Once every four years and one month later

Many people were expecting World Cup blog posts from me during the month of the tournament (and by many I mean 2). Yeah, I totally dropped the ball on that one. I coulda and I shoulda, but I didn’t. My bad. But in a nutshell here are my thoughts:

1) Europe is still clearly the king of soccer. The Spain-Netherlands final speaks for itself as the top two teams left standing were from Europe. But that aside, the two most dominant non-European teams of the tournament prior to them crashing out were Brazil and Argentina. You can argue Uruguay given their semifinal appearance, but let’s face it they had an easy road to the semis. Brazil and Argentina geographically are South American, of course, but European on soccer terms. Every single player on Brazil’s starting 11 against the Netherlands plays in Europe, with the exception of Robinho who played the second half of the season in Brazil while on loan from Manchester City. Ten of Argentina’s starting 11 against Germany play in Europe. There was much talk about the center of gravity shifting away from Europe given the success of all South American countries advancing out of their groups. But c’mon, when majority of your players play for the Barcelonas, Madrids, and Milans of the world as is the case with Brazil and Argentina, is there really a big paradigm shift going on? The equation is simple. You want to win World Cups, play in Europe. Hard pressed am I to see the US, Chile, Mexico, or South Korea ever winning the World Cup when your players are going to battle for Real Salt Lake or the Seattle Sounders.

2) Soccer is very popular in the US but it is not the US national team nor MLS that is transcending the game in the US. Yes, the US national team was a tremendous rallying point for Americans during the World Cup and if you saw that Youtube video of the montage of celebrations and reactions around the country for Donovan’s goal against Algeria, you would have to have a heart of stone if your emotions did not move you. I have long argued that video games are the main spark for soccer’s popularity in the US. I am as big a baseball and basketball guy as there is, but have elevated my interest in soccer to almost the same level because of the exposure and player familiarity that FIFA for PS2 and similar video games have created. Add the new dimension of cable, ESPN covering the Premiership, and satellite TV and MLS really stands no chance. Soccer is growing in the US, which is great, but I think the MLS will always be a secondary league. Which is fine, but expectations by its apologists thinking that it will become a great league need to be fine tuned.

The US National Team itself will continue to be a big rallying point for everyone to get behind once every four years. But I think South Africa more than anything affirmed our status in peoples’ minds as a gritty, scrappy team, but ultimately mid-tier at the end of the day. The law of averages proved itself for the US in South Africa 2010. They had a miracle run to the quarterfinals in 2002. Then came Germany 2006 when the US tried to prove that 2002 was not a fluke. They crashed and burned. South Africa 2010 averaged things out for the US as a good team, but not top-tier status. We needed an extra time goal in the last game of the group stage to earn the right to lose to a reputable, but not Alpha Dog Ghana team.

3) Spain (i.e. the Real Madrid and FC Barcelona All-stars) wins the World Cup and the KING of the country is not present to watch it? The Prime Minister not being there….still pretty weird but acceptable at the end of the day because of the 20% unemployment rate and other things on the country’s agenda. I still think he still should have been there, but again, forgiven. But the King not there? What else does he have to do? C’mon.

4) Italy’s coach at the end of the tournament shouldered the blame for not fielding a younger, more energetic team. To use a line from The Wedding Singer – “that’s something that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!!” It was as if it were some revelation that they lost because of age and being outpaced. Can’t believe they didn’t see it coming when choosing the squad.

5) France was karma. Enough said. Shouldn’t have been in the tournament in the first place.

6) Portugal was ranked the #3 team in the world heading into the tournament. Really???? Did I miss something?

At first I thought being in Australia for the World Cup would be a drag, but it turned out to be perfect for my match viewing schedule. I was 6 hours ahead of South Africa, so same times at the US but pm instead of am. Matches were on conveniently at 7:30pm and 10pm. Yeah I had to get up early or stay up late to watch the 2:30am matches, but all in all it was better than if I were at work in the US and had to miss a great match because I couldn’t get away from my desk.

I spent a lot of time at the Perth casino and its entertainment complex watching some games because 1) it was a great atmosphere and 2) most bars were not open late whereas the casino is open 24 hours so the only spot to watch the 2:30am games. I was there for the US-England match. I was the lone American, maybe 3 others, amidst a crowd of hundreds of English folks. My ears are still ringing from their incessant chants. Makes sense that they were so large in number because Perth afterall is like 50% Asian people, 40% backpacking Brits, and 10% local Aussies.

So that's that . I am so going to Brazil in 2014 that it's not even funny. Who's in?!?!?!

The Second Coming

Aaahh, there’s nothing quite like taking two months off from blogging. But alas, I am back…with a vengeance…and I am glad to see that I did not upset anyone with my long layoff.

A lot has changed in the world since my last update. Mark Fred Truman and Jamie Meltzer are engaged to be wed (big ups!!), Spain is the champion of the world, LeBron takes his talents to South Beach, and leaking wells in the Gulf have been capped and unplugged and capped again. Hopefully this time for good. But the one constant that has remained is that I am still in Australia. Life goes on swimmingly and I find myself amidst “heaps” of work. Quotation marks required to emphasize that I am learning a bit of Australian down here. They don’t say “lots of” or “tons of”; to emphasize superlatives for quantity they say “heaps.” I’ll have lapses where I slip into local lingo but for the most part I am very proud, perhaps to the point of obstinate, of my American English.

I’ll occasionally say “lift” when referring to the “elevator” and more often than not these days I say “flat” when talking about my “apartment.” My mind still thinks in miles and Fahrenheit but I am becoming equally fluent in kilometers and Celsius. However, there is just some local lingo that I will never use. Ex: never ever will I say “hire” when I mean “rent.” It just doesn’t seem right. Trivial, but always out of place whenever I see “a car for hire” or the chance to “hire snorkeling equipment for the day.” But of greater importance, never on God’s green earth will I say “holiday” when I mean “vacation.” I recently had three days off from work so I took a road trip up north for vacation…not holidays. Christmas, Easter, 4^th of July and National Speak Like a Pirate Day. Those are HOLIDAYS. Trips that you take for pleasure are VACATION.

So on my recent VACATION, I went to a beach town called Monkey Mia (real name, not a joke) which is located on the peninsula of Shark Bay, about 10 hours north of Perth. I stopped along the way in several places, namely: the Pinnacles, Geraldton, Kalbarri National Park, and eventually Shark Bay/Monkey Mia. It was a lot of driving – basically about 4 hours each day either heading to or from Perth – and certainly life on the open road as one would imagine in Western Australia. The urban landscape of Perth gave way to open roads, green farmlands outside the city, then turning into dry, flat, rugged bushlands which blended into red sand deserts. I cut west as I headed closer to the Shark Bay peninsula so there were some times when I was driving in very pretty settings along the coast.

My first stop was at a place called the Pinnacles which is a desert about 3 hours north of Perth that has hundreds of limestone rock formations that have the same shape and look as termite hills. From there I spent the night in a fishing and shipyard town called Geraldton. Next stop was Kalbarri National park where I took probably one of the better hikes I have ever been on. First off, I did not get lost, so that of course always makes any experience worthwhile. But the 8km hike I went on had a great variety to its terrain. It began atop the cliffs of a ravine, then eventually dipped down into the ravine along the sandy dried up banks of a river, and then ended up going thru a forest terrain saying what’s up to some wallabies along the way.

Monkey Mia and Shark Bay were real kick ass beach towns with sparkling blue waters and stunning ocean views. Sunsets atop the cliffs let you see several whales blowing water out of their spouts and pods of dolphins swimming along. I could describe more in words, but the pictures will better serve you.

Driving on the open road under clear blue skies I was naturally tempted to push the car up to high speeds. I was probably averaging 90-95 mph, which admittedly, was scary at times. The roads are one lane in each direction so I broke a nervous sweat or two zooming past a car a 95 mph that was heading at me in equal speed. The most perilous thing to watch out for though were animals. They say to avoid night driving whenever possible, which I did. I only got caught driving at night for the last 2 hours of my trip heading back into Perth. But the “heaps” of dead kangaroos and emus on the side of the road reminded you that any of those guys can just jump out at you and take you (and them) out.

It’s the dead of winter here in Perth, which isn’t all that bad. Yes, it’s cold for Aussie standards but let’s face it, on any given day during peak afternoon hours I can very comfortably walk around outside in a t-shirt. Average daytime temperatures are around 60 degrees, but yeah, there is a nighttime and morning chill in the air. Australia suffers from the typical southern hemisphere infrastructure syndrome….like in Brazil, astonishingly, houses here are not built with heating or insulation! So when sitting at home the cold air lingers and it actually feels colder inside than the temperature is outside. But having survived a glimpse of a Russian winter and being of true New Jersey blood, I scoff at this winter weather.

Work is going well. We have had a crowded apartment for much of the past month and a half. First, one of our bosses from the Paris office was making rounds visiting teams on the field so she graced us with her presence. Then a few weeks after she left a new trainee in our company arrived to work with us for about a month. On top of that one of Jessica’s (my co-worker) friends from Paris was on VACATION and stayed with us for about three weeks. Come Monday it’ll be back to just Jessica and me, back to an empty nest. Having all this company was good, pleasant, and very healthy for work I believe. The mere physical presence of other people around changed up the atmosphere. And in training a new person to the job it forced both of us to think, rethink, and analyze our motions in a way that is perhaps subconscious when it’s just the two of us.

The report that we’re doing gets more interesting with each week. Having met with “heaps” of exploration and production companies, then marine service vessel companies, and onto subsea engineering ones I have expanded my vocab to be able to hold my own in cocktail conversation about multiples imaging when shooting 3D seismic; dynamically positioned floating production, storage, and offloading units; and flowlines, risers, and umbilicals, in subsea systems. Technical sarcasm aside, it’s a real great learning experience which I am enjoying.

Add to that a shifting political landscape. Again, not sure how much of Australian news reaches the shores of the US, but the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, basically got sacked by an overnight mutiny from within his party last month. He lost a tremendous amount of popularity and national support after he introduced a “super-profits” tax on the mining, oil, and gas industry – the cash cows of Australia’s economy. So the #2 in the Labor Party, Julia Gillard, did some behind the scenes deals with her party members and they sacked Rudd. We now have the first ever female Prime Minister in Australia…but perhaps not for long…she called elections for August 21 because she wants to govern on her own mandate and not have this cloud of mutiny hanging over her. Interesting time for Australian politics. All this work that Jessica and I are doing should come out either in the September or October edition of the oil industry magazine we work with. Copies to come for my three blog readers when it “hits the press.”

That is all for now. I am off to refill my “long black” and continue diving into Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol which I….uumm…took out on a long-term loan….yeah….from a hostel I stayed at. Good to be back.