It was a moonless night ...

... when I looked up to the Milky Way, explored the Southern Cross, and saw the rings of Saturn while listening to the silence of the Australian desert.

Sure, it's all part of a commercial event that anyone can book or, for some lucky bastards, can be organized by a generous employer as part of a corporate conference; but that doesn't make the experience any less awesome.

Summer's over

So today is the first day of fall, or autumn, as they'd like to call it here. To give my readers in Europe, who apparently are still experiencing an unusually cold and long winter (complete with snow and all) a bit of an idea what kind of ordeal the end of summer is around here, allow me to paint a picture of today's afternoon:

After returning from a rather pleasant trip to town on the open deck of the ferry (in t-shirt and shorts, of course), the decision is made that the tedious task of preparing dinner shall be someone else's problem.

At the pub, the It's only $ 10 if you order before 7 pm steak is tender as always, the chips are crunchy, and the beer is cold. Oh, and did I mention that it's still warm enough to enjoy all this in the open? The birds are chirping in the trees, the occasional light breeze brings just enough cool to make one feel completely comfortable, and the featherless birds are pleasing the eye. Add to that a game of rugby on the humongous hi def plasma screen, and the Sunday evening is about as good as it can get.

Life's good.