Thursday, April 14, 2005
Thursday Night in Canberra
I just realized I never published this one. Sorry about that. I had written it but never got it ouf for anyone to see. Anyway, here you go.
Well Wednesday was an all day flight from Singapore to Melbourne. The flight was about 7 hours and we lost 2 hours in time zones also. So Wednesday we really didn't do anything except for fly. In fact, I didn't even eat dinner. Its amazing how after doing nothing all day but sitting on your butt, you get to a hotel room and just want to go to bed.
I would have liked to have done that but it wasn't going to happen. I figured I should try to do some email first but I couldn't figure out how to get on the Internet. I sorta tore up the place (pulled the dishwasher out to get to the broadband modem), but I still couldn't make it work. So I figured I'd get ready for the morning since it was going to be a pretty early start. I pulled the suit out I was going to wear and saw that it was pretty badly wrinkled. I know what you are thinking: Scott???? Noticed wrinkles????? What happened to him? Well, I figured since I was going to go through the troubles of wearing a suit it should probably look reasonable. So I ended up pulling out the ironing board and getting those wrinkles out.
After that I was ready for bed and set the alarms. I woke up in the morning and went to turn on the lights and there was a loud pop and then most of the lights wouldn't work. I ended up taking a shower and getting dressed mostly in the dark.
We then had breakfast with our Australian host, who prepped us on the customers we would be meeting with. Our first was a meeting with IBM for about 90 minutes. We then hustled over to BlueScope a steel manufacturer. Then it was lunch with Holden, a GM subsidiary. This was held in a resturant overlooking the Melbourne harbour (When in Australia, you have to spell things the aussie way). This is about 30 miles by 30 miles so it is pretty big and apparently where the heads of the harbour meet, it is only about 1 mile wide so the currents get up to about 10 knots through that section. Anyway it was a good lunch with a salad, some good scallops, and creme broulee for dessert.
We then hustled on over to meet with BHL, a mining company and since the press interview was cancelled we made it to the airport to catch the next earlier flight. We arrived in Melbourne, jumped in a limo and made it to the Hyatt without incident.
We actually get to sleep in a bit tomorrow, I might go out for a quick run even to see what I can of Canberra before we meet with the Foreign Ministry and then head out to Sydney where the 3 ring circus will continue.
Well Wednesday was an all day flight from Singapore to Melbourne. The flight was about 7 hours and we lost 2 hours in time zones also. So Wednesday we really didn't do anything except for fly. In fact, I didn't even eat dinner. Its amazing how after doing nothing all day but sitting on your butt, you get to a hotel room and just want to go to bed.
I would have liked to have done that but it wasn't going to happen. I figured I should try to do some email first but I couldn't figure out how to get on the Internet. I sorta tore up the place (pulled the dishwasher out to get to the broadband modem), but I still couldn't make it work. So I figured I'd get ready for the morning since it was going to be a pretty early start. I pulled the suit out I was going to wear and saw that it was pretty badly wrinkled. I know what you are thinking: Scott???? Noticed wrinkles????? What happened to him? Well, I figured since I was going to go through the troubles of wearing a suit it should probably look reasonable. So I ended up pulling out the ironing board and getting those wrinkles out.
After that I was ready for bed and set the alarms. I woke up in the morning and went to turn on the lights and there was a loud pop and then most of the lights wouldn't work. I ended up taking a shower and getting dressed mostly in the dark.
We then had breakfast with our Australian host, who prepped us on the customers we would be meeting with. Our first was a meeting with IBM for about 90 minutes. We then hustled over to BlueScope a steel manufacturer. Then it was lunch with Holden, a GM subsidiary. This was held in a resturant overlooking the Melbourne harbour (When in Australia, you have to spell things the aussie way). This is about 30 miles by 30 miles so it is pretty big and apparently where the heads of the harbour meet, it is only about 1 mile wide so the currents get up to about 10 knots through that section. Anyway it was a good lunch with a salad, some good scallops, and creme broulee for dessert.
We then hustled on over to meet with BHL, a mining company and since the press interview was cancelled we made it to the airport to catch the next earlier flight. We arrived in Melbourne, jumped in a limo and made it to the Hyatt without incident.
We actually get to sleep in a bit tomorrow, I might go out for a quick run even to see what I can of Canberra before we meet with the Foreign Ministry and then head out to Sydney where the 3 ring circus will continue.
