Here they come, a wassailing...

Inga, Julia and my mom Leslie will be making their way over to Melbourne in a few short days!

I think the picture above was taken on their way to the airport to fly to Sweden... they were training themselves for long flights... this one, however, is a doozy. 15 hours from SFO to Sydney! YIKES.

Here is my mom, hiding from the camera for good reason.

We have loads of things on the itinerary... a few notable events *** Swimming with Dolphins in Melbourne Bay *** Visiting the Koalas and Penguins on Phillip Island *** Christmas Carols in the Park *** Going up to the top of the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere *** Picking strawberries and cherries at a local farm *** Hiking Cradle Mountain and the Walls of Jerusalem in Tasmania!

Thriller and No New Posts

Sorry for the lack of activity on this blog! We have not had that many fun things to report. However, our friend Peggy has posted a special video on youtube... you may remember our rendition of Thriller at our wedding. If you can't remember, here it is!

http://picasaweb.google.com/peggyjohnson01/BillyKerstiSWedding/

Our co-stars are Peggy Johnson and Jason Taylor!

Hopefully more to come.... well, I'll make something up, likkety split.

Dan's Trip - Noosa & Sydney

We had a wonderful time while Dan was visiting us!

Here are the pictures from the trip:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/2007NovDanSTripBrisbaneNoosaSydney

We showed him a few sights around Melbourne, visited the Penguins on Phillip Island, and then had a wonderfully huge Thanksgiving dinner with fellow americans. After Thanksgiving we flew to Brisbane and then drove north to the beach town of Noosa. On our way, we stopped at the Glass House Mountains and did an impromptu death-defying free climb up a vertical rock face. Luckily we all went up and down without harm! Next time, when we read a sign that says "DANGER RISK OF DEATH", maybe we'll pay more attention. The view from the mountains was picturesque... little pineapple farms and woodlands... studded with a few sharp volcanic mountains.

Noosa is beautiful! The beach was fantastic... the water was wonderfully warm, and the waves were wild and made for some excellent body surfing conditions for the boys. After being tossed around violently under the water a couple times, I refrained from more body surfing! But I still enjoyed the water and lovely weather. We did have rain one day, but it still made for a great beach day, surprisingly! At the park adjacent to the beach, we saw a huge lizard (water monitor?) and a koala... and Debbie (Dan's friend from college) came across a 6 ft long python while running! Yikes.

After three days in Noosa we flew to Sydney. We saw the sights around town, visited the opera house, botanic gardens, and the rocks (the original settlement area). Very lovely... we also took a boat tour all around the massive harbour. It's the 2nd largest harbour/bay in the world... apparently Rio is deeper, making it the first. Anyway, the boat tour guide mainly just showed us where not to go swimming (sharks!) and where the most expensive real estate can be found (as if that wasn't obvious... the houses were ridiculous). Many houses on the steep cliffs surrounding the harbour are accessed only by elevators that go to the road at the top. Crazy.

The craziest thing we saw however, had to be the bats. We saw thousands of them hanging from the trees in the botanic garden. They were a foot long... with wingspans up to one meter. At dusk, we were standing on the harbour bridge, and we saw them flying above us and around the harbour. Fantastic! We realized that we had seen these bats on our drive up to Noosa... while driving on the highway, we could see millions of them flying over the highway... at first we thought they were huge black birds, but then we realized they were huge, huge bats!

Anyway, we had lots of fun while Dan and Debbie were here... (Debbie is Dan's friend from college).

That's all for now...

P.S... sorry for no posts lately. We've been enjoying ourselves a bit too much I think! The weather is just too good to stay inside and work on the computer!

8 down, 4 to go... and random notes

Well I have officially finished 8 out the required 12 classes for my degree! What a relief! I have enjoyed releasing all the pressure off my shoulders (and from my stomach)... and now get to enjoy life for a while as a real housewife.... well, apartment-wife. So far, it has been glorious. Billy has been treated to delicious food, though he ate too much of the very rich chocolate cake and was so sick the next morning that he had to call in sick! DOH! But besides cooking and making my husband ill, I have been catching up on all those tasks that I had been pushing off for so long... We'll see how much I accomplish before Dan arrives a week from Monday!

Oh big news about Dan's trip... we had originally wanted to go dive with the sharks. But, it turns out, that you just go diving in the aquarium (oceanarium they say) and there is actually a wall between you and the sharks. You just get to swim with the fish. Boring. To dive down in a cage (and feed the great whites!) you have to pay mucho $$ and take a ridiculously long journey out into the ocean. That is a no-go. I had enough time on the ocean during our honeymoon, and I don't know if my stomach is strong enough yet to repeat the journey. So diving with sharks is out. BUT.... walking with the TIGERS might be in...

At the Australia Zoo (opened by Steve Irwin), they let you go take a tiger for a morning stroll. Now much cheaper, and only an hour from our hotel, this might be a winner! We have to talk Dan and Debbie into it... but hopefully they'll want to do it.

That's all for now... we're having a party tonight so I must get everything ready! (Billy has of course insisted that we throw this party... on a day that coincides with his sailing race... so he can't help prepare, as usual!) Marjie -- give him grief, please! He won't read this, so I'm in the clear :)

A Day at the Races...

We have now experienced another Aussie tradition... a big horse race, part of the spring carnival. Every woman is decked out in fancy dresses, heals and hats/hair pieces of all sorts, and the men are all in suits and ties... But the classiness went no further than the apparel. It was a messy array of drinking, smoking and gambling! Ick! And we barely saw any horses :( I had watched SeaBiscuit the night before and was very excited about the races, but was a bit disappointed... we went with a big group of friends and we had staked out a nice section of lawn right at the rail, about 400m from the finish line. But this meant we only saw the horses for the 1.1-1.3 seconds they passed! And watching on the screen was disorienting because you had no depth perception and could not tell who was winning. I don't think the views were much better for those in the stadium because it is set so far back from the track... it's very odd. If I go again, I'm not going to go to a big race. There were ~120,000 people there with us, and I prefer a smaller crowd!

In any event, it was a fun day!

See? You can take the girl out of the honky tonk, but you can't take the honky tonk out of the girl... (don't worry, we picked up all our trash!)

It was CROWDED... this was us, trying to leave...

Halloween?

It came and went without a notice this year :( We didn't see a single pumpkin, or any sort of decoration in fact! Oh well, that's what happens when you're on the wrong side of the world... where would we find a pumpkin this time of year?!

You may be worried about what we will do about thanksgiving... this is a concern, but we are planning. Dan is importing several canned items for our feast, and two of our friends are on the hunt for a turkey. It won't be easy, and there will be some sacrifices for taste (aka, canned items appearing in nearly every dish!)... but we will celebrate turkey day!

Billy Goes to the Prom...

Wilson's Promontory, that is... no, he didn't sneak his way into a high school dance :)

Unfortunately Billy has to work for a living, and therefore doesn't have the freedom to fuss around like I do! Therefore, I am only going to post pictures since I don't really know what they did... From what I gather, they had a lovely time hiking, sitting on the beach, and drinking a few beers underneath the stars... (stars... I don't think I've seen them since July!)

Lucky for them, the weather report was off by 20 C... (all the meteorologists should be FIRED!) so rather than being a low of 10, high of 13, as was reported the morning they left, it was 30 degrees! But of course it was cold at night, so they all got sunburned but then bundled up in their huge jackets and hats at night...

Here are some pictures that tell the story better than I can...

Billy at the 'Squeaky Beach'... the sand makes squeaky sounds when you rub your hands and feet in it.

Andrea, Tyler and Elma (and part of Brian!)

I think some ocean spray got on the lens... (doh!)

After the sun set, Billy went off to hunt wombats for dinner.

Fortunately for the wombat, Billy was wearing his sailing jacket which has tons of reflectors all over it. He was easily detected and avoided.

I forget what this is... it's not a wombat... it looks like some sort of cat-rat hybrid?!??!

Below is a video of Billy making the sand squeak... sorry about the bad angle... I can't take credit for that one!

Flowers!

Heather made flowers magically appear down here in Melbourne! They are beautiful and *artistic* and were a wonderful surprise to receive as I came home from delivering a talk on my birthday. Thank you Heather!

Here is a goofy photo of a tired, but very happy, me... And look, my outfit even matched the flowers! I LOVE PINK!


The floral artists ran wires through the gerbera's to make them stand exactly where they wanted them and they also cut the greenery and sticks at angles to make it look very refined!

Here are some fun pictures of Heather! I would post one of Tim as well, as he's her partner in crime, but he attempted to sabotage my compliments of the flowers... so no picture for him.

Kersti turns 27...

Thus far I have had a lovely birthday and Billy has treated me like a queen! He made coffee and purchased a big heart shaped pastry at the bakery this morning. And he presented me with a wonderful framed collage of photos from our trips around Australia. After a little hunting on the computer, I found the image file for your viewing pleasure... (you can enlarge it by clicking on the image)


My mother and sisters organised a conference call this morning during which they performed a wonderful rendition of 'happy birthday'... Bravo!

Meanwhile, fun is over and it's back to the grind for me. I have a presentation this evening and then have to start pumping out the papers over the next 10 days! 'Twill be loads of fun, though I'd rather be out in the sun. It was nearly 90 degrees yesterday and today is another warm day, though I have my hopes set on rain. The drought is grim... I went running at the park yesterday morning and realised how dry the grass has become... it's the middle of spring and the grass is the same colour as soccer fields in california in late July... not good.

Billy turns 29...

We met for lunch and had a lovely mini-picnic along the river... here's Billy, very happy to be out of the office and in the sunshine (on possibly the nicest day of the year yet!)



In honor of our birthdays, we had a big party at a Lawn Bowling Club. Our friend Lindsay (pictured below) has the same birthday as Billy, so we had a big joint party. We had an outdoor BBQ and tried our hand at lawn bowling...

Unlike bocce, the ball is not round... you can see it's a little squished. And it is weighted so that it rolls to one side. The pink dot on the ball in Billy's hands indicates the side to which it will roll.

Tyler, Billy, Robin, Carmen .... trying to look as preppy as possible at the lawn bowl club. Silly people... they forgot to wear their Whites! Good thing the professional lawn bowlers had already gone home so they didn't have to witness the desecration of their traditions.

Zed, Billy, Brian, Sumith (See, sumith knows what to wear!)

Lisanne, Sophie, Liz ... all wondering why they are sitting outside in the cold!

Birthday cupcakes... Lindsay made the cupcakes with our names in icing! I had the same embarrassing sensation that I had when we had to cut the cake at our wedding! But at least we got to warm up inside for a while.

Leo Maxwell... turns 7/8 weeks

And he wanted to say 'thank you' to his parents (imaginary microphone in hand)....

But shortly after he began his inaugural speech, he was overcome with fatigue...

CUTEST LITTLE KID!!!

Kersti downed in freak stretching accident

Melbourne: After exercising, a reasonably fit 26-year old female badly damaged her left tibia while stretching. Kersti Miller, an American postgraduate student working on a master of environment degree at Melbourne Uni, biked for 35 minutes and ran for 20 minutes on the treadmill before stretching her hip on a wooden banister (pictured above). Details are presently unclear as to how exactly she managed to ram her tibia against the banister, and why. A witness on the rowing machine stated, "I saw her stretching her hip, but then when she went to switch legs, she hit the corner of the banister really hard and went down."

Visibly shaken and clearly trying to repress the humiliation that was brewing, she breathed hard, whispered a rapid succession of obscenities and went to the official stretching area (which included soft blue mats) where she attempted to restrain tears. It was there that she saw the enormous lump protrude from the top of her tibia and went to consult one of the gym employees. An unnamed Fitness Instructor, stated that the bump was created so quickly simply as a result of the increased blood flow after exercise. She suggested ice. Miller appeared to be calmed and retrieved ice from the gym staff. After 20 minutes of icing and reading a gossip magazine, she left the gym.

3 hours since the initial impact, she is still "paralyzed in pain". "It won't stop throbbing," Miller claims. William Peter, the victim's husband, spoke to reporters once he returned home and found Miller writhing in a mixture of self pity, humiliation and pain. He stated he "plans to drug her so she shuts up," but will monitor the injury closely through the night and tomorrow morning.

Spring Fever!

Spring has sprung and we are delighted to welcome the bright green leaves, the warm air and the delightful and familiar fresh scent of this new season!! Most of all, we are so relieved winter has finally said its farewell. Unfortunately, it's also the end of the school year, so I am working hard on writing papers, take home exams and presentations. Two projects down, 6 to go! So instead of enjoying the outdoors, I'll be locked away in the computer labs in the basement of a building--with no natural light. Sweet! I love all the great resources they devote to us masters students! It will all be over on November 7th, so I'm looking forward to enjoying November more so than October.

But on a lighter note, wahoo the weather is nicer!

Seany and Caryn tie the knot this weekend

Our dear friends Sean and Caryn are getting married this weekend, in Falmouth, Massachussetts! We sadly will not be there, but we'll be thinking of them all weekend long! Here is a picture of the cute couple (from our wedding!).... To the soon to be Mr. and Mrs. Kelley, we hope you guys have a wonderful weekend and enjoy every minute of it!

Handcuffed Mexican Children Steal US Border Patrol Vehicle

Another goody....

Border patrol handcuffed three mexican 'children' because he suspected they had marijuana in their truck. So the policeman put the kids in his patrol car while he searched the truck in question.. meanwhile, those industrious kids, still handcuffed, drove off in the car (and escaped!)... lesson learned: perhaps lock them in the back if you're going to leave the car running?

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22485435-13762,00.html

And I was going to include the story about a Russian boy who was running away from home and climbed into the wing of a jet... and took a 2-hour flight (at 10K feet)... to survive, but with severe, severe frostbite. But it's too sad :( I think he's going to lose both his hands. OK -- no more news.com.au! Back to work, kersti!

Doctors find consuming 60 pints of beer over 4 days is bad

Okay, I'm really into the world news today... this one's from Scotland.

A man had a crazy beer binge following a domestic crisis, consuming 60 pints of beer over 4 days (~35 liters)... surprisingly, instead of instant death, this led to a 4-week hangover involving intense headaches and blurred vision. It took them 6 months of blood-thinning treatments to restore his vision!!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22496816-13762,00.html

17 pound baby born

And in world news today, a 43-year old woman gave birth to a 17 pound baby in Siberia... it was her 12th (TWELFTH) child. She said, "I ate everything, we don't have the money for special foods so I just ate potatoes, noodles and tomatoes," she said, adding that all her previous babies had weighed over 5 kg.

Note to all... avoid potatoes, noodles and tomatoes during pregnancy, at all cost. Here's the link to the reuter's article...

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22490809-5013016,00.html?from=mostpop

Poker Night

The boys let me join in on their poker night yesterday... it was quite fun, and I only lost 40 cents (of my initial investment of $5). Billy made up for my loss, making $10 on top of his $5.
We were pretty high stakes players, as you can see. We played texas hold'em. I think next time I will do even better because I won't fold at the inappropriate times (like when I already had placed a double blind bet and tried to fold before anything had been raised). Oh well! It was pretty nice when a few times billy and I were the only two left in the hand... I didn't care who won since we'd take the pot no matter what! We'll have to monopolize on this husband-wife-poker duo. Maybe there's a bright future for us?!

Tasmanian Devils

We went to Tasmania back in May, but at the time we were not able to post videos on the blog. Now that we can, we thought it would be fun to share with you some footage of these very interesting little creatures... after watching these, you'll know why they are named 'devils'.

Tasmanian Devils Play...



Tasmanian Devils Eat....

Billy Goes to Work

While this is several weeks old, Blogger now lets us upload videos... so here he is, heading off to join the corporate world! And now he'll tell you about it...


So I have now settled into my new job at Nemmco, and things are going well. A bit of a change wearing a suit and tie everyday, but things are pretty relaxed at the office. I take the tram to and from work everyday, right into the the business district, and I've got a nice view of the river and bay from the twelfth floor. I can even see the sailboats out in the bay, a bit of a reminder how much I'd rather be out on the water!

I still have a hard time describing my job and what Nemmco does, here is their website for more info: http://www.nemmco.com.au/. Basically, they run the electricity market in Australia. They are a regulated company, meaning they are run just like a company but there income is set so that they can't make a profit (as they are a natural monopoly). I compare them to the ASX, except for the electricity market. NEMMCO is also in charge of ensuring that everyone gets their electricity as well, so when there is a brownout in Australia you know my company is having problems!

My specific job title is Metering Data and Process Analyst. Very official sounding. Basically my job consists of two parts. The first is that I organize the auditing of the metering providers. In other words, we randomly select buildings and check to make sure that the electricity readings (and resulting bills) coming from that building are correct. So of course, I signed up our own apartment building for the audit.

The second part of my job is more interesting. It invovles the analysis of the data set. It is the thought to be the largest data set in the Southern Hemisphere, as it basically includes all energy transfers within Australia, with the price of electricity set every half hour. There are a few measurables in terms of system's performance that have been steadily decreasing, so my job is to figure our why and come up with a fix.

So, I'm learning a lot about the utilities market and database analysis skills, as well as getting used to working at a corporate job. My co-workers are really helpful and friendly, it is a proffesional but relaxed environment. But it is mentally tiring, especially because my boss sits directly behind me so can see what I am doing at all times (even while I type this blog).

Okay, that's all for now. After all, I'm a working man nowadays...

Bill

To enlarge the photos... just click on them

To see larger versions of the photos, just click on the picture and it will make it a little bigger!

Birds: Crazy & Colorful

If you're a faithful reader, you may remember a previous post from our trip to Darwin in June... we mentioned how a huge bird (a whistling kite) swooped down and stole my peanut butter sandwich from right out of my hands... well, now I have been attacked a second time! It was just up the road in the park where I frequently run. I don't know what kind of bird it was, but it wasn't a kite.... and I can't get this picture to align correctly... but the point is, it's a mean looking black and white bird with a huge beak.


I was biking alongside Billy as he went for a short run through the park. He stopped to stretch so we pulled over and I left my helmet on (it was doubling as a nice sun visor!).... within a very short time, I was hit in the back of the head by the bird! It approached me from behind (just as the kite had)... so Billy saw it just as it hit me! CRAZY.... My helmet is shiny and red... maybe I looked like a tasty fish (?). I think these birds need to learn some better survival skills.

After the chaos had passed from my attack, we started noticing these beautiful birds up in the tops of the palm trees... THEY ARE CALLED RAINBOW LORIKEETs

I'm no ornithologist so I don't know what these are, but they are so beautiful, and friendly. Not once did they try to attack us.


Here is Billy stretching after his 2nd run since his July 2006 surgery! He ran for ~15 minutes! Good job, Billy! It was a beautiful day to be in the park... what a way to spend our Saturday.

Again, Blogger won't allow me to change the orientation of the picture (grrrrr.) But anyway, here's Billy waving to me beneath the palms.

Party time at the Postgrad Ball

The theme for the postgrad ball was 'Over the Top', so we went for glitz and glam... Billy even wore gold suspenders, or 'braces' as they are called here. And he was wearing a gold necklace like Byron and Julian, but for some reason it's not featured in the pictures! He also had a big fake diamond on his little finger, for a little bling. The ball was at the top of the Eureka Tower, which I believe is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere... so we could see all the way to Fiji. Loads of fun... and the elevator ride was wild. It travels 9.8 meters/second... nearly 30 feet a second. So it took no time at all to reach the 89th floor. So here are a few pictures... they are the only ones that don't show how terrible my fake eyelashes looked! Unfortunately, you can't see my gold shoes... they really completed the outfit nicely :)

Kersti, Roxanne, Sophie, Billy, Lisanne, Byron and Julian

Billy the artist. Medium: sand.

Billy worked on the boat today... they waxed it while it was pulled out of the water. So I went to meet him in the beautiful beach town of Brighton (after the hard work was done, of course). He met me at the train station and we had a lovely outdoor lunch and then walked past the pretty houses to the beach. It was there that Billy decided to experiment with body art. (See video)





The beach is lined with these little houses that are independently owned--great place for storing the barbie and beach chairs! I wonder how much people pay... probably a lot.