Googling The Corniolis Effect

I was just checking my visiter status, which tells me how people end up here at Little Australia, and I found that someone was directed here after googling, "What is the Corniolis Effect?"

That's so funny I think I may actually have to go to the bathroom.

P.S. I think you meant to go here.

A Double-Banana

In all my years on Earth I have never once seen, or even heard of, a double-banana—like a two-yoked egg—but I have now! Behold:

The Naked Eye

I was in science class one day when I was a kid. The teacher was teaching us about atoms. At one point he said that atoms were "invisible to the naked eye." I thought about that real hard for a long time. "Invisible to the naked eye." When when I got home I told my mom that I really wanted to see some atoms, but I couldn't because I had "naked eyes." Mom, she was so thoughtful, she went right to her sewing machine, and in no time at all she had made me some eye-clothes. Little tiny eye-pants, little eye-shirts, little eye-socks and eye-shoes. There were even little eye-hats! Before school the next morning, Mom helped me tape my eye-clothes to my face. It was so cool. I never did get to see those atoms though, because on the way to school I got hit by a truck.

You might not be able to see atoms with the naked eye, but I’m pretty sure I would have seen that truck.

My Personal Quest for a New Australian Word

So I'm in a local mall the other day when I asked Christine if we were going to the "newsie," short for newsagent—a shop that sells newspapers, magazines, candies, fishing licenses (so I found out) and assorted sundries.

She looked at me like I had just said something really stupid. In Bulgarian.

"It's a newsagent, it's not a "newsie." She said it just like that, all snotty.

Merry Christmas From Australia

Thom here, reporting from the future for my American friends. It's Christmas here, Christmas Eve there, and I can tell you that you may as well give it a pass this year. Christmas just isn't that great this time, really, rather boring. And I heard six reindeer and an elf were killed over the Hindu Kush. Horrible. May as well skip Christmas this year and just go straight to New Years.

Okay, that's just wrong.

Merry Christmas everyone, from Christine and I. We miss you all very much more than you know. We're listening to the Wild Goose Christmas album right now, and Sage's beautifully pure voice on "Oh Holy Night" made Christine cry. Really.

Oh, and this:

Sorry if the formatting is weird, having some problems with that.

Ocean Office

My office this morning, 4:38 a.m., is a picnic bench a few yards from the beach and the Pacific. It's about 18° (65° C), a mild breeze is blowing. I'd like to see if there's such a thing as The Green Flash at sunrise (Wikipedia says there is). I've seen it at sunset two or three times, over the Mediterranean many years ago, but never at sunrise.

Tin and I walked the one block to Collaroy Beach last night at 8:30 to see the full moon, a fist or so above the horizon, and partly obscured by the first solstice eclipse in more than 400 years. It was coolish - I wore a jacket for the first time sine I've been here (one week today). There was almost nobody on the beach. Amazing. Tin said at one pint, Thom, this isn't a vacation, this is where we live. I think I still haven't quite absorbed that yet.

We walked that one block from our very own apartment, which we acquired yesterday, a one-bedroom, not too small unit in a nine-unit building. We had our St. Vincent De Paul-bought sofa, computer desk and chair, and refrigerator delivered, as well as a queen size mattress. It is lovely, and it is home now.

Yesterday I went to Manly and rented a ute - small pickup, basically, and drove it home. I stuck to the left lane, scraped no curbs or parked cars, and, when the terror faded, generally felt okay.

Now, to work, in my office.

Cicadas urinating

I'm still in LA. Tin just sent me an email. It contained this line: "Cicadas singing (and urinating)."

Australia.

Opening Post: Tomorrow I'm Australian

I'm in LAX in Los Angeles. I left Ashland, Oregon, my home for 20 years, this morning at 7. It's 3:30 p.m. I fly at 8:10 p.m. for Sydney, from America, my home for 47 years, minus an odd excursion here and there. I've got a permanent resident visa good for five years. I've got a laptop, and work as long as I can come up with ideas. And write them down with some verve. My Tin awaits me; she's been back in her Sydney for a month hunting an apartment for us. No luck yet.

This is the record of my journey into Australia, beginning now, December 13, 2010.

There wil be photos. There will be videos. There will be songs. There will be stories. There will be beer.

Styx's "Come Sail Away" is playing in LAX's Daily Grill airport bar. That's either good or very, very bad.

A young woman with blonde hair, skinny shoulders, tired eyes, and a blue, rolled up bedroll just walked into the bar and gave me a dour look.

It's time for a smoke.

Let's go.