I once had a pseudo-girlfriend. It would be like in the TV shows - a friend with benefits except without the benefits, but all the responsibilities of the girlfriend with a girl who acknowledges it. Those guys who find themselves trapped in a perpetual friend zone situation know exactly what I’m talking about.

I found myself in a similar situation today, except with a golf ball. We’ll call it pseudo-golf. I had a club, a tee, and even felt as if I was perpetually under the microscope with roughly 6 billion people watching my every move. The club understood that I was going to swing it and likewise the golf ball knew that it was about to be hit (sort of) in the general direction of the green. The only thing missing, you ask? A green, I answer.

Yes, I found myself at an indoor driving range this evening. So Adelaide has an indoor firing range, an indoor driving range and a City Beach with no water, only sand (which I suppose equates to beach). I’m really starting to think we do live upside down here.

All in all it was a good pseudo-golf game. We’ll have to do that again.

Ever had your breath taken away as the result of some non-self-inflected blow to your personage? Today, I received just such a concussion in the form of a .50AE caliber Desert Eagle. And I only have two words to describe the experience:

Holy cow!

Here are some of my insights after shooting this behemoth:

The bullets were slightly smaller than a howitzer shell. The gun weighed in excess of 47,000 lbs and propelled me backwards at speeds approaching escape velocity. The concussion shattered anything within it’s sphere of influence (which I’m surprised does not include the remote monastaries of Nepal).

Other observations include: I have no more teeth. They were Desert Eagled into submission and shattered when the recoil went from the gun, through my arm, blurred my vision and finally had no place else to go once they hit my teeth.

Dude, I ate [part of] the world’s largest schnitzel. This thing was the size of a small third world nation. In short, I’m full. Fully than full, even.

We head back to Brisbane tomorrow. I can’t wait to get back - even for a little bit. Always nice to get back to the psuedo-home and sleep in my own psuedo-bed.

That is all.

So, I really have nothing to say here; just wanted to update everyone on the goings on across the Pacific puddle.

We went back to the gun range today. I did better, for a while. My first clip (with the Glock 9mm) was grouped around the bulls eye. A real ego boost so I moved the target back. Ya, ought not have done that. I think I hit everyone else’s target except mine. Next, I moved to the 45 and while I had a relatively tight group all 50 shots were low and to the right - but they were all together with my consistantly aiming for the center.

All in all, it was good fun. We had an extra person join us from the office - it seems I’ve bestowed the virtures of target practice on two Aussies. One of them is going to apply for a hand gun license. He won’t get to purchase a gun for another 6 months, once the license is issued, but he wants to get a 357 magnum. They have some M1911’s coming in next month so if I’m still here I want to go shoot those for a bit.

Word is my new cell phone has arrived at the house. Looking forward to playing with my new toy.

That is all.

So, today I did something that I hadn’t done before - at least in Australia. I went to an indoor gun range.

Last week, during a walk after work, my co-worker happened upon an indoor gun range. Today we decided we’d swing by to give it a go. They had a special package you could purchase allowing you to fire four different hand guns: a Ruger .44 Mag, Ruger .357 Mag, Glock .45 semi-automatic, and a Glock 9mm semi-automatic. All in all it was an interesting experience. I’d never shot a mag round before or a double action revolver. It was neat to see how your accuracy with the revolver changed when either pulling the hammer back or just pulling the trigger.

Next on the agenda - the Walther PPK.

Looks like I have another item to add to my budget.

Here are the pics from the 2009 Sydney Muster.

Ok, so I have some uber news. It is so big that it deserves to be written much like the news of my getting out of debt:

OMD HAS ENTERED THE 21ST CENTURTY!

The news? I ordered a new cell phone. Not just that but it’s one of those save the world, turn you into a superhero, able to kill our missle defense system, Europe will love me type of cell phone.

So where will I be in 16 years?

Holding my Blackberry as the President of the United States.

Howdy All,

So the 2009 Aggie Muster has come and gone. I think it ranks as one of the best yet.

Originally, it was only going to be two of us: a gal from last year (class of 99 minus 7) and myself. However, at the last minute we wound up with 19 people including a non-Ag spouse and a plethoa (5) of Aggie offspring.

We met at the same location as last year, Pancakes on the Rocks, in Sydney and wandered over to Circular Quay where we could take a picture of the group with the Opera House in the background. Last year’s picture didn’t turn out very good so this year’s mission was to rectify that. We took more pictures this year, several orders of magitude more, and hopefully one of them comes out clear. I even fixed a mistake I made last year. I was in such a rush to get to the airport last year that I forgot my Aggie flag. This year I remembered it. That flag has been to almost every Muster with me - I felt naked without it last year.

We had 4 folks return from the last Muster and several more that I hadn’t met but that had been in country for a while. Two of these new faces were single females just slightly younger than I (class of 01 and 03). As both were highly attractive Ags I couldn’t help by enjoy myself. To round out the night I even got to walk one of them back to her apartment (it was across the street from my hotel). I was splitting the hotel costs with another Ag so it was really three of us walking in the streets of Sydney at mid-night, but I’m not going to complain. The ‘01 Ag was gorgeous so either way you count it, I got to be an non-fish-CT escort. All we were missing was one of those blue campus phones.

After Muster one of us wanted to go for drinks. Sydney is in no way running short of Pubs so we walked into the first one we found and proceeded to relive our days at A&M.

It was a good Muster.

So my mini-vacation is at an end. Well, it will be as of tomorrow evening when I head Down Under. To be honest, I’m looking forward to getting back to work. I needed a break from work and needed a break back home.

Some friends half-joked that I flew home just to go on a date. They’re probably not too far off from the truth. I mean it’s not exactly financially prudent to do that, but I did need to rid myself of a minor bout of home-sickness and if a date or two would help pull me out of my slump then so be it. Texas gals are just better all around anyway so even if I did fly home just for a date - I consider it money well spent.

Despite the fact that it’s time to go back to work I can’t help but also feel that you just never get enough time back home on these trips. There is so much more to do and so many more people to see. And just never enough time to do it all.

I did manage to hit up everyone that I just had to see plus a few extra. One of those “extras” hadn’t been seen in years so it was a good time all around when we got to meet up. Always fun, those random encounters.

So, once more unto the void…er…Australia where poisonous beasts and paychecks abound!

Have you ever seen the Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc? In it there is a scene where her Conscience discusses the the reasons for her fighting to free France. She cites the finding of a sword in a field as being a sign from God. The Conscience asks how that sword could have come to rest in that field and discusses a number of ways it could have happend (a soldier is killed and drops the sword, a soldier tosses the sword away, it falls from off a knight while riding) one of which shows the sword descending from Heaven.

It makes me wonder why we find things where we find them. And how did those things get there anyway? Was it an act of divine providence or a seemingly coincidental action on the part of something or someone?

Case in point:

I’m out for a walk today during my break. There is a little park that I can walk to from the office, walk around, and back to the office in a little under 15 minutes. While I’m walking a walnut fell from the heavens mere inches from my face and bounced a couple of times on the sidewalk next to my foot. I looked around for a walnut tree thinking it odd that I hadn’t noticed any walnut trees before and there wasn’t a single walnut producing tree in sight. Nor were there walnuts anywhere on the ground.

So, was it divine providence that brought the walnut to me? Or was it some a poor bird who lost his supper in flight (flight meals being what they are I can’t say that I blame him)? Or, had a bird seen me and decided to attempt a dive bombing with me as its target and the walnut as the intended weapon?

More to the point, was it coincidence that I wasn’t downed by a walnut or providence that saw fit to cause the gust of wind that threw off the birds aim.

So, having picked up the walnut I carried it around for a little while and tossed it on the ground. I watched as a bird, who’d be walking around for some time looking for food, cautiously approached the weapon of nutstruction and pick it up. After adjusting it in its beak it flew off to enjoy the lucky find.

Did the bird wonder if he’d just been lucky; a mere coincidence that he was where he was and I had a walnut to toss away? Or did it see it as an act of providence that ensured it would have a meal?

I guess we’ll never know.