Greetings and Salutations Culture Vultures,

I hope you are healthy, wealthy and wise! I suppose 1 out of 3 ain't bad. ;-)

HEY YOU AUSSIE OLYMPIANS, GO YOU GOOD THINGS!!!

I've been watching the Games on the big screen and it does me proud to see the Aussies kickin' arse and taking names. I'm thinking that Greg Hall Jnr will keep his big yap shut next time he tries the old trash talking routine. I copped a lot of flak, here at work, in regards to the 4x100 men's relay swim team. Everyone pointed out the fact that the Septics have won the event 7 times on the trot. You could have heard me in Australia, from here, when I seen the Thorpedo give Greg Hall a half body length start with 25 to go and mow him down by half a body length. We all know it's better to give that receive, so I done my civic and humane duty by handing out double helpings of the old humble pie to all concerned.

For my mind the highlight of the Olympics has go to be the poor bastard who had to swim a heat of the 100 meter freestyle on his Pat Malone. The heat started with 3 guys but 2 were disqualified for jumping the gun. The poor bugger swam the heat on his own but the whole crowd got behind him and he finished his "race" by taking 4 seconds of his personal best. Admittedly you could have timed him with a sun dial, but he represented his country as it's best swimmer in that event and not only tried his best, but exceeded it, by 4 seconds. In my opinion, medal counts don't count for nothing when judged against efforts like that.

It's that time of the year again. The thermometer is doing it's best duck impersonation by heading South! The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer. Old man Winter is starting to hobble around again for another year. I get up at about 5:30 in the morning and am greeted by frost on the windscreen so it's time to pull out the longjohns for another year. A chilly 5c (40f) is still to bloody cold for me even though I've been here in Boise for nearly 5 years this coming January. Fear not though my friend, it's going to get a lot colder. 5c (40f) might be the high for the day in the middle of winter. The coldest I've had to bear so far was -20c (-4f) and that was cold.

5 years, SHIT!!!! Sometimes it feels like yesterday when in 3 weeks we returned from a white Christmas in the US, packed all the "goods & chattels" and jumped back on the big tin crow to reside permanently in the United States of a Miracle.

I've done a lot of things during the past 5 years. I've traveled through Europe, the United States, the Caribbean and returned to Australia 3 times. I've completely changed career paths from a busted arse Diesel Fitter to a Information Systems Field Service Engineer. I've met a lot of interesting people, from the Pope to the pauper. I've had a few beers with rednecks, geeks, mucky-mucks and wood ducks. So it begs the question, where will I be in another 5 years? Where will you be in 5 years?
The "3 Bastards From The Bush Tour" is all set to go in November. Steery's got the leave pass from Mum (I don't know how he does it, I'm thinking Jenny's becoming a soft touch ;-)) and Fluxy will be winging his way in from Indonesia where he's working. We'll be taking my digital camera and laptop along for the ride and I'm going to try something different on this trip. I'm going to do daily updates of the web site. The places you'll get to see range from one horse towns to cities. So expect to see some photos (preferably not jail house) of Boise, Portland, Seattle, Las Vegas, McCall and all points between.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Stay Happy ;-)

Fitzy