Rotary GSE 2008 - District 9830 to District 5220

How do I apply?

2008-10-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Applications

If you've enjoyed reading this blog, and are interested in being part of Group Study Exchange, first check you are eligible and then make contact with your local Rotary District's GSE Chairperson.

Eligibility:
GSE applicants must be 25-40 years old, working full time in a recognised professional, and not a lineal ancestor of descendant of a Rotarian.

Contacts:
If you are from my own Rotary District 9830, check out this webpage.

If you are elsewhere in the world, try this site for information and then this site to find a local club contact.

Jim Morrison said it. This is the End.

2008-05-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 36 - Saturday, May 3, 2008

Well. This is it. The end of GSE from District 9830 to District 5220...

I'm not quite sure what to make of it right at the moment. The title above tells me that we've had 5 weeks of GSE. On one hand, that seems like a lifetime. My life at home seems very far away. The relationships we've developed here among the team, and with our hosts, are very much at the forefront of my mind.

On the other hand, I'm acutely aware that this has been a slightly unreal diversion from life. Sometime, in the not too distant future, we'll all be heading back to our lives at home and trying to make sense of them again. Which parts of the GSE experience will we integrate into our lives? Will we be changed by the time away? Which memories will slip by the wayside?

These are questions for which I won't have answers for some time...

Our GSE experience officially concluded with our departure from Modesto airport. Most of us were flying to San Francisco. I'm not sure why it was booked this way, given San Fran is only a few hours drive away, but it is the way the travel people booked the tickets. Michelle actually wanted to end up in LA, so she manage to change her flights to fly directly there. It really is good by now! The team is splitting up.

We gathered together our loved ones (aka our Modesto hosts) for our final good byes.
In a way, our hosts in Modesto were representing all of our hosts over the 5 weeks as they wished us well, and accepted our grateful hugs. Thank you everyone for your generosity, your kindness and for sharing your lives with a bunch of upstarts from the antipodes... Thank you especially to our weekly GSE Coordinators for constructing such an action packed and rewarding program. Thanks Dave, Victor, Bruce, Dorothy and Chris.

Goodbye kind Modesto hosts!

Our last thank you goes to Terri & Howie Amerio-Bell. GSE Chairperson Terri put in an enormous amount of work to make this exchange possible for us. We appreciate it. Symbolism is sometimes dangerously close to cliche, but we hope that you enjoy Errol's company, and that hew reminds you of a great GSE, and a job well done.

Errol finds a new home with Terri & Howie
(Sarah's still distraught...)

The next step...
So, where do I finish this blog? None of the 9830 team are heading immediately home, so our time in the USA is not yet at an end, and our experience as GSE members has some time to run as well. We've still got presentations to make at home, lives to improve, decisions to make about what we'll do when we grow up... In a lot of ways, it's a beginning rather than an end.

The start of the next chapter:
Michelle arranged to fly from Modesto to LA, only to have her flight break down and abandon her in Fresno. Little did she know she was to have another GSE blast from the past on her trip! (She hitched a lift to LA with one of our hosts).

Chris headed to Ohio to reacquaint himself with wife Pat and a Rotary Student Exchange friend they'd hosted years earlier. His trip wasn't smooth either. His bags didn't make it, and he was much later to Ohio than expected...

Bobby arrived. Yay! Sarah and her partner Bobby headed off to kontiki tour the South and to chase fun in the sun. By all accounts, they found it!

Glen and Will delivered Sarah safely to Bobby, then spent the afternoon in San Francisco experimenting with clam chowder and beer. Then it was off to Seattle to tour Boeing and Glen's load cell manufacturer. Then the beginning of a long road trip in a convertible...

We've all got more stories to tell, but you'll have to seek us out personally to hear them.
We'll leave this blog as a record of our GSE experiences.

If you were part of making it what it was for us, then thank you.
And if you have the chance to be part of GSE in the future... go for it!

Eat early. It leaves more partying time!

2008-05-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 35 - Friday, May 2, 2008

Glen couldn't resist packing as much into his last few days as he possibly could. In every presentation, Glen had pointed out that some of his load cells had 'been installed at Modesto Waste Transfer Station back in 1987, and were still in use today.' (Yes, I know that bit by heart. In fact, I think I know all of it by heart!) Anyway, on his last full day in Modesto, Glen thought he'd best go and visit this famous transfer station and find out whether he'd been telling porkies the whole trip!

Modesto waste transfer Station

Luckily for Glen, the load cells were still there and are still in use. Glen, I'll never doubt again!

Elphinstone load cells in use in the US

Now, do you like to eat your main meal in the middle of the day? Or in the evening? At home, my family were always evening eaters. I'm beginning to realise that there are positives to eating early too though... It leaves more time for partying in the evening!

The history of Brunker Ranch

We toured Brunker Ranch (just outside of Modesto). The ranch has been in operation for hundreds of years and has very successfully raised beef cattle for much of that time. We heard some stories about their somewhat less successful efforts at raising buffalo, but we'll leave that for another time. The beef was magnificent.

The present at Brunker Ranch! They were delicious...

Thank you very much to our kind hosts for the food, the tour and a lot of laughter!

Brunker Ranch - Great Company

Brunker Ranch - Plenty of Laughs!

After a fantastic lunch, we waddled back to our hosts' houses and spent a few hours packing our bags. We also packed several boxes full of excess luggage to post home. For the record, Will had the least excess (mostly because he had been too distracted chatting with Chris and Jenny to pack anything!). Sarah on the other hand, had the most. I'm sure her California Highway Patrol ball point pens are going to make great gifts for her colleagues, but they will be very expensive presents by the time she gets them home!

Our very last presentation... :-(

When evening rolled around, we had a great big good bye party hosted by the Currie household. Chris did the Haka for us all, Fiona and Claudia played piano and Jenny smuggled the kiwi flag into our photos. Mind you, she was only paying back Westy for putting the Aussie flag up in full view of all arriving guests without telling her!

Jenny adding a special Kiwi touch to the photo

It was a great night. Quite a few of our hosts from earlier in the exchange were able to make it down from Stockton, Oakhurst, Merced and even Sonora for the evening.

Many of our hosts from throughout the exchange were able to attend

There were tall tales told (remember the one about the escaped convict, the gung-ho policeman and the way too fast car trip home??). And some of those yarns were even true! (Sorry US readers... 'yarns' means stories to an Aussie or a Kiwi). After the stories, there were speeches, shenanigans, drinks, hugs, tears and laughter. Not necessarily in that order. It was a great night. Thanks for having us Modesto, and especially thank you to the Curries.

Errol's last hurrah... Goodbye!

A raucous bunch. (And no, I’m not talking about us for once…)

2008-05-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 34 - Thursday, May 1, 2008

Another day, another sunrise Rotary club! I remember seeing this on the very first draft of the schedule that we received and thinking, "wow, they're getting their money worth here! We're up for a 6:30 AM meeting on our second last day!" What I didn't realise at the time is that some of the members of the very same club we were visiting would conspire to have us out to a late hour the night before the meeting! Nice work guys... :-) Thanks for that! At least one member of the co-conspirators from the club didn't make the meeting, but all of the GSE team did. So I think that means we win!

Jeff & Howie out flank a pair of unsuspecting Sunrise Rotarians

To be honest, I was never in any danger of not making it. If we'd been absent or late, then Chris would have been fined even more than he already was! I was pretty safe... Actually, Chris and I had an interesting trip to the meeting. Chris has a mate (that's "friend" for you Americans) in the club who is from Ghana. They joke that no one can understand either one of them, so they translate speeches into American for one another. I haven't heard this, but I suspect it would be hilarious! Chris and I decided we'd do something similar. I'd speak int eh most incomprehensible Australian I could muster, and he would translate. Now, Chris is a Kiwi, but that seems basically like a cousin when you are as far away as Modesto, so this seemed like a good plan to me. I had brainstormed a little, but hadn't written anything, so Chris and I drafted a speech in the car park before we went into the meeting. We made sure to include gday, drongo, flat out like a lizard drinking, thong, maggotted... etc. Slipshod preparation like this would normally spell disaster, but I think we were a success. (Success meaning that I was totally incomprehensible, and Chris' translations only made things worse...) Fun!

Southern Hemisphere Chris x2 are dwarfed by Jeff

Other noteworthy items from the meeting:
Glen presented his speech without any notes whatsoever. And it was arguably his best of the trip! Why didn't we do this earlier? He was great!
The 'board of cynics' at the table in the back had smart alec things to say about every speaker. They were funny! Thank goodness I couldn't hear them when I was up front...
Scholarship awards were presented to several local students who were completing high school. They from a range of ethnic backgrounds, and were off to study chemistry, biology and engineering (forgive me if I've mis-remembered these!). My overall impression was one of awe at the capability and fantastic presentation of these young women! Not sure about Australia, but if these girls continue on their way, then the US is in good hands...

Right... Well I've just written 3000 words, and we're not at 9am yet! I'm going to have to hurry things up a bit here... Fortunately today was a vocational day. This usually makes for easy blogging because either team members write their own entries, else they are really short! There are also never any pictures unfortunately... It is usually inappropriate to be happily snapping away as we tour a business!

Here's a quick run down of what we got up to:
- I visited newly completed Enoch high school and checked out how they've used ICT. interesting to see that they keep their PCs for a very long time, and that purchasing decision making and support are almost all centralised. Then Chris and I visited a hospital and had a good time checking out their ridiculously big data centre. We also think we might have recruited a new GSE member, Tim. I'm definitely barracking for more ICT blokes to go on GSE!

- Glen saw a million dollar laser cutter that can cut 100 sheets of 5 mm plate. he says it's the most modern and advanced piece of technology he's seen so far. And on the last vocation visit of the trip! Impressive....

- Michelle looking at training programs with the local program director. He is a Lions member, but I suspected he'll be crossing over to the dark side (Rotary) after meeting her!

- Sarah went helicopter flying (again). This time all the way to Sonora. (Get a map... that's a long way! Took us hours in the car). I can't remember if this was city, county or CHP. I'm thinking county, but I could be wrong. There are a lot of choppers here...

How many choppers do the California Police own?? Just ask Sarah!

Well, we finally made it to lunch time! What an epic blog entry! This was a big day. Lunch was at St Stan’s brewery. I'd been eyeing this place off our first night here, so I was pleased to be able to finally try the beer! The beer was OK, but more impressive were Michelle's onion rings,m which I think were the world’s largest. I haven't got a photo, but imagine this; I tried to wear one as a wrist band, and it only broke right at the last moment! These things were big...

Gallo maturation barrels. All 600 of them are in this cellar...

In the afternoon, we went on some industry tours. We saw two businesses, Gallo wine and Sciabica's olive oil. It was a study in contrast. Gallo is big. Very big. We had a tour run by a couple of charming young ladies who were employees of the winery. They were able to explain that the winery did in deed make wine, that it had been open sine just after prohibition ended, that it was successful, and that it was very, very big. This was the main impression we were left with. I would have liked a little more detail, but I guess there is only so much you can do in an hour when you have that many gallons of wine to worry about! They had one storage tank that was one million gallons, and that was one of many... Altogether they make about a litre of wine for each person in the US each year. Think about how many kids and teetotallers there are. That's a lot...

On the way out of the winery, Terri gave us the opportunity to visit the staff only store to buy wine at discout prices. I couldn't buy anything because I'm already overloaded for my flight home, but it was cool to see all the products available. Including some dodgy imported Aussie brands. These were from the salubrious wine region of 'South East Australia.' When I read the fine print, this could mean barossa, murray river or hawkesbury river regions, depending on the bottle! There was a promotion happening at the store. Several attractive young ladies were dressed as brides and were spruking the wine. They looked great. As a special treat, if anyone proposed at the shop that very afternoon, then they would receive 10 cases of wine for their wedding reception. Sarah considered phoning Bobby and popping the questions, but it didn't eventuate...

Sciabica's olive oil business on the other hand was a small family business that focused on high quality and low volume. One of the grandsons of the founder gave us a personal presentation on the production process, on types of olive oil, and the company history. We also tasted 6 fantastic olive oils. Tasting oil by simply dipping bread into it was a new experience for some of the team... We told him it is pretty common at home!

It is possible to flavour olive oil by adding flavours after it is pressed, but Sciabica's oil is flavoured by adding fresh ingredients before pressing. Some of their fantastic infused flavours include jalapeno, basil, lemon and garlic. Have I given away the fact that I enjoyed them yet??

Sarah chatting up April & the 2nd most attractive guy in the bar

Last stop for the day was a reception at Gallettos. This is a Gallo owned bank converted into an up market (up scale) restaurant and bar. For those of you who have been following the blog since day one, you might remember that we wandered through here on our first night in the US. We were very impressed that Terri arranged for us to be able to come back here!

We had a great night. Lots of fun, lots of nice people to talk to. Lots of photos too. I'll leave you with some of those...

A motley crew in a very happy place! (Note: I was kneeling, Westy isn't that much taller than me!)

Even reporters can party sometimes! Lisa and Sarah

Sarah & Glen making friends

Jeff's daughter can do about 100 push ups... Just thought you'd like to know!
Michelle is about to take her on...

Why do we have so many photos of the party and so few of vocational day?
Does this say something about us??

Vocational Day Modesto. Discounts if you buy in bulk

2008-04-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 33 - Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Has anyone at home ever hear of CostCo? If not, chances are we will in the not too distant future. Unconfirmed reports on the internet suggest that there will be a CostCo warehouse built as part of the docklands development in Melbourne. My guess is that it will grow from there.

CostCo is a warehouse style supermarket which aims to sell high quantities of fairly high quality goods at fairly low prices. And, interstingly, it is a membership based shop. You have to spend $50 or $100 to buy a membership before you can even shop here! Lots and lots of peoepl do though. It is an extremely successful business. I'm not a good enough shopper to really be able to compare prices (the exchange rate doesn't help) so I'll leave it to others to pass judgement on the affordableness (or otherwise) of CostCo. I'll just say that I was really impressed with theri scale adn volume. There weer many peoepl lined up waiting to go in when the place opened at 10am. The vote of the consumer is what counts!

We met at lunchtime with Oakdale Rotary at a very classy country club. They had leather chairs with little rolling wheels on them! Very comfy. Also had great desserts. My kind of place really. I sat at teh back table with all the other rebels of the club. It was fun, except that there was a womens' luncheon of some description happeneing behind some partitiions just behind us, adn they pretty much drow3ned out the club president! At the end of our presentation there was tiem for questions. One bloke made a wise crack about being really keen to get to Tasmania. He said he woudl hire a sports car and drive around aqs quickly as he could tryign to get a ticket (presumably from Sarah). For the longest tiem I didn't know where he was heading wit the story, but i n the end I'll give it credit. I found it funny...

Meeting at the country club

The afternoon provided a chance for vocational visits. Chris Currie had gone to some effort to try and arrange for us to do things we hadn't seen before. I think this is a tough ask in teh last week, but he worked at it and did a good job. I can't speak authoritively about what teh rest of the team did, but, in brief:
Michelle visited a local governemnt training authority
Sarah was out with county police
Glen went to Jack Rabbit who make machinery for almond harvesting
Chris had a pow wow with the membership coordinator for the local Rotary clubs
& I (Will) got to visit a local IT Solutions company who were named… IT Solutions!

IT Solutions is run by Modesto Downtown Rotarian David and his business partner. He's actually a competitor of sorts with CHris, so it was nice of both of them to arrange the visit. David and I had a great time discussing things as diverse as choosing their customer base, employing staff, time management, salary adn incentive schemes, low labour services that can provide ongogin revenue streams, hang gliding (a favourite of David's!) and finally, what we each wnat to do when we grow up. It was a thoroughly entertaining afternoon. Thanks David.

April & her son

A kiwi in his element

Wednesday evening presented us with ten pin bowling and pizza and partying. Terri & Howie dropped in, as did many of our hosts. I don't really want to talk abotu my bowling, suffice to say that Chris' 10 year old daughter beat me pretty consistently!

Enjoying bowling the way Terri, Els, Howie & I prefer

On the upside, the bowling alley had a radar on the alleys to tell you your ball speed, and I did hold the speed record for a short time at 19.1 mph. I was knocked off though. First by Chris, and later by Jeff and Glen who fought out a tough contest with Jeff finally taking the prize at about 23 mph... A productive evening I'm sure you will agree!

Glen bowling at 20+ Mph

A dodgy ‘baulk’ call cost us the game

2008-04-29T23:59:00.001-07:00

Day 32 - Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Tuesday saw us touring some of the sites of Modesto. First stop was the (relatively) new Gallo Arts Centre. Gallo being the mega rich wine dynasty who sponsored the building of this facility and Arts Centre being what it is. A multipurpose venue for theatre, music, presentations etc. They are about to host a touring production of cats that many locals are excited about seeing. They have something like 180 'curtains' planned for 2008, which compares pretty favourably I think. Even better, the people of Modesto are really supporting the venue, and most shows are selling really well. It was an interesting tour.

Glen particularly enjoyed the tour, because I was late. Normally he is last anywhere and I give him grief, but this time it was Chris and Jenny and I dragging the chain. We got caught for about 15 minutes at a level crossing while the longest train in history went past. I hearby pledge not to hold Glen up again! It just isn't worth the trouble... I don't pledge not to hassle him next time he is late though! I figure it is likely to be tomorrow, so I'll get plenty of chances!

Gallo Arts Centre tour

After completing the tour of the Arts Centre, we walked up the street to have a look around the Modesto Bee. The Bee is the local newspaper, and is also the proud employer of District 5220 GSE team member Lisa Millegan. Our tour guide did a great job of giving us a broad overview of operations. We saw the actual printing presses and actual advertising inserts. We also the advertising staff and journalists in action and were able to sit in on a news meeting that was planning the front page for the following day's paper. It was interesting. (And I'm terribly sorry, I've left it too long between the event and the blog, and I've misplaced our guide's name... :-( Her picture is below though).

The business end of the Modesto Bee

Lisa Millegan returned form her GSE trip to Australia more theatrical if nothing else!

Another short wander through the streets of Modesto took us to our lunchtime Rotary meeting with the downtown (aka 'old man') Modesto club. It was a blast from the past for us because it was held at the very same Double Tree hotel where we stayed our first night in the US. I can remember sitting outside the meeting room that Rotary uses about 11pm that first night. I was chatting to Michelle over VoIP while the Hispanic Lip Sync contest raged in the background. Seems like only yesterday in some ways, but in other ways it has been a long long time! We've met a brigade of great people since then, and seen so much of the district. It's been great. And, even better, I can still call home at 11pm, and the conversations are still great! The debriefs and encouragement in those phone calls have made my trip so much more enjoyable. Lucky me. OK, tangent complete. Let's get back to the story.

We shared the Rotary meeting with 30 interact students who were all introduced, the drawing of a major raffle with twenty odd prize and the introduction of a giant deep fried asparagus dressed up like Mr Potato Head! I was very concerned that we were going to have to cut our program short on the fly.

Terri in full flight at Modesto Rotary Club

I was worrying about this because I'm last, so I'd be the one dropping material. i was trying to decide whether to drop my talk about the Taste and the Hobart Summer Festival, my jokes about bacon, or the story of the Tassie Devil. I had decided to leave the Devil in. Fortunately, that was all academic and we didn't have to cut it at all in the end. Nice group again, fun meeting. I met David, who I would be meeting for a vocational excursion later in the week, and a couple f charming students from the local Catholic high school. As a side note, their fees are about four times those of St Mary's! The government should really pitch in over here...

Our presentation at Modesto Rotary

In the evening, we travelled into San Francisco to attend a baseball game. It was the SF Giants against the Colorado Rockies at AT&T Park. Great venue, if a little cold. The Currie girls warned me that it would be cold, but I didn't believe them. Luckily for me they badgered me until i took my Wallabies Jersey and a jacket. Lucky they did! The wind off the bay was icy!

Our guides at the baseball were Sarah's host Alan, my host the Currie family and their friend Jim and his son Rick. We were barracking (aka rooting) for the local team of course! It's great to have some local knowledge at a time like this. They explained that young up and coming pitcher Tim Lincecum was going to be the star of the show. He pretty much was. Robust catcher Bengie Molina was also a highlight. Great catcher, good hitter, fantastic leader. Best we don't mention his running ability... it was comical!

So, now we come to the part of the story where you figure out what the subject line actually means! Some background, as succinctly as I can manage it. In baseball, runners on base are forever trying to 'steal a base' by running when the batter doesn't even hit the ball. At the very least, they want to sneak off the base a bit to get a head start in running to the next base if the batter does hit it. Well, instead of pitching, the pitcher is allowed to throw the ball over to the baseman to try and run out a runner who has sneakily moved away form his base. This is quite legal. A 'baulk' occurs if the pitcher has begun his pitching motion (his 'wind up') and then stops, either to try for a run out, or to just trick the batter. If the umpire calls a 'baulk' then the batter on base gets to walk a base.

Got that so far? Good. Well, it happened in this game, and a runner got to walk from third to home, scoring a run that won the game for the visitors, three to two. The weird thing was that the umpire motioned to call time out while the pitcher was in his wind up. SO the pitcher stopped his wind up, and was called for a baulk. This is a muck up somewhere. The ump shouldn't call time during the wind up anyway. So if he did, why call the baulk? If he didn't, why did he lift his arms up and make it look like he did? It was either a bad call to signal of time out, or a ad baulk call, or both...

Anyway, after the call the Giants manager and catcher both argues with the referee until the manager was thrown out of the game. Didn't help though. The visitors won...

Giants at the stadium on the bay

The only things left for the night were a few photo opportunities and the trip home. I'm very grateful to Jim for driving us home. I was shattered and really struggled to stay awake and keep talking on the trip. Many others didn't manage to stay awake at all! I'm glad I wasn't driving. Thanks for getting us home safely Jim!

San Francisco at night. Taken from the inland end of the bay bridge.

Currie Family in San Francisco in the bl**dy cold

Governator tour of Sacramento

2008-04-28T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 31 – Monday, April 28, 2008

Chris the Kiwi, Ashwini and the Aussie team rolled out of Tahoe on Monday morning. We didn’t’ just get up and leave though. Of course not! Instead we went out for breakfast at a genuine 1950s style American Diner. It had old advertising posters for RC (Red Cherry Cola) with carton girls with blonde hair curled with curlers. It had Red leather on the round stools set at the counter. It had the sort of food you’d expect. It was quite fun really. Like being in an old movie! I enjoyed my bottomless coffee and eggs, but didn’t bother with the full half plate of hash brown I was served. Hash brown here is a sort of grated potato that is (I think) fried. Actually I’m not too sure how it was cooked, because I didn’t taste. I think my cholesterol went up just from looking at it though…

On our way from Tahoe to Modesto, we stopped in Sacramento to have a look around the state capital. Confirmed nerds Chris and I took the opportunity to have our pictures taken outside the Intel plant. This place is huge by the way. Many buildings, many floors, many people and too much security for Chris and I to be able to wander in unannounced.

A nerd at home

The next stop on the tour was a date with Michelle’s favourite Governator Arnie at the Capitol Building. Sarah had made friends with the local constabulary before we even got inside. They were there to manage a crowd expected to attend hearings to memorialise the Jewish Holocaust during WWII. They were also dealing with a protester dressed in surgical robes. I don’t know what he was protesting, perhaps he didn’t either. I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t anything to do with the hearings…

Capitol Building

The dome shaped capital building looks a little like its sister structure in Washington DC. Inside, there are high decorated ceilings, large portraits of past state governors, museums, galleries and gift shops. We wandered right through the place and took in the sights. Taking photos in front of Governor Arnie’s office was a bit of a highlight, even if he was out of town. Once again, the local police were very obliging! We sat in on a few minutes of the hearings in the lower house of the legislature, and then were on our way.

Capitol Building - Recognise this at all?

Chris took us to Old Sacramento to have a little bit of a look around. This is a part of town hear the old ports where there are many old fashioned shops, eateries and attractions. It is cute. Sort of Salamanca meets Sovereign Hill for Aussies. Sarah had fun looking at signed movie memorabilia. I enjoyed the Peruvian crafts. Glen murdered the first ice cream he found!

Obliging local hosts Errol

After Sacramento, it was off to Modesto to meet our hosts and get ready for another big week of GSE!

Fantastic vistas of the lake

2008-04-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 30 - Sunday, April 27th, 2008

We woke up this morning to Glen talking in his sleep, Westy snoring and my tummy grumbling! We were able to sleep in til 830 which was so good and I'm sure we all needed it.

The Tahoe Team

We headed to Heidi's a Pancake Parlour and had to argue with staff over seating as they wouldn't let us bring an extra chair over to fit our group of 9 in a booth that fits 8. Group of 10 if you count Errol. The breakfast was huge and delicious. We struggled to eat it all, but Glen managed!

A gondola (aka chair lift)

We then headed to the bottom of the Heavenly Ski Resort near the California/Nevada border so we could catch the Gondola to the Ski Runs. The ride to the top was fantastic and the views just spectacular. We stopped part way up at a fantastic "vista" or lookout in Australian. We had small snowball fight and took in the views of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding Mountains.

A great vista of Lake Tahoe

Our team. Why aren't we vistaing the vista? (And cna I even verb that?)

We continued our way up the Mountains to the ski runs and went straight into a free for all snow ball fight! There a few killer shots, some ambushing, take downs and dirty tricks. We'll let you decide who was responsible for which one. Lets just say some people have strong arms and some people are just plain sneaky.

Snow fights are fun!

We headed to the beer tent and sat outside drinking our alcoholic beverages. The three people that ordered Coronas all received boys. The over educated members of the group theorised that the low air pressure at the high altitude may have led to an increase in volume. Or they may have been full of shit!

Relaxing at the top of Heavenly Valley Ski Resort with Kyle & Eric

Back down the mountain we went and drove to Emerald Bay for a hike....ok, a stroll. We walked towards the Eagle Falls and had another snow ball fight! You'd think we'd never seen snow before the way we keep playing in it. The boys were very good shots and we had a great time throwing snowballs around...Michelle seemed to cop it the most out of the group. As Jeff said, too big a target???

Tea house in Emerald Bay. Apparently they got 'several visitors per summer'

Chris Currie (Kiwi - owns the cabin) met us at his place and we said goodbye to Jeff, Eric and Kyle and chatted over pistachios, wine and beer before checking out.....

Eagle Falls

Eagle Falls a little further downstream

Lake Tahoe Beckons... A proper Californian Holiday!

2008-04-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 29 - Saturday, April 26th, 2008

Our final week of exchange is scheduled for Modesto, but our weekly host, Chris Currie, takes a broad view. He owns a holiday house at South Lake Tahoe (that's a shack for Aussies and a bach for kiwis...). Even thought Tahoe is nowhere neat Modesto, and is in fact out of the district, it is so beautiful that Chris was keen that we see it. He also thought that we could probably have a nice relaxing recharge time. He and Jenny (his wife) are very generous people.

Incidentally, the Currie holiday house is named 'Currie Whare' which is a New Zealander joke. 'Wh' if pronounced 'F', so the name is pronounced something like 'Curry Fa-ri.' And Whare means home or something similar (please correct me if I'm wrong here). Anyway, it's a clever, if nerdy, joke. Of all the team, I should have appreciated it, but it went straight over my head I'm afraid...

Chris and Jenny couldn’t head straight to Tahoe with us because their daughters were involved in a musical production, so we headed up with their good friends Jeff and Ashwini and Jeff's twin sons Kyle and Eric. What a fortunate turn of events! Chris and Jenny were great fun the whole rest of the week, but we might not have met Jeff and Ashwini without this side trip. They were lovely, so we were wrapped!

Jeff, Ashwini, Will, Sarah & Chris kick back.

At the lake we enjoyed great scenery, great company, great wine and a great time. And we didn't sleep enough. None of this is all that unusual. What is unusual however is that we didn't present at any Rotary clubs, and we didn't have any formal visits to any local businesses! It was a nice change, but I think I had withdrawal symptoms!

We had lunch at a very interesting buffet style tepinyaki restaurant. The customer’s task was to select a bowl of raw ingredients and then took them to a large central BBQ plate where they were cooked in front of you. Yes sir, yes sir, I had 3 bowls full, including plenty of calamari… Nice. Made one mistake though. One bowl had some very attractive looking roasted garlic cloves. Michelle had about 5 and I had about 10 (across my 3 bowls). Lucky we aren’t all sharing the same room? Oh, hang on, we are…

Michelle and her Tahoe Adonis

After lunch we did some preliminary sightseeing, scoped out the local casinos and then got ourselves settled in at the cabin. Sitting around chatting, blogging, drinking and laughing was heaps of fun!

Errol checking out the are

We headed to the hard rock in the Hershey’s Casino for dinner. Glen and I had grnad plans to sneakily pay the bill, but even though we snuck off early to get it, we’d still been beaten to it by Jeff! Sneaky these Americans… Dinner was good fun and afterward different members of the group talked, drank, sang and danced and gambled. We straggled home to the cabin in a few small groups… I think the plan was to have a rest. Things didn’t quite go to plan… Now, that would be typical of the trip so far!

Anzac Day.. rest, review and golf

2008-04-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

Day 28 - Friday, April 25th, 2008

Merced must win some sort of award for being the most healthy place to stay so far. My host Jerry is a member of the local gym and Jerry, Glen and I have been for 40 mins of so every morning. It has been great! Jerry powers out the miles on the cross trainer and the bike, so Glen and I have been joining him in that. After a while I have to leave cardio and go play with weights, but Glen has been sticking with Cardio the whole time. He about tripled the amount of work he was doing over the week (measured according to the Calorie metres on the electronic cardio gear...). We followed up the gym trip by going for a 40 minute odd run around the river. Very nice.

The highlight of the gym week for me was a 38 year old african american ex marine who I bumped into and spoke to early in the week. He was in super shape, and while I was doing chin ups (or maybe make that chin up) nearby he was doing dips. After about 10 dips, he slowly rotated his body in mid air until his feet pointed straight up and then did a few more dips! Very impressive. Another item to add to my list of things to do some day...

OK, so what did we actually do today? Well, nominally it was a rest day, so we all went our different directions. Sarah hung out with the police for a change. My memory is getting fuzzy as to what she did on which day, but I think she went to some elementary schools to be a campus cop on this day. I do remember that it was along day for her!

**
From Sarah:
I headed to the Atwater Police Station and was introduced to their school resource officer. We spent time checking out some of the local schools and also a separate school for kids that aren't fitting into the normal school life or who are in a little bit of trouble with the law. The kids were all very well behaved and I couldn't believe how many of them purchased their lunch! It was a cool lunch though....cheeseburgers and chips! I spent most of the day here and then went home for an hour before heading out with the SCU (Street Crime Unit) for the night. These guys are fairly tough looking and don't mess around. We patrolled the gang areas and the trouble spots and I'm grateful that Tasmania is not as affected by gangs, guns and drugs.

BREATH TESTING SITE!
I finally got to see a Random Breath Testing site! The CHP had a static site set up in the middle of the road and it was very Hi-vis and safe for the officers. This one car came through with a young guy driving. The car smelt of liquor and the guy said he'd only had one beer....he forgot to mention the 2 beers in the car that his passenger and he had open! Naughty Naughty! CHP gave him a field sobriety test which is where you stand on one leg, look up to the sky, count to 30 etc. He passed and was warned about his behaviour. His female passenger looked like she was freaking out!

It was a late night but lots of fun again!

**

Michelle had adventures with a training mob somewhere, and I can't remember who or where. We'll get back to you on that...

I went back out to the new UC Merced Campus to meet with the IT staff. Securing a meeting had been tough because the staff were on a planning retreat all week. Ideally, I'd have liked to speak with the gentleman who planned the ICT system for the campus. It would have been interesting to find out where he did his research and what he discovered. Unfortunately, he was too busy... I did get to have a very interesting walk around and tour with one of the classroom AV specialists. We have fun checking out their projectors, video conferencing gear, and lecturing recording gear.

Westy and Glen had a great day. They played in an ambrose golf tournament with Glen's hosts Carol and Ralph, and Westy's host Roger. These guys can all play a bit. Carol and Ralph will be in Tassie soon to play Barnbougle, so that gives you an idea of their commitment level! Glen's team won in the end I believe, and a great time was had be all. Even if there wasn't enough beer at the party afterward...

Coyotes are not the most attractive of the US animals

Now, today is ANZAC Day. For all you US readers, ANZAC day is our memorial day for returned service men and women and those that have passed away. ANZAC is an acronym for Australian New Zealand Army Corps. The ANZAC spirit grew out of joint Oz & NZ action at Gallipoli in the first world war, and has been remembered ever since. We actually recognised ANZAC day over here on the 24th (which was the 25th at home in Oz). At the Atwater Rotary Club meeting, Sarah led us all in the Ode of Remeberance:

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them
Lest we forget

The other thing worthy of mention is that there is a little zoo down the street from Ralph and Carol's. Glen and I both had a chance to pop down and meet the animals. My favourites were the bear (pictured) and the mountain lion (no picture). I had great fun playing peek-a-boo with the lion. It was very cool...

A black bear with places he'd rather be...

Planes, no trains or automobiles

2008-04-24T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 27 - Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Day 27 began with a tour of Castle Air Force Museum (formerly a fully fledged airforce base). This museum is where old military planes come to retire. There are many many helicopters and aircraft here. We enjoyed checking out everything from a B52 to an F111 to early turbo prop fighters. Very interesting.

A jet fighter. Unlike the Joint Strike it has actually been in service...

A more manageable plane for us non pilots

My host Bill in Sonora volunteers at this museum helping to rebuild an old B-36 bomber. This huge plane has 4 jet and 6 turbo prop engines. It was the world's biggest bomber in its time. It is clad in some sort of magnesium alloy that is slightly lighter than aluminium, because this is slightly lighter, and the weight difference was critical at the time. Unfortunately the cladding is deteriorating rapidly, so Bill is part of a program that is replacing it with aluminium. Interesting stuff. unfortunately we didn't have a chance to see their workshop...

B-36 bomber

We presented today at a joint meeting of the Atwater and Lilydale Rotary Clubs. President Rich ran a lively and friendly meeting and the clubs asked lots of interesting questions. It was a pleasure to be there. And I won the raffle! It was only for the right to draw a luck marble and I missed the jackpot, but we had a side pot for nearest the winning ticket on our table, so I won $5 there.

Atwater Rotary

Some of us popped out to attend vocational visits in the afternoon. It could have been time off, but many of us spoke to our hosts and arranged extra vocational trips. I (Will) went to Merced College to meet with the man in charge. Sarah spent time trying to catch bad guys. Glen went to build big machinery. A good time was had by all.

Sarah trying to catch bad guys...

And in the evening we had a party at Glen's hosts Carol & Ralph's. It was fun. All hosts and others from Merced who'd met us attended. Fantastic food and wine. (Mind you there was BBQ foster farms chicken, which worries at least one member of the team).
We all had a good night. It was very civilised!

Host Jerry Schaffer & Will at the party

BTS, we're going Back To School

2008-04-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

Day 26 - Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Guess what? None of us took any pictures today! We're relying on a couple from my host Jerry Schaffer.

Team infront of the Bizzini Building

We spent the morning at Madera College, a 2 year community College with about 10000 students. My host Jerry Schaffer was a Dean at this college for many years until his retirement about 11 years ago. Dr Larry Johnson showed us around. We had a quick look at:
- the automotive shop (I've learned the IT can also stand for Industrial Technology...)
- biology and maths labs with one PC per student
- a resourced centre sponsored by Sarah's hosts Dorothy and Bill Bizzini
- a new student assistance centre which is a one stop shop for enrollment, financial and academic assistance
- a very well setup computer aided design (CAD) lab
- much more...
After out tour, we managed to meet a few key people from around the college to discuss our vocations. Sarah's new friend Jim (head of Campus police) was particularly interesting.

Dr Larry Johnson explains the finer points of the college to the team

Presented at a lunchtime meeting of the Downtown Merced Rotary Club. Jerry described it as the 'old man's club' of Madera. It has many many members, including the city manager, then newspaper publisher etc. They were a nice bunch. President Clarke (who drove Will and Glen from Reno down to Merced) ran the meeting forcefully, but amusingly. We had fun presenting. A few more flags were added to the hauls we are collecting for our clubs. Sarah managed to include another description for her relationship with Bobby. We've now had boyfriend, partner, fiance, significant other and better half... She's got to run out soon. I completely failed with my challenge, which was to include certain song lyrics in my speech. I had rehearsed, but forgot while I was in front of the audience! Who says this speaking gig is easy??

Presenting Flags at Merced Rotary

After the meeting, Immediate Past President Jan Mendenhall drove us over to University of California Merced (US Merced). She is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Development. Jan oozed confidence, capability and business! After our safe delivery, Alumni Affairs Coordinator Stefani Martinez led us on a tour of the campus. I think Stefani has time to run tours because UC Merced is only in its third year and only has about 80 alumni so far! Stefani was ably assisted by freshman economics student Emily. Emily is a Rotaract member, is helping set up a student endowment fund to produce scholarships and also volunteers with a ranger program that removes black berries from Yosemite (yes, they're a problem here too!). All in all, she was an admirable UC Merced ambassador and a great advertisement for the campus.

After our general tour, Glen and his host Carol slipped back over to Merced College to spend some more time looking at CAD software. Michelle headed off to learn about the stem cell research being conducted on campus, Sarah met and toured with the campus police and I met with Deputy University Librarian Donald Barclay to learn about the library.

The library is spacious, comfortable and inviting. It has been designed to suit the 21st century. They don't subscribe to paper journals and periodicals, these are all online. The 'reserve' is also all online. And book materials that professors want placed on reserve and digitised and distributed economically! No more racing in and madly photocopying the weekly readings... In fact, I didn't notice a single photocopier or printer while I was in the building.

Rita Staur showed Sarah around. She is head of US Merced police (don't call them security, they don't like that!). They have only 200 students, but about 10 police. Either these guys commit a lot of crime and need to police, or this is the safest place in the country!

Michelle had a tour of the stem cell research program in the science department. I would have loved to have been part of that, it would have been so interesting! I haven't spoken to her enough to have enough understanding to write about it, I'll see if we can add some more information later.

Glen left UC Merced after the first part of the tour and headed back to Merced College to spend more time with the CAD drawing program. He reckons that talking to the right software user can mean that he can learn things twice as fast!

Thanks to everyone who was involved in setting up another interesting day.

Vocational Day in Madera (Sarah in a chopper!)

2008-04-22T22:32:00.001-07:00

Day 25 - Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

We had possibly our best Vocational day so far in Madera today. And we presented at a combined Madera clubs meeting, and everyone did very well. Glen and Sarah are getting so confident, it's a pity we are near the end!

I'm having fun with Jerry and Betsy Schaffer. We're even finding time to go to the gym in the mornings! Talk about a good life... And last, but not least, I got 7.5 hours sleep last night. The most on GSE so far. I feel I could take on the world...

Will's Vocational Day:

I was lucky enough to experience educational IT at 7 different levels. From the Micro (meeting IT manager Joanne at a high school) to the Macro (meeting district manager Steve and County Manager Jeff).

The school visit was interesting as I could do direct comparisons with my school and actually able to help them out a little bit. But I really enjoyed the meetings at the county office where we discussed issues that I don’t have to worry about yet but may have to one day.

Just a quick explanation, schools here are organised into districts and there are several districts in one county. Dist may have between one and a dozen schools depending on their individual area. A unified school dist includes both elementary and high schools. The Madera county office manages many dist and is able to provide some fantastic services include the wonderful internet connectivity. For you nerds out there, the county is the schools ISP and many of the schools have 45 Mbit synchronous connections. Wouldn’t you kill for a connection like that! Actually, there is a California education network which provides a high speed network link between all educational institutions include schools colleges and university.

At the county office we got talking about the catholic education system. It is very small here as it receives no government funding. In fact there is only one catholic high school in the whole county and very very few students in catholic elementary schools.

Madera rotary greeted us with some familiar faces!

Sarah's Voc. Day:

Met with Mike Herder and we travelled to Fresno and had a look around the area before heading to Caltrans TMC room (California Transport Traffic Management Control). They have cameras which check on the traffic flow and then heaps of display boards along the highway which they can print messages on - slow traffic, take alternate route etc. While there I also went down to the basement and met the guys in MAIT (Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team). .They were great fun and have great programs to help with accident investigation, including a 3D program which you can view from so many different views (driver, passenger, oncoming vehicles, witness on street).

We then headed to my favourite place in California so far.....In 'n' Out Burger! This place has the best burgers ever, and have a "secret" menu which you can get a 4X4 (4 times meat, 4 times cheese) Mmmmmm.....burgers.....

I'm not sure if this was the best idea before heading to the Airport to go flying with the CHP in their Helicopter. The CHP have about 13 helicopters in the state which are all used for general patrol, pursuits and some medical evacuations. I was able to get a great view of the City of Fresno and the Baseball Field from our Grizzlies game. The pilot and flight officer are CHP trained first and then apply for flight duties. They have no tenure and can stay there as long as they like! I would love to have their job! I had a really great time and thanks so much to Mike for organising the visits for me.

Sarah got to see the city through a wide lense

Michelle Voc. Day:

Spent the morning visiting Madera high school and checking out their vocational programs. Part of their vocational program is allowing the students to use a new CMC ( ) which is unusual for a high school to have as only larger businesses in Tasmania have these.

In the afternoon, I had the time of my life and went to Pioneer Educational College which is a chartered college for kids that have been expelled, on probation or otherwise unsuccessful in normal school classes. I spent the afternoon with Alison the principal. The school was diff to any other normal high school that I have visited as they offered smaller classes and more one on one teaching styles. They also had a program setup for teenage pregnant mothers who were allowed to bring their children into the class two weeks post birth to continue their education.

The teachers at this college are more like mentors rather than teachers, which help the kid’s fit into the class. On the day, the kids were doing their STAR testing for English and I managed to see the exam and am lucky they didn’t make me sit it without some study time!

I thought it was interesting how the kids probation officers were walking in and out of the classrooms making sure that the kids were actually in school .Alison is an ex-probation officer and has a good relationship with them.

The kids basically built this school and have built their classrooms. They have a lot or pride and respect as they have put a lot of work into it. They were able to do “Controlled Tagging” of the subjects that were in that classroom.

The school really makes a point of going out of their way to make sure that the kids can pass their high school diploma and organise evening classes for kids that are unable to attend during the day.

Glen visitng somewhere hands on for a change...

Westy’s Voc. Day:

Westy made the trip to Fresno to visit upmarket Capet shop 47 Place Carpet One (in the USA they upscale instead of Up market). They visited several houses in Fresno where they were installing floor coverings and Westy was able to explain to the contractors how to lay carpet around a tricky stair case. He was also able to wonder at the value of the houses he was working in. Later that same day we visited John and Lois and Westy noticed the first woollen carpet that we have seen in the US. No wonder we can’t sell enough sheep when these guys won’t put it in on the floors!

The story of Westy's trip

Michelle with 5220 GSE Team Leader Carol

Cow and Chicken!

2008-04-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 24 - Monday, April 21st, 2008

Today we all met at Westy's place and Roger and Chi Chi took us to Vern Wickstrom's Dairy Farm just outside of Hilmar. We were given a tour of the milking process and a brief run down of the history of the Farm. The farm was brought in 1940 and Vern is the fourth generation.

Why a dairy cow exists. Milk galore!

Vern showed us the area that the cattle are kept in and the two different varieties of cattle that the use at the Farm. The cattle make their own way through to the "merry-go-round" and get hooked up to be milked. At the end of the process they back themselves away from the milking bay and off they go! Well trained cows! The milk is pumped through to the two 7000 gallon tanks and these tanks are emptied by the trucks 2-3 times a day. That's a whole lotta milk!

The (2 or 3x) daily grind on the milking machine

Our next stop was the Hilmar Cheese Company which was founded in 1985 and is a cooperative of 12 dairy farmers seeking to maximise the value of their Jersey Cow's high solids milk. In a day, the company processes 5.5 million litres of milk which produces 1.3 million pounds of cheese! Good thing too, because the cheese here is delicious. They mainly make American Jack and Cheddar. Jack is a funny yellow colour, kinda dark and tastes....like cheese.

Errol meeting a very distant cousin

After a delicious lunch, we headed to the Livingston to see Foster Farms Chicken, which was founded in 1939. We split into two groups and had a tour of the Operations of the business. We started at the live chickens being delivered in crates and travelling along a conveyor belt into the dark room where apparently they are much more relaxed (plus they get their belly rubbed by a machine). They are hung upside down on some hooks by their feet and travel into the "killing room". I debated if I wanted to see this part - if I go in, will I ever eat chicken again?

* This may be a little graphic but needed to explain the process*

The chickens head runs through water and an electric current passes through electrocuting them, knocking them unconscious. They travel past a machine that cuts their carotid artery and just in case the machine doesn't do the job properly, there are workers on hand to slit their throat. We then followed the process - feathers being oiled off, feet chopped off and sent to China, innards being pulled out by machine, inspection of chickens, innards put back in (for some orders) and eventually the chicken pieces being cut and packaged.

It takes 15mins for a chicken to go through the kill and clean process then it is cooled in water for 70mins before being sliced which takes another 10mins. Each minute 640 chickens are killed and processed - YES 640 a MINUTE!! I found it really interesting and couldn't believe how many people were working on the floor. There are 2100 people employed on the floor and I can see why when there are that many chickens going through.

We headed back to our family, one member not feeling the best and as far as I know hasn't eaten chicken since! (5 days later...still no chicken consumed)

Is Glen tastier than corn husks??

Reno to Merced

2008-04-20T16:31:00.001-07:00

Day 23 - Sunday, April 20th, 2008

Today was the last day of the District Conference and the day for our big GSE Presentation! The day started off with the team running around, trying to print the new presentation notes, write some notes, prepare the Australia Table and try to pack our suitcases.

Past Rotarians were remembered with a memorial service at the start of the final day, with Bernie Charles being thought of and alot of the current members speaking to me about their memories of him.

Westy laying a wreath for Bernie

We were up next and despite making changes to our sections, it went fairly well. Will's talk was hilarious and mentioned the differences in breakfast items in California compared to Tassie! Westy presented Governor Dick Wyatt with a Clock, hand made with Tasmanian Timber.

Glen looks pleased with himself. Someone must have finally understood him when he introduced himself!

Westy carried this beautiful handmade clock 12000 miles for Dick. Good thing he appreciated it!

The Californian team that went to Tasmania were also here and did a short presentation on what they learnt and enjoyed about their trip to our Home. After talking with Carol, Brian and Jim, it was clear to see that they enjoyed the exchange and all the fantastic scenery we are lucky to have in Tasmania.

5220 GSE Team Giving a Report

At the end of the session, we had a table of items to give away such as pens, books, CD's and pins to say thankyou to the Rotarians, and to encourage them to come visit Tas. It was also a great chance to lighten our suitcases, except no-one wanted to take our Inflatable Shane Warne home...so we left him at the Casino with a mobile phone....

We gave away hundreds of pins, but couldn't get rid of Warnie!

It was then time to move onto our new host family for the week. We met in the lobby, headed off with our familys and made the 3 1/2 hour trip down to Merced.

Gina, Linda and the better looking half the team at our give away stall

Reno District Conference Day 2

2008-04-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 22 - Saturday, April 19, 2008

Today we met at the Conference Ballroom for a breakfast meeting and to listen to guest speakers for the day. To start the day off we had a flag ceremony and Westy was picked to represent Australia and carry our flag.

Westy doing the Aussies proud

Key guest speakers for the day included:
- Speech Competition Winner (16yo)
- Graham Kennedy (Polio Plus)
- Rosemary Aragorn (Generations in society and Rotary & recruitment)
- (The path of the first woman in Rotary... Finalised in 1987!)
- Dave Tygett from Stockton Rotary and our own Michelle (Joining DG Dick to present Club awards)

Dave Tygett & Michelle. Both thinking "What have I gotten myself into here..."

In the evening we all tried to doll up Hollywood Style, we would've gone complete glammed up if someone told us the theme in advance! I know that Glen and Will were dying to get our their little black dresses for the evening but didn't know it was that formal!

The G Team (G is for glamorous...)

The night was so much fun! They had a red carpet, celebrity heads (but it was really celebrity backs as that was where the name was), photographers, popcorn and a must for every celebrity... sunglasses!

One of these people has a scary day job. One has scary hair...

The meal was fantastic and we all had a great time chatting away. I think Glen and I were extremely happy with the delicious steak for dinner! After the main meal we were entertained by the King'in Trio who were actually a band of Four. They played songs that Westy knew, but throughout the night I think there were 3 songs that Will and I knew. When the night was over, we headed downstairs for a couple of drinks at the bar and to catch up with our Rotary Friends.

The girls holding President Dave from Modesto East in a vertical position

A highlight of the night - it was snowing outside our hotel!

Reno Reno Reno!

2008-04-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 21 - Friday, April 18, 2008

We all made our way up to Reno (well Sparks actually) in Nevada to the Rotary District Conference at John Ascuaga's Nugget Casino.

The Nugget Casino. Our temporary home

It was completely different landscape again to what we have seen so far. Nevada is in a massive rain shadow caused by the Sierras, and it is really bid and hot and dry. Compared to CA, this is an ugly ugly place. Sorry to any Nevadans reading, but I wouldn't live here... and we didn't even visit in summer!

Nevada desert scenery... Quite a contrast to CA

We came over the Sierra Mountain Ranges into a valley which is basically a desert surrounded by Snow Capped Mountains. it looks so dry and barren here, except for the lines of houses in the cities. The drive over the Mountains (8000ft elevation) was gorgeous and we were able to see frozen lakes, completely snow covered mountains and fabulous veiws almost all the way to San Francisco.

Along the road from Sonora to Reno

It was a long road... Plenty of scenery!

As we arrived at the Casino, we socialised and got to know a lot of new faces at the Conference, and reunited with some familiar more familiar faces! What I still find interesting is when we are introudcing ourselves to people, there are a lot of people that believe that Tasmania is a Country. We met as a group for dinner in the Rose Ballroom and watched an interesting Melodrama produced by and starring Rotarians. It was well done and quite funny! At the end of the dinner, the Team all hit the tables. Some to play, and some to watch. Michelle was beaten at the Blackjack Table, but Will managed to keep a poker face long enough to win a few bucks! We had lots of fun "People Watching" at the dance floor with the live band, checking out the moves and the fashions. I'll just say Plastic Safety Goggles are fashionable in Reno and leave it at that!

White stuff, lime and snow

2008-04-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 20 - Thursday, April 17th, 2008

More touring in beautiful Sonora today. If you listen to advertisements on the radio, then this is 'Gold Country' or 'Mother Lode Country' or 'the Gold Fields.' Although the boom gold mining days are now behind us, it's good to see that mining is still an important part pf the local economy. Rotarian Jerry from the morning club took us on a tour of local lime mine run by Blue Mountain Minerals. Jerry is a director on the board of the mine. Along with current manager Tom, they were able to show us many aspects of this open cut calcium carbonate mine. (Yes, I did ask them if they got many jokes about being Tom & Jerry... no they didn't. No they don't think it is amusing...)

Blue Mountain Minerals Mine

We saw the mine being blasted, the rock being sorted from the dirt, the limestone being crushed, sorted, dried and eventually trucked out. It is used as a ph changer in agriculture, as chicken food, in glass manufacture and in the manufacture of roof shingles. A thoroughly interesting tour.

Blast holes & some blasted rock

Lunch was with the Sonora 49er club. Conveniently, they meet in the same diner as do the morning club, so at least we knew where we were going! They were a pleasant bunch. President Michael runs a quiz. A table is chosen at random to ask a tricky question as a team. If they get ti right everyone gets a small prize. If not, they all get fined. The questions was:
"If you consider the highest mountain in each state, which are the five highest?" (Name the state and the mountain). Now, we all know Alaska has quite a few of the highest, but it still only counts as one. The first table got 4/5, but no cigar. Fortunately Sarah knew the answer. I think she may have had a tip off... Police are good at that. (For the answer, see below...)
President Michael was also the man responsible for the Hispanic Lip Sync Competition that we'd seen in Modesto the very first night that we'd arrived. It was neat to meet him (note the use of general purpose American adjectives 'neat' and the rhyme).

After the meeting we headed up into the mountains to visit the local ski resort, Dodge Ridge. Our tour guide was a kiwi, which was a nice change! His accent was not particularly distinctive (he said he'd had to modify it to suit the locals), but was still different to what we've been hearing and pleasant to my ears! The ski resort had just closed for the summer, but we were able to find big sheets of plastic and run up the hill with them and slide down. Lots of fun!

Strange environment for a devil

Dodge Ridge's desserted slopes

Answers to the quiz:
Alasksa - McKinley
California - Whitney
Colorado - ?extra credit if you can remember
Oregan (or was it Washington?? oops not sure now) - ditto
Hawaii - ditto

Big trains, bigger gold nugget, gigantic trees!

2008-04-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 19 - Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Well, today was another day with a meeting at a morning club. These are clubs that meet for breakfast at about 7am. That mean you get up about 5:30 to have a shower, organise your host family and travel the 30 miles to the meeting... It's a tough morning! Personally, I spent my preparation time combining a shower and speaking on the phone back home... Not a great preparation for the meeting! The morning club were fun tough. Most of our host families were in this club and they were very generous hosts who laughed at the jokes in our presentations, even though they'd heard them already!

Henry & Glen went AWOL... And had a great time!

After the meeting, Glen headed deep into the forests of the Sierra Nevada and we headed off to tour Tuolmne County. The first stop was the railway museum at Jamestown. We managed to take multiple photos of films involving Errol Flynn. There have been something like 200 films and 200 TV shows filmed here. Michelle enjoyed reading the classics that were filmed there. Little House on the Prairie... and may others!

Errol checks out his name sakes photo at the railway museum

Next stop was Calaveras Big Tree park. This park houses some of the biggest Sequoia trees in California. They are big. The eucalyptus in the Styx valley are taller, but not as broad. Volumetrically, these are massive trees. The pictures will do more justice than the words... We saw live trees, dead trees, rotting trees, squirrels, snow and much more. I'm not sure if it was everyone's cup of tea, but I loved it.

The Calaveras Big Trees mascot meets our own

Sarah proving that this tree is big

After the big trees stop, we visited Ironstone Vineyard. This is a beautiful place. Fantastic gardens and vines. They have concerts during the summer. Always bands that were big a few years back! Foreigner are playing here soon. I can't wait... The biggest claim to fame at Ironside is a huge crystalline gold nugget. It ways 44 pounds, is stored in a massive vault. Crystalline gold is a little different. It is bits and pieces of leaf, but not a solid ingot. It is very attractive. And this nugget is big. But 444 pounds isn't all that big when you consider that the 'welcome stranger' found in Aus was actually a solid nugget weighing over 150 pounds! Nevertheless, the ingot we saw was pretty dashed cool...

A very largest crystalline gold nugget. Much smaller than welcome stranger though...

Sarah & Errol sample a nice white

I guess that this was more a tourist day than anything else. It was fun. Thanks to Bruce and the team for organising!

The Team at Calaveras

Planning meeting at CCC

2008-04-15T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 18 - Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Today we all met at Chris’s hosts house, Curt and Carol Casion to do some planning for the District Conference and to catch up on the Blog. Glen decided he was too cool to hang out with us and did his own thing, heading off with Henry to visit some logging areas and a bit of vocational work.

When Carol first said “Hi” Will knew immediately that she wasn’t a local. Is she a New Zealander? Is she a Pom? Has she just been here for too long? It turns out that she’s from Perth W.A but has been in the US for over 20 years. She certainly doesn’t sound American, but you couldn’t call it an Australian accent either. She was a fantastic host and made us a delicious Vegan Lasagna which has probably been the most healthiest meal we’ve eaten here so far!

In the afternoon, Will went to his host (Paula) business to help set up a new colour photocopier. He got it working ok, and only had it broken for a couple of minutes which apparently wasn’t too bad. The rest of us headed to Starbucks and then perused the shopping centre until we were picked up by my host, Judy Delbon.

That night, the group (except for Will) went to Judy’s house and we had the most fabulous dinner! We had Pozole, a chicken and pork stew which you add cold condiments, and Gazpacho, a cold Spanish Soup made with tomato. Will had dinner with his hosts and some of their friends and missed out, but I'm sure he had fun.

Sonora Vocational Day

2008-04-14T13:23:00.000-07:00

Day 17 - Monday, April 14, 2008

Sarah's Vocational Day
Sarah was dropped off at the Tuolumne Sheriffs Office in Sonora, which is nice and close to the county jail and Court. Met Lt Ruckman who is charge of the office, and has a lot of experience in different fields of law enforcement. Knowledgeable guy! I had a quick look around the office, listened to the briefing for the shift, and was introduced to Alex who would be riding with me for the day (poor bugger). We started the shift off by washing the car...but unlike at home, we didn't have to wash it, the inmates did it for us! Best Idea! So while we waited for the car to be detailed, we had a look through the armoury, SWAT room and a quick look around the Jail. Different system here than at Madera. They don't have the Officer walking around the inmates which I think is a little bit safer!

We headed out on patrol and Alex showed me the trouble areas (Jamestown) and the more touristy places (Columbia). The scenery is lovely and I'm lucky to be able to go on ride alongs and generally get to see a lot more of it than the rest of the team.

Glen's Vocational Day:
Today I went to Trotter Welding & Steel Supply with Clay Rosasco and Jerry Nielsen. They are a steel processing plant that employ 150 people and have a lot of machinery infrastructure including plasma cutters, four brake pressers (one of them was 750 tonne!) and a lot of rollers. In Tassie we use four major suppliers from all over the state, but here, everything is in the one shop. They also have their own machining and fabrication shops, it was huge!

Once again, my cultural experience took me to Mexican. After lunch I went back to my hosts (Henry and Judy) to play cards. I had my first Artichoke. Henry tried to teach me how to play Rummy 500... tried.

Michelle's Vocational Day:
I went to the Sonora Regional Hospital, which is a privately owned (Seventh Day Adventist) and met with Julie Kline. Unfortunately I was 2 minutes late to see a near birth in the Foyer of the Hospital. Julie works in the HR department of the Hospital.

She introduced me to Tom who is the recruiting officer. I spent the day with him talking about hoe they do their recruitment and advertising and also with the fact that they are classified as a remote area. This makes it similar to Tasmania with the difficulties of encouraging and retraining staff in the remote areas. As it was an induction day for new staff at the hospital, I was able to sit in on their Induction Programs which covered OHS and other departmental policies. I had a tour of the hospital, and drawing from hospitals that I have worked in around the world, found the facilities were of high standards as it is a relatively new hospital.

I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the hospital observing practices and technology before being picked up and taken home to my host family (Donna and David, their son and girlfriend and the cats and dogs which I had problems with).

Will's Vocational Day

Will visited local Community College Columbia College. Have I explained the whole concept of Community Colleges, State Universities and University of California before? I'll check through the blogs and post an explanation if not...

The day started inauspiciously when my radio alarm clock went off and I heard on the radio news that the Columbia College phone system was off the air. Thousands of staff and students were without phone services... We rang the Head of ICT at the College at about 7:30am to ask if today might be a bad day? He said to come anyway...

I had a great tour of the facility and learned quite a bit. Although the College is bigger than mine and has an older student population, they were managing many of the same facilities as us, and grappling with many of the same problems. Interim boss Brian De Moss provided me with some great ideas about desktop PC management, online learning management systems and video conferencing. It was a very interesting day. Hopefully I'll speak to them again to discuss thing in more detail.

Chris' Vocational Day

Guess what Westy saw for his day??

Westy's Vocational Day - Continuos Roll Rack & Cutting Machine

That's right! Westy saw another carpet shop. Chris and the manager agreed that within about 2 hours they could probably both run each others businesses. One observation is that carpet salesmen in the US seem to be paid at higher rate than their counterparts in Australia. Contractors are near enough to the same though.

Westy's Vocational Day - A Big Stack of Carpet!

Off to Sonora... Slowly!

2008-04-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

Day 16 - Sunday, April 13, 2008

The day started off very warm (90F) and slowly for some - croaky voices, headaches, upset tummys. Glen could hardly talk, which made it even harder for the Americans to understand him! Most of the gang stayed at home in the morning, but Will had other ideas...I'll let him fill you in on that later.

We met at El Cid for Mexican Lunch and sad goodbyes to our family and friends from Oakhurst. The food was delicious, but the restaurant really needs to invest in some Air Conditioning in the back room! After taking photographs, exchanging some gifts (thanks Harry and Cathy for the awesome Cap), and eventually saying Goodbye, we headed down the road with our drivers, Dawn and Laura, and their cool looking people mover to Sonora.

The road to Sonora was long, hilly and windy (as in corners) and would take us about 1 1/2 hours. It was hot outside and inside the van and we needed to keep the Air Con going. As we continued on, Glen was regretting having Mexican for lunch after such a big night out with the local pork products. Naturally, we all bagged him out and suggested that Dawn and Laura pull out the Burrito scented air freshener!

After the continuous barrage of hills, Dawn noticed that the temperature gauge on the dash was basically lying past the H indicator. Westy stepped in and tried to make the Van a little bit cooler by turning off the Air Con. Don't worry about us Westy, we're fine, sweltering in the heat, Glen feeling queasy! The Air Con thing seemed to work for a little bit, but then the Van decided it would stay hot.

We drove into Moccasin Point Marina Boat Ramp, and lifted the bonnet - well tried to anyway. The front of the van was covered in green liquid and we realized we were in trouble. We waited for the radiator to cool and noticed it had a crack. We called for the backup van (Van 2)! An hour later it arrived with Joe. After the boys did some quick fix to the radiator, we got Van 1 up and running, transported our luggage and us into Van 2, and began to follow Van 1 back to Sonora...

...the only problem was that Van 1 left and Van 2 didn't!

The van wouldn't start! Dawn and Laura had a go at starting it, Westy had a go, Glen had a go, Will, Sarah and Michelle all said how it should be done, but nothing worked. Having limited phone reception made it difficult to call for help, but we managed to call AAA (RACT) and get a tow truck to us, and a message to our new host families that we might be a little delayed.

After 3 hours at the Park, we managed to get the Van onto the tow truck and Errol was just about ready to go with it! He struggles with the heat and his fur sometimes. Our hosts drove down to meet us there instead and we eventually made it to Sonora and settled in for the next couple of days!

SARAH

BBQ at the ranch

2008-04-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

Day 15 - Saturday, April 12, 2008

At 1pm we headed to Lee’s Horse Ranch (actually Lee was away, so it should really have been Jill’s horse ranch) a short trip around the corner from Awahnee. Glen was excited as there was a small lake and fishing rods available for him to go fishing. While the rest of the team mingled and chatted away, Glen worked VERY hard at trying to catch something on the rod, considering that he hadn't managed to catch anything on his rest day the other day. His hard work paid off and he captured the Big Daddy of fishes. Well done Glen!

Victor and Michelle challenged Will and I in a pedal boat race across the lake and back. I was a dubious about the boat that we were left with as Michelle and Victor had already had the opportunity to test them out and pick the best one. But a challenge is a challenge....so Will and I accepted and worked our little legs off but couldn't beat the formidable duo! Next time we'll have to flip a coin for the boats to make it even. The food at lunchtime was delicious and so was the beer! I think we all ate way too much and it's no wonder the previous GSE teams have been putting on weight.

That night we all went out to experience the Spectacular Nightlife that Oakhurst had to offer. Glen, Will and I heading to the Pines (near Glens house on Bass Lake) for a few beers with my police friends. We were shouted beers, met firefighters, chatted to bridal parties, sampled more beers, and learnt the American Rules for Pool. Apparently you don't get 2 shots for fouls over here.

Michelle was taken to a Wine Bar in Oakhurst (yes, apparently they exist up here), popped past the Pines for a brew with the team, then headed out to a Japanese restaurant. Michelle had Alaskan Rolls for dinner (think sushi wrapped in salmon instead of seaweed) which were delicious!

At the end of the night we all managed to get home in one piece and had a great time socialising with the locals! It was great to just relax and hangout.

SARAH

Take me out to the ball game!

2008-04-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

Day 14 - Friday, April 11, 2008

Friday was the team rest day. We love team rest days because you get to pack in as many activities as you can. Glen spent a relaxing 11 hours fishing and caught nothing. Who would’ve thought that there’d be no bass in bass lake. Maybe he should’ve be using his own hair to tie his lures. Michelle spent a productive day learning a new career and preparing for our evening outing. We’ll talk you more about that later but think orange…

Will got to have lunch with the superintendant and business manager of the \school district and thought he might’ve learnt a bit about the way things are done over here. Instead we discussed smuggling Australian parrots out of the country for the ex principals breeding program. I told them they could have as many seagulls as they like, but can’t touch our rosellas…

After lunch (salad of course), Harry and I headed around to pick up Sarah. Sarah spent a relaxing morning recovering from a police manhunt that had lasted well into the night. The three of us headed back to Harry’s place so Sarah could wow the locals with her shooting prowess. At home, to maintain their firearm validation, police shoot once a year for an hour or so. Over here they shoot A LOT more often.

Sarah & the AR-15

Fortunately, even though Sarah hadn’t shot since Feb 2007, she managed to out shoot the locals. Guns are a little bit more readily available over here and we got to shoot at 7, 10 and 15 metre targets with a Glock 23 40 Cal, Sig Sauer Mosquito .22 handgun, 20 gauge shotgun, and a modified AR15 rifle (a semi auto civilian version of the Military M16).

Will with 20 gauge

(Note from Sarah) Will was a little bit nervous about being around so many guns. He would’ve been able to shoot fine if he opened his eyes and didn’t shake before he shot. Regardless, we managed to shoot 18/20 into the heart of the target. Surprisingly the AR15 didn’t have a whole lot of recoil considering its size.

Errol's arms aren't long enough for the rifle

We were lucky that Harry’s son Dan came over to clean out the weapons we used so that we could head off to the Baseball in Fresno.

Friday nights at the Fresno Grizzlies stadium is meant to look like a sea of orange, so we were very grateful that Victor and Michelle had designed and produced these stylish pieces of grizzlies merchandise for the occasion.

Sarah, Will & Glen sporting Michelle & Victor's sexy orange tops

Sarah and I were really excited because there was a voucher for a free chilli dog on the back of our tickets. Unfortunately, after searching high and low, we found that the outlet giving away the chilli dogs wasn’t at the ground, it was in the mall… Doh! We ended up buying our own hot dogs. If we had got them free, they’d still have been over priced.

The Grizzlies mascot. Glen wants this job!

A little later, the home team were in trouble. How much later? To be precise: 8 innings, 14 light beers, 3 renditions of Aussie-Aussie-Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi & lots of yelling ‘you wanker’ at the evil opposition from Tulscon….

Fresno player striking out. There was too much of this for 8 innings!

How much trouble? Well, at the bottom of the 8^th, the home boys were down 1-4. When the Tulscon team scored again at the top of the 9^th, we were stuffed. Lots of the local fans walked out, but us stoic Aussies refused to leave until the end. Unbelievably, the grizzlies scored 5 home runs in the final innings and managed a win from an almost impossible position! Needless to say, we went off! It was unbelievable…

Fresno striking out one of the bad guys. Yay!

Some interesting asides (see if you can spot the common theme):

-Beer is ridiculously expensive. $7.50 for a pint of light
-They stop serving beer after the 7^th innings! You can’t buy it toward the end of the game!
-They asked Michelle and Sarah for ID and refused to serve either of them because their IDs weren’t from the US. Michelle had words with every responsible person in the arena, but to no avail…
-Glen and I were rowdy and rude, but they served us every time we asked...

After the game the city of Fresno put on a special fireworks display in our honour, and we then headed home. But not before we stopped into “in and out” (a burger joint). I love this place. Their menu gives you 3 choices:
-Hamburger
-Cheese burger
-Double double (2 patties, two pieces of cheese)

Along with chips and drinks. I think it is brilliant that they keep it so simple.

“What do you do?”
“We sell hamburgers”
“Cool. Can I have a grilled chicken on foccacia?”
“No”
“How about a soy late?”
“No”
“Can I at least see the salad menu”
“No… Bugger off back to Canada.”

I like them. An unapologetic hamburger joint.

Fireworks in our honour!

Yosemite

2008-04-10T23:05:00.001-07:00

Day 13 - Thursday April 10, 2008

Our visit to the Yosemite National Park today was on of the highlights of the trip. We left Oakhurst at 7:30 to head to the park (about an hour trip) and stayed there until about 5 in the afternoon. We only had a chance to see the most basic touristy bits. And they weer spectacular. But it was a pity at the same time... I was itching to get off the valley floor and walk, run or climb into the less well trodden parts of the park. Even the 5 miles up to glacier point would have been fine. Unfortunately, our schedule didn't permit. Fortunately, what we did see is imprinted in my memory forever more. Words won't do this justice, so here's some pictures...

Yosemite valley. Seen by 3.5 million tourists each year.

Our tour guide (ranger Christine) explained that 3.5 million people visit the park each year. Only a few percent get more than about 200 yards from the main valley floor and main attractions. A large proportion enter along the road from Oakhurst, travel through the tunnel, and are as stunned as we were at the majesty of Yosemite Valley. Almost all the Americans, Australians and Japanese stop to take photos. We did too...

The team. Why weren't we looking at the million dollar view??

The valley is large. I'm not sure how large in acres or square miles, but big. Look how small the trees are in the previous pictures for goodness sakes...
We have some spectacular landscapes and parks at home, but this was still impressive. It's different country to that which I know, and it's stunning.

Valley rim

Yosemite valley is a glacial valley carved through Granite. There have been at least three major glaciers through here over the milennia, and they've combined to create a sheer walled, flat bottomed valley. It is very big. The massive lumps of granite exposed loom over the valley like sentinels, guarding the sequoia, squirrels and bears. Indian legend tells us that EL Capitan and Half Dome are an ancient Indian husband and wife trapped in stone facing each other after a fight. He is ashen, she is crying. Together they make a masterpiece that has been painted and photographed many times over...

El Capitan - the Contrite Husband

Half Dome - the Chastened Wife

There is a river that runs through the centre of the valley. It has many tributaries which run out of the surrounding hills. During the ice ages, these small rivers would have been frozen too, but they lacked sufficient size to carve their own valleys to match the main one. Consequently, they now all run to the edge of the valley and plummet to the floor below as spectacular water falls. There are many. We saw Bridal Vail, Horse Tail and Yosemite falls today.

Yosemite Falls (the top half anyway...)

Rugged, exciting landscapes...

This rock didn't roll down the hill today, or any of the last 3 million days...

As well as a fantastic exhibition of photographs, paintings, artifacts and history, there was an Indian bloke named Ben working in the museum. He made arrow heads from volcanic rock, did rope tricks, and, most impressively, played the cedar flute, and another flute. They were beautiful. I couldn't make any useful notes on the short flute, but played the cedar a little. It is a beautiful sounding instrument. I think I'm in love... He's been to Tassie before to do some training with our fire brigade. Lucky he isn't planning to come back or I might be tempted...

Ben & the Cedar Flute

We presented to the Yosemite Rotary Club at noon in the spectacular Awahnee hotel. This stately and handsome establishment is built entirely from concrete, but some bits had me believing the were timber! It looks really nice. It's grand, but also intricate. I hate to think what it costs to stay here... Our US GSE friend Sarah Crowe works here and bragged that this would be the best Rotary meal we'd have on our travels. Apologies to the Best Western and the golf clubs, but she was right. We said hi to your mates for you Sarah...

Chris impersonating firewood at the Awahnee Hotel

This isn't enough pictures or enough story unfortunately. There's lots more to show and tell from Yosemite. I suggest that you:
- Ask to see a full slide show
- Get up here yourself and spend a few days
- Tell me to go take a cold shower if you're ever around when I hear the cedar flute being played...

Socialising and muscle cars...

2008-04-09T23:49:00.000-07:00

Day 12 - Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Vocational morning

Sarah and Michelle were taken to the Yosemite Highschool, the local high school for the area, where they met with school principal Steve Raupp. The high school is quite unique with a very involved vocational and career driven school program. After chatting to the Principal for a little bit, Michelle was taken by Kellie Romine (Career Counsellor) for a tour of the school the career centre.

Sarah was introduced to a law enforcement class. The class seemed very interested in the Anti-Hooning legislation, that the drinking age was 18 and that firearms aren't quite as popular or allowed in Tasmania as in California. Sarah was also able to see the Search and Rescue equipment just outside of Oakhurst.

Search & Rescue Equipment - Oakhurst Style

Michelle and Sarah had a very eventful day. They also saw a wild turkey (out of the bottle) and a skunk (or skank as Michelle calls them).

Michelle's Skank (Skunk?)

Will's Vocational Morning was a really nice chat with John Crane, a local programmer. John is one of many old boys of programming company Sierra Online (makers of Liesuresuit Larry). Once upon a time, they employed 400 people here! John now works for iwin.com as a games programmer and manager. Check them out if you have time to waste! We had a great conversation about the industry, types of intelligence, stock options in the sector, working from home... and much more. John is also president of Oakhurst Noon Rotary, and a former GSE team leader on a trip to Brazil. All in all a thoroughly nice bloke, even is he does drive a little red sports car!

Lunchtime meeting

Oakhurst Noon Rotary

After our lunchtime presentation, at the Oakhurst noon club (thanks President John), Sarah was picked up by Larry Rich from the Sheriffs Office for a briefing into a joint operation to try and find some info on a wanted murder suspect. They basically patrolled the North Fork and surrounding area arresting people on warrants, talking to the public and informing them that the reward had been increased to $11,000. They had arrested 11 people in the first hour and were able to get some fairly good information on the suspects whereabouts by the end of the night.

A posse ready to go hunting murderers...

Muscle cars with Victor
Pontiac Firebird & Pontiac GTO

Our extra friendly and helpful local GSE coordinator Victor is a closet petrol head!
Well, actually, there's nothing closet about it. By our calculations, he owns abut 10 vehicles including these two beauties. Victor is not from the 'restore to original' school of thought, he customises his vehicles significantly. The Pontiac has a 9 PSI super charger that he has installed. We saw some of the blanks he used to design and manufacture special brackets to get it all to fit under the bonnet. (Sorry make that 'under the hood'). I didn't make enough notes about the tech specs, but we'll get Victor to write it down and forward some time.

375 horse power in a Pontiac Firebird

Pontiac GTO

We all got to go for a ride. Initially Chris and Michelle jumped in the GTO with Victor, but it was so lowered that the wheels scraped on the mud guards. Michelle jumped out around the corner and headed back to the rest of us. When we asked what had happened, she said, "He told me to get out because I was too fat, the bastard!"
Our hosts and the blokes who ran the car detailing shop next door laughed for about 20 minutes. I think Victor is still embarrassed...

Party at the home of Chris' hosts, Doug and Marilyn
We were lucky enough to be invited to a party. It had everything you'd need:
20 bottles of wine, including 10 zinfandels
a massive wine cellar to tour
9 cats and a smell to match
a balcony with a million dollar view
indoor and outdoor fires
great people to talk to...

Sarah unfortunately missed out on socialising due to the Sheriffs Office kidnapping her for the evening! We didn't get her back until very late. Almost all of us were in bed by then...

Glen & Chris in the blokes circle at Doug & Marilyn's party

Vocational Day in Oakhurst

2008-04-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

Day 11 - Tuesday, 8th April, 2008

Today we were all up bright and early for our Morning Meeting with the Sunrise Oakhurst Rotary Club, and how people get up at this time of day is beyond me! Seriously though, it was good to be up and about so early. You can get a lot done in a day that starts at 5am! The meeting went well and they asked a few questions after the presentation which was great. After the meeting, we were picked up by our vocational mentors and put to work.

Sarah's Vocational Day:
I was picked up by Larry Rich, a detective for the Madera County Sheriffs Office here at Oakhurst. We drove to Madera and had a look around the station, sat in on a joint CIB Meeting (one every month) and got to check out the new surveilance van that the County had just recieved. The Cameras in the back save everything to Hard Disk, and the camera can be operated remotely. It was even suggested that with the right software, someone could operate it from another country. That would be freaky!

This Sherriff doesn't ride a horse any more

I had a quick look around the Jail, and yep, they aren't nice places! What worried me was that they have the correctional officer walking around amongst the inmates (60 or so) in the cell block while they were out of their cells. The officers desk is just against a wall and they all walk around it! There was a young female, who was fairly petite and she was in an area with guys who just towered over her. I don't think I would be comfortable with that but it seems to work well here I guess.

After lunch I met up with Darren McMacken and went to the Local Court and watched a Jury being selected for a trial, then we were summons to the Court next to it for a murder verdict, to help out with police numbers. The two co-defendants were brought in and the verdict of Guilty read out and these guys didn't even flinch, and there wasn't really anyone sitting there to support them or the victims. I thought they would've reacted some way!

We then drove back to Oakhurst via the back roads and I was introduced to the Deputy Sheriffs at the office - Michael, Ben and Joey. I headed out on patrol with Michael for a couple of hours who promptly showed me the AR15 that just sits in the back of the vehicle! I'm struggling to get use to the rifles and shotguns in the cars. I was shown around the area and filled in on all the stories of the residents - like the 18 yo married to the 50 yo something but seeing her daughter, Hilliarious Stuff!! Or the guy that found out his girlfriend was cheating on him, with HER brother! And you think Tassie has a bad rep for the neck scar...

Michael with his favourite toy

After a jobless night, I headed home, but not without being invited to see how a joint operation works the following day. Very excited! I had an awesome day and a big Thankyou goes out to Larry, Darren and Michael for showing me around.

Glen's Vocational Day:
Glen and Victor went to the Tavis Corporation who design and manufacture electronics components for NASA. I was shown around the electronics workshops which are generally parts for satelites rockets and bombs. They have 60 staff on the production floor. As it was all secret secret stuff, I wasn't alowed to take any photos and alot of their work is classified!

Michelle's Vocational Day:
I went to Fresno State University and met with Mike Summers who works in the Lyell Centre which is the Entrupenurial Heart of the University. I had a great day! Mike was fabulous and he was an incredably interseting man. He has invented alot of things including a flotation device that is being used by the SLSC in Australia and Europe. Although What he did was completely different to what I do at home, I was really impressed with the training and opportunities given to the students. I was lucky enough to meet a young girl who is working under Mike, who has developed her own jewellry line, and is now selling her products to celebrities. She had her own display stand at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in L.A recently.

We then had a tour of the campus and Mike shouted me lunch. He was a nice bloke.

Will's Vocational Day:
My hosts Harry and Kathy run a business that has an ICT support contract with the local support district. I spent the day as an auxillary employee of HammerTech. Harry's son Dan and I first headed to a local alternative high school (these are for students who struggle in the mainstream education system for some reason). Here we installed a SmartBoard. Well, actually Dan did most of it. I just helped move ceiling tiles so we could run cables in the cavity, and then vacuumed up afterward. I spent the rest of my time chatting to the staff and students. The two teachers (Larry and Tony I think...) were very friendly and very committed to their students. I get the impression that they'd have to be very patient, very responsive to needs int eh class and very flexible. They appeared to be doing a good job.

After visiting the school, we headed to a local Best Western hotel that is managed by a Rotarian. our mission was to install some equipment that connected the touch screen billing system in their restaurant to the server in the main part of the motel that runs the room billing system. This way a guest could charge a meal to their room account. For quite a while this almost worked. Unfortunately, 'almost' is very unsatisfying... One problem was that I'd never seen this sort of Ethernet to serial converter before, another was that we had two different software vendors to deal with, neither of whom were easy to reach. We kept phoning, leaving messages and waiting for them to call back. Eventually, in desperation, I found the manual on the internet and read it. Needless to day, we solved things soon after... As Harry would say, WTF-O? RTFL....

Up, up and away!

2008-04-07T23:49:00.000-07:00

Day 10 - Monday, April 7, 2008

Oakhurst certainly welcomed us in a spectacular way!
Our day started with an Airplane Ride over the area we would be spending our time in. We started at Fresno Airport with Marc Sobel and his fabulous plane. He took Glen and Will up first, with Glen sitting in the co-pilot's seat. Once we had cleared the City, Glen took over the controls (at least the city folk were safe).

Proud Pilot Glen

Mark's plane, a modern 'glass cockpit'

Marc showed us around Fresno, Oakhurst and Bass Lake. Spectacular Views! Next up were Michelle (co-pilot) & I (Sarah) then Westy (co-pilot) and Victor. A big thank you to Marc for letting us up in the plane and for trusting the "mature" ones to be co-pilots.

Sierra Nevadas

Fresno

After the excitement of flight it was time to eat! We were shown the best place to eat in town, The Dog House. It's opposite Fresno College and is a hangout for the college kids, and more recently the Tassie GSE Team. Very sport orientated with memorabilia and TV screens all around.

A Uni Student's Lunch

I nominated Michelle to enter the Search for Miss 1430 (a beauty competition for a local sports radio station). She'll need to be driven back for the comp night at the end of the month but I'm sure she'll be a favourite with such a cute accent!

After feeding our faces with delicious burgers, we headed to the mall for shopping. Will was looking in all the female clothes stores, I'm not sure if that was because he wanted to buy something for his lady at home, or if it was because the young sales assistants were modelling some of the fashions of the day (extremely short shorts). The Mall was very much the same as at home, just some different stores. After Westy and Glen had purchased their matching Nike Air shoes for $48 per pair, and I got a "Duff Beer" (energy drink) we all headed to Best Buys, an electrical store so that Glen could get a American Phone Card...but also so I could get my Guitar Hero fix!

We headed back to Oakhurst and spent the evening with our family, and preparing for our first breakfast meeting at 6:45am the following day. An early(ish) night was required!

Sarah's new home in Oakhurst

Sarah

Will's note: I started this one, but Sarah did all the work! I'll change it to make her the author when I have fast internet again! :-(

Sierra Nevadas

Chukchansi - a local Indian Casino

Stockton - Will's Hosts

2008-04-06T23:59:00.001-07:00

Leaving Stockton

So, why did I slack off the blogging after leaving Stockton?
Probably I blogged more at my first stop because I had a nice room there with a teddy bear in a rocking chair...
A bear in a chair is hard to beat for all of us child hood PlaySchool fans...

Hi from Stockton... - Self Portrait

There's a bear in there...

Farewell Stockton.. Off to Oakhurst

2008-04-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 9 - Sunday, April 6, 2008

Today we bid a sad farewell to Stockton. It's been a week, but by some strange quirk of experience, it seems so much longer. I think I can safely say that we will all miss out hosts... :-(

Our deepest thanks to our hosts in Stockton

Thank you David & Marlina, Larry & Suzanne, Susan & Dudley, Scott & Kristin and Graham & Sharon...

Goodbye Stockton

We had a 'pot luck' brunch at the Tygett residence, and then headed off to meet out Oakhurst hosts halfway at 3pm. We've arrived safely, and I'm settling in. I'll tell you more about Oakhurst tomorrow, but tomorrow is a bit f a sad to leave Stockton day, so I'll leave it short and sweet.

The team with all or Stockton Hosts

* For Aussies, 'pot luck' means everyone bring a plate. Michelle did us proud by making excellent anzacs under difficult circumstances.

Flowers in your hair

2008-04-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 8 - Saturday, April 5, 2008

We went to San Francisco with Scott & Kirstin. Great day. Luckily for us, Sarah's knowledgeable hosts are inordinately patient, and are fantastically generous tour guides.

Pictures first, and I'll likely add some more words later...

The home of the 49ers

Here it is... land is at a premium, and the city is full. Pity. Why would there be less than 1 million here and 20 million in LA?? There's no accounting for taste...

Braving the elements to check out the golden arches

It was pretty cold! Scott could have made a living wondering around offering to take pictures of young couples for $5 each time. There were heaps of them.

A Frank Lloyd Wright Designed Retail Art Gallery

This was a spectacular round room with a spiral stair case up to a display level. All the artifacts on display were for sale. There was a nice 6th century Khmer stone statue I was thinking of getting, but it wouldn't quite have matched my decor. And it was slightly chipped.

...Oh, and it was USD$95,000...

Inside the Grace Cathedral (Catholic)

This was a spectacular Cathedral. Lots worth commenting. Interesting artwork. Both beautiful, and terribly un PC. Paintings of conquistadors and crusaders...

Sarah was very impressed and said she'd like to get married here. Unfortunately she lives in Australia. Hang on, isn't Bobby coming over and meeting her in San Francisco? And hasn't she been riding in police cars that contain shot guns?? There could be a conspiracy here...

Contemplating Life, Outside the Grace Cathedral

More San Francisco

2008-04-05T20:24:00.000-07:00

Day 8 - Saturday, April 5, 2008

Our day in San Fransisco was very photogenic. I've picked a few more highlights from the cameras of Michelle, Sarah, Chris and Glen for your perusal. I should have pointed this out earlier, but I'm the only member of the team who didn't bother to bring a camera (one reason I'm doing more of the words I guess!). Sarah & Michelle particularly are doing a great job of furnishing us with great pictures of our adventures. So, here are a few more...

On the way to 'the bay area' as the locals call it, we passed a very large wind farm. There are debates raging here about the appropriateness of wind power. I haven't heard anyone suggest that these beauties interfere with the flight pat of birds, but plenty of people complain about their ugliness. I've heard that they supply about 1.5 houses each. No one I've spoken to has been able to tell me if they have consistent power here, whether they try to use this as part of the base load, and if so how. Looks like they are heading in the right direction though.

Interestingly, we saw a lot of Vestas manufactured towers for windmills on the docks in Stockton. Apparently they are being unloaded from ships and loaded onto trans to be delivered to a massive new farm in Kansas.

Not an orange bellied parrot in site...

For the animal lovers among you, check out these sea lions around the wharves. Apparently local fisherman and boat owners want to chase them off, but tourism operators love them. They've reached a compromised where the sea lions are allowed to dominate this little area, but are shooed away from others. They make great noises! A throaty sort of half roar half yawn.

Sunny side up (Aussies: that's a US egg joke)

We explored fisherman's wharf. I had detoured to jog up Lombard Street (the zig zag street), so I arrived from a different direction to the rest of the team, but I think we all enjoyed it. There were street performers, tourists, restaurants, tourists, bars, tourists, sideshow rides, tourists and a few visitors from other places having a look around.

Some of it was plastic and tacky. Other parts looked really genuine and nice. Well worth a wander.

Should be called sideshow wharf!

Scott told us this used to be a lighthouse. Only mistake he made all day. I asked some Taiwanese tourists, who translated their Chinese guide book for me. Their book said it was 'big tower' or some such. Thurs out that it isn't anything much. A rich old lady donated some money to beautify the city, and this is what they built. It is pronounced Quoit Tower, but maybe spelled Coit I think.

Coit Tower - or should that be Quoit Tower?

Sean Connery made escaping from here look easy...

The rock (said in a scottish accent)

Last note, and this is aimed at Mark Fa Cannell. (Gerry, can you pass on to him if you email him?) San Francisco is the hill running capital of the world. There are block after block of good hills like these. Would love to design a tough, hilly fun run around here.

Hill running at its finest...

Wine and more wine

2008-04-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

Day 7 - Friday, April 4, 2008

Right, so I'm hopelessly behind with this blog... My learned sister tells me it is because I write too much. This is true I guess. Having said that, my style is to waffle and go on tangents. Without that, will it even be interesting?? Well, I'll try and be a bit more succinct today. Feedback appreciated.

Haggin Museum
The Haggin Museum houses a lot of Stockton and Central Valley specific artifacts, as well as more general historical pieces. There is also a substantial are gallery. We saw only a small part of the museum. It is the sort of place I would enjoy wandering around by myself I think. We had a tour guide, Chuck. Not a bad bloke, and very talkative about the exhibits.

Some highlights include:
Models of old Stockton shop fronts
One of those wooden speedboats my dad has the plans to build
Lots of info about mining in CA (I drifted off at this point and looked at the speed boat, because the learned Scott had explained this to Sarah and I two days before)
Great landscape paintings
A mummy (we didn't see this though)
A very early model of a Caterpillar tractor made by Mr Holt
Some other old stuff that wasn't as old as the mummy, but was older than Chuck

A very old caterpillar

Interesting place. Is a good grounding on the area. We've been a bit spoiled I think and already learned a lot of what the museum would teach us. Scott, Kristen, Graham, Sharon, David, Larry, Lloyd and others.... You are good teachers!

Stockton East Rotary

Glen & Chris Exchanging Banners with President Dave

We presented at Stockton East at lunchtime. They are a really beaut club. They had:

A nice size where you could talk to almost everyone
Plenty of fun and frivolity
A real Anglican Priest to say grace
A choice of four meals & dessert (a member's birthday cake)
Neat banners with plaques printed for past presidents and Paul Harris Fellows and stuck on
Almost more guests than members!
And guess what, they were organising volunteers to staff the Asparagus Festival! There's a bit of it going around...

After the formalities (Chris and Dave asking around to see if anyone had remembered to call Clem Lee and invite him), we had quite a treat. Member Stan was awarded his 7th Paul Harris Fellowship. Congrats Stan! This is a club record. Where does it place Stan in the broader scheme of things?

Stan receiving his 7th Paul Harris Fellowship from Chuck

(not the Haggin tour guide, another Chuck. You meet Chucks here as often as you meet Jaidyns in Gagebrook)

Lodi Wine Commission
Right... One short working lunch completed, and we are off to have fun! Oops, I mean to study the important economic drivers of the district. We drove along roads surrounded by vineyards to reach the economic and strategic heart of the Lodi Wine Appellation, then Visitors Centre.

Lodi Wine Commission

The manager of the Commission, Mark, showed us the vines, explained the growing practices, explained the economic conditions in the industry, answered our questions about Australian imports and, importantly, let us taste some wine. It was very civilised...

Sampling a nice white - even Glen liked this one!

Jessie’s Grove Winery with Greg Burn

When Mark ran out of wine, we headed down the road to a vineyard at Jessie's Grove, one of the few remaining groves of oak trees in the valley. Graham is a member at this vineyard, which means two things. 1 - It is pretty good, 2 - They grow Zinfandel. Lots of Zinfandel...

An ancient (110 year plus) Zinfandel

I was not disappointed. The location and the wine were both great. Our ability to objectively taste the 7th and 8th wines was impaired by the tasting of the first 6, but Dave and I stood at the bar and fearlessly made the attempt. We enjoyed the process. There was a beautiful young woman named Michelle running the tasting, so I felt right at home! Or perhaps far from it...

We were triply lucky that local winemaker Greg Burn was about to commence bottling two vintages the very next day, that Larry (Glen's host) knew him, and that he agreed to show us around. He was in the process of doing a final tasting of each bottle of his Cabernet Sauvignon vintage before commencing bottling. I learned an enormous amount in the half hour of so that we listened to him describe the process. If we have time, Graham and I are going to head back with arm chairs and let him talk some more...

Greg tasting barrel 14 out of 600

Friday concluded with dinner with Graham and Sharon and a really pleasant Chinese restaurant, and then some sharing of family photos. What more could a man want?

BNI, ISP & UoP - A good vocational day

2008-04-03T23:59:00.001-07:00

Day 6 - Thursday, April 3, 2008

Thursday was our first full Vocational Day. This was a good vocational day. Once upon a time, a vocational day for an unmarried, Catholic male, nearing 30 would have involved a trip to the seminary... But for me, it was far more secular!

Graham, my host, organised a number of opportunities for me. Now, Vocational means specific to your career. Most of you know I’m in ICT, so this is your one warning. This could get long and dry and boring, so bail out now if you want. No hard feelings.

I mean it… Westy wants us to write a full report on the day to send home, and I’ve got a whole notepad full of thoughts to collate, so this could ramble on more than Led Zepplin. If you just want the sum up, skip to the last paragraph. If you are just here for witty repartee, then read one of the other posts! :-)

My Stockton hosts Sharon & Graham are on the right

BNI - Business Networking International
Our day began with a 7am meeting of the local chapter of Business Networking International (BNI). Read more about the organisation here, I won’t expand. I mentioned in a previous post that Graham is involved with this organisation, and few Tasmanians responded that BNI has chapters at home as well. It’s interesting to note that there re no lawyers (or ‘attorneys’) represented here in the Stockton club, so Michelle or Dayne or someone else from DMA, perhaps you can expand over here??

The little ‘infomercials’ that the club members presented were fun and professional. The brash, confident way people presented reminded me a little of the stereotype of the overconfident American we sometimes have at home. But this was different, because these men and women were all business people, educated and well spoken. They weren’t loudly telling us that we were wrong to call the ketchup tomato sauce when they are visiting our home country. OK, I’m probably walking a fine line here between making an observation and being offensive, so I’ll stop there. Let’s just say that this group of people were well presented, friendly, engaging and interesting.

I had a good chat with the local IT bloke, gentleman George who runs a Credit Card Processing business, and a lady who sells Corporate Health Insurance plans.

ISP - InReach
Next stop was an ISP named InReach. Rotary Club of Stockton member Lisa Bickford is President of the organisation, and was kind enough to give me about an hour of her time. I think the original plan was that I’d speak to her for about 15 minutes, and then spend an hour and a half with her technical team. I figured that I could learn much of the technical stuff from a book, and that I don’t often get access to the CEO of an ISP, so we changed things about…

I spent almost an hour with Lisa discussing the state of the US Internet Industry. Some quick facts for anyone interested:
- There is about a 50-50 split in the home user market between cable and DSL internet. Cable is almost non-existent at home, so this is interesting to me. Lisa says that the two have been in competition for some time, and although DSL is making up some ground, cable is still winning. Cable companies provide bandwidth and TV services, but had struggled to provide telephony. VoIP is changing this. Conversely, Telcos provide bandwidth and telephony, but have struggled to get access to good Video. Access to youtube and other streaming media services are changing this. The cable companies have one big advantage though, Lack of competition. There is legislation here (like in Australia) that requires that a Telco give retail ISPs access to their network at a bureaucratically determined wholesale price (like Telstra does in Oz). There is no such legislation for cable companies, so they have a big natural advantage there…
- Interestingly, there is legislation that says there must be two Telcos with infrastructure in any area. We tend to only have Telstra, but they might have AT&T and Verizon in the same area. Large extra setup cost, but possibly more competition, I’m not sure.
- Landlines are more expensive here, but mobile plans seem cheaper. My prepaid AT&T local phone has a cap of $1 per day for calls to other AT&T mobiles. All the team with AT&T, so this is great.
- Broadband costs about the same.
- Standard DSL speed here is 1.5 Mbps, just like our faster services at home. I thought they might have been faster than this.
- We discussed wireless services. There are quite a few areas that have tried to institute local government sponsored or commercial 802.x wireless mesh infrastructures. Palo Alto. It hasn’t worked terribly well. There are legislated maximums on the transmission power of antenna, and these don’t typically allow good coverage inside buildings. So you end up having to have a powered booster inside, or a wired service anyway!
- You can buy wireless access via the 3G mobile network for about $60 per month, but only on a 2 year contract (I’d already checked this out at Verizon and Clearwire shops the day before). Lucky for me, Lisa agreed to sell me a wireless card for the two months that I’m here at wholesale rates. I signed up in about 30 seconds, and have now collected the gear and paid. Unfortunately it doesn’t work yet, but we’ll sort that out on Monday…

After Lisa finally had to get rid of me so she could do some work, I spent another hour or so with her call centre manager David. We spoke about managing a call centre that deals with Tech Support, Sales and Provisioning. He talked about selecting, interviewing and employing staff. We discussed managing work flow and levels of customer service. It was very interesting and educational.

David spoke about the need to find a balance between Tech skills and an ability to work harmoniously in a team. He said he loves to ask a few difficult questions in an interview. For example: “Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with your boss and how it was resolved” – If you’ve never had a conflict then he reckons you’re a liar, two faced, or a walk over. In any case, he doesn’t want you. Another one, “You’re stuck in a circular room with no doors or windows with only a box, a spoon and an orange. What do you do?” He said he’s basically just looking to weed out anyone who “gets that deer in the headlights look.”

It seems that salaries are much more directly market driven over here. David talked about offering salaries. The economy is depressed over here at present, so they are paying new hires less than they were a year or two ago. I could be wrong, but I don’t think we do that quite the same way at home. David is also happy to ‘take a flyer’ on someone who doesn’t necessarily have the right experience, provided they have the right temperament, and are prepared to work for less. He says that, when it comes to salary, “The first person to mention money loses.” (He does ask for the employees expected range on his employment application form though… so I guess the prospective employee always answers first and loses!)

UoP - University of the Pacific

University of the Pacific

I left InReach about 1:15, grabbed a quick lunch with Graham, and then headed to my last stop, back at UoP (University of the Pacific).

There is wireless internet access all over the UoP campus, and as we came in we saw a blonde under grad student lying on the grass working on her laptop in a two piece swimsuit. In April. As Graham says, “You could get quite distracted here…”
(I don’t have a picture, sorry guys)

I think the plan at UoP was similar to that at InReach. I meet the top guy for a few minutes, then get shuffled around all the Tech Team. I used a similar approach. Ask the top guy lots of questions, keeping him talking as long as possible, and learn as much as you can…

The Chief Information Officer of UoP, Larry Frank, is a top bloke. We spoke for about an hour and a half, which is a ridiculous amount of time to have the ear of someone so senior. (I think CIO is equal third top of the Uni after the President and the Provost). Conversation ranged widely, from the strategic to the specific to the personal. It was all very valuable.

We discussed:
Advisory and professional bodies in the industry
The notion of ‘best practice’ and supporting research
Setting strategic direction, prioritising and budgeting
Upcoming challenges and new technologies

After leaving Larry, I met with the universities top Network Architect to tour the network core and discussed, VoIP, WiFi, WAN Design & optimisation, equipment models and vendors, how to achieve redundancy as widely as possible and UoPs planning for an upcoming move of the entire server and communications room is going.

All this was fantastic information from an experienced and skilled professional. What a treat…

Two pieces of non technical info to finish.
1 - The Chief Network Architect was from Paraguay. We were discussing cooling at one stage and he gave me the temperature of his server room in degrees Celsius, and then stopped to try and convert that into Fahrenheit. First time that has happened on the trip! I can definitely empathise though. The old 5/9 +/- 32 is getting a workout for me...
2 – When I left, I went back to give CIO Larry a gift and thank him for his time. I shook his hand and thanked him saying something like, “It was very generous of you to spend so long with me, I wouldn’t have expected to get so much of your time. I appreciate it.”
He could have said something like, “No worries, I like to help out” and I would have been happy.
But instead he said, “I consider it a professional courtesy between peers”
He was a hell of a nice guy.

Thanks Larry, and thanks for organising the day Graham…

Vocational Visits and General Trip Update - Sarah

2008-04-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

Day 6 - Thursday, April 3, 2008

My first blog as I haven't been on the Net in a while.

Everyone is lovely over here! We've been shown the best time in Stockton with so much to do and so little time. I'm staying with Scott and Kristin McElhinnie and they have made me feel so welcome in their home. Scott is helping me with my Cheeseburger World Tour, but I think I'm now also doing a Pizza World Tour. Score is 3 to 4! Good thing Kristin has had me doing exercise in the morning....but she kicks my butt and I have to try to keep up to her!

Top blokes & Sheilas: Kristin, Scott, Michelle, Sarah

I'm only going to write about the vocational visits today as it's getting late and Will has been doing an excellent job so far! Go Will!

VISIT ONE:
I had a "impromptu" Vocational Visit on Wednesday (2/4/08) thanks to the California Highway Patrol (CHP) that I met at the Stockton Arena on our tour the day before. I organised to meet up with them on my free afternoon as it was the only time available.

Adrian Quintero met me at the CHP Office near Stockton and showed me around the office and their Radio Dispatch Service. RDS is in the same building as the officers and they have the best technology. AVL (Automated Vehicle Locators) are in each car and RDS have a Map on a large Plasma Screen which shows exactly which vehicle is where and what they are doing.

Data available at the RDS

I was able to go on a ride-a-long with Adrian (after signing waiver and liability forms) in the marked CHP patrol car. What really made me feel odd was the fact that there was a AR15 and a Shotgun sitting in between the driver and passenger seat. I was kindly shown how to unlock the firearms if necessary and how to use them! They can't believe that we don't have shotguns or wear ballistic vests. After writing out a few speeding and seatbelt tickets during the afternoon, attending a few crashes and helping other officers with translations, we headed back to the office. It was an awesome visit and the technology available is amazing. It was a long day

VISIT TWO:
Thursday 3/4/08 was a dedicated full day vocational visit organised by the Stockton Rotary Club. I was dropped off by Scott McElhinnie (Host) to the Stockton Police Department bright and early. I met up with Lt Tuollson and Gordon Gray of the traffic section who showed me around the office and outlined their role with the Stockton PD.

Gordon showed me the red light camera officer and how the system worked. It is a program developed by an Australian Company, RedFlex, and not only gives still photos of the drivers face, vehicle registration plate, and the intersection, but also a video of the intersection as soon as the red light starts with the vehicle travelling through. The video can give information on how long the light has been red before the vehicle enters, how long the vehicle was in the intersection and what speed it was going. It was scary to see how many people race through without slowing down at all. One guy travelled at 116 mph! He was being chased by the police at the time...

Out & about with Officer Moreno

I headed out with Captain Paoletti who is charge of Stockton North Station. He gave me a tour of the area, the problems, and organised a ride-a-long for me with one of his troops. I headed out with Officer Miros Moreno who is general duties. She has been out for about 18 months and was great fun. Yet again, they had all the cool technology that the CHP had. The best part was that the radio system was hardly used at all. Checks were conducted on an in-car computer and there was no need to book off at a job as it could be down on the computer as well! Saved heaps of chit chat on the radio system.

RBT Unit. Swipe the licence to bring up all past convictions

Vocational Day for Chris

2008-04-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

Day 6 - Thursday, April 3, 2008

This was a few days ago, but I thought I'd pop up a picture of Chris' Vocational Day.
Normally Westy just plays golf when we do vocational visits, but he has visited a few bona fide retail floor covering businesses.

I think this is a cool pic because of the volume of carpet! No wonder Westy's a nuggety little bloke if he has to carry these around!

Real men carry carpet...

Next time we'll try for a picture of him playing golf...

First Presentation Finally Presented! (Subtitle: Clem Lee Times Three)

2008-04-02T23:10:00.000-07:00

Day 5 - Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Wow! We completed our first full presentation with suits, microphones, powerpoint presentation and three part harmony. We were all nervous to a lesser or greater degree, but it went pretty well. Yay!
Thank you very much to Stockton Rotary for hosting us. We felt very welcome. They even wrote about us here. I have an inside man... Graham writes the newsletter.

I think that we probably spoke too long. The club had to skip their fines session, and Graham didn't get to speak about the new online only Rotary clubs that are springing up around the world. But everyone seemed happy with us, which was a relief. Someone (Dave Tygett) even said we were the best visiting GSE team this year! Thanks Dave. That means a lot...

Errol enjoyed Stockton Rotary

Stockton Rotary is far bigger than any club I've attended before.
It has well over 200 hundred members. (I didn't think to count how many were present today, but I'd estimate that there were at least 100).
It was a formal club (necessitated by the size I think).
It was well catered (salmon, steak, salad and the ubiquitous festive asparagus).
It was active (new members accepted, heaps of guests, Paul Harris Fellowships presented, visiting GSE Teams, reports on Interact, cheques presented... and more).
It was picturesque (great view of the delta, and of a passing ship).
It was well humoured (jokes at the expense of the president, members, and others. All very well made and accepted!)

And guess what?!? Councillor Clem Lee was one of the new members inducted! Either he is following us, or there are about 3 of him because he is everywhere we go... I don't know the other Mayoral candidates, but this bloke is definitely pressing some serious flesh. Just in case you want to vote for him, there's a picture of him here.

Today we also completed a tour of the University of the Pacific.

UoP's Tower. Tallest structure in Stockton

A nice young man named Richard ran our tour. He is a second year Business Student. Professional, pleasant, cheerful. A credit to the uni really. It seems that one of his great skills in life is walking backward, explaining and pointing out items of interest as he goes, and never, ever tripping over! A good talent to have. He let us know lots of interesting tid bits about UoP. I was paying particular attention because I'm going to be back here again tomorrow to visit the IT department as part of my vocational day. Even if I only learn where to find it, then that will be an advantage!

UoP is a private uni, meaning that it has no direct connection to the state. It is funded by tuition fees, and it is not a research institution. Depending on who you believe (Richard of staff members I spoke to later) it has somewhere between 3500 and 5000 students. There are a couple of remote campuses (dentistry, pharmacy, law) so this may account for the discrepancy. Richard lives on site, as do about 50% of the students, including all the first year students. Full fees for him in the business school are about $19000 per year. Although somewhere between 70 & 90% of students are on some sort of fee reduction program or scholarship, Richard isn't. Hence why he spent his morning walking backwards and having his ear bashed by nosy Tasmanians...

I couldn't make sense of Richard's explanations of his uni fees to decide whether his $19k included room and board or not. I think it did. They have a gym and lots of other students services. The costs of these appear on Richard's uni fee bill as compulsory line items. This fact may be interesting to Aussie's in this new post VSU world (for our American friends, VSU is Voluntary Student Unionism, a new law that passed in Oz a couple of years ago. Before that, uni's could have compulsory unionism, and union fees were used to subsidise many student services). I believe the gym and other services are operated by the uni, but Richard couldn't tell me for sure. There is a student representative council (by another name), but I don't think they were involved with these industries. Someone email this to Rikki Mawad (UTas TUU president last time I looked). She can sort it out...

Richard was proud the fact that UoP is one of only 6 in the country with an International Studies Department. Students in this faculty have to spend at least one semester studying overseas Do we have such a department at UTas? Or do we just have 'International' components to all out courses as they are necessary? He also proudly told us that the uni has an average class size of 19 and a 13:1 student to staff ratio.

More UoP. There is Ivy on some walls...

Richard is in the middle of applying to be part of a student Board of Directors who manage a $1million investment fund. A kind benefactor donated the money for this purpose. Richard was 'pretty sure' they still have the money they started with. I'm not sure how long the investment fund has been going, but I'm not lining up to give them any of my hard earned just yet...

Lastly, a quick note scores. Just for the education of the Aussie readers. There is a standardised national test that you sit to figure out how capable you are to go to uni. The result is an SAT score. It is out of 1600 apparently, and Richard reckons you get 200 for getting your name right. A GPA (Grade Point Average) is a score determined based on your uni results. Zero is the lowest and 4.0 is the highest. 2.0 is a pass. 2.5 is required to be allowed to join a fraternity or sorority.

Non Core GSE Activities:
- visited two malls. Bought a US phone and pre-paid SIM. Didn't buy anyone any presents.
- went to the gym this morning. They look identical to those at home.
- had the healthiest food yet. Scott very very kindly went out and bought me a bagel with cream cheese, avocado and tomato. This was homage to the John Street Cafe in Perth. No bacon unfortunately, but still good. Sharon and Graham cooked a fabulous meal. BBQ Chicken (on the BBQ), cherry tomato salad, a little bit of pasta and (you guessed it) asparagus! For dessert we had strawberries, pineapple and grapes. Food of the gods.

More info on Core GSE Activities for April 1st

2008-04-01T23:59:00.001-07:00

Day 4 - Tuesday, April 1, 2008

I’m feeling a bit guilty about being a bit light on with details of the Core GSE activities yesterday. I’ve just re-read the last post, and I think I’ll add to it. First a pic of us to wet your appetite.

Team at Stockton Hotel

The Port Tour really was very interesting. There were lots of cool things. They have big sheds where they store incoming fertilizer. They are huge. Each shed fits a ship load (joke intended) of fertilizer, which is about 35000 tonnes. If fertilizer has the same density as water, then that means that the sheds would need to be about 100m x 70m x 5m. That’s big. As long as two swimming pools, as wide as one and a half pools, and almost as high as a footy goal post! I didn’t measure the sheds, but believe me, they’re big. (Note: I don’t know the actual density and google wouldn’t tell me in the first 3 results. I think that means no one in the world knows…)

Graham, my host, used to work for Oxidental who are a company that dealt in fertilizer in Stockton. I’m not sure of his jobs title, but he was one of those clever blokes who learns how everything works and then explains it people who need to know. He is a clever chemist, so I think that the Oxidental sales guys would have been very well informed…

When they unload a 35000 tonne load of fertilizer, then use an auger that can move up to 500 tonnes per hour out of the hold. Imagine that! Nearly 10 tonnes per second! How badly would you get squashed if you stood in the way of that??

Sulphur smells...

The exports of sulphur are impressive visually…. And olfactorily! They smell like a grade 8 science laboratory. Or a bedroom with 3 teenage boys in it…

The founder of Stockton was a bloke named Captain Charles M. Weber. Apparently he was very forward thinking. He planned much of the city while he was still alive, and donated land to be set aside for schools, parks and other things. I think he also gave really nice Christmas presents because they absolutely love him here. I thought that there was a lot of stuff named after Lincoln, but I think Weer might win based on just this one city! There's Weber Park, Weber Point, Weber buildings, Weber memorials, even a 'Weber Hole' which was some sort of natural spring under where the Stockton Hotel is now built. Not a great name really... But a great sentiment!
They love him. Oh, and I nearly forgot, my hosts also have a BBQ named in his honour.

Weber Park. Including the Million Dollar Shade Cloth

Sarah is winning the price for taking the most interest in organising her own vocational opportunities. She has been talking to police and highway patrol men all over the place. Or maybe she just has a thing for guys in uniform. Any opinion on that Bobby??

Sarah with policing friends

Finally, another thank you to Vice Mayor Leslie Martin for hosting us in Mayor Chavez's absence. For all you Glenorchy Rotarians out there, I'm pretty sure she is no relation of Terry...

Vice Mayor Martin, Dave Tygett & the team

There, hope that is sufficiently detailed!

OK, this was a long day...

2008-04-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

Day 4 - Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Well, I’ve realised that writing this much, this late at night, is not sustainable. So this time it really will be shorter…

(or, I could just start earlier? No. That's too logical!)
(and I guess I can add more details later if I get time? There's no law against that...)

Core GSE activities:

1 Toured the port of Stockton

2 Visited City Hall to learn about the city

3 Did a bit of a walking tour of the city with some council volunteers and staff

4 Returned to City Hall to be presented at a Council meeting & sit in on the proceedings

More on the above:

1 Toured the Port of Stockton

Team with Guide Michael at Port of Stockton

Our host Michael was very knowledgeable and very interesting. Stockton is not a container port, it handle bulk goods. Incoming: cement, fertilizer, manufactured goods, molasses... Outgoing: Corn Sugar, sulphur, some produce... I'm sure there's more of both, but I'm tired, and my notes are all the way in the other room...
Very interesting. I asked heaps of questions. Anyone surprised? I thought not.

2 Visited City Hall to learn about the city
Thanks to the Vice Mayor for hosting us. We had a look around the council rooms. I fiddled with their electronic voting system. Was interesting.

WW2 Memorial in Central Stockton sponsored by our lunch date for tomorrow, Stockton Rotary

3 Did a bit of a walking tour of the city with some council volunteers and staff

Stockton Ports in Training

Our thanks to Manuel and his team. We saw a lot of the inner city's redeveloped parks and buildings, and some historic ones too. The tour of the new sports facility was a highlight. They host ice hockey, indoor soccer and arena football. The footballers were about to train, but we left too early, so here's a shot of the baseballers training next door. This was taken from the verandah of one of the bars. Very civilised...

4 Returned to City Hall to be presented at a Council meeting & sit in on the proceedings
We were special guests! Dave and Westy both spoke well. We met out mate councillor Clem Lee again, and heard him speak about graffiti again. We believe you Clem, it is a big problem. I hope the deputy chief of police helps you get ti sorted.
Speaking of police...

Sarah's new friends. She befriended them at the hockey ground!

Non Core GSE Activities:

1 - Shouted lunch by a lovely Rotarian by the name of Tom manages a local mall with 91 shops. He told us which shops have fashions that will be 'in' in Oz in a year or so. Bribes accepted if you want to know. We had lunch at a shop named 'California Pizza' and I had salad! Are you all proud??

2 - Went for 12 km run with Sarah and her host Kristen this morning. 37min out (with the girls!) 32:30 back by myself. Not too bad, given a lack of condition. Fair bit to do between now and Burnie 10 though!

3 - Drinks and Nibbles in the new(ish) Sheraton tonight with my hosts followed by dinner with Sarah and her hosts. Pretty classy food. I just ate roe for the first time. Nothing to write home about, but good enough to write on the Internet... Sarah manged her latest cheese burger with aplomb. I think that's four in four days?

4 - Have had some fantastic discussions with locals about their accents, their love of the pledge of allegiance, their attitudes to the poor, their social services policies, their policing methods... and more. It's amazing what you get away with when you play the 'stupid foreigner' card. No, seriously, people have been very open and willing to share, and haven't taken any offence to my questions, which is great.

Signing off for another night...

Is this work? or still just having fun?

2008-03-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 3 - Monday, March 31, 2008

More pictures to come soon I promise, including some of our host families. You'll like them I'm sure.

(Don't be disappointed, but it's late, so this is the brief version. I have a feeling this will be the norm...)

Today we did three official things:
1 - Attended and spoke briefly at Stockton Delta Rotary
2 - Motor cruised up the San Joaquin river to see Stockton from the water
3 - Attended a Jazz performance that was part of the Bruebeck festival

Some quick notes:
1 - Local councillor Clem Lee spoke about the problem of dealing with graffiti. They spend $1million a year here cleaning up graffiti in a city of under 300,000. Anyone got any idea how much it costs in Hobart or Glenorchy? They don't have any designated walls for youths to paint. We wondered about that.
Having Clem at he meeting was hilarious for Sarah and I because we'd heard a story just the night before from her host family about how Scott was mistaken for Clem in the street. A - they aren't remotely similar. B - We knew the name of one official in the whole city, and we met him the very next day! Maybe this place is actually Devonport in disguise...

Michelle at Stockton Delta Rotary

We also heard from a group who are part of the County Education Department that organise work experience for students with disabilities and eventually get them a job. Good project. More up Michelle's alley though, so I'll let her talk about it later.

Those in Rotary would know about Rotary fine sessions. One member got fined $50 dollars! I nearly fell off my chair. Apparently the negotiate an annual fine level here between Sargent and members. But still, $50 is a lot of Sierra-Nevada Pale Ale...

2 - The river cruise was very informative and very, very civilised. (Semi) retired insurance magnate Lloyd (that's Lloyd of Stockton, not Lloyd of the British Capital) was kind enough to have us on board is 40 foot (13 metre) motor boat and provide commentary on our tour. We saw the industrial parts of the port, the housing developments, the hotels, caravan parks, sports grounds... you name it.

The Delta in Stockton

For me, the most interesting was the Delta itself. We are 80 miles (130 km) from the ocean here in Stockton, but we are still on marshy, reclaimed land in the river delta, much of which is below sea level. After the gold rush slowed to a walk, the many migrants from China found work building levies to shape many, many canals. These snake away from the main river to the coast in complex fingers that support agricultural irrigation, recreational boating and tourism. It is impressive. The main river is dredged to about 38 feet (12.5 metres) and there is sufficient draft (draught?) to allow very big freighters up the river. There are 6 in port at present. (someone help me if draft isn't the right word...)

Susan (Michelle's host) & local GSE Coordinator Dave

To be brutally honest, the trip wasn't as picturesque as a cruise on the Derwent, or in Sydney Harbour, but it was a great way to get a feel for the city. Lloyd was extremely interesting, knowledgeable and gracious.

Sarah, Chris, Will on the cruise

3 - Just quickly, Dave Brubeck is a famous US Jazz musician. No, I've never heard of him either. But then he is about 90, and I'm a philistine.... He is an alumni of our local, the University of the Pacific. He has provided funds to sponsor music students to attend UoP each year. Five of them form the Brubeck Quintet. I;m not sure if there are more than five altogether, but there are at least this many.

University of Pacific Faye Spanos Concert Hall

This week the Brubeck festival. There are concerts and events on all week. We went along tonight ant listened to the quintet, and visiting professional jazz musician, and a Russian eight piece jazz band. It was a pleasure. Great improvisation, great skill. Several people made the point to me that jazz is one truly American style of music, and they are very proud of it. I had never thought of that.

The musical director made jokes about Duke Ellington which were very funny I'm sure, but I was too much of a heathen to understand... Where were you Gerry??

Now, does anyone from Australia remember core and non-core promises? Well I also got to experience some non-core GSE activities. In brief, these included:

1 - Shopping for Weet-Bix and Bacon with my host Graham. This was intriguing. We visited Safeway and local supermarket Podestos (run by the former mayor, Mr Podesto).

There are 675 choices of breakfast cereal here, but none of them are Weet-Bix. I settled on "Mini Shredded Wheats New Improved Unfrosted." It absolutely cracks me up that Graham eats the 'normal' frosted (aka sugar coated variety) and I had to by the 'new' unfrosted variety. That's hilarious. And have you ever heard of Cheerios? They look a lot like fruit loops to me... I would assume that they have no redeeming features whatsoever.

Bacon offered just as many choices, and just as little hope for my already expanding waistline. Picture Australian bacon. It has a big oval of meat at one end, and toward the other end it gets skinnier, and has less meat and more fat. Well, over here they chop off the oval end and then slice it in half long ways so that it is a perfect rectangle of rind and fat with the occasion piece of meat scattered throughout...

We settled on Canadian bacon. Graham (a Canadian ex pat) tells me that this stuff doesn't actually exist in Canada, but in the US it looks like a good option. It looks like they've cut perfect round circles of meat out of the good oval bit of the Australian bacon and just sold you that. Much better!
(well, I'll eat some tomorrow, then we'll know...)

2 - Had my first American hamburger. Not bad. Not GodFather monster burger by any stretch, but livable. Was from an independent shop near a Marina and the company was great, so that's a big plus.

Righto, that will do. I'm tired. Is this late night blogging sustainable? I'm not sure... We'll see in a few days. 2:30 last night was too late I've decided. We'll see how 1:30 tonight treats me in the morning.

PS - Thanks for the 10 emails & 3 blog comments we received today. We appreciate it. If I don't write back individually to you, then that probably means that i know you so well that I think I can take your love for granted. Take it as a compliment! Talk to you all soon.

Modesto to Stockton & First Host Family!

2008-03-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 2 - Sunday, March 30, 2008

We only lasted in Modesto until lunchtime before driving up to Stockton.
I think we flew into Modesto first because it has a commercial airport with flights. That is an advantage for flying…
The other alternative would be to fly to San Francisco and then drive to Stockton. Anyway, this way we got to meet Terri and Howie at the start, and we’ll be back here in a few weeks to hang out with them some more...

We met our Stockton coordinator David Tygett and Glen’s host Larry Seiler over brunch where we celebrated Glen’s birthday again. This time with a cake and not alcohol. Then we headed north to Stockton.

Terri (second from left) Larry (back left standing) & Dave (back right sitting)

Two observations from the trip:

1 - They don’t mess around when they build freeways here. The 99 is about 6 lanes that whole way, and it runs very straight north-south. They couldn’t afford even a single corner. Budget must have been tight… I think road builders in Tas would have gotten bored and put in some corners just for the hell of it after a while.

No corners allowed...

2 - This really is a diverse agricultural area. It produces a large amount of produce. Nuts, fruit, vegetables, grapes and of course asparagus. Asparagus is sort of a big deal, they have a festival for it and everything. I’d hate clean out the urinal after that…

Produce galore

I’m staying with Graham and Sharon Tweedy. Thoroughly lovely, and fantastic hosts. Graham is involved with a business referrals network named Business Network International and manages websites among other things (more details as I learn more…). Sharon teaches at a local elementary school. So, IT and education. I think someone thought about it and picked the Tweedys as my hosts on purpose! Very nice people, we talked for several hours about everything from politics, to ice hocky, to religion, to the construction industry. Very stimulating. The Tweedys are friends with Sarah’s hosts Scott and Kristin, so they joined us for dinner. It was great fun…

Righto, that will do for now. Tomorrow we meet our first rotary group and mess about on boats. Better wear my King Gees.

A long day, but fun!

2008-03-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

Day 1 - Saturday, March 29, 2008.... Continued!

Our second day of the GSE was actually still the same day. The work of the quirky date line again! We arrived in LA and survived customs. It was actually a lot less painful than I had expected. The finger printing is done with a little laser reader, so no messy ink! Now my finger prints and 8” by 10” digital photograph are enshrined somewhere in Washington with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining why we were in the country and why all 5 of us were wearing matching pink shirts…

Sarah and Mascot Errol in LA

We made it to our first port in Modesto pretty smoothly. Our trip though LA Airport was a little terse, but (unlike Sydney) we made it in plenty of time. The was despite the fact that we had to stop to chat with two other GSE teams! One was returning from Australia, and one Aussie team was on their way to Las Vegas. Our pink shirts make us very recognisable!

Possibly because their baggage conveyors seemed to be broken, United left our luggage at LAX. It was brought up on a later flight and delivered to our hotel. (Interesting note: SYD to LAX, plane is 11 seats wide. LAX-MOD, plane is 3 seats wide. Definitely a record maximum single day plane size variance record for me!)

Now might be a good time to introduce our new best friend Terri Amerio-Bell. Terri is the local GSE Coordinator. I have a feeling we will be seeing and hearing quite a bit of Terri and her husband Howard over the next few weeks! Fortunately, they are as lovely as can be and treated us very well. They gave us gift packs containing snacks, put us up in a flash hotel for the night, and took us out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. We couldn’t ask for a better beginning. Thank you!

Terri even took Michelle, Sarah, Chris and I on a walking tour of Modesto (Glen had a lie down to recover from his pre birthday). It strikes me as being very spacious and well organised. Modesto is a city of 200,000 but this was lateish on Saturday arvo and the CBD was almost empty. It was interesting, but it actually felt much smaller than Hobart. There are no tall buildings, and nothing that looks terribly imposing. Perhaps because there was plenty of open space for the town to grow into a city gracefully? It is very, very flat by Tasmanian standards. Not a hill in site…

Team at McHenry Mansion

In Modesto we saw the McHenry Mansion, and had a great tour through a bank that has been converted into a restaurant. It was very fancy. It’s owned by a member of the Gallo family who are Terri’s employer. Impressive place. (Don’t tell anyone, but I think the Gallos are a big deal in Modesto. They run the country’s biggest winery).

Team out for Mexican with Howie

I'd tell you what we were doing, but I have no idea!

Dinner at a Mexican restaurant that evening was memorable because it was Glen’s first taste of Mexican food. Impressive? Not as impressive of the photo the waitress took of him wearing a sombrero and being ordered to drink a birthday shot of Kahlua and something that we couldn’t name from the smell. The photo will join many others on there wall. Notice that this is the second time we’ve celebrated the birthday, and it still doesn’t actually happen until tomorrow…

Glen's birthday take 2

Feel free to point out the photo and tell the staff at the restaurant that you know Glen if you ever eat there. I reckon it will get you approximately nowhere…

Dinner was also memorable because I decided to use the toilet that was labelled senora. My Spanish should have been good enough to avoid that blunder! The girl who ran the bar came in as I was heading out and was very perturbed. Fortunately, she laughed it off with the waitress later…

Tomorrow we meet our hosts!

Travelling. A necessary evil.

2008-03-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

Day 1 - Saturday, March 29, 2008

Day one was travelling to get there. Lots of travelling. Glen thought it was a 1 hour flight to Melbourne, so therefore about 4 hours to LA. We all now know that it’s longer than that…

Goodbyes in Launny: Will, Bobby (Sarah's), Michelle

Actually, we almost didn’t even make it onto the plane. Our changeover between our arrival from Launceston and departure to LA was ridiculously tight. By the time we collected our bags from Virgin, hired a special bus to take us immediately to International, our flight was already closed. We did some fast talking and were chaperoned to the plane by a lovely Indian employee of Untied. He was very polite. As a result, they didn’t even weigh our bags, which was a bonus! We got away with $80 excess baggage charges on the domestic leg. Compared to other GSE Teams, this was a coup!

The flight to LA was an experience. About 14 hours I think? A long time anyway. Sarah wrote down all the movie titles, so we’ll have to get them from her later. The only one I remember was named, ‘Dan in Real Life.’ It was about two brothers who compete over a girl at a family holiday. Way too close to home when you’ve grown up with as many brothers as me!

Glen’s birthday is on the 30th March, so we talked to the staff on the plane and asked them to bring us a drink at midnight so we could celebrate. Funnily enough, despite the fact that there were several intelligent people involved in the conversation, we somehow failed to remember the international dateline. Because of the dateline, we were just going back to relive 29th March, so it wasn’t really is birthday anyway! Nevertheless, we had a drink and celebrated. Vodka doesn’t like me, so I left it at about 5mL. Glen finished mine and a few others. He paid for it later that same day. He was still paying for it on the 30th too. Perhaps multi day hangovers are another quirk of the dateline??

Glen suffering from pre birthday enthusiasm

Many of the plane’s passengers were trying to sleep, so Glen had headed to the galley at the back of the plane in search of good conversation and mediocre beer. I joined him for a few hours and we entertained the locals. We met (among others) Robert the hip hop lover from Beverley Hills, Leigh the 6’5” grey haired 27 year old, Toni from Albuquerque and Betsy from Virginia.

Betsy was really interesting. She had been in Oz visiting DSTO (a major military contractor) and examining autonomous systems for managing shipping containers in Sydney Harbour. She explained to Glen that, rather than being a full time mum, she felt it was important to get out into the world, do what you are good at, and be confident you are really making a difference. Interestingly, she’s a mechanical engineer, and her last job was included helping to develop and/or building Tomohawk missiles. Figure that out. Need less to say, I immediately liked her and thoroughly enjoyed debating juxtaposition this over a VB. (Note: It was the debate I enjoyed, not United’s choice of beer…). If I meet her again, I hope it has more to do with planes and beer that it does missiles…

Links - 'Interesting' and/or 'Useful'

2008-03-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

Rotary Related:
Blog of 5220 GSE Tea to 9830 Tasmania
Rotary District 9830
Rotary District 5220
Stockton Rotary Club Newsletter with us included here.

Vocational Related:
Business Networking International Central Valley CA
Business Networking International Hobart Tasmania
Columbia College
e-Waste Recyclers in CA
ERI - Electronic Recyclers International
InReach ISP
Madera County Office of Education
Merced College
UC Merced
University of the Pacific

Unwaste E-waste Recyclers

Other:
Team Attending Stockton City Council Meeting (click for video of April 1st meeting)

What is Group Study Exchange (GSE) anyway?

2007-08-15T22:11:00.000-07:00

This blog will get pretty confusing pretty quickly if you aren't familiar with the acronym "GSE"!

Let's get an explanation straight from the Rotary Foundation's website. This quote is taken from this website:

The Rotary Foundation’s Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for businesspeople and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 who are in the early stages of their careers. The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits in paired areas of different countries. For four to six weeks, team members experience the host country's culture and institutions, observe how their vocations are practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.
In a typical four-week tour, applicants participate in five full days of vocational visits, 15 to 20 club presentations, 10 to 15 formal visits and social events, two to three days at the district conference, three to four hours per day of cultural and site tours, and three to four hours per day of free time with host families.

So, that's GSE! You now understand the theory as well as we do. But what will it be like in practice? Only time will tell... Please keep reading to follow our preparations, and then share our adventures!

Can't wait to get to California! But something tells me there's a lot to do between now and then...

Catch you later.

William

Welcome!

2007-08-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone

First, an introduction...

We are the outgoing Rotary Group Study Exchange (GSE) Team from Rotary District 9830 (Tasmania, Australia) who will be visiting District 5220 in California, departing 29th March 2008.

The Team

(L-R: Sarah Mansfield, William Young, Chris Westlake, Glen Roland, Michelle Castles, Jill Gates)
Photograph Taken at the 9830 family picnic day, November 4th 2007 at Hobart's Botanical Gardens

We blog to create a record of our journey, to collect our thoughts and to share our experiences with you. Please feel free to ask questions, make comments, and send us emails.

Hopefully, we'll hear from you soon!

The Team