Minnamurra Rainforest and Carrington Falls

Yesterday morning we got up early for a day of bush walking. First, we went to Minnamurra Falls. I was so impressed with that walk from my previous trip there, I told Michelle she just had to see it, too. The parks in Australia are numerous and vast, and bush walking is a healthy, low-cost, active, and relaxing way to spend time here. We bought a couple of decent backpacks for hiking earlier this week so we'd be properly equipped (the back support is extremely important for long walks). At the Minnamurra Falls visitor center I bought a 2-year multi-parks pass. That allows us unlimited access to all the state-managed entry-fee parks in NSW (except one) for 2 years.

The Minnamurra rainforest was just as beautiful as before. By getting there early, we beat the crowds. Since the walk is fairly easy, the park attracts lots of visitors: families with small kids, Aussies with guests from overseas, etc. We finished the walk in about 2.5 hours, so we went to another nearby park to finish out the day. There are two large parks in the immediate area, Budderoo National Park and Barren Grounds Nature Reserve. I checked online the night before to see how long the trails were, and Budderoo had the best options for us. The staff at Minnamurra told us about Carrington Falls in Budderoo, so that was our next stop.

Getting to Carrington involved a very winding drive through the hills, and the entrance sign to the Falls could have been easily passed by if I hadn't been paying attention. The bush in this area was strikingly different than at Minnamurra Falls, despite only being about 18 km away. The waterfall was very impressive. The view overlooked both the falls and a huge valley. We soaked in the scenery for awhile, then decided to explore the nearby trails. The forest there, while still interesting, was not as pretty as the Minnamurra rainforest.

Capping off the day, we had dinner at my supervisor's house in Kiama. It was nice to visit him outside the office, in the more laid back family atmosphere.

Holiday Fun

We've been running all kinds of shopping errands here, but not really for gifts or other useless stuff. It's mostly been for food and kitchen items. We will be having Christmas dinner with Kathy & Kevin's family (they are our upstairs neighbors, and their daughter owns our apartment). We volunteered to bring a dish and some desserts. Michelle made her shortbread cookies and some raisin tarts. I'm going to make two trays of chicken enchiladas -- one with mole sauce and one with a sour cream sauce. I had to go to several places before I found jalapenos. All the usual places were out for some strange reason (they are not really the pepper of choice for most Australians).

After finishing up the errands today, we went to the beach for a bit. The photo shows what we did. :)

Current Research Status

Alright, here's an update on my research progress towards the PhD. I've managed to make batteries using the inkjet printer, but the performance of those batteries was simply ho-hum. Since they were printed onto glass, there's not really anything novel about the batteries that makes it worthwhile to publish an article specifically about them. However, my supervisor will combine some of the results of my battery project with a paper he is writing about his work using some of the same chemicals. So in the end, I still get my work published, and it's a small notch towards my doctorate.

I am probably more critical of my work than my supervisor or anyone else here. I did get lots of practice in the lab and on the printer. As a result of that, I'm certainly better able to direct my own research from here on. After complaining about issues with the printer for the past several months, I've finally been able to get enough attention that it looks like we will be doing something about it. In my last monthly meeting, I volunteered to put together a presentation outlining all our options, and there is a meeting in early January with my supervisors and several other researchers to discuss the future of the printing options in our lab. We have some angel funding we can tap into -- and the biggest surprise to me was that we may end up buying two (TWO!) of the printers I want.

My future research will likely involve a number of different methods of printing. After the holiday break I will begin working on the crowning achievement of my work -- which will be trying some new things with bio-scaffolds. That topic covers a very wide area of currently ongoing research around the world, but on a basic level, it's exactly what it seems to be: engineering micro-scaffolds that can then be used for things such as tissue engineering or other biological applications. This next project will consume my remaining time in the program, but there are multiple milestones along the way that should yield publications.

For now, I'm going to enjoy the two-week holiday break. I'll be doing leisurely things, certainly, but this kind of free time also allows me space to read up on bio-scaffolds and think about what kind of problem I would like to solve. Next year will be exciting, indeed.

End of Year One

The end of my first year (or nine months, rather) as a PhD student has arrived. One year ago, we had already sent our pets to live (along with a truckload of our stuff) with Michelle's parents in Canada, and were preparing to celebrate our last Christmas in America for a few years. At this time last year, I had only recently accepted the scholarship and was making all the initial arrangements for our move here: accommodation, banking, shipping stuff in advance. Nothing was official, yet, as the visa application had to be sent in and approved (that wasn't finalized until February). Packing up and selling the house was the largest hurdle, though. We spent the latter part of our holiday break packing up everything we didn't need for display while selling the house. I also had to work like mad on a few outstanding house repairs before we could put the house on the market, like finishing the fence, cleaning the gutters, and removing odd bits of do-it-yourself repairs/enhancements that didn't quite turn out right.

I had to be in Australia no later than March 31 in order to retain my scholarship. From that point until about late August I/we spent a great deal of time on 'settling in' details. Michelle arrived on our anniversary in July, and by that time, I had purchased broadband, kitchen appliances and wares, linens and pillows, mountain bikes, and office appliances. Late July, Michelle resumed work with her Dallas job, but could not take the university housing anymore after about two weeks -- largely due to the screaming kids at the daycare across the street and the noisy neighbors next door. That sent us on to experience the joys of apartment hunting here without a car (meaning we walked tens of kilometers and/or rode our bikes). Once we had that taken care of, we got to buy furniture, and several months later, the car -- which brings us to where we are now.

Although I've had many frustrations with the settling in process here, I have to say I have no regrets about this move. When I gave my notice at my last I.T. job, I passed off my reasons as neutral as possible: it's a fantastic opportunity; I get to see Australia; I feel more at home in science; blah, blah, blah. All of those reasons were certainly true. But I didn't provide the company with the real reason. It's the same reason I left the four previous jobs I held since finishing my bachelor's degree. I was too late to the party. All the good times, lucrative positions, and respect were gone by the time I arrived at those jobs. To be fair, I did move my salary up enough that we were able to buy our house, drive decent cars, and I paid cash for my masters degree. But nearly every annual review I had came down to a script: "The company is tight on money, our market looks a little uncertain for the near future, 3% is the best we can do..." There was only one year that I got a surprise 8% raise, but by that time, I had already plotted my course to get out of I.T. The annual review excuses were disingenuous given that the management teams at the companies I worked at were always driving very new luxury cars, living in opulent houses, and getting to spend a great deal of their working hours playing golf or attending social functions. I was clearly outside that circle with no hopes of breaking in. I saw many other people wreck their lives killing themselves for their jobs with vain hopes of breaking in to that inner circle getting all the perks. The annual review script is nothing but HR playing psychologist on company employees, giving people a 'road map' or some other distraction to keep them working the same or harder, but without any tangible promises for benefits other than the base salary -- which is the same thing a person would get anyway just sticking to a 40-hour work week. The game was so obvious to me early on during my I.T. career, that after seeing the same pattern over nearly ten years, I knew nothing would change. It made no difference what new skills I learned, what courses I took, or what degrees I obtained. It wouldn't matter what company I joined or what position I joined at -- the same game would begin anew each time.

There was no way in hell I could play along on the losing end of that game for another thirty-odd years. I was already getting depressed after enduring just ten years. More of the basic perks, stuff like insurance, pensions, would be eroded away each year, leaving me with a very real risk of having almost nothing near retirement. Everyone at the top of the economic food chain in the States continues to burn through the fuel supporting it -- a collapse at some point in the near future seems inevitable. Life is way too short for such nonsense. By refusing to play such a game, I have essentially taken greater control of my own life. If I had not gotten this opportunity, I would have started my own company or something (and likely not in I.T.!). I've never felt so in touch with my life and my place in the world. The work I'm doing is purely for my own benefit, and I am already being rewarded for it -- no dumb HR department or corporate structure involved. This holiday break, we plan to do lots of day trips to see many of the natural wonders here. There is no HR department telling me I only have two days left of vacation time (out of the generous five to ten I might have begun with). I don't have to show up on campus if there's no work to do. I'm not on call. In short, I'm truly free. :)

Our Car

We are now happy owners of a 1995 Toyota Camry station wagon.

We had really hoped to be able to live without a car for a few years and only rely on public transport, but due to public transport costs and scarcity here in NSW, that just wasn't realistic. It was inevitable that we would eventually reach the point where we could no longer tolerate not having a car.

That time has finally come, and this past Friday I went into Sydney and bought a car. We had already settled on the type of car we wanted -- a station wagon. It's about the closest we could get to an SUV for the money, and station wagons are not unsexy cars here, like in the States. We also wanted the car to be reliable, in decent shape, and to get reasonable fuel economy. The Toyota Camry wagon was the only car fitting all those details. There are Holden, Ford, Subaru, and Hyundai wagons here, too, but those were either too expensive, too unreliable, or guzzled petrol (some even all three).

The journey on the train began at 5:26 a.m. (ugh -- had to wake up at 4:30!), putting me in Sydney around 7:00 a.m. I walked to a Gloria Jean's for coffee, then came back to Central Station and bought a one-way ticket on the Blue Mountain line for a station along "auto alley."

I went up to the city for one particular Camry wagon I found online, but when I inspected it, I found it was a complete turd. It had lots of rust; the interior smelled, was stained, and falling apart; the engine was dirty; more smoke came out of the exhaust than expected for a Toyota, combined with an unusual amount of water. There were even some parts of the car that looked like someone had done a bit of a homeade repair job. The sales lady could clearly see from my reactions what I thought of the car, and while she weakly attempted to comment on some of the items ("All the Camrys have that problem with age," etc.), it was obvious to me she didn't believe a word of what she said. That car was listed at A$4999, but I wouldn't have even paid A$1500 for it. I walked straight away from that one.

While I was waiting for the first dealer to open, I had a look up and down the street. Just a short walk down I noticed another Camry wagon that was two years newer, at a comparable price to the first one, and noted that it appeared to be in great shape (this would have been a bargaining chip if the first car got to the negotiation stage). Since the first car wasn't even worth considering, I went immediately for the newer one. (I had an additional two ads printed from the websites, but since this next one was so close by, I didn't have anything to lose.) The dealer was a friendly guy, but the car really sold itself. The price was listed at A$5999. When I looked the car over, it was very obvious it had been taken care of. The logbook showed regular service at a Toyota dealership (the last included replacing the timing belt in 2006, so that was one expensive piece of maintenance not needed for awhile). The engine was clean all over; there was no obvious rust anywhere; the upholstery was in great shape; the oil, transmission fluid, and coolant were all normal; and the car performed well in the test drive. The only things I could find to haggle on were the fact that the rego (registration) expires in a week, which will cost around A$500, and the 200000 Kms maintenance will be due in 5000 Kms. The dealer voluntarily lowered the price down to A$5500 when I asked about those things. Beyond that, he wasn't budging, and from the first experience that morning, I knew I would be hard pressed to find a better deal. I found that A$5000 is generally the cutoff between a car in decent shape and a quality grab-bag (and Lemon Laws don't exist here for used cars). The best deals go quickly here.

So the deal was essentially done by me at that point, and I contacted the insurance company to get all that set up, then called Michelle for final approval before signing away. It took about an hour to wrap up all the details before I drove off the lot. Then I think I missed the exit I was supposed to take, got lost and drove around some neighborhoods before stumbling onto another highway, which took me to a different suburb area... Anyways, I eventually saw signs noting "South Coast" and followed them, ending up on the Princes Highway southbound, which I was familiar with. The car drove great on the highway, and the automatic transmission shifted cleanly. The fuel economy on this car should be perfect for us, as it has a 2.2L 4-cylinder engine, and a button inside to allow for switching between optimized fuel economy and a little more power. I expect to get about 400 Kms (city driving) - 700 Kms (highway driving) per tank, since I drove about 100 Kms from Sydney and used less than a quarter tank. Filling up will cost around A$65.

Overall, we are real happy with the car, and particularly excited that now we don't have to ride our bikes or walk 8 Kms for grocery shopping, carrying the entire purchase in backpacks over four large hills. This means we can do grocery shopping in one hour instead of three, and now we don't have to base our purchasing decisions on how much we can carry. We will also be able to get out for weekend excursions or longer road trips (with room for friends, bikes, luggage) -- and we are very excited by that prospect!