Sean's Blog Downunder…

England v France in the first semi final of the world cup will see these two Northern Hemisphere sides do battle once again as they have done so many times in the past. England come into the game as underdogs based on their dismal performance over the past year leading up to the tournament. England absolutely sneaked passed the Wallabies in the quarter finals and once again proved that in crunch matches it really does not matter how bad your lead up is was, its only one match and all you need to do is win the knock out stages and you have a chance. There will be a lots of pressure on Jonny Wilkinson once again to perform as he has in the past. France come in as the home nation on home soil and they have not lost to England on this ground since 2000. They will be extremely difficult to beat having had a very solid performance to date in the world cup and also as they have done in the past taking out the top seeds and favorites, the mighty All Blacks. I foresee a very hard match of rugby. I think the French will prevail and push on through to meet the winner of South Africa and Argentina in the final.

I just went into an Apple store in Portland to purchase a external power adapter for my iPod. Well I must say they have a new look and a new service policy. It is nice that they offer a complimentary service to all those users in the world who have no idea how to use a computer and so they spend hours doing walk through sessions in the store. However because of their new model they no longer have ANY CASH REGISTERS in the store so you have to be helped by a happy Apple sales representative who unfortunately are all engaged teaching the new users about Mac 101 ……

25 minutes later eventually one becomes available to assist me. He agrees with me that the system sucks… Well what can I say, you can no longer just walk in to an Apple sore and pick something off the shelve and pay for it. What are you guys thinking. Bring back the Register!!! …. at least one.

Yes indeed the Hood To Coast is over for another year. This was our first experience at the famous relay in Oregon. To remind you all, 197 miles or 315.2km in my language comprising of 36 legs with each runner doing 3 legs. I must say that we had a truly amazing time. There are two vans per team, each carrying six runners. Legs 1 to 6 in van 1 and legs 7 to 12 in van 2. We were first at 10:15 in the morning on Friday and Nicolette started the race at an awesome pace due to it being a very steep downhill, faster than we anticipated. This I suppose set a precedent and the rest of us ran faster than predicted.

We then took a break while van 2 completed the second part of leg 1. We went for the traditional “Burger” at Red Robin in Portland, a quick shower and then straight back to our transition point to meet our runner from van 2. We then took over to run into the evening starting the 2nd phase of the race. I ran at midnight with a flashlight as required running through the Oregon country side. A tough leg uphill and I must say I was happy to finish. The bones were starting to get a little stiff. Once we had handed back over to van 2 we went to have a few hours shut eye.

We then made one little booboo. Yes we were late by 25 minutes at the very early morning transition station due to a miscalculation on our part in the expected time of our runners in van 2 who did very well during the evening shift. Sorry team… Nicolette rushed to take over and we started our last part of the relay in the rain and mist. Excellent running conditions and everyone in the team did very well once again. We finished our last leg and then cruised on down to the beach for a shower, beers and the arrival of our team mates for the completion of the race.

They did not disappoint and we completed the race in 27h 54m and came 573th out of 1034 teams. This was more than 1 hour better than our predicted time. Go “Youth ‘N’ Asia”.

WELL DONE TEAM !!!!!!!

Well well well, had another cracker travel experience. En route to Portland to run the Hood to Coast and really all was going well. After landing in Los Angeles and spending a couple of hours in the riveting United “Red Carpet” lounge….. NOT. It must be the poorest Airport Lounge I have been in anyway not to digress, the lounge was better than the transit hallways.

We boarded our flight bound for PDX completely. Full house. Only then did the crew announce that their was some “planned maintenance“, yes those were the exact words, required on the aircraft and that we would be delayed by 45 minutes. The question jumped to mind, planned maintenance ? Why not complete it and then board the passengers. mmm

Then it came after 10 minutes of sitting twiddling out thumbs, dear passengers it looks like we will have to “deplane“, another new term(and its in the dictionary ) for me as I always though one disembarks from a plane. Had me laughing out loud as I though of the analogy “deplane” v “deflee” as in dog. Sick humor but after 21 hours of flying and waiting in lounges with your 6 years old, ones sense of humor is not at it best. Stuart doing amazingly well, good young man.

Anyway all is well that ends well, we changed planes and ended up only been two hours late arriving in Portland. 25 hours v 23 hours. No biggy.

We endure with air travel as its the only way to get around the world albeit for the time. Rock on Mr Brandson or whomever is building that “Rocket/Plane” that will do Australia to London in a couple of hours. We wait with bated breath.

While on a long haul flight from Auckland NZ to Los Angeles I saw the most bazaar incident. It has been many years now that one is not allowed to smoke on board any aircraft. While exiting the toilet the next person going in was this short lady that did not speak much English. As the air stewardess passed us she mentioned to me that she had left my drink at my seat, I said thank you. Entering the US requires that the visa or visa waver form is filled out without any error. Since I see this lady has asked the stewardess to help her, the stewardess says that she can now help her fill in the forms.

The lady then shows her a cigarette and indicates with hand signals that she is just going to have a fag in the toilette and then she will fill out her form. The stewardess explains that this is not allowed but the lady seem oblivious and keeps attempting to go into the toilet to light up. Eventually they have to lead her off to the back of the plane to explain the rules.

Very funny to see that. I don’t think she has traveled much or maybe the urge was just to great.

Years ago when I worked for IBM in South Africa we used to travel to Europe regularly for education and it always used be a bad flight if there were a couple of kids on the flight sitting anywhere near where one was. As one matures in life and have children of your own one gets much more tolerant as you travel and I must say since traveling with Stuart extensively since he was born I am have become extremely capable of not even worries about babies or kids on flights. However I was en route back to Melbourne from Singapore last night on the the red eye and I had “Dad” and his two boys aged about 5 and 7 sitting next to me in the center, while mom was further back with child no 3, a 2 year old young girl. During the dinner service all was good and they were relatively well behaved. However two hours later child no 3 joined them and they so noisy in complete darkness, it was impossible to sleep. Dad during all this noise just calmly watched his movies and said nothing. Quite extraordinary.

Then to my left I had a young Chinese couple who obviously had not traveled much before as when presented with the meal choice, Chicken something with rice or Beef and vegetables then promptly asked the stewardess if she had anything Chinese. Very funny. Then while trying to get some sleep and loosing my tolerance with the poor kids who were just having a good time across from me, my Chinese friend who was having no problem sleeping seem to think my seat also belonged to him and proceeded to “attempt” to cuddle up to me instead of his wife and apologized profusely when I woke him and pointed out that there is an imaginary line between the seats and he should stay on his side and cuddle his wife and not me. The joys of not been in the New Business Class (See previous post)

All in all the worst flight I have had in a number of years.

Well Singapore Airlines in my opinion comes close to the best airline that I have every traveled with apart from Sir Richard Brandson’s Virgin. Now a couple of month ago they announced their “New” Firsts and Business class makeover which might well move them to the top in my books. On my return from Hong Kong this week I happend to be in one of these new configuration planes. What can I say? I don’t believe one needs that much space but it is absolutely amazing to see the difference in the in the Business Class seats.

Now I won’t even talk about First Class but I will mention that even the Economy sections got a face lift and a little more space but what is really great is that you now get a power adapter in Economy so on all those long haul flights when you are in cattle class you can at least do some work on your laptop, even maybe just to recharge your iPod Once again they live up to their impeccable standard of service to the traveling community. Well Done….

Well I have been in many a Taxi in many a country in the world. I had an interesting ride in one in Hong Kong tonight. It was peak hour traffic and we did not have that far to go and it was pouring with rain. Our cabbie was in what seemed to be the worst of moods wanted to get us there as if it was an emergency. We nearly crashed into more than one other taxi on more than one occasion and he just kept on blowing his hooter to get everyone else to hurry up. We were really not in a rush so I failed to see the point of the risk in the rain. When I asked my colleague what the heck was up and why this guy was in such a rush, he said it was because it was peak hour and the objective was to get as many fares as possible. Quite ludicrous if you ask but hey.. what do I know. We did arrive safely, paid him and off he sped again. Wild….

Well, the day approaches fast now! We will be off the Portland Oregon in the US to participate in the Nike Hood to Coast Relay over 197 miles. Nicolette and I both have done sufficient training to complete our legs comfortably. Nicolette I think has little tougher leg as she starts and has a serious decent as you can see from the graphic of the race.

We each do three legs in the race that totals around 27km over a period of 24 hours. As the largest running relay race in the world, The Hood To Coast Relay stretches 197 miles from the top of Oregon’s majestic Mt. Hood down to the beautiful Pacific Ocean in Seaside, Oregon. Over 12,000 runners and 4,800 walkers in Portland to Coast, share in the experience of this annual event now in its 26th year! August 24th and 25th, 2007!