"Mummy, what's smoking?"

Just thought I'd make this procrastination official - it is friday night and all.

So many things have happened since my last post.

I went to Melbourne and caught up with Irene and Chara. The purpose was to go to the footy and buy a soprano sax. I also had a job interview with the DMO (Defense Materiel Organisation) - I should give them a mention because they paid my passage.

So, blow by blow description of my time in Melbourne... I'm sure to make it sound far more dull than it really was.

So, plane ran late - was meant to meet the gals at Fed Square, instead we met somewhere along Little Collins St. Went to a nice little cafe next to one with some pleasant live music. It was cold but the gas heater was pumping. Chara's lost wallet put a dampener on things, though the waiter gave her plenty of attention...

Later that night I walked from my hotel to the Defense Plaza where my interview was. I timed how long it took to get there. Added an "I'll be wearing a stuffy suit and dress shoes" allowance. Then with military precision I worked back from the time I would need to get there the next morning. Of course, the next morning I followed my plan and arrived at the interview centre about twenty minutes early. Better that than twenty minutes late...

I got to the assessment centre (interview) and checked in at security. Of course, my name wasn't on their list. That left me a little nervous. Oh well. It seemed like everyone else there was really on edge, so it probably raised my stress levels just off the floor.

The assessment consisted of a 30min written comprehension test, a 30min maths test (no calculators), a 30min abstract test (shape and pattern recognition), a 40min written hypothetical, a 50min interview and a 50min group assessment and lunch and morning tea and afternoon tea. Met some cool people. Everyone was too nervous. Nobody got close to finishing the tests. The contents of the tests are meant to remain confidential. The hypotheticals related mainly to ethical questions. I was able to plug several principles that my enviro lecturer had taught me straight into the scenarios. I don't know if this was a good thing because it probably sounded very cliche - I don't know if I was meant to know/use all the jargon. I don't know.

Then I went out to the suburbs - took the tram. I was expecting to have to pay my six or seven dollars. So I put my details in: a full fare, zones 1 and 2 for 2 hours. It just wouldn't work. I tried and tried and failed. The other fare options were working, but it was this particular one that I needed. I got random people to try and I finally got a tram employee to give it a razz for me, but he gave up. Anyway, I told Irene about it later and she said "Oh, you only need Zone 1". So I got a free ticket.

Anyway, I was walking along the footpath from the tram stop to my night's lodgings. I walk past this lady. As I walk past she begins to wail loudly. I turn around and gently ask, "Are you alright?"
She replied, "Yeah, I'm fine." Then she went straight back to her tears, louder than before. I kept walking, completely unsure what to do. I turned around once to make sure she hadn't run out in front of a car or something sad.

Another strange occurrence. I was waiting in town for the tram. I was standing alone, ten metres away from the rest of the commuters. A guy approaches me and says, "Don't use a taxi with a Paki driving it, they'll rip you off every time. They're all pigs. You know what we should do?"
"No, what's that?" I ask.
"We should do the world a favour and put a bullet through the head of each of them."
"That's a bit harsh," I mumble, completely shocked.

There was some weird stuff...

Anyway, Irene and I went to the Melbourne v Essendon game that Friday night - Daniher's final as Melbourne coach. We only got there at half time because Irene had to work. We were standing in line, I was wearing my Eagles scarf. Two chicks come up to us and say, "Do you want our tickets? We're leaving now." And then they stopped. "You are going to this game, aren't you?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
"Oh, ok. They're good tickets. Just go round that way."
So we had these tickets - all scrunched up, thinking cool, free $33 tickets, how legal is this, what if they don't work... Anyway, we go round to the next gate. I try mine first, and it doesn't work. Irene tries hers and it does and so we're separated by this evil gate... and then this gate dude comes up and rescans my ticket and then I try it again and it all works and we live happily ever after...

So we find our seats... Fifth row from the fence, right behind the goals. It was kinda cool! Melbourne was down, but was coming back. I had this mad Melbourne woman sitting next to me. She was yelling out to all the players by their nicknames. It was quite hilarious. There was an amazing atmosphere with over 47000 people there.

Anyway, there's a set shot. I say to Irene, "That's coming towards us". We just sit there, the ball keeps heading closer and closer to us. It ended up bouncing off Irene's knee and up into my hands. In hindsight, I would have liked to have signed the footy - think of it, AFL guys playing with a JR personally autographed signed footy. Either that or do the "If found, please return to..." Anyway, that didn't happen, but I did have the footy which was very cool. And I didn't even have to stand up for it. Never got on the box, I don't think - probably the Eagles scarf that was putting them off, though I was wearing a bright red jumper that would have matched either team's kit.

The game itself was ridiculously close. Melbourne had caught right up to Essendon by three quarter time and were leading most of the last quarter - never by much though. Essendon kicked two last minute goals to get them a point up. Both came from some interesting umpiring decisions - though nobody seemed to have too much of a problem with it. When the siren went Essendon was up by two points. I turned across to try to see the reaction of the mad Melbourne woman. The seat was empty.

On the Saturday, I went soprano sax shopping. I went to The Music Place. A bloke by the name of David Temby designs and manufactures instruments there. He had three styles of curved sops that he made - gold lacquer, silver lacquer and non-lacquered. So the three different finishes result in vastly different tones. The brighter the instrument the brighter the tone. I managed to produce a better tone on the non-lacquered instrument that the others, so I bought that. Sounds simple. Trying to fork out two and a half g on EFTPOS cannot be easily done. It was so difficult that I just couldn't manage it. Rang Commbank. They couldn't help. Rang them again, and all of a sudden they could. Either way, The Music Place is happy, and I'm poorer.

I was sampling the various horns with this $200 mouthpiece. Why a mouthpiece would be $200, I'm not sure. But it makes a difference. Got back to I&Cs, and had to work awfully hard to get a sound. I am making progress, however; and am getting used to the fingering - which is similar but different from clarinet.

I then made a little sax that looked like a J for the side of my hosts' fridge. Of course I put it up back to front! So it is now referred to as "dsylexic jeromes saxaphone".

Played some weird version of Rummy while watching the footy that afternoon and then I mauled some lasagne. I&C were glad to learn a game other than 500 - even if the rules were make up as we went along. I was glad to eat lasagne - I might have been fed on the Qantas flight, but it really wasn't much chop.

Of course the plane was running late again, so I watched the start of the Harry Potter movie in the airport lounge. I've seen snippets of that movie a few times.

Most priceless kid quote from plane: "Mummy, what's smoking?"