This is why...

What was the remark of the USA team captain upon Australia's entry to the world cup? Something along the lines of why are they bothering, well, we are "bothering" because:

Although we are ranked 42nd, we beat Japan (ranked 18th) and tied with Croatia (ranked 23rd, although we scored a goal in the final few seconds that should've been our victory) to progress to the next round where we play Italy. Sadly, the USA (ranked 5) won't get to play Italy as they were knocked out of the competition through a defeat by Ghana (ranked 48th).





So sad, I'll go have a latte to celebrate.

What has been going on?

Last week we said goodbye to Jody as she returned to the states.

The weekend was our first without a house guest for quite a while, and it rained, rained, and rained, and it was a long weekend too. Monday the sun came out briefly and we climbed at a crag north of Sydney called Narrabeen, where a bunch of routes have been rebolted and a few more slab routes established. I managed to get insanely pumped due to the cold rock, which was kind of nice and made me feel like I was working.

After a slow week at work trying to get some things synthesised, the next weekend rolled around, starting with a melted cheese eating party at Chris and Altheas place. 6 people, 2kgs of cheese, 6 bottles of wine. Hmmm. I got home and made the tactical error of checking the Australian Research Council website to see if the review comments for my research proposal were in, which they were. I spent the next hour running around the house yipeeing and whooping in delight as they were all pretty good really, and I really didn't know what to expect, these things can be so random. Had trouble sleeping.

Drove to Nowra early Saturday for a mass of great climbing in the yummy sun, although I seem to have lost my head:



We camped in the cold but awoke to 50 red tailed black cockatoos at our private camp, before more rock action on Sunday.

Sunday night we high-tailed it back to Sydney for the premier of Aus versus Brazil. I say high-tailed, but really, we had hours and hours and hours to wait. The game didn't start until 2am. I was pleasantly surpised when the A lister team didn't wipe the floor with us, and look forward to watching us play Croatia at the more reasonable time of 5am on Friday. On an aside, I really am turning into a soccer hooligan. The Alchemists tournament is starting at Sydney University, and I am desperately trying to get a team together...

A rainy weekend - time to go dancing

Went to the Chinese Laundry to celebrate my birthday with some friends that couldn't make it to dinner earlier in the week.


The line up in the rooms:

Sandbar
9 – Jack Prest
11 – Tim Sea
1 – Steve Lind

Laundry
10:30 – Ajax
12:30 – PNAU (Club mode)
2 – Matt Nugent

Cave
11 – Synik
12:30 - Ken Cloud
2 - Mark Dynamix

We didn't go to the Sandbar. I really liked the set that Synik played, although I was alone in this and we promptly moved to the Laundry main room where Pnau had just started. I thought their live set was OK, nothing spectacular, so kept sneaking back into the Cave to listen to Ken Cloud. Meanwhile, Mark Dynamix was pretty cool later on.

We also bumped into some climbing friends, which was great.

Birthday week

So I made it through the next week, and went climbing on Saturday at Nowra. First time there since my injury. i climbed a bunch of things ranging from grade 11 to grade 22, including a trad 16 (below), unusual for such a sporty area.



Monday was my birthday, and to celebrate I was taken out to a great organic restaurant, the Peasants Feast, in newtown (near where I live)