This week was a pretty good week. Katy and I started doing our after school clinics. She has three and I have three. They go for about an hour and we usually have from 10-30 kids in the groups. This week we also went to out to a Primary School called Chum Creek Primary to do a basketball clinic on Friday morning. This school was in the fire-affected area and part of the school had been burned. One of the small buildings was lost and another had black streaks on the side where fire had hit it. IT was quite incredible to see though how the fire had come over the hill and basically split to go around the school and then joined again on the other side of the school and kept going. I think they were pretty lucky. The kids seemed to be doing pretty well. One girl had lost her dad, she seemed to be doing well, but we just couldn’t imagine what she was going through. I think she was 7 or 8.
After the clinic we drove up the road and saw some of the damage. Everything seemed to be burned. We did see a kangaroo that made it through but it looked like his feet, tail and paws were burned. Felt pretty bad as it didn’t look like he could walk very well.
We did talk to some though that said we will have to go back up in 2 or 3 months and see how everything regenerates. They said that some of the plants here do not regerminate until a fire so you will see different plants you may not have seen before. Everything will be pretty green and look totally different. So I think we might do that.
This weekend we were supposed to have another practice game but the team we were going to play has sort of the same problem that we do, in that their guys from America do not have their paperwork completed yet. Also, they have a couple injuries so they would only have had 5 players.
We are supposed to have a practice game next week, but we’ll see how it goes.
So this weekend Katy and I went to a lake nearby and sat out in the 80 degree weather and tonight we are headed into the city with another couple.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
My B-day (Feb 13th)
My birthday (February 13th)
This day started off great. When I woke up Katy was making a huge breakfast: potatoes, eggs, pancakes, fruit, and muffins. It was good! Then we went over to the club to get our shooting in and decided to head into the city as we could go hiking like we wanted to, as the fire had destroyed the hiking trails we wanted to use. So we decided to head into the city. I wanted to go see Melbourne Central, a shopping center that is also a tourist attraction. So we headed in. We drove around for quite some time trying to find a parking spot. It took a long time but finally we found one, we were very happy! The city is terrible to park in; it is so hard to find a spot.
So we parked and walked around Melbourne Central, a shopping area, for while and then walked down by the Yarra River and sat for while. It was nice to relax a little. After a couple hours we headed back to the car so we could get some dinner or maybe go to a movie.
When we got back to where our car and a couple others were parked, there was nothing – no car. We immediately looked to make sure we were on the right street…yup, right street. We looked at the ground to see if there was any glass, maybe the car had been broken into and taken….nope, no glass. Then we looked up at the parking sign and saw that the sign said two hour parking until 4:30. We missed the part of the sign that told us about from 4:30 to 6:00. But sure enough as we stood below the sign and looked up at it, it said: C 4:30-6:00. Which means clearway from 4:30 to 6:00 and no parking. Luckily we found the phone number for the parking authority on a parking meter up the street. We found out that our car would have been towed, since it was in a clearway area, and where we would have to go to get it back. We were told it what street it would be on and where we would have to go to get it. Well, we had a map of the city and tried to find the location on there, but of course our map did not go out as far as it needed to so we could see where we were going. So, we decided we would walk. We knew which way to go and knew we would run into the street it was on if we went down a certain road so we started off. After we had been walking for a while we checked our map to see how far we had already made it. A lady walking by stopped and asked if we needed any help, so we told her our story. She said she was just getting done with work and if we followed her to where her car was she would let us look at her Melways (a map book) to see where exactly we had to go. After looking at the map book we realized we had a very long way to go, and were not looking forward to the walk. Unexpectedly the lady said she was going that way and offered us a ride. I think that was a hidden b-day present or someone looking out for us, somewhere.
When we got to the impound lot we found out that to get our car back we would need to pay $315 right there or we couldn't get it back. Obviously we need our car so we paid it. Then when we got out to the car there was a parking ticket from the City of Melbourne for $130 for parking in a Clearway spot. So I think that may be one of the most expensive b-day presents.
And I don't think we will be driving into the city anytime soon.
Well, Happy Birthday to me..............but there is nothing we can really do about it now so we just laugh.
This day started off great. When I woke up Katy was making a huge breakfast: potatoes, eggs, pancakes, fruit, and muffins. It was good! Then we went over to the club to get our shooting in and decided to head into the city as we could go hiking like we wanted to, as the fire had destroyed the hiking trails we wanted to use. So we decided to head into the city. I wanted to go see Melbourne Central, a shopping center that is also a tourist attraction. So we headed in. We drove around for quite some time trying to find a parking spot. It took a long time but finally we found one, we were very happy! The city is terrible to park in; it is so hard to find a spot.
So we parked and walked around Melbourne Central, a shopping area, for while and then walked down by the Yarra River and sat for while. It was nice to relax a little. After a couple hours we headed back to the car so we could get some dinner or maybe go to a movie.
When we got back to where our car and a couple others were parked, there was nothing – no car. We immediately looked to make sure we were on the right street…yup, right street. We looked at the ground to see if there was any glass, maybe the car had been broken into and taken….nope, no glass. Then we looked up at the parking sign and saw that the sign said two hour parking until 4:30. We missed the part of the sign that told us about from 4:30 to 6:00. But sure enough as we stood below the sign and looked up at it, it said: C 4:30-6:00. Which means clearway from 4:30 to 6:00 and no parking. Luckily we found the phone number for the parking authority on a parking meter up the street. We found out that our car would have been towed, since it was in a clearway area, and where we would have to go to get it back. We were told it what street it would be on and where we would have to go to get it. Well, we had a map of the city and tried to find the location on there, but of course our map did not go out as far as it needed to so we could see where we were going. So, we decided we would walk. We knew which way to go and knew we would run into the street it was on if we went down a certain road so we started off. After we had been walking for a while we checked our map to see how far we had already made it. A lady walking by stopped and asked if we needed any help, so we told her our story. She said she was just getting done with work and if we followed her to where her car was she would let us look at her Melways (a map book) to see where exactly we had to go. After looking at the map book we realized we had a very long way to go, and were not looking forward to the walk. Unexpectedly the lady said she was going that way and offered us a ride. I think that was a hidden b-day present or someone looking out for us, somewhere.
When we got to the impound lot we found out that to get our car back we would need to pay $315 right there or we couldn't get it back. Obviously we need our car so we paid it. Then when we got out to the car there was a parking ticket from the City of Melbourne for $130 for parking in a Clearway spot. So I think that may be one of the most expensive b-day presents.
And I don't think we will be driving into the city anytime soon.
Well, Happy Birthday to me..............but there is nothing we can really do about it now so we just laugh.
Second Week
The second week was a little sad as we kept hearing all the stories from the fire and people losing family members and property. Even though our place wasn’t that close to where the fires we could smell smoke a lot the week and had a smoky haze around where we live most of the time.
On a better side of things, Katy started playing with the Wednesday morning team she played with last year and is happy to be back playing wit the ladies. I think they are happy she is back playing with them as well.
The weekend brought 3 practice games for our team, however Quincy and I were not able to play as our visas have not come through yet and we have not yet been cleared by basketball Australia to play. So we sat out. It was sort of tough to watch the games from side-lines not being able to play, but at least it only the pre-season. Our team won 2 and lost 1.
On a better side of things, Katy started playing with the Wednesday morning team she played with last year and is happy to be back playing wit the ladies. I think they are happy she is back playing with them as well.
The weekend brought 3 practice games for our team, however Quincy and I were not able to play as our visas have not come through yet and we have not yet been cleared by basketball Australia to play. So we sat out. It was sort of tough to watch the games from side-lines not being able to play, but at least it only the pre-season. Our team won 2 and lost 1.
First Week
The first week was pretty interesting. Katy and I both said that it felt like we really hadn’t left when we went back into the stadium and saw the people there again. We acclimatized pretty quickly. I think it only took a couple days to have the legs feeling pretty good and our sleep pattern got on track in only a couple days. Katy got right back to playing with her Thursday night league team again and she was excited to start playing again. On the weekend our team had training camp a couple hours away, in a place called Moe (pronounced Mo-ee). We had it Saturday and Sunday. It was quite warm on Saturday as the temperature hit around 116 in Melbourne and I think it even got a little hotter in some other places. It actually ended up being the hottest day ever on record in Melbourne. When you walked outside it was an instant sweat and the gym that we played was somewhat cool, but since most of the gyms here are not air conditioned it got pretty hot as the day went on. As you can imagine our coach took a little easier on us than planned. We were originally scheduled for a track workout, outside, for an hour, but due to the heat that was cut out of the day. Also this weekend there was the bush fires. I don’t know if you had seen on the news at all, but it was the worst fire in history here, with many people dying. Normally it gets dark here about 8:30/9:00, but at 6:00 it was almost dark because of all the smoke in the air. At 5:30 the sky was a bright orange, I’ve never seen anything like it. An hour or two later it rained and when the drops hit your skin they weren’t clear they were black with all the ash. It was interesting to go out Sunday morning and see everything covered in a black film.
On Saturday when we got to Moe we could see what looked like a big front - line of clouds - coming our way. We found out that it was the smoke from the fire. When we got to the stadium where we were training at, we could also see another cloud of smoke that look like smoke coming up from a power plant, but on a much greater scale. We found out later that this was also smoke, but from another fire.
We had practice on Saturday and Sunday but if we would have wanted to go home Saturday night we would not have been able to, due to the fires and all of the smoke around the highway.
On Saturday when we got to Moe we could see what looked like a big front - line of clouds - coming our way. We found out that it was the smoke from the fire. When we got to the stadium where we were training at, we could also see another cloud of smoke that look like smoke coming up from a power plant, but on a much greater scale. We found out later that this was also smoke, but from another fire.
We had practice on Saturday and Sunday but if we would have wanted to go home Saturday night we would not have been able to, due to the fires and all of the smoke around the highway.
Flight Over
Well we made it back to Australia. On the flight from Chicago to LA the pilot kept updating us about the Superbowl and how it was going. It sounded like it was a pretty interesting game, especially at the end. From what we were able to see, about 1.75 quarters we thought it was a pretty good game.
This time when we flew down we took United instead of Air New Zealand. It was pretty a pretty good flight, but there wasn’t a DVD player/TV screen for each person to choose what you wanted to watch. There was one big screen and you just had to watch what was on. Also this time when we flew down there was only one exit aisle seat, so we let Quincy (the other player from the states, who played at Winona, have the seat). Originally the airline had Katy and me sitting in the middle 2 seats of a four seat grouping. This had the potential to be miserable, so luckily we were able to change. The flight was pretty good, except the ladies pushing the food and beverage carts kept smashing into my leg and waking me up, but I guess that’s the way it goes.
When we got here the customs line was long but we made it pretty much straight through without a fuss and met our coach at the airport. It was nice to see a familiar face waiting for us, as my coach was there to meet us and pick us up. We walked outside and the 85 degree heat felt pretty nice.
This time when we flew down we took United instead of Air New Zealand. It was pretty a pretty good flight, but there wasn’t a DVD player/TV screen for each person to choose what you wanted to watch. There was one big screen and you just had to watch what was on. Also this time when we flew down there was only one exit aisle seat, so we let Quincy (the other player from the states, who played at Winona, have the seat). Originally the airline had Katy and me sitting in the middle 2 seats of a four seat grouping. This had the potential to be miserable, so luckily we were able to change. The flight was pretty good, except the ladies pushing the food and beverage carts kept smashing into my leg and waking me up, but I guess that’s the way it goes.
When we got here the customs line was long but we made it pretty much straight through without a fuss and met our coach at the airport. It was nice to see a familiar face waiting for us, as my coach was there to meet us and pick us up. We walked outside and the 85 degree heat felt pretty nice.
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