Clayton: Sacred Lizard Man with Mystic Boomerang

"At Rex Kwan Do, we use the buddy system. No more flying solo. You need somebody watching your back at all times."  I took that to heart and who better to watch your back in the outback than your little bro (little brother being a liberal title for his age relative to mine, not his behemoth size).  This is your introduction to Clayton, my travelling companion, brother, and best friend.

I have been Clayton's brother his entire life, he didn't do that for me now did he?  I remember life before Clayton, yea it sucked being an only child competing for attention against the dog.  Destiny had other plans for me and the dog as I had to move from only child to older brother and consummate back-watcher.

I'll be honest if I may, I am tired of watching Clayton's back so its time for him to step his game up.  When he was a baby and couldn't crawl I stepped up and drug him to the toys.  So what if I pulled his arm out of socket, he needed those toys.  When he started to crawl and fell down the steps, I did what any wing man would do.  I stepped out of the way and let him roll all the way down and hit the cement basement floor- cause he wanted to roll down those stairs and I am not a man to get in his way.  That's only the beginning, because now its about walking... wait for it.. on walk about (see what I did there).

Clayton good news for you brother, its your time to shine.  You are a sprightly young college graduate full of precociousness and wonderment and the perfect guy to watch my back as we go spelunking, bungeeing, climbing, scubaing, and whatever else we dream up in this foreign land. Below an aboriginal myth for inspiration (note you need a magic boomerang):

Two Men myth The Two Men (Wati Gudjara) myth involves a long and arduous journey by two iguana men, the elder brother Kurukadi and the younger Mumba, who travel south east from the Kimberley to imprint their deeds and adventures not only upon the landscape, but upon the local ancestral spirits. They are said to have had a magic boomerang with which they fashioned much of the landscape of the Western Desert. Ancestral cultural heroes, they initiated songs and dances and passed on sacred designs and images which are still being used today.  The journey continues into South Australia, Pitjantjatjara country, where at long last, it is said the two men ascended into the skies.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wati-kutjara)


Apparently you also need to castrate the moon man.  I think we need reservations for that.

Scuba Certified

Well, pretty much what ya'll (yes I will celebrate Southern heritage on this blog) expected happened.  I passed 4th grade scuba.  So no real need to start passing out handshakes on that one.

I will have to give a huge shout out to the people of Dive n' Surf (http://divensurf.com/).  They hooked me up with a great class, a professional instructor group, and a great time.  They are also going to put me in contact with some great people in Australia to go dive the Barrier Reef with.  They are a complete and total class act, me that's a different story, told below.

Friday afternoon I headed over to dive and surf to pick up my gear for the weekend.  Included in the price of my class were two full air tanks, a wet suit and hood, buoyancy compensator, regulator (or reg as we veterans say), a 25 lb weight belt, and an unnatural encounter with the old barnacle who runs the rental department.  FYI: The weight belt helps you sink in water because the wet suit makes you so buoyant.

Saturday Morning, I was not raptured which meant I rolled out of bed and drug my week-weary self down to Veteran's Park in Redondo Beach.  I slapped on 50 pounds of gear and threw myself into the frigid ocean out of the frigid air for what was supposed to be two dives. The surf was up and I knew after I watched our instructor drag the drowning high school girl in our class through the breakers as she spit salt water out of her nose it would be a short day.  We did one dive, I saw a shrimp and a crab- they were breath-taking (there needs to be a sarcasm font).

4:30 AM.   Beep Beep.  That's how I started my Sunday. 13 hours later I drug my exhausted body off the Catalina Express and went almost immediately to bed- not of course without a little help from my friend Cabernet.

In between, I drove 30 minutes south to Long Beach, WITHOUT coffee, which is criminal in the continental 48, hopped on the ferry, slept, drooled all over myself, and awoke at Catalina as quite the vision of loveliness.  I will say that by now that 50 lbs of gear, I lugged to the ferry at about 100 lbs- pre-dawn will do that to you.  We dived right in and spent the next 1.5 hours in freezing water doing skills that made me feel like a football player asked to dance ballet: bull in a china shop, and that was the first dive.  However uncoordinated I felt, I still saw a ton of fish, rays, crabs, sea cucumbers, kelp- all in stunning HD which made me feel accomplished.  After 2 more dives, which were thankfully about 30 minutes, I hauled myself out a champion, the dorky picture below is me, certified open water scuba man:

I then had ice cream at Big Olaf's Creamery on Catalina. Do it, don't ask questions.  You are most welcome.

Great Australian Literature

Well, as with most things this started out with the best of intentions, but I am afraid we have all lost.  Especially you.

I wanted to read some Australian literature while I was in Australia.  I popped on to the internet machine and researched good books from Australian authors.  I searched for "Best Australia Books".  Damn it.  That's more on travel.  So, I googled  "Best Books by Australian Authors", I was not feeling lucky.  And now neither should you.

Understand, now I have put legitimate time and effort into internet searches which generally lead to some librarian's top 10 Australia books which are listed on web pages covered in cats.  Everything I read mentioned this gentleman, Patrick White.  Apparently my boy Patty (as I have taken to calling him) won a Nobel prize in literature.  On top of that his crowning jewel was a book titled Voss.  Oh Amazon, you make it so easy to buy!  So I bought it at approximately 11:51 PM and rolled over and went to sleep, feeling pretty good about myself.

I think you know now, why we all lose.  I bought a book that won a Nobel Prize about Australia, which I plan to read in Australia.  One day I am going to corner you in public and recount the whole tale to you. In some dry stuffy voice I am going to make you endure how much better of a person I am for reading this amazing book.  You will pretend to care, but you probably won't try to care.  I will try to sound important and you will stare at me and know I am full of shit.  I'll be looking into your face trying to see if you realize I full of shit, while trying to impress you about what boils down to the fact that I can read.  I'll try to drag the conversation out and you will try to cut it short by nodding as fast as you can.  In the end you will tell me you wish you had had that exact same experience just to placate me and I'll walk away thinking you bought into my B.S.

However, I will be thinking in the back of my mind I wish I had read something else, because this book was Jane Eyre with an Australian accent. A Nobel prize doesn't necessarily translate into interesting, more or less it means a lot of words I don't understand and complex sentences that I had to re-read. You won't get that from me in the course of our conversation. You won't hear, "Man, I wish I had just read a John Grisham."  So we both lose,  I will make you suffer not because I want you to think I am smart like you might think, I will make you suffer slowly and painfully, because I suffered through this book.

So, consider yourself warned if you run into me after July 10th.

Scuba Class

A ton of prep work has gone into this trip: flights, trains, lodging, activities, and most notably scuba.

Tomorrow night I have my next to last scuba class before we head to open water this weekend.  Scuba class teaches all the skills to prepare you for the worst under water.  The worst of the worst being running out of oxygen.  I have been breathing oxygen longer than I care to remember and I have always had plenty of it.  Last class I found myself without oxygen for the first time.

The instructor cut my oxygen to teach us how it feels.  Imagine trying to breathe in and feeling your entire chest clinch because it cant expand.  Even when you know its going to happen and extra oxygen is a few feet away, you can't help but freak just a little, ok alot.  I think its gotta be instinct for your body to start punching your brain.

Other skills are things like losing your mask, losing your regulator, gaining and losing buoyancy, etc.  However I think the big skill is to not lose your mind when something goes wrong.  Once you start to panic its game over.

In honor of people doing things I cant even imagine here is a video of some free divers.  Mind you they are holding their breath and have no oxygen.  I freaked after 3 seconds this is 3 minutes 100 feet under water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU_IF20t2R8

Enjoy!

Death and Walk about

Today a friend of mine send me a link to a website of dangerous creatures lurking in the outback (http://blog.hotelclub.com/the-10-most-dangerous-animals-in-australia/).  I developed new found respect for the Aussies and the death they seemingly confront at every corner, whether from forked tongue or cephalopod.  I started to think about all the dangerous animals I have encountered and I realized I had had some pretty dangerous encounters as well...

Yes, I know.  Thats my sweetie, Topi.  That hairy pissed-off snarl of my arthritic overweight bacon loving angel is about all you could hope for in a female.  Topi is a giving animal too, she would love nothing more than to present you with the freshly dead mole, which she ripped apart with her teeth.  My first survival story, spending numerous evenings with the beady eyes of a killing killer who kills trained on me from the foot of my bed- and now I'm supposed to fear what again?

The second deadly wild beast: Klaus of swedish genus.  Though moderately tempered Klaus's are know to be dangerous when confronted with cheese.  Usually armed with cross bows (true story) the beast is known to constantly be stalking food, rumor has it that a Klaus actually has 2 stomachs one for dinner and one for dessert and is always hungry. Usually a Klaus can be tracked by the large amounts of fur it leaves in the bathroom in addition to the fact that it stomps, grunts and makes "mah" sounds constantly. The klaus is a dangerous beast when roused: fact but with constant walks, snowboarding, and belly rubs a Klaus can make a fine roommate.

Finally, this.  The most terrifying of all.  Ger-bear.  Only the cobra and Ger-bear can increase in size to intimidate enemies, which I can personally attest to.  The Ger-bear is most dangerous when anything comes between her and her cubs.  Don't let this photo fool you, behind the flowers, cookies, smile, and motherly love is a marauding bear.  Similar to a rattle snake the Ger-bear has a warning and its 62 missed phone calls.  If the warning goes unheeded, Godspeed to the netherworld my compatriot.  However, fear not my reader for within my genetic make-up lies the strength and killer instinct of Ger-bear which is why I fear nothing the outback could send against me.

21 days til launch...

Song of the day: "California Soul" Marlena Shaw

Less than a month to go...

I decided this would be the best way to let people keep up with the trip of a life time.  I'll tell you all about it.  Every last detail.  So you can sit at work and be rediculously jealous while I am out galavanting.

34 Days of my bro and I down under. June 6-July 10th.

Here are some of the things you have to look forward to:

Warm and cuddly or sexual deviant:

http://theweek.com/article/index/207316/are-stds-killing-koala-bears

A journey to the lost world:

http://www.waitomo.co.nz/LostWorldEpic7hrs

and of courese I'm getting scuba certified (which is a 4 hour pain in my ass twice a week):

http://reeftrip.com/

More to come and plenty of it.