Day 6 - Style and Ease

Its amazing how a change of scenery can help to improve your work morale and make your week seem to pass more quickly, well that and knowing that its a Thursday and your clients don't work on Friday.

Thursday was scheduled as my first day of training. I had been up at 2:00 AM my time arranging international shipments and was up again at 7:00AMish getting a verification on the arrangements, that and I think I posted that morning. Check me on that if you wish, I believe all of these posts claim US-PDT. I figured that since this was my first real full day in the office (rather than the field) I would wear my polo shirt with the company logo. I strapped on my brand new non-expiring (a mistake on their part) consultant security/ID badge and hiked the 12 miles up hill in the snow to the office. By 12 miles up hill in the snow, I mean half a block down hill on a nice, mild-climate day. Almost every day here has been beautiful. The worst weather has been morning clouds. Actually, the 'worst' weather Melbourne has experienced for the entire duration of my stay was later this same day when it rained (or more accurately drizzled) for about 2 hours in the middle of the day.

A somewhat adjusted version of my ID badge is here:


I was standing in the lobby, through the security gate, waiting for the elevator when a guy in a suit walked up and said 'You must be Dan'. He introduced himself as network/fiber communication expert and told me that my shirt was a dead giveaway identifying me across the room. We chatted briefly on our way up to the cubicle assigned to me. As it is, the login account they assigned me to use has very limited permissions, including an inability to use the internet. I guess this will keep me on track for the next two weeks, but there go my chances to look up stuff to do during the nights while on my breaks.

I spent the first couple of hours helping setup a room full of laptop computer for our training. Short of a LAN party, you will be hard pressed to see as many cables strewn across a table as we had on this occasion. Extension cords, network cables, power strips, power cables and transformers, eight mice, the eight laptops themselves, and a projector with cabling. It was a mess.

It didn't take the couple of hours to setup the computers, but rather to help the IT guy install our software. Eventually we finished and I began to teach the class how to use the system.

For lunch, they brought in a bunch of half sandwiches and some orange juice. There were several varieties of sandwiches including one that I picked up thinking that it was something new to try, maybe a roast beef one. What I found out was that it contained portabella mushrooms. YUCK! I tired it, at least, but couldn't get more than a couple of bites down. So, instead, I pulled the mushroom out and ate the other veggies and bread.

I continued to teach after lunch and was most definitely putting one attendee to sleep. Go figure, Dan talking so much that someone fell asleep. (On a side note, she was falling asleep again today, Tuesday).

After class I left to again trudge through the 'snow', but this time really was uphill, not that a hill matters for the distance two building and made my way home. I killed time by checking my e-mails, posting on here, and consulting maps to find out where I was to be going that night and eventually made my way to 12 McKillop Street to take part in the big weekly swing dancing event here in Melbourne. The street and venue themselves were pretty cool, but I didn't have my camera with me.

I got in, watched the dancers for a while to determine whom I should dance with and eventually discarded my BluesShout jacket and started dancing. In general, the level of dancing in Melbourne is very good. This is an event with plenty of beginners and they all know how to do a swingout. The music was the same as what you might find at any Lindy event in the States, actually, I could just about sing along to almost everything they played. Mostly the songs were pretty good, some I have just heard too many times. I was asked during one dance if the music I dance to back home was similar and I told the lady that basically what I just wrote here.

While watching the dancers, I decided that there was one lead clearly better than all of the others (yes including me, I am not THAT conceited). What I found out later was that he is actually from NYC and is also in town for an extended business related stay here in Melbourne. He, however, is here for 3-6 months and had already been in town for three weeks. There was no clearly #1 follow in the crowd, but several of the girls were excellent dancers.

Coincidentally about NYC is that there was a girl in a white "I [heart] NY" shirt, (I never managed to dance with her) and a guy wearing a black "I [heart] NY" shirt. I did manage a dance with the girl friend of the guy wearing the black NY shirt, and it was very convenient that I did. It turns out that they both live in Sydney and were only in town for his sister's wedding. Well, I chatted with her for a while, he walked up and chatted for a while, and then he offered me a place to stay in Sydney when I head up there for the vacation portion of my trip. How cool is that?!? I am a huge fan of the whole Lindy community way of life. You offer someone a place to stay when they need it, and someone will offer you a place to stay when you need it.

I kept dancing through the night and at one point had a girl come up to ask me to dance (no, this isn't the noteworthy part). She introduced herself (I can't remember what her name is) and immediately asked if I was from America. Wow I must stick out like a sore thumb. She politely cursed at her friend upset that she had lost the bet to her about where I was from. We decided to play a trick on the friend, though, by grabbing the guy from NYC. She raised his hand and said America. She raised my hand and said Canada. George from NYC immediately ruined the joke for us by saying 'No he's not, he's from St. Louis!' Well, we had tried.

I danced with the friend who picked me out of the crowd as an American and it turns out that it was in fact my STLBX shirt that gave me away, go figure. I will make it harder for them this next week. Anyway, this girl's name I can remember because it was unique... Troy. She and I talked and traded stories about being stuck for long, long periods of time on Amtrak. She has beat anyone else I have ever heard of with her 19 EXTRA hours being stuck on the train beyond the normal travel times. She also told me about offering Vegemite to the train carriage full of Americans she had been stuck with on the train. Apparently the correct way to eat it is to spread butter on bread and then it on top of the butter.

Vegemite, if you don't know, is a very salty, highly concentrated yeast extract. Think of it as all of the pasty remains left over after brewing the wart you use for beer. it is black, and weird looking (I tried it at breakfast the Monday after - i.e. the day after easter). It is edible, but is most definitely an acquired taste. Apparently the train full of fellow Amtrak passengers all hated it, Troy did not first give them butter since she had none.

As the night wore on and people started to leave, the oddest thing happened... the music got FASTER! Why, I don't know, but maybe because there was finally enough space to dance on the floor once many of the other dancers left. Over the course of the evening I spent $7.00 AUD on water because the third floor dance venue was quite warm. This $7 bought me TWO 600mL (rough 20oz, ea) bottles of water. OUCH! I am glad I am here on company money. That $7 became a major portion of my dinner expenses for the day. There was no cover for the dance, but had there been, I would not have expensed it. I always feel weird about expensing entertainment because I honestly don't know the policy; it comes out of my own pocket instead.

Much closer to the end of the night the DJ's did start playing slower, more bluesy music which made me happy. I danced through to the last song and was then going to make my way home. Troy, however, invited me to join her and several others for a true Australian post dance experience...Slurpees at 7-Eleven. I had a soda/pop/carbonated beverage made without High Fructose Corn Syrup (none of their drinks have it as an ingredient!!!!) instead of a slurpee and with that something called a Banana bar, or something like that. Might as well have been fruitcake, but tasty.

The 7-eleven exodus was a pretty brief trip (a whole 3 blocks! 7-elevens are ALL OVER THE PLACE here) after which the few of us quickly dispersed to our individual residences. At this point, I think it was 2:00AM so I went to bed.


[Trivia for the day: Why 'Style and Ease'?]