Oscar's First Home Video!

Oscar Thomas Stefanac

The little boy has landed. Everyone is healthy and happy and there will be more pics to come...

The Chaser Meets John Edward

There's a comedy group here called The Chaser, and this is a video clip of them ambushing John Edward (Crossing Over guy) as he was in town filming something.

Flyfishing in Australia

My buddy Ryan and I went out on the Goulburn River yesterday to see if the trout were biting in this early part of the season. The spot is about and hour and a half from my house and is beautiful country. Everything was still green (until the summer dries it out), the mountains of the Great Dividing Range sat in the background, and the air was warm and still. Perfect for casting a line.

Ryan guided us to a secluded area of the river where the Acheron flows into it, and a great big slow-moving pool around a bend is the result. With only about an hour left of light, the trout began flying out of the river, rising to catch the flying termites hovering above the water. We were skunked, frustrated with all the action we were witnessing but not a part of, when I looked into my fly case and found a single termite fly. I immediately tied it on and within ten minutes I had two trout in my net. "Match the hatch", as my dad would say.

It was brilliant day out and these were my first Oz trout.

A few celebratory beers on the way home and you couldn't ask for a better way to spend a Saturday.

You Beauty

This is a great take on a recent bit of political non-scandal. Shows a bit of the difference in sexual morality between Oz an US.

Read Here

2007 Quality of Life Index

These are links to the 2007 Quality of Life Index put out annually from International Living.

Index Overview Complete Ranking

A good read and it's all summed up well.

What About kids?

Now that Nina and I are going to have a baby, the differences between Australia and America that have become more important involve where to raise a child.

One of the hardest things for someone living abroad to come to terms with is learning to weigh the positives and negatives of both countries. There are good and bad things everywhere, yet it is the act of living with a new set of negatives that helps make homesickness happen. Getting used to the negatives of an adopted home, and eventually not seeing them as glaringly, is part of the acclimation into a new culture. The negatives of home don't seem really pronounced for me. I miss friends and family and Michigan itself. All of it very valid. I miss temperate summers; I miss the first snowfall and taking a quiet walk after dark through the falling snow; I miss the hype of the three magic months with Thanksgiving, Christmas and Halloween; I miss the type of friendliness that is uniquely American; I miss the it's-a-natural-part-of-summer feeling of listening to a Tigers game on the radio; I miss walking along Main Street in Rochester. All the stuff that makes sense to me without thinking about it.

Over the last few years I have grown to see the beauty of the land here. This is a rugged and exotic country, roughly the size of the USA, yet the center, instead of our breadbasket, is an expansive desert. The cities sit along the coast of the country, beautiful and cosmopolitan, with the brutal beauty of the outback just hours away. Oz has droughts and hot summers. Yes, there a ton of things that can kill or maim you in the sea, air and land. The beach is always stunning and going body-surfing over Christmas break is really something I've gotten used to. The fact that the country has a public health care system that takes care of every man, woman, and child, and takes care of them well, is such an amazing example of decency applied on a large scale. University is covered by a loan from the government that you don't have to repay until you earn a minimum threshold (around $36, 000/year) and then a percentage is pulled out of every paycheck until paid off...interest free! And of course there is that old chestnut of not being in the cross hairs of every twisted psycho wanting to make a point about the West.

America is an amazing place with opportunities found nowhere else, with many of the top universities and research facilities in the world. It's a country offering a diversity of cultures found nowhere else. We are an optimistic, ambitious, and friendly people. America is skewed towards the ambitious and if you have a dream to be successful America is where you go. Australia, on the other hand, takes care of a larger chunk of its people. They have first class education and culture...even though their comedians tend to suck. Aussies are friendly, but not gushing, and they have a strong cynical streak.

As a result of being Terra Australis Incognita a large portion of the population travels and works overseas after they graduate from either high school or university. They have a world view that is well-rounded and sophisticated and developed through first-hand experiences. Nina lived in Holland for a few years, speaks Dutch, and developed a sense of the world through her experiences in Europe. Her sister travelled throughout Europe as well, and has been to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and is moving to Canada for a year to work at a Ski Resort. Of course I have met some glaring examples of insular racism and ignorance here, but that's something found in most countries, I would guess. Oz has its contingent of people who frame their views of the world beyond its borders through television as well.

America is so diverse that to travel to another state is akin to a trip abroad. We take it for granted that we have such a varied culture, but it is an amazing thing, since to visit another state may well provide foreign landscapes, food, cultures and histories. And it's cheap to do it. All of Australia's major cities are very pretty, but they were settled around the same time and generally by the same people, so there is a homogeneous quality to them that makes travelling abroad that much more tempting.

Most kids play a sport here. Education is important, but sport is part of the culture. The lifestyle is active and healthy and it's easier to defend against the pop culture crap as it doesn't seem to be as all-pervasive.

Well, this is usually how I end up when I start to think about these things...it's hard to say what is better, and I've learned that it isn't about this, anyway. It's about finding all the fantastic things available for you where you are. If you surround yourself with good people and enjoy where you live, you're ahead of the game, I think. And you can always travel.

I've attached photos of the last camping trip Nina and I went on with Libby, Dave, Rex and Maddy, and the kids. We canoed over four days up the Glenelg River, stopping to set up camp each night. Lots of great times, food and drink, fishing, and swimming. This is a big part of why I consider myself pretty damn lucky to be here.

Good Times

Morning Glory

Morning Mist

Before The Morning Coffee

Nina Fishing with the Kids

Perspective...

An article written by a Brit living in the US. This appeared in The Age paper here in Melbourne.

Here

So...What's Different?

When I meet someone new there's a good chance that eventually I'll get asked what are the differences between Australia and America. There's a lot, of course.

A big difference is going out to eat.

In the US going out for dinner is more commonly the preamble to a later event, usually a movie or a show or something else, especially with other couples. Wait staff are friendly (as is the American way), sometimes overly so, with their sugar-sweet constant pampering. You are also rushed through a bit as the staff are tipped and need you to move through.

You have a wealth of choices for salad dressings, soups, bread, etc. all in great supply, followed by a mountain of a main course.

You end up with the bill, tax added, and you tip 15% on top of that at least.

Here in Melbourne I was a bit put off when I went out to eat for the first time and thought the wait staff weren't as friendly, the food wasn't provided with an array of choices, and I was disappointed by the small portions. The food, though, is almost always amazing.

So, after six years of exhaustive eating I can safely offer the following (broad though it may be) assessment:

Restaurants in the US compete on quantity and here it's quality. There are amazing places to eat in the US obviously, but generally speaking, the food is consistently killer here. Melbourne alone has over 3,000 restaurants so they need to be good to survive.

Smaller portions here and never a doggy bag. Just enough for one (normal size) meal.

Tax is included in the price and there is no tipping. If a dinner costs $20 on the menu you pay $20 and leave. No tipping also means if you need something you can ask ANY wait staff for it. No tipping also means you are never rushed through and pressed for dessert, or anything else to bump up the bill. No friendly-pal who, once you have decided not to spend any more money, leave you on your own as if you've developed plague. There is no guilt. Because of this the dinner here is usually the evening event in and of itself. It can span for hours, guilt-free.

It is more expensive here, all things being equal, but it's much more relaxed. I am a convert.

BUT the fact that Mexican food is considered a boutique cuisine here and a burrito can cost $20 pisses me off no end. My consolation is that Asian food is cheap, plentiful, and authentic. $2 for a sushi roll at lunch ain't bad.

A Correction...

In the previous entry I quoted Julian Burnside as having stated that, in regard to the role of America and Australia at the Nuremburg Trials:

"...that Australia contributed far beyond its proportionate population and global influence at these trials."

When in fact he was referring to Australia:
"...participating significantly in the preparation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

At Federation Square

Federation Square is one of the most impressive aspects of Melbourne, in my humble opinion. It is a cubist-appearing collection of art galleries, museums, public television studio, conference center, cafes and restaurants, and most impressively, an open-air gathering place. It is a specifically-built public space designed for people to gather together. It is ringed by the venues just mentioned, straddles the Yarra river, and at one end has a giant television screen with the city beyond.

Thousands of people pack it to watch live music, televised soccer in the middle of the night from Europe, or a host of other arts and cultural offerings. I was in the city the other day and on the giant television there was a broadcast of a panel discussion taking place inside the complex itself. It was a discussion about human rights broadly and about David Hicks in particular. He is unknown in the US but he is the lone Australian being held at Guantanamo Bay. He has been held for over five years, half in solitary confinement, allegedly tortured both physically and mentally and has only now been charged with a crime.

The Age reports:

"The 31-year-old Adelaide-born Muslim convert, who has been in US custody since he was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001, was charged yesterday with providing material support for terrorism and referred to stand trial by a special military commission at the detention camp in Cuba."

His appointed attorney is a US Marine named Michael Mori. Mori spoke eloquently at the panel discussion and he explained, in great detail, how charges have been invented after the fact, how the US has a trial system set up that they won't use on their own citizens to avoid bad publicity but it's good enough for everyone else, how it puts the burden of proof on the defendant, and essentially how the process has been a hypocritical exercise on the part of the US Government that violates international human rights laws. England told the US that they would not allow their citizens to be held in Cuba as it was against international law, and the US let their British prisoners leave. Australia has decided to allow the US to do with Hicks as it sees fit, much to the disgust of many people in Australia.

One of the most emotional moments for me was when a lady stood to ask a question for Major Mori. Very calmly she said, "Thank you for all you've done to help one of our citizens." And with that the entire place, both inside and out, erupted in applause. For me it was a moving gesture to see human decency and compassion actually be applauded. It was sad that these people all reacted out of a feeling that their own government cared less for Hicks than a young, inexperienced American serviceman given the responsibility of fighting for the rights of a foreigner.

Another speaker was Julian Burnside, a Queen's Council (high ranking lawyer), and he made two of the most eloquent points of the day. He stated first that human rights are meant to protect humans, whether or not they are "good" humans. He accused Australians of applying that standard to people they can identify with, and those who are somehow outside the accepted norms of society are easily ignored. He secondly pointed out that he found one of the greatest tragedies of the entire affair was that the US showed the world how to handle such matters with great dignity and fairness during the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, and that Australia contributed far beyond its proportionate population and global influence at these trials. Unfortunately both countries have turned their backs on the very ideals they helped to establish.

Thousands of us sat in the open air on a lovely summer night and watched, cheered, and discussed what each of the speakers had to offer. A collection of people from every walk of life, together because of a concern for the human rights of someone they didn't personally know, and probably wouldn't even like if they did.

This was a good night in a fine city.

The Haka

The New Zealand All Blacks perform the Haka before each of their rugby matches. It is a traditional Maori war dance intended to intimidate their enemies.

These are two clips where NZ is about to play a game first against England, and then against Tonga, which has a version of the dance itself. Warring Hakas. Baddass.

I saw rugby played during the last Commonwealth Games and the Haka is awesome to see live. The game is amazing to watch as well as the players are all huge guys hitting each other as hard as they can and the only protection they wear is a cup. Football is a great game, but you have to really admire the rugby players who mix it up with little more than shorts and a shirt.

Melbourne

This is an ad for Melbourne that aired a while back. It shows a bit of the city.

Damn Straight!

Check it out...

New Zealand

Nina, me, my dad and his girlfriend Pat all just spent the last week driving around the south island of New Zealand.

Wow.

Never before in my life have I seen such dramatic natural beauty. It is impossible to convey the scenery in words as it is on such a dramatic scale. Not even photos do it justice. It was simply breathtaking. Our neighbour in Melbourne is a Kiwi and he has a favorite quote regarding his home: "When God created the earth he had lots of pieces left over and he made New Zealand out of them."

The land is as diverse as it is glorious. Untouched mountains and rivers, valleys and forests, beaches and meadows, and clean, safe, vibrant cities. No guns, terrorism, or desperate poverty. It is a sane, safe, and beautiful land.

Nina and I did a boogie-boarding excursion down the Kawarau River (where the Fellowship of the Ring rode their boats past the huge stone Pillars of the Kings. It was like whitewater rafting but holding onto a three-foot board instead of being in a boat. It was awesome. There were whirlpools, and at one point Nina got sucked down into one and shot up a few seconds later.

We walked within meters of the Fox Glacier, went kayaking through the Milford Sound fiords, stood in valleys where wildflowers bloomed and the mountains filled the backdrop, sat on the shore of Lake Tekapo where microscopic debris from glaciers make it nearly glow blue, drank crystal clear water from streams that wound their way down from the mountains, and the list goes on.

We fell in love with the place and wondered why anyone would leave it.

Instead of trying to convey in words any further, I am including some images from our holiday. These give an idea but it is a land that simply needs to be seen to be believed. Click to get bigger versions.

Us at Queenstown

Valley Near Queenstown

Golf Course in Queenstown

Nina at Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier (note tiny people)

Closeup of Glacier

Glacier Stream

Lupins (wildflowers) in Mountain Valley

Lupins and Mountain Stream

Nina and Bridge

The Chasm

Mountain Meadow

Amazing Field

Lake Tekapo

Lupins and Lake Tekapo

Lake Tekapo Shoreline

Milford Sound
(cliff face rising to the right of the center one is over five miles away.)

The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day Nine

Yea to Whittlesea 36 miles (333 miles total)

Needless to say we woke this morning excited and ready to go. The big final push to the end!

Our plan is to arrive at noon so we will be leaving in reverse order of speed. Our slowest guys will go first up to our quickest leaving at the end. We will have one rider leave early and find a spot a few miles from the finish line to gather us all up so we can arrive together.

It is a short day and an easy ride so we end up at the check point around 11am. We all arrive, one by one, and after a few photos, we leave, riding side by side, for the final few miles.

I was getting a real rush the closer we got to the finish and when we finally saw the huge finish line archway, I got such a rush of accomplishment. I remember thinking, "Wow. I did it!" I think the feeling was all around, and when we heard our school being announced, we all sprinted to the finish. Me with a huge dopey grin on my face.

Done. The Great Victorian Bike Ride 2006 is over.

Nina was there waiting for me and it was wonderful to give her a big kiss and hug. The kids' parents all showed up one after another and we told them all how well their boys did. I was particularily proud of the kids who weren't cool and very athletic. They persevered and pushed themselves to get through a tough ride. They did awesome. They all did.

After saying our goodbyes, Nina and I headed to our car, loaded up my gear from the piles on the grass, and headed home for the steak lunch I had waiting for me.

Total Miles: 333 Total kilometers: 536

As a footnote, shortly after we finished the ride, the exact area we rode through burst into the worst bushfires in over two hundred years. Two months later they are still burning. It is a hard life during the summer out there in the country towns around Victoria, and hopefully the drought soon ends and the farmers get a reprieve with some long-needed rain.

It was beautiful seeing the country the way we did but it would be impossible to not marvel at how harsh Australia can be. There are times when it feels like the land is doing its best to keep people from living on it.

The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day Eight

Mansfield to Yea 50 miles (297 miles total)

We left a little bit later as the weather was cool and going to stay that way for the rest of the ride. We have worked our way a bit south of the heat, so the only other thing we need to worry about was the wind.

We treated ourselves to a nice breakfast in town before we got moving.

Then it hit us. Holy shit. We had a HUGE head wind the entire way today. We rode past the lake in Bonnie Doon, where the family from the movie went on holiday and boating, and it was nothing more than a damp patch of grass at the bottom of a tiny valley.

We actually had to pedal going downhill as the wind was so strong. This ended up being the single toughest day of the ride, and for the last 15 miles, Ed, Jane and I took turns drafting just to take the worst of the wind off us for periods of time.

When we finally ended up in Yea, we headed straight for the pub and drank several pitchers of lemon squach and bitters and watched more of the cricket. The town had the common sense to close the main street to traffic and we bikers ran the roost for the day. We had a lovely time and we advised the boys that they should be in camp around 10pm so they could get a good sleep for the last ride. Of course we knew that, with all the girls riding around as well, this might not happen. We were okay with that.

At one point, Ed and I were walking down main street and we happened to run across a few of our boys chatting up some girls. I made eye contact with one in particular and played the part of the good dad, talking out loud about what a nice group of boys we had and kept on walking. Ed, of course, stopped and gave them a little shit. I, likewise, had to stick my beak into the fun and let them know we wanted them to be safe.

Earlier that night the group of girls at the sight next to ours had a major briefing where the teachers told them that they wanted them up at 5am, and wanted them to set new records for being early, and we all sat around rolling our eyes. Ed, taking this as a perfect opportunity to have a go at private school bullshit, jokingly gave our boys a pep talk about how no one is allowed to get drunk again, start any fights in the pubs, and should be back in their tents by no later than 2am. The girls thought he was serious and we were given a few stink eyes from the teachers.

Mission accomplished.





By the time I was in the tent, I was dreaming of seeing Nina again and getting a big hug and a kiss. Our bed, toilet, and shower...ahhh the comforts of home.

One more day.

The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day Seven

Whitfield to Mansfield 39 miles (247 miles total)

Absolute mother of a mountain. Effectively it was an eighteen mile climb up a mountain. About five minutes up the mountain I passed the last of the students who was having a hard go. I took one rest stop on the climb up, but didn't get off the bike other than that before lunch. It was going to get hot again and I didn't want to end up stuck in the heat in the afternoon.


We stopped at lunch early in a nice shady spot and were met with a pleasant surprise. Throughout the ride there has been a four-person band that has entertained the riders in varius guises: gypsies, minstrals, etc. Today there were at the lunch spot done up as hillbillies and they played some really cool bluegrass and country music. We grabbed some shade and ended up at the lunch spot for about two hours. It's getting easier to keep in mind that this isn't a race but a ride, and we weren't in a hurry to leave this little oasis.

We had some nice downhill riding after lunch and then we were hit with an utterly depressing last eight miles.


It had become stinking hot and the land was parched. Australia is going through its worst drought in hundreds of years and the area where we were riding is in the heart of bushfire country. Rivers and lakes have dried up to the point that they were either gone altogether or just a small, desperate trickle in a barren landscape. This felt like a dead land. Outside of the riders, silently spread along the road, and the few gums, there didn't seem to be much life here at all. I drank about seven liters of water today and was really looking forward to getting to the site.

Fortunately we were at a camp sight that had lots of shade, even if our tents were in the open sun. We spent the day hanging out and the feeling that I was ready to go home started to get more pronounced. I was ready. Just two more dayes of riding.

Dinner was braised chicken, mashed potatoes and vegetables. Very nice and no line.

After dinner I went down by myself and watched The Castle, a classic Aussie comedy, on an outdoor screen at the camp sight. After it finished I crawled into bed.

The weather is supposed to break tonight and it should be cooler tomorrow.

The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day Six

Myrtleford to Whitfield 53 miles (208 miles total)

We awoke to overcast skies and 10 degrees. Pure Bliss!

On our rest day (yesterday-Day Five) we were joined by another collegue, Jane, who is to ride with us for the second half. She was nervous arriving with her husband as she thought it was going to be an iron-man triathalon type of thing. I assured her that if I, and some of our less than fit boys can grunt through this, sh was going to have no problem.

Anyway, we got up and started the ride casually and I enjoyed having someone new to chat to duing the riding. After only a couple hours we stopped at Brown Brothers Winery (a great marketing deal was struck, thank god) and had some lunch and wonderful coffees. Naturally I had to pick up some wine, and since my dad was arriving in a couple weeks, I decided to buy a number of his favorite bottles, whhich were shipped free for us nut jobs in lycra.


We continued on what was to be the easiest day of the ride. We cruised for the rest of the day and ended up stopping short of Whitfield at another winery. We pulled up and sat outside, eating antipasto, drinking local beers, and taking in the beautiful sight of the vineyard. It was bliss, except for the GODDAMN FLIES. The last few summers have been particularily nasty for flies. This is unlike anything I have experienced before. If you are to remain relatively motionless, you will be surrounded with dozens of the little bastards and they will become even more voracious should you dare enjoy eating outdoors. I tried to find a zen space within myself and ignore them, but I was flooded with images of napalming them all off the face of earth. I guess when the wind blows from the north, where the cattle and sheep stations are in the driers areas, the flies are blown in as well. It is a joy.


We got to camp and the clouds broke. The sun beat down yet again. Went swimming in lake.

We saddled up to dinner, which was a lovely beef and rissotto-thingy. But let me paint a picture for you. As Ed and I sat opposite one another in the huge meal tent, sweating, we had to keep one hand constatly waving furiously back and forth over our food as any lull would bring the hundreds of flies hovering about our faces to touchdown on our dinners. I finally sacrificed my desert brownie with candied cherries and slapped it down on the table ext to my plate. The brownie was actually hard to see under the shroud of flies that swarmed over it. We looked at each other...

"I'm over this," I said.
"What, the ride?"
"No. The flies."
"Don't look up then."

Of couse I did, and saw that at the highest point of the tent the dim light faded to black under a canopy of thousands of the little bastards.

"At least they're not on me."

When we finished, the three of us decided to catch "Walk the Line", which was playing at a local winery. We strolled over to find a beautiful, fly-free vineyard, a huge inflatable screen, beautiful gums silhouetted against the setting sun and unlimited glasses of wine. Decadence. The highlight for me though, was the toilet. (The toilets on the camp were semi-trailer rigs with the collection area underneath. They were filthy, stunk, small, and designed to be nothing more than the most practical way to legally releive you of your waste. And they got worse with every passing day.) Sitting on a proper toilet. Alone. Clean. Fresh. This was paradise.

We watched the film, enjoying it thoroughly, and then walked back to our spartan, sprawling campground.

Tomorrow is actually supposed to be the hardest day of the ride as it has a mother of a ride over a mountain pase, but then the bastard just keeps going up and up. No rewarding downhill ride until the very end.

I went to sleep feeling pretty good about my chances of making it.

The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day Four

Mount Beauty to Myrtleford 39 miles (155 miles total).



Here's the morning that thousands of us bikers have been thinking about. Dreading, actually. The testicle/bum destroying climb up Mount Beauty first thing in the morning. Each day's ride is charted on a Route Profile that each rider was given weeks before the ride. It shows a graph of the distance and altitude and today's was a spike rising 800 meters in 9 kilometers. We were literally biking up the side of a mountain. At least I wasn't, for whatever reason, worse for wear after our encounter with Jock.

A kilometer from camp the road took an aggressive uphill posture and I peddled along at a respectable 8 miles and hour, passing people...slowly.

After about forty five minutes of trudging, I pulled over for a break and Ed was already ahead of me, sitting in the shade. Our kids were all working their way up the mountain.



Near the top we saw one of our students walking his bike up. He had broken the neck of his seat. He had to get the Sag Wagon down the mountain to camp as there were no replacement parts to be found.

As we reached the top the volunteers were playing Chariots of Fire on a little boom box and we had a good rest and water break. It took us over an hour to get to the top.

I struck a pose...


...and then we tore ass down the hill.

The ride for the rest of the day was nice and easy. I stopped along the way at a drink stand called Juice Pig and got a bottle of watermelon juice.

When I pulled up in Myrtleford (which is where we are to spend the rest day tomorrow) I was surprised that it was such a small little town. They must have put in a good bid to have the riders spend their rest day there.

We attended our first teachers' briefing and found out that 40 people had to take the Sag up the hill and there were a few crashes as people smashed into each other flying down the hill.

Ed and I made sure all the boys were accounted for and then took the air-conditioned bus to the town center for beers at the local pub, The Buffalo. We sat back, drinking icy beer and eating hot chips, all the while being entertained by two 20-something girls hustling the locals. They said they were on the ride but we never saw them, and they were throwing their boobs around like presents at Christmas. It was a wonderfully shameless display and the local gentry were vying for pole position. We quietly drank our beers and left, never to see the girls again on the ride.

Went to bed that night thinking that the hill wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I'm starting to feel more in shape. Tomorrow we get to sleep in.

Half way through the ride...