked up some supplies and then got down to it.










My technique improved but could never match Akiko's perfectly round sushi rolls! We made 2 full plates of traditional sushi which I am happy to say – did not survive the night! According to Akiko, it is VERY difficult to find fish fresh enough to be used in sushi (especially on a Sunday afternoon) so we used smoked salmon and a minced chicken & ginger concoction I am sure I will not be able to replicate. Cooper and Maddy devoured many pieces of sushi before dinner - they just sat there saying "More sushi" and chowing down. By the end of the evening, Akiko and the kids were great friends. She was amused by Cooper and his erratic movements, as well as Wyatt and his witty banter.





































At one point, Wyatt was trying to drive a ride-on Jeep up onto the deck while standing in it (not possible in case you are having a hard time visualising this) and when he fell backwards and groaned, I asked in an exasperated voice “What were you thinking?” and without missing a beat he replied “I was thinking I could ride the jeep up.” DUH! She was impressed he even had a reply. Earlier in the evening, he was storming around the backyard with a toy screwdriver and a toy saw. When asked if he was a good guy or a bad guy he explained “I am a protector. I am protecting everybody from the sharks in the grass. I used my saw but I need to use my screwdriver on the sharks.” But of course young Jedi…

Weekly Chat Sessions...

After seeing how much the kids enjoyed chatting with Uncle Andrew over msn while the last set of Grand parents were here we figured it might be a good idea to try and organize some chat sessions with the family.

The best time for us is Saturday or Sunday mornings so we thought we would give it a shot this Sunday morning and see how it goes, or if anyone bothers to check us out ! We will try to be online around 9 AM our time. According to the internet that is 6 PM Saturday in Ottawa. We'll have our webcam fired up and ready to go and we'll feed the kids lots of sugar for breakfast.

Here are some instructions for setting up MSN and adding us as a contact. For those of you who already use MSN our address is jeff_faulds@hotmail.com.

Step 1. Get an MSN Hotmail account

Go here -> http://get.live.com/mail/options
Click on the Get it Free button
Follow the steps to create your account.


Step 2. Install MSN Live messenger if you don't already have it.

Go here -> http://get.live.com/messenger
Click on the "Get in Free" button and follow the instructions.

Step 3. Sign into MSN Messenger and add us as a contact.

Double click the MSN Live icon and enter your new userid and password then click the "Sign In" button.
Click the "Add a contact" button. (It looks like a little blue man with a plus sign)
enter our msn address...jeff_faulds@hotmail.com in the instant messaging address box and then click the "Add contact" button.
When we are online you should be able to double click on us in your contact list and start a chat.

THE LAST BATCHELOR HOORAH!!!

So Mom and John have been very busy here. They have seen several areas, visited a ton of galleries and shopping districts, they even enjoyed a 3-day trip to Cairns which included a snorkeling trip to the Great Barrier Reef, a scenic rail tour of Kuranda and jaunt to the rainforest. Upon their return, they enjoyed the free tram tour of the CBD and a trip to the Queen Victoria Market. The last two things on their “To Do” list were the Brighton Boathouses for the compulsory touristy pics (which turned out quite well I think), and a trip to the Botanical Gardens.

So Thursday morning, we started off at Socatime Joeys for Wyatt's session. Mom and John came to watch so John could relive his glory days as “Sideline Soccer Coach Extraordinaire”. Wyatt was true to form - uncoachable. He has some serious skills but he only enjoys the first 2 goes at a drill, then gets bored and decides either to lie down in the middle of the gym, or take a rest on the bench until the next drill begins. Cooper comes to “watch” and he often participates with more enthusiasm than Wyatt, this of course spurs Wyatt on and so I often encourage this sibling rivalry which will likely haunt me for the rest of my life.

After soccer we drove to Brighton Beach and enjoyed a picnic lunch and some amazing KODAK moments (okay, they were really Nikon moments but it doesn't sound as good). This beach is getting increasingly busier every time I go. I have yet to go into this water and am unlikely to do so much in the future with the number of jellyfish that I have seen washed up in the surf – DISGUSTING! This is lame of me, and hopefully I will get over this fear before I instill it in the kids. Everyone else goes in the water and sends their kids in, so I am sure that it is safe. The kids were pretty cooperative considering their lack of nap and they were even clever enough to find the boathouse that matched their outfits that day!!! Mom enjoyed checking out the contemporary homes across the road and they even found a crazy spiny fish washed up on the beach.













After our picnic, we headed off to the Gardens. Mom and John went to all of the various ornamental gardens, the rainforest walk et al., while Catty and I took the kids to the children’s garden. This is a lovely little fenced in area that boasts a fountain that leaks into a “stream” that flows through some rolling hills and bamboo jungles, and other green spaces. The kids had a ton of fun getting soaked and stripping down to their diapers. I met a Canadian woman who moved here 2 weeks ago. She heard me speaking to the kids and turned with a mild air of desperation and asked “Are you from Canada?”...I recognized the quiver in her voice and so we chatted for a while and we have invited them over on the weekend for a BBQ. (Sound familiar Kerri????) I hope to befriend her and ease her transition as Kerri eased mine. She has a 17 month old son named Connor who will likely be the proud new owner of a ton of toys come June of next year….Of course his opening move was to poke Maddy in the eyes. For the next 10 minutes all I heard was "Boy. Poke Maddy. Eyes. (repeat)" Don't you just love Maddy's ice cream shirt! A second hand "bargain" (at least be Melbourne standards).

Mom and John had flight delays on Friday but managed to leave for NZ a mere 8 hours after their scheduled departure time. From the quick e-mails I have received they are enjoying their time in NZ. We really enjoyed having them here and when the door opens in the evening, Wyatt will often look over with anticipation and say “That could be Grandma and Grandad.”…

CHRISTMAS IN OCTOBER!

Mom and John wanted to spoil the kids as all grandparents do, and so we decided to have an early Christmas. This served many purposes, the kids will get more play time out of the toys they received, Mom and John don’t have to send expensive parcels by mail, and they got to watch the expressions on their faces when they received their new toys! So Mom, Wyatt and me went out to Target and Toys R Us and did as much damage as we could.

So without further ado, each of the kids received a hooded towel as shown. These are a big hit at bath time and have already been used at the beach and the pool with great reviews! Wyatt is Lightning McQueen, Cooper is Thomas the Train and Maddy is Dora.

The other HUGE hits have been the plastic trikes with trailors that Cooper and Maddy received for their b-days. These have improved the quality of all of our lives more than can be expressed in words. Prior to this purchase, we were living with one hand-me down ride-on from my friend Kerri (Kerri, we finally recycled the one without a steering wheel as it was a great source of frustration for the kids) and Wyatt’s tricycle. The twins are too small to ride the tricycle and because there is no competition for the trike, Wyatt prefers to claim the only ride-on they can all use as his own. Now that everyone has their own vehicle we can often find them all driving around happily, chasing one another and crashing into one another and various objects around the yard. The big surprise for the was Wyatt’s selection. I tried to persuade him to select a 3rd vehicle, something a bit different but similar enough that he would have a “new” something to ride on. He passed on the Batman cruise, another super cool scooter in favor of a large Megablocks Automobile Transport Truck with 3 Megablocks trucks. He loves this truck, drove it around the store for at least 20 minutes happily and just now is starting to request that I return to buy him the Batman ride-on.

Other presents included a foam paddle and ball set that Cooper adores, as well as a lawnmower than is more often used for duels with the stroller than for pretend mowing. The Dora lego has been a big hit with all of the kids. All this to say, our plans to keep the toys to a minimum have failed miserably but WE have managed to spend very little on toys, instead accepting hand-me downs from friends and gifts from visitors! They are lucky little buggers – as are we!

MORE GOR - PART III

So after much debate (or waffling) depending on your perspective, my parents asked if I could take them to see the Great Ocean Road, instead of them taking a tour or renting a car. Jeff agreed to look after all of the kids for the day, and so Catty, Mom, John and me headed out at 8:30 Sunday morning. It was a beautifully clear day, unlike my other 2 visits to the GOR, and so I was optimistic that it would be an enjoyable outing. We stopped in Torquay to visit a few surf shops, I eyed some wetsuits for the kids managed to escape, budget intact. Driving without the kids in the car, the pressure of trying to make it to a particular place before they fall asleep/wake up, the need to stop for a minimum of 2 hours to ensure their happiness, etc… made this a wonderfully relaxing experience for me. We felt bad that Leslie had to work, and that Jeff was home with the munchkins, but overall, it was a wonderful day. Highlights included catching sight of the koalas, the beautiful vistas of course, seeing a whale from the highway (pics are not good enough to include here), and the absolute coolest thing was the seal show we experienced at Loch Ard Gorge. We were watching the surf come in when I saw a fish jump out of the water. As I was pointing that out to everyone, a seal jumped out after the fish! John didn’t believe us until the seal made another lap of the cove and put on a wonderful show of swimming back and forth in front of us, leaping out of the water after fish for a good 5 minutes. I tried to up my fee for the drive based on my Steve Irwinesque ability to track animals for prime viewing, but I have yet to receive full payment! No guarantees to future visitors this feat can be repeated!

Does the disc spin the other way ?

Well, seems Mel is putting me to shame on the blog that I started. Guess thats what happens when you spend all your free time working on your laptop. I am in the busiest phase of the project for me...the build phase ! I'm managing a team of 12 people made up of SAP developers and configurers. We are trying to finalize all the designs so that we can build the SAP EM system and have it ready for serious testing by the end of November. Realistically I should be pretty busy right through to Christmas but things should slow down after that.

Anyway, I'm posting in order to write a little bit about playing ultimate here in Melbourne to answer some questions that have asked about how things work here. As you probably read in Mel's post below we have joined the city league.

My first games were at the "Hat" tournament Mel mentioned which was last Monday. I was on the weakest of 4 teams of guys that night. The top 2 players on each team were probably Open calibre players. The rest of the players ranged from athletic guys with little to no skills to one or two guys on each team who were out for the first time.

The level of play was pretty good at the start of the night...we even managed to run an end zone drill for 4 or 5 minutes without a drop. The "captain" of my team was a guy named Wily who had a subzero jersey. Not sure if he played for them or traded for the jersey at some point but based on skill he could have played for them at some point.

By the second and third game the level of play had deteriorated and it looked like bad league ultimate should look. Lots of hopeless hucks and lazy defense. The fields are in Albert Park which is Melbourne's version of Central Park I guess. It's where they have the Formula 1 Race and also the home of the Aquatic Center. There are tons of various sporting fields and the ultimate fields are layed out on an old field hockey pitch. The ground is mostly flat with the majority of it covered by grass with the remainded just plain ole dirt. The best feature of Albert Park is the view you have of the city sky line at night. Very cool.

This Monday we had our first league game in Division 2. We showed up a bit early but forgot to bring a frisbee so had to borrow one. It was very cold and very windy so it reminded me of a night game in Ottawa's fall league. Our new team assembled shortly before the game and people seemed friendly and athletic for the most part. As it was windy the game was mostly zone D and I was quickly promoted to chief upwind handler...woo hoo ! I travel to the other side of the planet and league ultimate looks exactly the same. Regardless, our team was actually pretty good and more importantly they seemed to be enjoying playing.

We ended up winning the game by virtue of scoring a couple of up wind points while our opponents only managed to score one into the wind. I would say that the level of play in Division two here is similar to tier 2 or 3 on most nights in Ottawa.

The strangest part of the night was the post-game wrap up. Everyone joins up in a big circle with arms around each other's shoulders and then the opposing captains give big, heart warming, speeches outlining the merits of the others team and game. It was a little bit weird.

Anyway, it was fun and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season , seeing what Division one is like, and obviously the warmer weather.

The show doesn't always go on...

Ever since the fair, Wyatt likes to put on pretend car shows. The other day, Catty and I were still at the lunch table, held hostage by the marathon eater known as Cooper. Wyatt announced that the car show was about to begin. We assured him that as soon as Cooper was done, we would all join him to watch the car show. Catty stayed at the table and as I did the dishes I watched Wyatt happily unpack his HotWheels backpack and meticulously position all of his cars on the concrete block in our yard. “One minute until the car show” he announced every few minutes. Either Catty or I would yell back, “We’ll be out as soon as Cooper is done.” A minute later he would announce “Ladies and gentlemen, the car show will begin in five minutes.” With Cooper still at the table, I figured Wyatt would wait for us so I made a quick trip to the toilet. Sixty seconds later, I made my way out to the backyard, only to find that my little man had packed all of his HotWheels back in his backpack and announced very matter-of-factly “The car show is over. You missed it.” It broke my heart. I tried to persuade him to put on the car show, I explained that I had just gone to the bathroom for a second while Cooper finished his lunch but that I was very excited to see the show. “Well, you missed it because you went to the bathroom then. You shouldn’t have gone to the bathroom.”. What to do…. I begged. “Will you please put on the car show?” “No, it’s over. You missed it.” All this time he spoke without anger but with definite finality. “Will you put on the car show tomorrow after lunch?” “Yes I will. Tomorrow after lunch there will be another car show. You should never go to the bathroom again so you don’t miss the car show.” As he was walking away, he looked back at me and said “I am very upset.” Luckily he didn’t appear upset. No tears, no yelling, not even a really sad look on his face. Just pure resolve that this time he would teach me the lesson – the world does not revolve around you. I was awed at his grasp of actions leading to irreversible consequences that were beyond one's control. I was saddened to see in him, my unyielding parenting style. Should a 3-year old already know that you can’t always get what you want???? Am I too tough on the kids? Should I give in more? I realised then and there that Wyatt is a huge sponge and I flashed forward to visions of him as a very tough father. I am taking this as a huge life lesson - our kids will not wait to grow up, we cannot stop them. We need to enjoy the car shows whenever they are on. The dishes can wait. And sometimes, I guess, even the bathroom can too.

Aussie Rules Ultimate...

Okay, I was grasping for a great title. Other contenders were "Melbourne Ultimatum", "Ultimate Down Under", and "The Huckers of Oz". Well the spring Ultimate season is finally upon us. Since our arrival, I have eagerly anticipated the start of the ultimate season, if Jeff wasn't so busy with work he might have had time to anticipate it as well. We registered for the AFDA (Australian Flying Disc Association) and signed up for Division 1 and I also signed up for Division 2. The way it works, you sign up as an individual unless you have a team, then you get recruited via e-mail OR you attend a Split Gender Hat Tournament where the captains and Div 1 players can assess your skills and recruit you. In our case, 10 years of experience as a Canadian Ultimate player apparently carries some power, we were scooped up immediately by the league coordinator. We had already committed to the Hat tournament so we decided to play so we could assess the level of ultimate in Melbourne, and hopefully earn our spots in Div 1.

STATISTICAL COMPARISONS :
OCUA (Ottawa-Carleton Ultimate Association) : 80 teams each/5 nights a week, roughly 3000 members.
VFDA (Victoria Flying Disc Association) : DIV 1 has 6 teams, DIV 2 has 10 teams, thats it, with overlap, I think there are roughly 225 players!

We were curious, to say the least. We were split into males and females and I will only describe my experience. The women were set to have 3 games. The first game, we were told to find someone of the same ability, then each pick a side. This was difficult as I didn't know anyone, nor did I have a benchmark upon which to base my own skill level. Regardless, teams were made and I managed to make a good long cut and score the first point for my team. We won by one point in a 45 minute game. Next game, we were split into blonds and brunettes. The brunettes won by 2. The last game, we were told to split into groups based on the # of victories we had enjoyed thus far, then divide each group evenly. In the end, my team won by 1 point. I was pretty psyched because they were awarding "Queen" awards to any players that had managed to win all 3 games. Me and this women Kate were the only 2 women to do that so I was VERY happy with the way the evening turned out. That being said, now I am afraid I have set my own bar too high and I can only disappoint from here on in...
All in all, the women were very skilled, very friendly and the best part, they were mostly handlers - which of course means, I get to be a receiver most of the time. This in theory was very exciting. However, after three 45-minute games, coming off of a year's hiatus, my body was not terribly impressed - and still isn't 3 days later. I was very funny/obnoxious (not sure which) and loud but I managed to contain the inner ultimate bitch many of you know me for. The women were GREAT and they were all very welcoming. I am really looking forward to playing with and against these women over the next year.
If Jeff feels the urge, he can add a blurb about his experience later.