Home At Last

I made it. Doing okay, just a little pooped. I need to stay awake until at least 10 now to try and get back on schedule. I am sure jet lag will set in at some point.

So... what was I doing in Australia? Glad you asked. Here is a photo of the two machines I was working on. They are the two big yellow units.

They run ground up construction & demolition debris through these to screen for particle size. Both machines were stroking too high. It was my job to make sure they were running properly before I left. I was successful. Yea me. Basically, on the last day I convinced them to undo most of the modifications they had done to our machine. So for three straight days I climbed in and out, under and over these two machines to get to the root of the issue. What you can't see in this photo is the amount of dust that is in this place. I was covered in it and breathing it all day. Talk about dirt boogers. Tons. The shower at the end of the day was great.

On the flight home my connection to LA from Australia was in Sydney. Talk about beautiful. Flying into Sydney was one of my favorite things about this trip. It is post card beautiful. I want to go back there. Just the view from the small plane window was breathtaking. It helped that it was a beautiful sunny day. The sun was glistening off everything. I was too slow with the camera.

One of my other favorite parts of the trip was the people. Everywhere I went where people would hear me speak they would say "ah an Amireecan". Then the conversation would go on from there. Always polite, always pleasant, and very interested in what I thought of their country. Most were sad to hear that all I was seeing was a waste facility.

The street my hotel was on reminded me of NW 23rd in Portland. There were trendy shops, restaurants, and pubs. I got to eat at two nice places. One was the Royal Oak which feature live music. The other was The Pink Pig. The food at both places was excellent. My favorite was the peppered steak at The Pink Pig. The customer service at every step of the way was excellent. Whether it was at one of these restaurants or the mini-mart down the street. People were just down right friendly. If they were faking it, they were the best actors.

While I was gone, Kathi and I made the paper. Somehow Michelle, a friend of ours, spotted us in the photo. Kathi had read the article and missed us. The Oregonian did a nice story on Imago Dei, one of the churches we visited this summer. Click here to read the story. On the Sunday they took the picture we were there. Can you find us? I've provided a little help.