Getting stuff done!

We are firmly in the throws of moving home. We officially have all our Christmas and wedding shopping DONE!! By the 11th of November! Yesterday we also parted with our bed and now have to sleep on an air matress. We had a funny sight yesterday of our matress driving off tied to the roof of a TINY little car. Right now we're waiting for a guy to come pick up the rest. Ruth Ann's flute Prof just moved to an unfurnished house and so is taking everything else. Tomorrow we clean out our lockers at the Con, say our goodbyes, and move into the hotel down the street. We're actually starting to feel a little nostalgic.
~Mike

December Boys

So yesterday I had my recital and my last scheduled event dealing with school. All in all it went pretty well. As we were walking home from the ferry I received a call with a last minute gig this morning(the day after my recital) for some film score thingy. I said yeah sure because it paid 150 bucks. The title was 'December Boys' and sounded to me like some local yokel wannabe film director with a video camera who wanted to make a movie. It turns out that this is a fairly sizable movie(I don't know if it technically is classified as a 'Major Motion Picture' but it would sound better if I did) based on a book by an Australian author. It comes out in December all over the world, including the US! It has Daniel Radcliff (Harry Potter) amongst other lesser well know actors. If you go see it, which you should, don't expect any big bassoon moments-there are none-but that shouldn't stop you! I doubt I'll be in the credits.

Another amusing event today was the Melbourne Cup, held every first tuesday of November. While Americans go to the polls on, Australians go the to horse races because they already voted on saturday (Also, voting is mandatory here-wouldn't that be nice in the States!). At the library, one of our co-workers got all excited and set up a pool for us to chip in a dollar a horse to bet. I'm proud to say that on my first experience betting on the ponies, I picked the winner and won $12 bucks. My future plans are to bet all my life's savings on the next horse race that comes around. If your lucky, I'll share in the winnings!!!

~Mike

Coming full circle

Our apartment is back on the leasing market (obviously, as we prepare to move home!!) so we're back in the thick of weird housing practices. Today they're holding one of the 15 minute cattle-call-open-houses in our place, so we spent last night packing up all of our small knicknacks and hiding them away. (When an apartment has no closet space, that becomes a very creative endeavor, let me tell you!) This property has a new leasing agent whom we've never met before, and we're contemplating showing up as prospective tenants. "Wow!" we'll say. "Look at the holes in the floor! You can see daylight!"

Out of curiosity I checked the agent's website to see how they're advertising this place. It's listed as a "cute one-bedder" (read, SMALL) for $20 more a week than we're paying now. Also, very frighteningly, there's pictures of OUR stuff posted online!!! They came to do an inspection a few weeks ago but didn't tell us they were taking pictures. Now there's postings of our stuffed sea turtle on the couch and our meat defrosting for dinner. But the best part? Our bathroom is so disgusting that they posted a FILE photo instead--one from clearly 10 years ago when it might have actually been sanitary. :-P

Mike's recital is on Monday--wish him luck!!!!!
~Ruth Ann