Milestones
Sparky Anderson, 76, led the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series in 1984, the year I left Michigan, where they'd been my adopted team. To be honest, I thought he was 76 then.

That Tigers' line-up was terrific, and they had a great year, one that looked, for over a month, like they couldn't lose. Anderson was, that October, the first manager to have led teams to win the Series across the American/National Leagues divide, and he practically invented the modern managing style of pulling pitchers off the mound and using relief as a key defensive strategy. He was also the only manager who honored the players' strike of 1995, taking unpaid leave rather than take on any replacement players, quite an admirable stance. A grand old man of baseball.

10,000 Steps
Seven Bridges Walk today, a nice excursion of 25 kilometers that takes you west and north and back around for a circuit of the Harbour and its suburbs. Depending on where you start, which was, for me, Iron Cove.
Followed by Gladesville (over)

(and under, which presents something of a monumental aspect the "over" image misses),

Tarban Creek

and Figtree, which, as far as bridges are concerned, is as far as I got last year before (a) getting a little lost and (b) soaked in a thunderstorm that also included a temperature drop that left me as cold as I've ever been in this country.

I did manage, last year, to bear with the course, until the next downpour, which coincided with my arrival at Waverton Station, at which point I bailed in favor of a train.

This year, however, the threatened storms never came, so that, by the time I got to the vicinity of North Sydney, it was actually getting a bit more warm and sunny than I was fully prepared for. Nevertheless, the Harbour Bridge is a magnificent ediface, and it was gratifying to arrive within view of it, even if I was starting, at this point, to seize up.

Once across, I was in the CBD, but lost the route. Not that it mattered much, as I work close enough to Darling Harbour to know the approach to the Pyrmont Bridge well. I probably saved my self a kilometre or so as a result.

Then home again, home again, across the ANZAC Bridge, leaving only another 2 or 3 kilometres from my starting point to home and recuperative measures, such as a shower and a cold beverage.

So all up, 25-30k done in 6 hours, and best of all, parts of the city normally left unvisited. I took note of some good running areas that will help when training for the SMH half starts up in January, over paths I didn't even know were there, but will take advantage of proximity to the Harbour.

Next year I'll take the divergences into the bushwalks and really make a go of it.

Autumn into Winter
Leaving aside the issue of "World" in baseball's World Series, and, for the moment, the teams now scheduled to commence that tournement on 27 October, since when did baseball last into November? Accordingly to the remarkably speedy update on Wikipedia, this is the third time, and the second in a row, although no citiation is provided.

I caught the last few innings of the Giant's game, sorry, from the news reports, to have missed the whole thing, but there were some local enthusiasts there, too, to appreciate the tactics employed as the Giants clung to a one-run lead, and the Phillies threatened credibly. With the Rangers, however, having beaten the Yankees for the AL flag, I'm somewhat reluctant to watch much more, as it'll surely entail shots of George W. in the stands, but I can hope San Francisco stomps all over his smirks.

St. Mary MacKillop, Oi! Oi! Oi!
A relatively modern nun’s gotten the nod to become Australia’s first saint, which got rather extraordinary media coverage in a supposedly secular country, but I’ve never found it so to begin with. (Look at our public holidays: Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Monday, Christmas, Boxing Day – half are religious. Hardly surprising, I suppose when about 26% of the population identifies as Catholic, 19% as Anglican, and 19% as other Christian.) But if anyone’s going to get elevated in the 21st century RC Church, MacKillop seems a good choice, if not so much on the basis of the requisite miracles, than in her order’s role acting against child sex abuse by clergy, resulting in MacKillop being excommunicated for two years, until the bishop who’d issued the order, rescinded it on his deathbed. Already there are calls for her to be nominated as the patron saint for victims of abuse. There’s a good else deal about her life that makes her fairly interesting as a person, and certainly respectable as a nun. I don’t much hold with saints – a little too much like semi-demigods, I suppose. I mean, if you’re going to believe in God, there doesn’t seem any need for intercession off-siders. But congratulations to the order, I suppose.

Nobel Tipping
Ngugi wa Thiong'o is looking good for the Literature Prize this year, the first African since Wole Soyinka, but with Haruki Murakami and Cormac McCarthy as competitors, it's still hard to call. I guess the Nobel Committee's recent statements regarding American literature may leave McCarthy out. Ngugi would be the political choice, which seems in line with recent picks, and Murakami doesn't have as extensive a body of work. I'll go with the Kenyan. "Wizard of the Crow" was a good read.

About Art
Sydney's Art & About is, I think, one of the better public arts events around. Sculpture by the Sea being the other one. I particularly enjoy the Hyde Park photographic exhibition.


(Can't say I much like the staturary dress-up, all a bit more foppish than seems necessary, but I understand the impulse and enjoy the humor anyway.)

Still, I had the chance to wander through town and take a couple of photographs of the city. The light here is amazing, something NYC is known for differently, and this building shows it off.

Age Appropriate
I don't remember the last time I saw Todd Rundgren in concert. It was probably something like 30 years ago and most likely it was a Utopia show. All that tech and exuberance was not on show last night at The Basement, where he ran through his latest incarnation: Bluesman. "Todd Rundgren's Johnson" is a tribute to Robert Johnson, although it's more Chicago than Delta Blues. While there's plenty of expertise on display, there was little heart in it. That could be the size of the venue, in part, although I did get the impression that Todd's feeling a little put out that he's never lived up to his reputation. I mean, I loved the guy back in the '70s, buying all his records and going to pretty nearly every show that came through town, but a Wizard he may be, but not a True Star. He had a very appreciative audience and ran through some of his back catalog (although I thought "Open My Eyes" was a bit muddy) for us, so it was a decent show, and I'm glad I went.

But I'll never go back to The Basement, even if Jesus Christ and His All-Star Prophets Revue Featuring Joseph Smith on Bagpipes turned up. It's a dinner club, but if you don't book one of the very few tables, you're standing up all night. Since the doors open at 7:30, you'll stand for three to four hours before the opening act comes on stage and then three or four more to see the finish of the headliner. (And the opening act, an unnamed duo on guitar and keyboards, were horrible last night.)

Fits and Starts
Or Fitnesses. Or something.

Today I started my new job. I had a week off inbetween, which was nice (and unusual for me), during which I recovered from the Blackmore's Running Festival Half Marathon (see previous entry) and lazed around getting nothing accomplished other than, by Saturday, finally having achieved sleeping in past my usual waking hour of 6 a.m. Sunday felt like it came too soon.

Today, however, my appointed hour in the CBD was not until 9 a.m., so I slept in by about forty minutes, went for a 5k run, had some breakfast, and still made it into the office by 8:30.

First days are all about orientation, and there was little enough of that, as the project proper hasn't really kicked off. That will change. I'm scheduled to head up to North Sydney a few times over the next weeks for training on the new system, and there are meetings and presentations to attend as well.

This is my first job since coming to Australia where I'm working close to home. Not only that, but by reason of being pretty much in the center of town, all the amenities I've been lacking heretofore are lacking no longer. Record stores, clothing shops, pharmacies, doctors, dentists, the post office, decent places to have lunch . . . it's all here. This could well turn out to be the best job yet.

Half Baked
I went to bed nice an early, but living in the precincts of Sydney University doesn't guarantee a good night's sleep, so about midnight there was a fair bit of very loud foot traffic returning from some exciting excursion or another, and it was all downhill from there. I was set to get up at 4:30 for my 6:20 start, but actually spent most of the hours wakeful with a bad stomach. When I did get out of bed, I realized there was no coffee and not much for breakfast, either. These things happen.

I filled my pockets with Gu and some money and headed out to flag a cab to Central Station (the buses don't start until 6 a.m.). And forgot my keys. Luckily, I keep a door key stashed, so I'd only have to climb the garden gate on my return. My impending lack of flexibility was dismaying but not daunting.

The race was good. I was finished with it by about 13k. After that I had to periodically walk a bit to relieve my cramping legs. Still, if not a personal best, all things considered, 2:07 (by my watch) is a result I can live with.

And it's not even lunch time yet. Perhaps a nice club sandwich and a quarter of a dozen schooners.

Update: 2:10 clock time, which pretty well tallies with my watch, as it took at least three minutes to get to the mats, but 2:00:06 chip time. I feel much better about my performance. A decent night's sleep would have made all the difference. And more consistent training.

Minority Majority
Two out of three Independents newly elected to the House have opted to formally back Labor, so along with the sole Green elected, the ALP now have a minority government. It's a relief not to have Mr Rabbit as PM. It's frustrating to know that the Coalition will spend the next three years behaving with exceptional childishness, when they and their supporters (and the national media, perhaps especially) take the full set of pages from the USA's Republican and Tea Partier playbook to set themselves up as aggreived and disenfranchised. Already calls for a new election, branding of the government as "illegitimate", and smears and sneers thrown at the Independents are setting the Australian political conversation into a shouting match. Hip-hip-hooray for the Lucky Country, still "lucky."

I Wantz Roomba

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
And a dog, I guess.

Job Changes
After my current employer budgeted and awarded increases of 2%, after skipping a year, I reckoned that I was falling far behind the rate of inflation, which, while low, is not insubstantial, so I switched on my job alerts to see what was out there. Lo, and behold, almost immediately I got an interview and very quickly thereafter an offer.

The thing is, I'm not really disgruntled. My employer has been very generous with me, overall. These guys took me seriously when no one else would. They've let me take ownership of the role. I've got friends I hope to keep - and that's a little unusual in itself. We're running top-notch software in a market that, as in my last job search, takes that as an important consideration.

So why change? Well, the money's hard to beat. Yes, I'll probably have to face low annual budgets in the future, as I would anywhere, but these guys have an incentive scheme and stock purchase plans that would mean potentially earning a third again of my total remuneration. O.k., a stock purchase plan means they're publicly traded, which adds market pressure to career longevity, but the stock'd still be mine, and that's a plus at my age.

Sure, I've got a team of analysts working for me, but so what? Being a manager has never been part of my aspirations. I like the work, and with the software we're running, I'm never going to have the depth of knowledge that I might get with a different product at a company that doesn't have the breadth not to let me learn it.

Although I've got a great place to go for a run, even a long run, as much as 16K without traffic, the new job is in the CBD, so I could get up at my usual hour, go running, and still have time for breakfast before heading to the office. Almost. Maybe just a coffee. And if lunchtime runs aren't any less an option, if a bit trickier. Up the stairs and across the Harbour Bridge, for example, or cross-town to the Domain and Botanical Gardens.

Anyway, I think I've talked myself into it. I've worked in publishing, twice, consulting (sort of), financial services, legal, whatever Chubb was, education, and ITC. Add insurance to the list.

Hung Parliament
Too bad it's not hanged, to make a bad joke.

Julia's campaign was awful, but worse was Labor's decision under Rudd not to pursue a carbon tax and the failure to implement the Resources Super-Profit tax, and worse than that was a leadership spill just ahead of election season. Not that I have any objection to Julia Gillard per se or to her being PM; I rather expected it to happen more naturally. Nevertheless, bad decisions and a punishing result in the polling booths leaves us with 3 years of childish bickering and name-calling, and nothing else. No great leaps forward or backward can be expected out of Canberra. What I can anticipate is that the backlash will continue in the States. Look for Labor to fall in NSW, for sure; whether to the Liberals or the Greens is unknown, but that's how I'm calling it.

One lesson from all this is that the campaign was a media triumph. That is, the media won. They spun this campaign disgracefully. Gillard was never presented except in the context of charged adjectives. She was "strident", for example, not forceful. Abbott was only ever presented with a bit of humor, never with any seriousness taken of his reactionarism, his inarticulateness, his transparent lies. Television decided this contest more than the voters did.

Sensed
When the Talking Heads toured their "Speaking in Tongues" album, Jonathan Demme was there to make a concert film of it, Stop Making Sense. What's of note, here, to me, is that after all this time, I've finally seen the concert.

At the time, I was one of the Talking Heads' biggest fans. They'd found a groove that resonated with me; my appreciation for more complex pop music was finally finding some bands that could provide the content, and David Byrne & co. were seeing audiences that other New Wave acts could only aspire to. The Forest Hills concert I went to was the pinnacle of their career and an ecstatic high point for me as well.

But I didn't really see the show. Yes, Burning Spear burned up the stage as the opening act for an inordinate amount of time, but I wasn't even tired of them before they were finally ushered off. Yes, the opening was enthralling, and every song thereafter well known and deeply felt - but now we get into the concert-attendance problem. At some point, I abandoned my seat, heading up into the aisles to dance along and groove with the music, deeper and richer than records allow and also far more communal.

So I didn't see the floor lamp or the big suit or how the modules were progressively rolled out song to song until the whole band was there, didn't see the performances Byrne put out for the different songs, or the other band members grooving themselves, or at least not in such a way as actually registered.

Watching Demme's movie I finally got to see the show. And I still love the music.

It's not the print I'd have chosen, but insofar as the artist selected a commemorative shot for 5,000 people to have for free, it's more than all right.

I was a little disappointed that there wasn't an exhibition to go along with the distribution, but that's o.k., too, although I'm quite certain that some of the other poses Spencer Tunick ran us through would have been remarkable images, especially the final pose, splayed out across the interior of the Opera House; quite Bocshian, I reckon.

When you look back over Tunick's career, with a dozen models and a step ladder in Times Square, for example, having to get the shots in before being arrested, what he's doing lately is almost mind-boggling. Look how dense this image is. And anyone who's been there can tell you, that's actually quite a lot of space to fill.

Oh, and that's me, at the top of the steps, over to the right, kind of in the middle.

Oops
I knew the Blackmores Half Marathon was an early start, but somehow I thought it was in October, ten weeks from now, not five weeks. I'll have to adjust my training schedule for the last three weeks, but I should get some long runs in the meanwhile. 76% as it stands now; I can bring it up to 89% before the race, barring accident or injury.

Klaatu Barada Nikto
Patricia Neal, R.I.P. Robert Wise's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was an eerie and excellent 1950's science fiction movie, in an era when a lot of science fiction in cinemas was pretty bad. As an adaptation of Harry Bates' short story, "Farewell to the Master", it isn't anything like faithful, but as a nuclear scare movie, very effective. Patricia Neal was the best actor in it and I like everything I ever saw her in thereafter.

Industrial Inaction
I support the right of workers to act collectively in their interests and to strike, even if it inconveniences me. But “free fare days” don’t affect me either way: I have a quarterly ticket. Yesterday, as part of the City-to-Surf, buses and trains were free for anyone with a bib number, but I carried my ticket anyway, just in case, and because I already paid my fare, thanks, so why not use it? I guess if I bought a weekly ticket, it’d be possible to take advantage of these things, but, oh, well. Good luck, rail staff. I wish I could see a 5% raise again someday.

Postscript
I collect book reviews until such time as I need a new stash of unread books to work through, at which point I hit the Strand Book Store online and get my weight in literature shipped down for about the same price a new hardcover runs in this country. Or Book Depository in the U.K. One of those books I've read in the last two years was Postwar, Tony Judt's account of Europe from 1945 onward. It was terrific, by far the most edifying work of history I've read since A Distant Mirror. And now he's dead, just 62. Well, he's got a body of work out there, including an appraisal of the world at present, so I guess I know what's on my list for my next shopping excursion.

Race Day Minus 2
City-to-Surf on Sunday, 14k's of road-running madness. Thousands and thousands of people will be running out of the city to Bondi Beach, and I don't know how they do it, but within the first two kilometres, even though I'm in the second start, there will be dozens, at least, ahead of me walking. Where do they come from? They can't be tired already, can they?

Anyway, I'm down to 76% of full marathon training, having run 188k out of the scheduled 246. Given that the race on Sunday is 33% of a full marathon, that's not so bad. But on the principle that I'm really training for a half-marathon, I'm only 10% over where I'd hoped to be at this stage. But it'll be fun, and I'm as ready as I'm gonna be.

Results Update: 76:32 by my clock, and I might get a few seconds on the chip, since I hit the button early. A better result than I expected.