Day 5 - Bummer, Hummer (part 2)

Uncharacteristically, I am going to discuss today while posting about a day already past...In between my earlier post and now I had to run because I had promised the cleaning lady that I would not be in my room if she came back at noon. I almost didn't make it. So, when I left, I threw some clothes in the wash, messed up the detergent, got in a swim (wow I am out of shape), and came back while my clothes where 'drying'. The water actually seemed like salt water rather than chlorinated water, but either way, I must have swallowed some because I started feeling queezy, actually I felt like shit, and had to lie down. I am posting about this now because it fits so well with the title of my current post. I am feeling better now and will actually get out and do something fun today once I am done posting.

So, when I left off, we had just made it back to Melbourne, I was checked into my hotel, and I changed and shaved. I went down the block (seriously only two buildings away) to the utility office. Once there and through security (I actually beat Brian there because he went shopping across the street for moving boxes for his apartment in town), I proceeded to give my overview presentation. It went pretty well, though was a nice review for the project lead, and was definitely causing one lady to fall asleep. The other six people present were (or were pretending to be) interested in the overview and, between them and the project lead, were asking lots of questions.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, I added as a final touch, a nice description of the failure in the substation from earlier that morning with lots of pictures to demonstrate the location of the failure. Thankfully, the project lead acknowledged that the failure could not have been a result of our equipment.

After the presentation, I drove the consultant Brian and all of his moving boxes over to his apartment and waited there for him to drop them off. I am quite certain that the spot was for standing, not parking, so I didn't wonder out of eye-sight of the vehicle. The car, by-the-way, is a white Toyota Camry, 2007. I don't think I mentioned that earlier. Anyway, one of the nice sights of the day drove up to find me while I was pacing around the car. Can you guess what?

A Hummer!

Well, fine, it was an H2. Either way, I don't like Hummer's. Gas guzzling, expensive monstrosities. This one was yellow, labeled SoundSTREAM on the side, and absolutely packed full of amplifiers and subs in the back (the driver opened the tail gate while I was there). With the H2 was a Mazda 3 with a spoiler, blue, and with the same logo on the side. Well, obviously it doesn't matter that I don't like them because many people do, and apparently not just in the US. While I was standing there waiting, some girl drove up in her little white something-or-other, saw the Hummer, got back into her car to pull out her camera, and took a picture of the 'car'. And she wasn't the only one. A second girl, this one with her boyfriend, waled by and stopped to take photos with their cell phones.

I took advantage of the opportunity to start a conversation with this girl and asked her what the deal is with Hummers. She told me that people in Melbourne LOVE Hummers because they are SOOO expensive and so few people actually have them. With gas prices at $1.30 a Liter (roughtly $5.00 a gallon) I couldn't even imagine having a car that only gets 6 miles to the gallon. I think about it this way, with my current drive from my house to the office back home, it would cost me $10 a day with Aussie gasoline prices and driving a hummer. Thats just too much!

Well, thats my rant.

Brian had at this point showed up, and I don't think he had ever seen a Hummer. He got in my car and we drove back to my hotel parking lot. From there, we walked down to one of the bridges to the Southbank to meet up with our primary contact within the utility. The three of us walked the river for a little bit looking for a restaurant at which to eat dinner. This picture is of a different portion of the Southbank and is during the day, whereas we were walking at night, but I don't have any of the area we were walking along. The tower in this photo sits atop of a fine arts building. I believe it is a theatre, but it may be an art gallery with the theatre next door.



We were interrupted in our walk along the Southbank by a phone call stating that the work at the substation was complete, but that we had another minor hardware failure. Late that night, I sent e-mails to my office and arranged for a spare to be mailed ASAP.

While I was talking to the guys at the sub (the same guys who had knocked on my door to get a drink the night before) the two I was with chose our restaurant...the one with special lobsters and crabs that cost $130 EACH. Between the three of us we ordered neither the crab, nor the lobster, but we did have a nice bottle of wine. Sticks was the brand, I think. We had the Cabernet. I am just not used to nice wines having screw-off lids, but that is the way many of them are heading anymore.

My dinner was a nice fillet of Mahi Mahi with Cajun prawns wrapped in little bread shells. The flavors were all nice, but the portions were a little small for me, especially considering that I hadn't has lunch and breakfast was only a small box of cereal (you know those individual packages). Both of my companions for the evening ordered the Kingfish cutlet.

On a quick aside, I noticed by seeing a particular KFC commercial here (actually, I have seen it several times now while watching the telly before going to bed) where they absolutely pronounce the T in FILLET. Fi-LET.

We supplemented dinner with some gelato, courtesy of my client as a thank you for dinner, at a desert counter in the neighboring arcade (mall); and that was our evening.