Halloween

In a couple of days, children in our area will walk towards our door, see a sign on the garage saying "No Candy"... and leave.

We don't "do" Halloween. Not in this house, anyway.

Last post from the US

I've been busy packing for most of last night and this morning. The Tetris-like fitting items into suitcases isn't the hard part. That's pretty easy.

The tricky part is that we have two large suitcases, two small suitcases, and a lot of new winter clothes to take home. So it's figuring out which heavy items are small enough to fit into the small suitcases, so that we can get as close to our baggage allowance as possible.

It's really close - the two small ones are currently weighing in at 40 and 48 pounds, while the two large are at 54 and 52 pounds. We're allowed two items of up to 50 pounds each. In the past, some airlines have disregarded a little extra weight if the 2nd bag is under-weight by the same or more. Hopefully they do so tonight!

We fly out at 7:40 or so from Seattle, and get into Brisbane at 10:35 Thursday. That's almost 21 hours, not counting travel to the airport here, or home from the airport once we get back. Such is the joy of Trans-Pacific travel.

Money

"What is it with wogs and cash?" - Darryl Kerrigan, The Castle

What is it with Americans and cheques? (Or "checks" as they spell it.)

Now, I know my parents have a chequebook, which they use to pay some bills and so on. But I don't have such an account, and can count the number of times I've needed a cheque on one hand. Getting my British passport was one such occasion.

Snow!

We were woken up at 6:30am on the 29th to see falling snow outside. While it hasn't snowed again since, the snow is still on the ground. It's still very cold outside (35F today at lunchtime).

Front driveway.

Christmas 2010 (Seattle) and Boxing Day (Minneapolis)

Christmas Eve 2010

In the afternoon, Chuck, Kyle, Ethan and myself went to the local cinema to see the Coen brothers' new film, "True Grit". It comes out in Australia on January 26. I recommend it. Not really a remake of the 1969 John Wayne western, so much as another adaptation of the same novel. And a nice job by "The Dude" Jeff Bridges.

Loomis Weekend, 17-19 December 2010

I've been to Seattle a few times now, and up till this year had not made it out to the "family cabin" at Loomis.

So when Kara and I were able to get 5 weeks off to have a family Christmas in Seattle, my father-in-law set aside a weekend for a "men only getaway" up to the cabin.

Seattle City Pass, Day 4

December 16 - Pacific Science Center, and our last ticket from the City Pass booklet.

The PSC is in the Seattle Center, right by the Space Needle and EMP/SFM. The original plan had been to do all three places in one day, but that didn't work out. So instead the PSC got a whole morning to itself!

Seattle City Pass, Day 3 (with pictures!)

Day 3 of our being touristy in Seattle: December 15. (apologies again for the late posting)

Today's destinations were the Space Needle, and the nearby EMP/SFM.

Seattle City Pass, Day 2 (with pictures!)

Today [original date of posting: 14th December] was our second touristy day using the Seattle City Pass.

Attraction #3: the Woodland Park Zoo.

Seattle City Pass, Day 1 (with PICTURES!)

Today was a touristy day for Kara & I.

California

Our week in California was good. We were on very small planes for the flights down. Delta routes most western flights through its Salt Lake City hub, so we had a brief layover there. It was FREEZING cold in Utah. (One more US state I've been to!)

In America

We're in America!