An Email I sent the other day that felt like a blog post, so I decided to post it on my blog

I sent this email to a collection of friends the other day. After everyone asking me to keep them included in future emails, I thought there is a better system in place for this type of communication. That system is a blog. I have a blog. So, while a blog sometimes feels less personal, if you are reading this please understand that future communications are being run through here for the sole reason that my gmail contacts are a mess and I can't send the mass email to everyone I want without leaving multiple people out. Let's see if this monthly experiment works out.

Hey friends,

Its a lazy Friday here at the new office job, so I thought I would spend some of my day writing down some of the memories from our first month in Australia. I apologize for the mass email format here. I think that is what people do when they send BCC type emails to a bunch of people- they apologize for doing it. As a chronic apologizer, I will follow suit. I hope to invest more energy in personalized emails that discuss the intricacies of Aussie lingo. However, I am going to start with this email. It gets the ball rolling, and then hopefully we can go more in depth in October-- a month known for its depth.

To start, in the past week or so I have stopped defending American coffee. As a manifestation of their strong nationalism, Australians claim they have the best coffee. It's almost as if they think by stealing the way Italians make coffee, they can say THEIR coffee is the best. I took offence to this, as I do whenever someone goes blind nationalism on me, and I will still take a medium Dunkin Donuts Iced coffee with milk (no sugar) over the large flat whites I have been drinking. However, the coffee is pretty good and N and I find ourselves "grabbing a coffee" much more frequently than in the past. The coffee shock continued when I explained to two interns at the office lunch table the other day how a french press works. They were fiddling around with the plunger and the pitcher wondering where they inserted the Keurig style packet and making complete asses out of themselves, so I (having never spoken to these people) took it upon myself to step in and spread the knowledge of the coffee universe, coming off as a smug dick in the process. I think I took it as an opportunity to vent my frustrations with millenials, much like every older generation has done since the dawn of man.

Speaking of coffee, during our first week here everyone caught a nasty stomach bug. While staying at Solitaire and Ricky's house, we all spent 24 hours vomiting and aching and experiencing that flu-like symptoms style of life. Luckily, N caught it on a Monday and I watched Byron, then I caught it on Tuesday and N watched Byron. During my Tuesday from hell, I didn't drink any coffee at all. The headache led me to avoiding coffee for a few days--cold turkey style. Then, I got a job with complimentary coffee that trickles out of a little espresso machine in the prototypical office kitchen located 25 paces from my desk. I have told myself that my next cold turkey coffee week will come soon.

Speaking of my desk. I am working for a really cool startup here in Sydney. If you can swallow the term "startup culture," read the next sentence; otherwise, skip ahead. Startup culture is huge in Sydney. Everyone I meet wants to start their own online company that offers an app telling customers what bicycle gear to shift to depending on the readings of the accelerometer on their smartphone. That's not a real business idea, but the ridiculousness of it gives you an idea of what we have going on around here. Sometimes the outrageousness of these cultural movements creates brilliance though. I think that is what is going on at Cuberider, the company I am working for. Two 23 year olds run it and their goal is to send student experiments to space. The logistics of this are fascinating and in depth. Check out their website (hyperlink removed to avoid anyone from the company finding this blog and judging me) for more info on how they do it. There are 9 of us on the team and we all help in every aspect. As a side effect, I am spending time studying the python coding language and constantly reading up on Elon Musk's twitter feed. All of this is an exciting new learning experience for me, but another part of me wishes these people were publishing short stories or incorporating science fiction into their curriculum. As much as the physics science stuff hits on the STEM learning initiative, it doesn't quite hit me in my element. I find myself wishing these people were a little more liberal-artsy. Especially when we talk about Netflix's Stranger Things or Chris Nolan's Interstellar. Both of which I want to defend, but everyone else wants to make puke sounds towards. Give me some poets in this office! How many individuals around the world are shouting that from their cubicle right this moment? I am here until the end of the year, but then may need to bail on the startup game depending on the latest self-help book I have read around that time. For my book clubbers, I recently read Ken Robinson's Finding your Element, and Chris Hadfield's An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth. Sorry Alex, I did not make it through the book you gave me, but read the letter you left in the spine frequently.

Speaking of reading, I take a train to work every day. It takes 85 minutes to go from Woy Woy (yup- that's the name of a town) on the Central Coast, to Town Hall station in Sydney. Every morning I think of this funny jam band that used to exist in the Philadelphia area named TownHall. One time we played a show with them on the tiny East End Cafe stage and their conga drummer got real mad at Sam for asking to move his conga drums off the stage so we could fit. I laugh as I walk through the subway turnstyles and into the hustle and bustle of the metropolis rush hour. That was such a big deal in 2002, or whenever it was. The conga drummer! what a dick! why can't he just move his fucking conga drums and quit being such a jerk about it. I mean, he's a conga drummer! That was how we felt then, now 14 years later, I just laugh about it.

Another thing I hope to laugh about in the future is the general disorientation moving to the other side of the world brings. This month I have been unable to grasp any location information that is given to me. I depend on google maps and a little moleskin notebook to get around. I have no idea where Wondabyne is or Ettalong or Walharra or Wyong, or Macquarie, or Mackabee, or Darlinghurst. One of those places is made up, but (even though I wrote it) I couldn't tell you confidently which one it is. Since it is part of my job to plan events for the Cuberider teachers, I need to learn all of these places, but it is just so foreign that my brain aches as I try to take it all in. As someone that was never really able to geo-locate in any situation, this freaks me out a bit. Then you throw in the fact that I need to drive on the opposite side of the road and next thing you know I find myself crying in the bathroom stall wishing I was in Wilmington Delaware where I got lost much less frequently (unless you count the times I needed to drive back from the train station, when I never seemed to choose the proper turn.)

I don't really cry in bathroom stalls. I just get sad knowing that I am missing the birth of a golden era in Philadelphia Eagles football. I only watch highlights and follow the players on twitter. As Monday is a holiday here, I was going to try and watch this weekend's game, but the eagles are on bye. what the heck?

haha- I have to laugh a bit because I am writing this long and not very descriptive letter instead of doing the work on my desk. I blame the fact that my boss made barf sounds when describing Stranger Things. This is my payback. Let me get on to the stuff that everyone really wants to hear about.

BYRON- he is doing great. The last two days he has started riding around on my shoulders. He grabs my hair like the rat in Ratatouille. I cringe and swallow, but his giggling makes the pain go away. He hit 9 months old the other day, and Nogeeshik and I both forgot about it. I said, "oh shit- Byron turned 9 months the other day." N replied, "no he didn't." I said, "sure today is the 29th." she said, "oh- so it was yesterday, not the other day." Technically, we were both right.

Byron plays with Solitaire's kids all day and night. Finn, age 5, has taken a special liking to him. Every morning, when Byron awakes with a bit of a cry, Finn comes in and says good morning. The rest of the day is filled with hugs, giggles, and playing between the two of them. Byron likes to watch Finn dribble the basketball proving that B will dethrone Ben Simmons as Australia's greatest basketball player around the year 2036. It warms my heart knowing that Byron will be able to look up to such cool kids as they grow up fishing, swimming, surfing, and slam dunking together.

Alright, I think this is the longest email I have ever written. Should I keep going? Plenty more to write about. Ricky makes his own beef jerky. He will put it in his dehydrator overnight and we awake to the smell of cured meats. It is fabulous. He also has a bonsai collection and is always trying new beers. While beer in Australia is way less exotic, it is still fun to talk beer and eat jerky. Solitaire refuses to allow us to move out of her house and into our apartment. She says having us there is like being on an extended holiday. We eat dinner together and laugh at the pureed pumpkin Byron has smeared across his forehead. Solitaire says we should just keep living with them until our shipment of furniture arrives in the next 2 weeks (depending on customs). As much as I love sleeping on a bunk bed, I hope we move into our own little apartment sooner.

Our new place has a pool and two porches. Two. As spring begins here, I asked a dude at the local farmers market what the tomato growing season is. He reckons you can grow tomatoes from now until June. Whats that? 9 months. I bought some raised beds and have a lead on some good compost to get our veggie patch going in the next week or so. We already have 3 volunteer tomatoes growing in our back yard. Between the swimming pool and having a little veggie patch and living 10 minutes from the ocean, I am really looking forward to summer. Byron's going to eat so much sand.

We still haven't visited or caught up with all the folks we hope to spend the fall catching up with. I had the idea to host an American Thanksgiving in November. It gives us 2 months to settle in and figure out how to cook a turkey in an oven that uses degrees celsius. I can't wait. I hope to have purchased a record player then and will play records, drink wine, and be thankful of all the great meals I have shared with friends over the years.

uh oh- two millenials just strolled in to the office (12 noon). I better get to it.