Cause that's the important bit

Last Saturday, before my triathlon, Australia had its federal elections. I went to an election party with my friends and it was great fun. An afternoon of lawn bowling, Risk: Transformers, a pinata, and of course, a barbie with snags, was followed my sheer energy as the Australian Labour Party decidely swept into power after 12 or so years of Liberal Rule under John Howard.

It was pretty cool to watch the results as they came in, particularly with such a partisan crowd! It's what SHOULD have happened in 2004 at home. But, let's not go there.

It wasn't until election night, though, that I realized (good lord - I just spelled realized with an s! I've changed it back to a z. Must resist the change....) that Australian voters don't vote for the prime minister directly, they vote for members of parliament in each of their home seats, including the leaders of the parties, in this case, Kevin Rudd and John Howard. When one party has a majority of seats they are the leaders and form their government, including selection of the prime minister. The leaders of the party are already known before the election; in fact Kevin Rudd took leadership of the opposition from Kim Beazely about a year ago in the lead up to this election.

So, this week, Rudd has been in Canberra and today he selected his cabinet. As the Australian system has ministers of each area - sort of like our Secretaries - each member of the cabinet gets a portfolio. Usually, like at home, the person is selected for the portfolio, but Rudd selected all the Cabinet members first, then assigned portfolios to them. His deputy prime minister is a woman, Julia Gillard, the most senior female politician in Australia and she's been given the portfolios of workplace relations (a huge election issue) and education (another huge election issue). Pretty big stuff. But the one that makes headlines in the US? Peter Garrett as Minister of Environment.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/29/australia.government.ap/index.html

Ah well, once a rock star, always a rock star. And the US media loves a celebrity.

Other interesting tidbits from the election:
There is a preference voting system in Australia. This means that if the party you've selected in the vote doesn't win the seat, you can indicate who your vote will go to of the other candidates. So, the people who are tallying the votes actually have to go back to the losing votes and reassign their vote. The other 2 big parties in Australia are the Nationals (Liberal preference) and the Greens (Labour preference). There are also Democrats and I'd presume they are Labour preference as well. I think that's how it works. I don't think the US has something like that. Right?

Good lord. I need to take a civics class. Or whatever class it is that teaches you about government. Cause as I was trying to explain our system to people and compare it to the system here I realized I'm a bit woeful on the details. Ooops.

There was a great ad run by Get-Up during the election. As there are more than 2 viable parties in Australia - well, there are the 2 big ones, but the little ones don't seem as little as the little ones in the US - Get-Up ran an ad with reps from the 3 non-Liberal parties: Labour, Greens, and Democrats, with the message: "It doesn't matter if you vote Labour, or Greens, or Demorats, just vote to save our senate and end the coalition's power." Just such a good ad - reminding people that a democracy can't really exist if one party has a stranglehold on the Senate and the House. (Although it may not be called the House here. I'm still figuring it all out.)

John Howard lost his seat of 33 years to a journalist from ABC (The PBS equivalent). So, even if the Liberals had managed to hold onto the government, Howard would have been out. Sort of a sad way to end 30+ years as a pollie. He's been gracious about it all. But he can talk the talk - he is a politician after all.

I am Exhausted!!!!

But pretty stoked!

I had my first triathlon this morning, and now, at 9pm, am starting to feel somewhat normal again. I can't remember the last time I was that tired!

It was really fun, super challenging, and hard. It was great to do the race with all the people I've been training with over the last 7 weeks and some friends from soccer came too, which was awesome. I may not have been very coherent at the finish line, but I was very glad to have people there cheering me on!

So, my thoughts??? It's definitely a challenge to change from one thing to another. The swim wasn't as horrendous as I anticipate (it's been keeping me up at night!!). I went into the lake for an acclimatization swim befoer the race, which was the best idea. I still had to do half of the 200 meters in breaststroke - my freestyle just isn't quite there yet. SOmething to work on! The first transition went well - I have elastic laces on my runners which makes it easier to switch. And, since the swim wasnt' too long, there wasn't a lot of dizzy head and wobbliness as I put on my shoes. The bike was pretty good - there was a killer hill in the back of the loop, and it was a loop we did 2X. But I was glad to have the road bike and felt okay with the ride. The transition to the run was okay, just take off the helmet, but holy crap is it a painful thing! It as a 2K run after the ride, which was about 9K, and I only felt sort of normal towards the end of the run. I had toes that were asleep, quads that felt like concrete, and my feet just wouldn't stop shuffling! But my finess was okay - it as definitely hard, but I just need some more practice.

I had anticipated doing the race in about 40 minutes, and I did it in 38:44. Pretty good prediction for not really knowing what I was getting into!!!

I'm definitely hooked (although I AM taking a rest day tomorrow!!) and am looking forward to the training for the next race which is on 13 Jan.

All the Bilbys got together at All Bar Nun for a few drinks (and FOOD!) after the race, it was super fun to rehash the race with everyone and just hang out. It's a very cool group of people.

No mind control for cockroaches, please!

I find something vaugely unsettling in this report from Science:

Robotics offer new possibilities for studying and modulating animal behavior. Halloy et al. (p. 1155; see the news story by Pennisi) observed collective decision-making by mixed groups of cockroaches and autonomous minirobots. The robots, similar in size (though not in shape) to the cockroaches, were coated in a blend of cuticular hydrocarbons that mimic the natural cockroach cuticle. The robots and the insects made shared decisions regarding choice of shelter, and the robots could modulate the collective decision-making process and produce a behavior pattern--choice of an inappropriate shelter--not observed in groups of cockroaches alone. Thus, a small number of robots can change the global pattern by altering feedbacks between individuals in the system.
CREDIT: ULB AND EPFL

I don't like to think about the implications of this. Will there one day be cockroach armies, under the control of minirobots? I shudder to think! Literaly shudder.

DOn't know if anyone out there knows this story - but I once called my mom, in California, from my apartment in Atlanta, one evening because I was FREAKING out about a cockroach in my bedroom. (In my defense, it was hanging out on the ceiling over my bed and wouldn't move.) My mom was reasonable in her response - "There's nothing I can do, I'm 3000 miles away." Yeah, thanks. True, but not helpful to me freaking out in Atlanta. I think I ended up vacumming up the thing and barely sleeping that night. Or maybe I called my friend Elizabeth or Allison, both of whom have rescued me from cockroaches in the past.

ICK.

Doesn't have the same feeling at all!

I've just read that the great scene in 'Say ANything' where John Cusak is holding up the radio and playing 'In Your Eyes' (you know the one) was originally meant to have a different song! It was written with 'To Be a Lover' by Billy Idol.

Thank godness that was changed, huh?

2 weeks to go!

In two weeks I'll be one day past my first trathlon.

This past weekend I got to spend a few days on a road bike that I'm borrowing from a friend of mine that has been doing triathlons for a while now. She actually did the Ironman in Port Macquarie this past April. And after one of our training sessions this weekend, I can't imagine the physical and mental aptitude it takes to take on something like that. But, I can tell you that having a road bike instead of a mountain bike makes a flipping WORLD of difference.

Not only can I lift up this road bike with one hand instead of the two hands it takes to pick up the mountain bike...but I finally felt like I was actually riding a bike rather than fighting the bike, which is how I've been feeling every single time I get on the mountain bike, even with new slick tires. So, I'm never going back, I swear.

I've got this bike for a month, which will take me through the first race and hopefully in that month I can save enough money to get myself my own road bike, or come up with a really good way to convince my friend to continue lending me her bike. I should be able to come up with something, right? Cause, seriously, it's a whole different experience. I actually went for an hour ride around the lake on Saturday morning before training because it felt so good!

On saturday we had our first transition training session. it was meant to be in the lake, to practice the swim to bike transition, but the lake was closed. Excuse me, what? Yep, the lake was closed because of contamination due to a sewage lake a few miles or so upstream. It was closed as a 'precaution' but I'm still not so sure that I even want to attempt getting into it in 2 weeks. Can the sun kill all the yucky stuff (that's the technical term) in 2 weeks?

So, since we couldn't swim, we did the bike to run transition. And I haven't felt concrete lactic acid legs like that since running 400m repeats in high school! Holy cow. And it took almost a full kilometer (I don't think in miles anymore!) to get my legs feeling somewhat normal. Oy.

But, I reckon this. I know I'm fit enough to do all these events and the biggest piece on the 25th will be the mental challenge to get through the transitions. I'm kind of looking forward to it. But I'm pretty apprehensive too.

New digs

I've got a great new wondow office at work. Well, not so much an 'office' as a desk in a 4 cubicle bay, but I still get a window and a great view of Black Mountain and lots of natural light. I'm hoping it makes me more productive. Yeah, right. :)

The tower on top of Black Mountain is Telstra Tower, the cell phone tower operated by Telstra. Sort of looks like something out of a science fiction movie, huh?

You must be kidding me.

No No No No No No No No.

This just can't be true.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4259362a5620.html

Pandemic!

Got your attention, didn't I?

Last night I watched a made-for-TV movie called "Pandemic", starring Tiffani Amber-Thiessen as the LA based CDC quarantine officer, Faye Dunaway as the CA governor, and a host of other reconizable no-name actors. IT was what you'd expect. Every time Tiffani's charcter, Dr. Kayla Martin, introduced herself, "I'm Dr. Kayla Martin from the LA Center for Disease Control, I just laughed. Yes, we have a quarantine office out there, but I doubt it's staffed with someone like Dr. Kayla Martin. But it is LA, I could be wrong I guess.

The movie was basically an induced panic-fest about the 'deadliest and fastest virus ever seen'. Not avian flu, but something much worse. Right. Aside from my base cynicism, it isn't hard for me to understand why there is a public image issue around infectious disease control and the pending 'pandemic'. Do these people not hire sciene advisors? I'm afraid the truth wouldn't make good TV though. One of my good friends from grad school has (I think) served as a science advisor for popular TV shows - and I guess there is a limit to how 'real' TV can be made.

Oh wait, isn't that what 'reality TV' is? Hard to tell the difference anymore.

Then, thius afternoon I was reading an article about personal cellphone jammers (a neat idea, but apparently illegal in the US) that emit a high-powered radio frequency that creates a 'dead zone' around the user. A quote from one of the users on the lack of cellphone ettiquette:

"There’s no etiquette,” he said. “It’s a pandemic.”

Now, I agree, cell phone ettiquette is spotty at best, but pandemic? I'm not sure that's really what he means. Unless he's trying to induce mass panic.

Family changes

So, you all know that my sister got married a couple months ago. So I've got a new brother. Now, my brother has gotten married too! So now I have a new sister too! I know those are sort of old concepts of marriage, with the gaining of new 'siblings' but I like the idea of my family now including more people!!

And, in non-human family news, my mom's 2 oldest cats, both of whom were nearing 17 or 18, have passed away in the last month. I got the chance to say goodbye to Eliot when I was home in August - she really wasn't looking too good, but, like a lady, waited till after Maggie got married to let go. I didn't say goodbye to Yeats because she seemed fine. A bit fiesty :) but that was just her. Maybe, once Eliot was gone, she just decided to go to. We had adopted them together years ago, and even though they never outwardly were enamored of each other, they must have ahad a good bond. Now mom just has Ichabod, the big dorky male kitty, who is such a sweetie. Ichabod was adopted by Maggie in college and has been with Mom for a few years. I'll bet he's lonely now!!

Eliot:




Yeats: