I am going to Sydney, NSW, Australia

Well, that’s the short and sweet of it, I will be going to SYD to do work at my company’s site out there for about two months.

It’s been a real trying last couple of months because this plan has been fomenting since about 3 months ago. It’s possibility has sort of held me in this state of superposition (stolen from popular Quantum Mechanics’ lexicon), neither being go-yes or go-no.

See, I’ve been thinking Buy new car? or Try to buy some property" - but the sensible answers to both these questions change dramatically when one thinks about not being where one wants to live for months at a time.

It’s also held my personal life in this weird stage - it’s this state of living semi-detached from those around one. This is contrary to my rather Dionysian (in the more Classical sense) impulses of experiencing each moment fully – but it’s hard to live the other way - it always feels like you’re being disingenuous insofar as you know the tacit assumption in each relationship (I should be able to see this person the day after, and the day after that) is highly dubitable.

But now that life-on-a-delay-timer is over as the flights have been booked, the hotel reserved, and my project plan put to ink.

I’m a bit worried about leaving SF – I like my apartment OK and moving all my belongings (that don’t get sold first) into storage hardly thrills me - but we can’t live life hoping not to experience changes. Change is critical to making us become what we need to be.

As you doubtless noticed I will be in Sydney through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. I think that this will definitely be an interesting experience. The last time I was in a foreign land for a holdiay was in 1997/1998 when I was in Prague and Munich (Christmas, Sylvester, respectively).

So there you have it.

Well the first things first is I wanted to only travel with clothes and one computer.

Clothes, well that’s pretty obvious, not too hard to figure out what to pack. Although my friend Big Al tells me that I will need to buy new going out clothes. This worries me a bit (or rather my bank account) because the Lonely Planet guide describes the denizens of Sydney as Sybaritic.

Work provides me this crappy Thinkpad that I hate. I decided that I should sell off my iMac and pick up a PowerBook. The powerbook will let me do movie editing (soon to appear on this site!), listen to music, do unix stuff for work, do business doc editing for work, and look damn fine carrying it.

So it will be me, my camera, my computer, and my clothes headed over to a foreign country - it reminds me of being 20 and going to the Netherlands…this time, though, I already have contacts and am fully fluent in the native tongue.