Dong dispatch: My first post from Wodonga

New Contact Info:

Bart Beswick

36 Dalton Avenue

Wodonga Victoria 3690

Telephone: (02) 6059 8102

Texts: 0407 962 774

Mobile Calls: My mobile is unchanged, but please use a text in the first instance if possible. Reception is patchy around our house. I'm still me, and will call you back as soon as possible. It may simply be on the home phone from here.  

What is going on? Wodonga? 

Adelle has finished her Engineering degree with Second Class honours. The army have posted her to Latchford barracks, and we have a house in Wodonga. Adelle does like the army way. She is finding it a gentle period of absorbing everything, which is just the ticket after the intensity of the thesis experience.

What about your old job?

I have just finished my paid leave from ABS, and am on long term leave without pay for a year, with a possible extension of that period. We can just get along on one wage, but I want work to make things a lot smoother. 

The job I was keen on has been slow about responding. I called their office - they been very busy with other very justifiable work with a higher priority than running a recruiting process. I wish I was there to help. With that slower response, I have been watching the local papers, and will put in a few applications. I got proper broadband internet back last night, and intend to properly scan the internet and place my resume everywhere appropriate, and will register with job agencies etc Monday.

Why so quiet over the last month? 

Regional internets = very ordinary. The 3g USB wifi modem was vaguely usable, but unsatisfying in our gap week. Like the iphone, it was very low coverage in most rooms of the house. I'll be posting my home phone number as the suggested line to use from here on in. Texts are perfect, calls are not worth the dropout rate unless we are in town. 

Good bits?

Lots of stuff I like doing is much cheaper here. My golf clubs is $50 a month, squash is $2 an hour instead of $15- $20. The heated pool with spa and sauna is $6. Eventually I will get a spouse card. Cool thing there is access to a full gym and pool. Adelle and I are enjoying access to the Bandiana army cinema. The cinema seems very similar to the ANU cinema club - films roll along and you get set movies very cheap - $2. Shopping is a breeze - "All the shops you want with much better parking" is my quote.

How was moving?

I had a blah time after the movers came in and emptied the boxes on 'any flat surface' and a couple of the days seemed like all I was doing was moving things to put other things in their spot. That part is over, and seven of the ten major areas are working - only the garage, gaming room and office to go. The house is great, heaps of room, and our mantra has been "don't buy stuff to fill it." While we have a big house here regionally, it may be a lot smaller if we end up in a big city.

What about people - you are such a have-a-chat, what has the new town been like?

We had our first visitors "Jiss", who had bub and mum and dad along, and we took them to my golf club for dinner. Golf has been good. I'm still a very poor golfer, but I love it, and there is already signs of improvement. I did a competition round with some fine gents on Saturday, and one of them was a officer in the local cricket team. On the strength of our chat  round he is keen to offer me a Captaincy of C grade, where I would be the steady hand for the younger members, train them, and select the best to go through to B grade. It would suit me to the ground, and I hope it comes through. I'm pretty likely to be setting up a website for the team as well.

What about armoured combat and other SCA stuff?

It's all good. There are a couple of cool heavy fighters, Magnus and the recently knighted Sir Jon. Magnus is off to Darwin for a couple of months, so my house is the training venue for fighter practice on Tuesday night. Both guys are keen to recruit. I think i'll just get to know the guys over winter and settle in, and run a 10 week newcomer course in early spring.  We also went to the monthly bash, which was a Saturday event, with fighting followed by a pot luck feast. I caught up with lots of lovely folk i had met at border war, and have been signed up to quote for their storage area. Plenty to be done! I've also been talking to a few small business owners - there are some cute possibilities for feasts at small cafe's in town. Watch this space!

Let slip the electic worms

I was a little slow Sunday morning, and eventually slapped myself awake with a coffee and breakfast. After much enjoyable chat and some business with Adelle, I readied myself for APS cricket for my employer, the ABS.

We had Treasury suppressed and the wickets flowing gently in the first session. We went to drinks at 4/68. Afterward their captain started exploding, and the runs began to flow. Fours and sixes aplenty, then he retired at 50 exactly as per the rules of A.P.S. cricket, but the others did not slouch, and they were eventually all out for 190. A difficult, but not impossible task, as we had gotten more than this earlier in the year.

My tale went off the wires about six overs before the end- with a visual aura. What is a visual aura? I'm glad you asked. It's one of the signs of the upcoming pain apocalypse known as a migraine.

Stage one. Vague feeling of wrongness. I was in slips and had a vague sense that something was wrong. I cleaned my glasses, and stretched out a bit, and moved my muscles about, but the vague sense of wrongness was there.

Next over, came 'the blobs' It's like someone has gotten a little blob of Vaseline and smeared it on the lenses of my glasses. I can still see through these blobs, but they are right in the middle of my vision. Uh-oh spaghetti-oh. This is where what is happening clicks in.

I'm in slips. This means that, under a standard circumstance, a very hard cricket ball could be flying straight for me. Not only should I catch it for the sake of the team, I should also be ready and able to catch it for the sake of not injuring myself.

This becomes increasingly unlikely as the 'auras' get worse. They get larger, and more blocking of my central vision, and more 'grey scaled', going from Vaseline clear to sewing machine oil light grey.

I talk to the captain, and request getting the hell out of slips. He puts me in covers/ square leg, much safer. It has the quarter second more time to adjust if needs be if the ball comes to me.

One more over, and the blobs clear, and I get 'the electric worms'. These little things are like 5mm 'strings' that are bursting with rings of electric, unnatural colours. The colours on these little worms are deeply strange, and their colours do not occur in nature - too vivid, too electrical. The worms are actually an improvement on the aura's - they do not occur over the central eye, so are not as dangerous during a cricket match.

However, the next stage will be the pain. We come off the field, and I ask Mike, our Captain, if I may open the batting. I'm on a race - soon, I will be hit with the pain, and likely unable to return. Mike agrees.

The drinks for sale esky was there, so I inhaled a coke, and then dropped two sunkist orange drinks in about three minutes. I'm not sure if it was the caffine in the coke, the icy coldness of the softdrinks, or the sugar, or what, but the visual auras cleared.

That meant, the pain was next.

We went out to the centre. My partner knew what was going on, and he was fretting, and called out the opponents to get onto the field. I was embarrassed but thankful. It's not their problem if I have a migraine coming...

I knew I was there for a good time, not a long time. I belted the first ball to the boundary with a perfect late drive through gulley. I wasn't sure if it would make the boundary, so I ran a couple of runs... woah. Hello Mr thump.

I could see. I was upright, but each heartbeat had a little friend with a bellows blowing pain through the upper right quadrant of my brain. Special. It was the thumpy fullness pain, not the sharp 'hammer' pain. Tolerable. I played and missed at the balls outside for the rest of the over, and blocked the two on the sticks.

Next over my partner had an over of playing and missing or blocking, which I appreciated.

Next over it was back to business. Poor bowler had me clipping things away with my bat close enough that leb byes were not called for my next few runs. I was too tired to check up on the umpire, as each time I was running and my head was pounding.

Next over I faced the other opener, and smacked a beautiful four. I hit it wonderfully cleanly. It went straight through the legs of the fielder on the cover drive - he tried to get down to it, but couldn't do so fast enough. That balls was TRAVELLING.

I next tried to drive again, and got some luck, french cutting for two more. Meh. By this time the thumping was pretty industrial, and things were getting fuzzy.

I ran a few more runs, but the initial opening bowler shot one through the gate between bat and pad. Poor form came to play once the energy ran out and the thumping got too much.

I had a nice little 14, and drove straight home. I stripped off straight away, and got myself two Panadine, two Ibuprofen and a cold shower. Cold water straight on the skull really helps, and having no hair to hold the heat helps even more. I was hoping to grow out my hair - but even the 3mm holds so much heat in that situation. It's going to go back to blade none next time Nick and I are both at home.

The straight cold shower staved off the pain, and I made a call to Adelle explaining what had gone down, and requesting that we could skip our 'before we sleep' phone call, explaining that this was it :) She had experience with another person with migraines, so she knew the deal.

Within a few minutes, I had put my room in blackout, and gotten a black cloth to wrap my eyes around 17.00

21.00 saw crisis averted. Either a) the migraine did not go to the next, brutal steps, or b) it had done so while I was not awake to feel it. I came too, and my body was whinging that it was hungry. I crawled of bed and went and fixed some food.

After a nice chat & call with Adelle, I cleared an email or two, and even read a few pages of my book till crashing around 23.00

Today I made it to work okay, and took 44 calls. My only symptom has been my nose running like a tap, essentially running all the liquid in my body through my nose. Still, better that than a migraine!

Background: I used to get migraines weekly as a teenager, which is indescribable hell. Attending school four days a week and doing catchup pretty much every week and being in minor pain for a small period each day made study, social continuity, and sport more complicated than it needed to have been. Eventually the barrage of tests turned up a couple of useful things. I'm allergic to dust mites and cockroaches. Interesting aside. But the killer - photophobia. Allergic to sunlight. FFS. There is no cure, only avoidance. Great.


Extra: I went through this article after having read it to add in some wikipedia links - and have been finding cool stuff just by surfing wikipedia. Hooray undirected research uncovering interesting stuff :)

We didn't win...

we drekked it in. And I can't get better bowling figures :)


ABS Cricketers,

A great start to the season with a big win on Sunday.

We won the toss and batted and managed to pile on 3/254 in our 40 overs. Top scorers were X 50no, X 50no, myself 47, X 36, X 27no and X M 22.

We then managed to roll the DEEWR batting line-up for just 57, for a rather comprehensive 197 run victory. The wicket takers were X (1/22), X (2/12), X (2/8), X (1/4), X 1/8 and Bart (1/0 off 1 ball).

While we only had 10 players, DEEWR only had 9 so that made things a bit difficult for them, but nonetheless it was a really good effort with bat, ball and in the field, so well done guys.

The Captain

Weekend

Saturday Morning : Welcome new flatmate, Jason. Possible Breakfast BBQ.  Don't get any ideas, Birmo - we had it planned before your column on Breakfast BBQ's was out :)

Saturday Afternoon: The Wedding

Sunday Morning: Help Sui move industrial stuff in the van for his end of year installation

Sunday afternoon: First game of cricket for the year. I'm sitting in slips, and having a chill out.

Feeding cultural curiosity

One of Sui's glassblowing friends is from the U.S. of A. and wanted to try this cricket thing. So we are trundling off to the nets (cricket's batting cage equivalent) to show the basic skills, and will have wander into the middle to have the full experience. Since we don't have eleven spare friends at ten seconds notice, it will be a limited taste, but luckily I do have all the gear to do this properly.

If he feels rich we might go and borrow some indoor cricket nets, but it's likely we won't get that extravagant.

Cricket cramps turns into superbowl day off

I took all the precautions. I dosed up on magnesium and calcium for up to three days before. I made sure I didn't overindulge in food. I only had one game this weekend, not two. I took lots of liquids, a water, a 1 orange juice - 5 water mix, and the same mix with apple and guava. 4.5 litres of liquids. I only ate a light, nutritious breakfast.

Still, once I was out in the 37 degree heat trying to chase that little red ball, I was cramping like crazy. Hot damn I hate cramping. It is partially the price I pay for my laziness, but also has been a constant fight all of my sporting life, happening even when I was super fit. This one was even a variation - the normal extreme pain radiating off the hamstring that shoots the leg dead straight, with a wraparound conflict between the quads.

I kept playing, requesting a bit of mercy from the captain, and he put me in point - nothing requiring a big run came my way, thank goodness. When it came time to bat, we were not in much trouble, but we just couldn't score well enough. Nursing my injury, I dropped myself to nine. When I came in, it was 8 runs an over required. I tried hiting out, but kept finding fielders, and eventually got dismissed. I ran a few runs, but didn't make much difference. We couldn't make the runs. After the game, I did the right thing, and got straight back into the mag-cal, with a warm shower, and then went straight to bed.

11 hours sleep was not enough. When the 7am alarm went, I tried to make my feet and get to the shower - not happening. Still stiff as a board, I called myself in as sick, and rolled back over to attempt sleep. Not happening. I spent the next hour manually messing with my leg in order to get it moving, whacking and stretching in enough to make it to the shower. Once I got in, the hot water did it's magic and gave me reasonable movement, and I wondered what I would do with my day. Hey, wait a minute, it's superbowl Monday!

I called the only person I knew who would not be at work, Sui, and told him to get on over. It was time for a very impromptu superbowl party. Being typically Australian, he didn't even know it was on, and had never done the party before. I limped down to the shops and laid in the supplies - hotdogs, sauerkraut, a sixer of millers, a sixer of budweiser. The rule is that you buy the cheapest american beer you can find - they had a tie, so we grabbed one of each. Sui didn't think the dogs would cut it, so he grabbed some nacho's fixings as well.

I did all the hotdog cooking and preping, and then got myself laid out straight on the couch to nurse the leg. Sui was behind me, painting some 40k figures. He has recently gained the urge to paint, and I couldn't sit in a chair, so he got the crafty-artist seat.

Luckily it was a good game, with plenty of action and stayed nice and close, and the 100 yard intercept was awesome to watch. If I was well, I would have been at work and missed it, but it was nice to take advantage of my cringing agony to watch the superbowl. First one in about three years.

Mini Calendar

Fri - Sui & Meesh - Carcasonne
Sat Day - Razorbacks - Dunstan St Curtin
Sat Night - Couch Club?
Sun Day - ABS Cricket - Proctor Street Chisolm
Sun Night - Sleep the sleep of the virtuously tired for a 6.30 up for 7.30 @ work.