Mood:  happy

Anoher week, come and gone.  I was remided this morning how little time we get to spend here.  The Army Signal Majors' Assignments Officer wrote to me (as part of a group) to remind us that we will all be moving in the next rotation (Winter 08).  However, he couldn't yet provide us with a list of available jobs to fight over, so we still have no idea.

Last weekend, after going to the beach on Friday, we went to the Traddies Club in Woden for lunch.  They have a fairly cheap Chinese buffet that is pretty good, and actually have some (not much) healthy food, as well.  We've been there a few times...Anyway, we went on Sunday and after the meal, a nice lady asked us if we were stayng for the meat raffle.  Now, we've heard of this from a couple of the clubs in the area, but we hadn't yet participated in one.  The lady assured us that Easter Weekend was a great time to buy tickets because the crowd was small and the odds for victory were much much higher than usuall.  So, after lunch, we "hung out" for an hour, playing exactly one game of pool (yes, it took the hour.  Note to self: get better at pool), then bought $5 worth of tickets.  We ended up winning a tray of meat, worth about $30 on the market, and a $10 gift certificate to the club for future use.  Not bad.  A guy sitting near us bought a few tickets and won 7 times!  Amazing.  We've been eatting free meat all week. 

School was fine last week.  The big focus is on assignmnet preperation, since everything is due on Monday.  Several course members are "locked in" this weekend trying to ge their stuff done.  One of them asked me why I wasn't worried about Monday so I told him my work is done.  I finished early.  I can hand them in any time.  I think there is a lesson in there, somewhere...

A while back, I was asked to participate in the Relay for Life, promoting fund raising for Cancer research.  It wasn't just me, specifically, but the whole class was asked who was interested in supporting the event.  The idea was that your team would meet at the track and keep the baton moving for a 24 hour period to raise money from sponsors and individual donors and such.  I signed up, and the event is going on right now. From 6:00p Friday to 6:00p Saturday, the baton is moving.  My shift was this morning, EARLY.  I had 2:00a to 4:00a. Kimberly and Jacoby bundled up (it's getting cold here) and stayed with me at the track, counting laps while I ran.  In the 2hr period, I completed 52 laps on the metric track, which equated to just over 13 miles (by GPS).  Not a bad way to raise some money.  We all slept in this morning...

Next week is more Strategic Studies at work, but over the weekend we are going to the highest point in Australia, Mount Kosiosco.  I have been told that it is great!  I have also been told it is thoroughly underwhelming.  The problem is that all of the surroundkng area is high, as well, so you don't really have a "peak" that is all that impressive.  I don't know, I've never been.  We'll see which is right when we get there, but whatever it looks like, next weekend we will stand on the top of Australia.  Pretty fun.  We are going with Peter and Jo McKaskill, and will be staying in a cabin over night at Lake Crackenback.  More pictures will follow!

 Have a good week!

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 1:14 AM MEST

Updated: Sunday, 30 March 2008 6:18 AM MEST

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Mood:  happy

Happy Easter, everyone!

We have completed another week of America bash- excuse me, I mean Strategic Studies.  It was a vitally important week in that they imparted a great deal of well argued and factually supported academic thought regarding...

Please I can't even type this with a straight face.  It sucked.  I looked back at my notes and realized all I have for all of last week's lectures are the titles, the name of the lecturer, and the date.  At no point during the week did anyone say anything that I thought was important enough to write down.  It was an embarrassment to the Australian Military Education system, and I shared my sentiments with the College Chief of Staff. 

Outside of school, it was a good week!

Kimberly's big event was having coffee (actually hot chocholate) with Alyison Hoebee, our house managers wife, on Tuesday.  They are nice people, and they seem to genuinely want to look after us.

Yesterday we headed out to Bateman's Bay and Pebby Beach.  Pebby Beach is supposed to be a really good day-trippy sort of place.  They often have dolphines in the water and kangaroos on the beach that are friendly enough.  It was cold yesterday (down in the 60's!), so it wasn't about getting wet or going boogie-boarding.

We went, and we had a good time.  No dolphines, but we saw some Roos. 

Afterwards, we drove into Bateman's Bay which is a lot like the marina side of Ocean City.  It's a Bay town, with all of the bay town amenities.  I had a Fish-n-Chips lunch, Jacoby had a Subways sub, and Kimberly had a sort of gourmet chicken sandwich.  Then we drove home.

All in all, it was a lot of driving (it's about 3 hours to Pebbly Beach), but it was a great deal of fun and it got us out of the house, which is the important thing.

We are "wingin' it" for the rest of the week-end.  No real plans, yet.

Next week is more Strategic Studies for me, and more essays to write.  We all have Monday off, so it'll be a short week.  Jacoby has Hockey practice on Tuesday, and we both have Hapkido on Wednesday. 

Again, happy Easter to everyone!  Enjoy your weekend!

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 12:57 AM MEST

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Mood:  cheeky

This week was all about Jacoby...

On Tuesday, he went to his first Hockey practice, and very quickly learned that these guys can skate.  He definately has some catching up to do, but hey, he's only played one season and most of these guys have been playing for years! 

He will have three practices per week.  Monday night is off-ice practice, mostly for endurance and strength building.  Tuesday night he has two practices.  From 5:00p to 6:00p he has Power Skating, and from 6:00p-7:00p is his actual on-ice hockey practice.  He will be busy in the months to come.

-And he still has games on weekends and Hapkido on Wednesday nights.

On Wednesday morning, very early (for him), he left for a three day outdoor adventure with his school.  It is called Outdoor Education and it is a curriculum event.  While at the camp, he went orienteering, canoeing, mountain biking, repelling, slept in tents, and made his own food.  He had a good time!  He came home yesterday and was pleased that he got to sleep in an actual bed...

Today, actually in a couple of hours, Rob and Gail Sanders and their son Matthew will be coming to lunch.  We are having Tex-Mex.  Ordinarily I would say "Tacos," or "Burritos."  However, when I asked Kimberly what she was making, the answer sounded a whole lot like EVERY Tex-Mex dish I could name in ten-seconds or less.  So, we are having Tex-Mex.  All of it...

Afterwards we are going to the Canberra Day Fireworks display.  It's supposed to be the largest fireworks display of the year, for Canberra.  -Even bigger than New Years.  The funny thing is that Canberra Day was last week-end.  It was supposed to be this week-end, but for whatever reason, they changed it.  Not everything can change as easily as a calendar, so the fireworks are tonight instead of last week.  Anyway, it's supposed to be a big event, and we're going.

Work was just work last week.  It was a short week, because of Canberra Day (celebrated on Monday, as per the change).  We are currently studying Strategy, and will for the next several weeks.  I have three assignments due by the end of next week.  One is a 3,500 word essay on the Leadership and Command Analysis of Attila the Hun, a 2,000 word essay on the Strategic Environment in Afghanistan, and another 1,500 word summary of a discussion I have to lead on the topic of Counter Insurgency.  Looks like a lot of time on Word for Windows....

Kimberly continues to do well.  She is keeping herself busy with International Day coming up.  She finished her Uncle Sam pinata, which is fantastic.  She also came to lunch at the school on Friday to meet with the other Americans and spouses to make sure we had International Day locked down.  Outside of that it's been maintaining the household while Jacoby and I are off to school.

I got a ton of pictures from the Joint Capability Tour, but I haven't selected or converted the ones I am going to post here, yet.  Check back in the future and there should be some there.

 Enjoy your week!   I'm sure we will...  :)

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 2:11 AM MEST

Updated: Saturday, 15 March 2008 2:32 AM MEST

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Mood:  a-ok

I haven't written much on this blog outside of Saturday mornings.  Time is a little short with school and activities, so about once a week is all I've got to hammer some of this out.

 That being said, we had a really good day today, and this week is going to be full enough, so I thought I'd throw this week-end into the blog.

It all started on Friday afternoon with Jacoby's hockey team having a BBQ.  We met the rest of the team and several of the parents and jusst generally had a good time.

Saturday was a quiet day, but we did go to the Tradies Club for a buffet lunch that was fantastic.

Today, we drove out to Corin Forest Park.  It's supposed to be a really nice area for both summer and winter fun.  Today, we went up to see the area and ride their Alpine Slide, made by the same people that made the ones we rode in Germany.  All things told, the slide was great!  We each did it twice.

After the slides, we went out to the Gibralter Falls and had a picnic lunch under one of the best views I've seen in quite some time.   After the lunch, we headed out to Tidbinbilla and walked a few trails and then came home.

Tonight ended with dinner in the Greek Club and a few episodes of West Wing.

Tomorrow we are going to a Rugby game between my school team and the Parliamentarians.  It'll be played out in Duntroon, which is their West Point.  About 22 members of Parliament will be at the game, as well as the Chief of the Defence Force (think Secretary of Defense), who will be playing for our team...It'll be fun to watch.

This coming week will see the start of Jacoby's hockey season with the first practice and the first game.  In addition, Jacoby goes to "outdoor education camp" with the school house from Wednesday to Friday.  I think it sounds like a LOT of fun.  He isn't so sure.

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 9:36 AM CET

Updated: Sunday, 9 March 2008 9:54 AM CET

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Mood:  a-ok

Unbelievably, we have already finished the end of the first term of ACSC '08.  We have four terms throughout the year, so, obviously, three more to go, but it's strange to think that we are already a quarter of the way through this tour...

Last week we completed Management of the Australian Defense Organisation (not a spelling mistake in Australia), and the Command, Leadership, and Ethics models.  In completing them, we also wrapped up the overall unit, "Foundation Studies."

CLE was actually pretty interesting.  Some of it was the same ol', same ol' we have been getting through military training since the beginning of time, but some of it was pretty cool.  We have Commander Lippon, who was the Commander of the USS Cole when it was attacked, and the new U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff come to speak to us.  We also had some Aussie big-timers come speak, but I doubt that you would have heard of them...

Technically, the Foundation Studies unit (and thus, Term 1) doesn't end until we are back from our Joint Capabilities tour.  We leave tomorrow (Sunday) very early in the morning on a ten day trip around Australia to see thier warfighting equipment and talk to their soldiers.  We will see tanks, aircraft, ships, submarines, just a ton of stuff, broken out over three military bases that very literally circumnavigate the whole of Australia.  It should be an interesting trip.  I just wish Kimberly could come.  She can't, but then, neither could Jacoby so it's sort of a mute point.

Once we return, we will begin Term 2 - Strategic Studies.

Last night (Friday), we had the McKaskills over for "Pizza and a Movie Night."  I went to Pizza hut, the McKaskills, and Bobby (friend of Jacoby's from school, also an American) came over, and we all ate and watched 300, which the McKaskills hadn't seen.  All in all it was a good night, which ended around 11p, which was fine, because....

Today was my first Adventure Race.  Think Eco-Challenge.  All in all, the course was about 24km on mountain bikes, 9km on foot, 3.4km in a kayak, and another 300m or so swimming.  It was a tough race!  We were in the slow group, since two of the three of us had never done it before, so we started early in the morning.  The guys truly competing started an hour later.  Anyway, we started at around 10a and finished around 2p.  Roughly four hours and change!  We actually led (the slow group) for about 2-3 hours of the race.  Then we couldn’t find one of our checkpoints and fell back pretty far.  Because of all the cross country bush-breaking we had to do to finally find the point, one of the guys (Brett Chandler, the one with experience) had a blow out on his bike.  By the time we got that fixed and made our was through the rest of the course to the finish line, we were still right up close to the front.  Kimberly and Jacoby were there and said we finished around 10th for the day, but the novice course(much shorter distances) was also finishing, so we don't know what that means for us.  Also, the fast people hadn't got there, yet.  Officially, we'll find out how we did via e-mail, once it's all compiled.  I'm extremely happy with our team's performance.  By the way, it was me, Brett (an Aussie), and Phillip (a Brit).  I'm not sure of Phil's last name.

That's about it for this week.  Sorry, no pictures.  I'll write more after the Capabilities Tour.

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 5:47 AM CET

Updated: Sunday, 9 March 2008 9:33 AM CET

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Mood:  happy

-Or Chinese New Year, anyway.  We are celebrating it tomorrow in Canberra's China Town.  Also tomorrow is the Australian National Kung Fu Championships, in which they will determine who will represent Australia in the next Olympics. 

This morning we went to a different fruit and vegatable market which is supposed to be even better than Fyshwich market (where we usually go).  It was okay.  Probably fresher stuff.  Prices were probably a little cheaper.  It was a LOT more crowded and harder to get around.  

Later today is the Pacific Island Showcase and the Indonesia Showcase, both taking place downtown.  Between those two events is the U.S. Embassy celebration of Mardi Gras as the Marine House.  It's more about the BBQ than the beads... :)

Last week in school we started two units.  One was MADO, or Management of the Australian Defence Course, and the other was Command, Leadership, and Ethics (CLE).  We did more MADO than CLE.  Next week is more CLE than MADO.

MADO has been all about the governance and accountability of the Australian Defence Force.  We've learned about their capability developement process and acquisitions, how their government interacts with the military (accountability), the changes in their defence force structure, and the like.  It has been interesting, particularly when looking at how vastly different our military does these things.

We have an Adventure Race coming up!  In preperation, we went mountain biking last Wednesday, which was a tremendous amount of fun.  -And also I'm not good at it!  I spent about an hour stumbling along the trails, falling off the bike, running into rocks, or just not being able to negotiate the hairpin turns of the trail.  There is a degree of skill required that I just don't have.  Yet.  But the race is next weekend, and while they don't post the route or specific details about what we will have to do (sort of the point of the "Adventure"), they have released what we all need to be prepared to do.  It includes a 24km mountain bike ride, a 9km bush run (cross country), 3km kayake, and a mystery 300m, that my team is guessing will be a lake crossing, since they made a strong point of telling us that we need to waterproof our gear.  The race is expected to take between 4-5 hours to complete.  It'll be a fun day!

Yesterday, Kimberly and I went on a tour of the Old Parliment House.  Jacoby didn't want to go.  Anyway, Old Parliment House was built as a temporary fit for their Parliment back in 1927.  After the war, they just couldn't afford to build the one they had planned, so they built this one until they could.  It stayed in use until the 1980's, when they finally completed and openned the new one, which you have already sen in pictures.  It was a neat tour, followed by snacks in the Old Parliment Cafe.  The snacks were great anmd we met some really nice people that we talked to for about an hour before we had to leave for our next event.

Immediately following, we had a dinner at the college.  It was a social dinner, so there were no speeches or formal presentations.  It was merely a chance for our Guidance Groups to get together with our spouses, meet everyone, and just enjoy each other's company.  We stayed for a few hours and again, met and conversed with some really great people.

That about sums up last week.  Next week is more CLE and MADO, and then the Adventure Race on Saturday.  Sunday I leave for a ten-day ADF Capability Tour, in which we will travel around Australia's military bases to see what they've got.  I'll have much more on this, later.

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 11:55 PM CET

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Mood:  happy

Today deserves a special mention on the blog.

As I've already stated, Canberra is currently celebrating its Multicurtural Festival, which it does every year.  We went last night for the kickoff music and dance at the Fringe stage, which was great! 

Today, we went back to the festival and found over 160 tents with people from all over the world, each one with food to sample or buy, there are four stages with dance groups and musicians coming and going every 15-30 minutes.  We sat for a while and listened to some great music from around the world.  We saw several dance groups perform.  -And we ate.  Oh, man, did we eat. 

Being Saturday (yeah!) we literally went from tent to tent and sampled just about everything from the dates and figs in the Middle East section (United Arab Emerates, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, all where there) to the pastries of Greece and Sri Lanka, to the rice and curry from India and China, to the kebabs of Bosnia, and so on and so on. 

Then, when all was said and done, we went to the National Gallery for their Underground Sounds concert.  It was held in the underground parking garage of the National Gallery.  It was a no alcohol, no smoking, free to the public, Australian Hip Hop concert, complete with local rappers and DJs and a few from around Australia (and one from the States).  It was a great concert!  It was amazing to see kids, grown ups, teens, everyone just enjoying the hip hop music of today.  Seriously, this would never happen in the states.  There were people of ALL ages, just head bobbin' along with the music...

We are going back to the festival tomorrow, but it is a different venue of events.  We are hoping to find some fun at the Greek Glendy event, and then attend the BBQ at the Coale's house in the afternoon.

-That is, after I run about 150 miles tomorrow morning, to make up for today...  :)

Posted by kisajaja at 11:19 AM CET

Updated: Saturday, 9 February 2008 11:36 AM CET

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Mood:  happy

-And so ends the Critical Thinking and Communications unit, along with another week.

 First, last weekend.  We went to a few events last weekend.  Friday night, Rob Sanders, my Syndicate Buddy, invoted Kimberly, Jacoby, and I over to his house for pizza and information sharing about Australia.  I think I wrote about this last week, so I'll move on.  Sunday morning, we drove out Hall to partake in their market experience.  It was neat!  It's easily the largest flea market we have seen so far, and we were told it was small in comparison to it's usual size.  We walked the whole thing, plyed with the animals for sale, bought some woodwork and such.  It was a really nice market and we will be back! 

Sunday night we went to the Irish Club, had dinner, and listened to a small band playing Irish/celtic folk music from 5p-8p.  We stayed for the whole thing.  They were fantastic!  The club does this every Sunday night, with different groups performing different types of music, so we will enjoy varying degrees of entertainment from week to week, but last week was perfect.  The band was great, the food was good (and cheap!), and the people went out of there way to wander over to our table and introduce themselves and make us feel welcome.  I can see us spending several Sundays evenings there.

 This week was all about learning some of the many different tools for identifying/defining the problem or issue, assemilating large quantities of data, breaking large problems into smaller details, evaluating decision criteria, developing countermeasures for threats and weaknesses, etc, etc. 

This week's sport, which happens every Wednesday afternoon, I went with the running club on a short run.  I am not actually a member of the running club, simply because I wanted to try something different.  I joined the Adventure Racing Club, which is sort of like Eco-Challenge.  As such, thre are several disciplines including running, mountain biking, kayaking, canoeing, even rock climbing and rapelling.  They always throw in something out of left field like roller blading or scooters, as we were told by the team last year.  Anyway, our first race is coming up in two weeks.  Last week we trained with the runners.  Next week will be with the mountain bikers.

Jacoby started Hogwar-, now wait, Canbera Grammar school this week!  To be honest, it was a rough first day.  His Housemaster assigned him a "buddy" to show him to his classes and make sure he had someone to talk to, to ask questions, and such.  Turns out the kid assigned wasn't at all interested in helpng Jacoby, so he was left to fend for himself.  He did fine, and got where he needed to get, but attitudes flaired a bit when he got home, presumably out of frustration.  Wednesday was a much better day.  Thursday was fine.  Friday was another rough day, for reasons I don't fully understand.  Apparently he burned himself in Science (on the bunsen burner, then got splashed with water by another student playing in the sink, then he got moved to a different math class to ease overcrowding in the first...He swears this math class is harder, to which I say, "Good!"  All in all, his attitude got the better of him and it stayed with him throughout the evening.  It wasn't until we got to the festival last night that it sort of abated a bit.

And that brings us to the Fringe Festival.  Last night started the Canberra Multicurtural Festival, which will go for eleven days.  Last night was a kick-off music and dance show with several artists/groups/troops introducing their acts and saying where they will be throughout the show.  It was fantastic.  They had a drum group called Circle of Rhythm that was probably some of the best drum work from three people that I've ever heard.  We saw the Chooky Dancers perform three songs worth, live. (You can see them on youtube, if you are interested).   -And there were others.

We will be going back today for music, dancing, and food throughout the day, tomorrow, and next weekend.

We also have an American gathering on Sunday.  The Coales (LTC Joe Coale and his wife Melissa) are students in CDSS (sort of like our War College, but on the same campus as us) have invited all of the Americans (all 4 of us) to their house for a BBQ. 

So, busy weekends ahead!

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 9:48 PM CET

Updated: Saturday, 16 February 2008 10:23 PM CET

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Mood:  happy

Last week was a busy one!  We had our first unit of lectures, which covered Critical Thinking and Communications, we had our first paper due, and we had our first official formal event, which was a Dining In at the school.  Not to mention the Volleyball competition and the social engagements.

Our first unit is Critical Thinking and Communication.  It is mostly Australian Grammer, sentence structure, essay writing (both defense and academic), and such.  It also covered argument formation, organization, fallacies in reasoning, and critical outlook. 

Our first paper was called Exercise Aspirant.  In it, we had to describe the major lessons learned in our career thus far, our near- and far-term aspirations for our careers, and what we hoped to gain from this year at the staff school.  They didn't tell us this, but these papers were "formatively assessed" against the critical thinking evaluation criteria and was used to give the instructors an initial assessment of our writing abilities.  Luckily, I did pretty well on it, though it was "formative" (meaning not formally graded) and not "summative" (meaning for an actual grade).  It was a 1,500 word essay, plus or minus 10%.

Next week we will be doing Exercise Short Talk, which is a 5-minute oral presentation of the same material.  It is also formative, and will judge presenters' briefing styles and abilities.

The Volleyball tournament was held on Wednesday, and was used to formally introduce the students to the weekly sports requirements.  We get to pick the sports we will participate in from now on, but last week was Volleyball.  Kimberly and Jacoby showed up for the games, which were held on the outdoor sand courts on the campus.  My syndicate won fourth place of the 15, or so.

I said that Kimberly and Jacoby came.  The truth is, they showed up after having left the Prime Minister's XI Cricket match against Sri Lanka.  This is something like an "all-star" team.  Basically, the Prime Minister picks eleven up-and-coming stars of the game to compete against an international team.  They discribed the game as being dreadfully boring, which we knew.  The most fun part of the game was talking to the people in the stands.  As it turns out, both of the people on their left and right had recently been to the D.C. area in the States, so there were lots of stories to tell. 

Apparently the players were pretty bored, too, as several of the Sri Lankan "outfielders" decided in the middle of the game to just wander over and sign a few autographs, get some gatorade, hang out with the crowd and then rejoin the game.  It was a one-day match, which is a fast game, but still takes all day (7 hours).  Australia was batting the whole three hours they were there.

 On Wednesday night, Jacoby and I went to Hapkido for our second class in Australia.  I think Jacoby likes the class, as he is making friends fast and once class ended, he began to play/spar with one of the other younger adults.  I eventually had to tell him it was time to go.  It looks like Jez Attridge may be joining the same program, which is great.  Jez is my British friend from the course, who is married to an American from California names Jana.  Anyway, Jez and I were talking Martial Arts the other day, so I invited him to the school.  He came and liked what he saw, and says he is interested in joining up!  It'll be fun to train with him as he is just a good, fun guy to be around.

Saturday was a quiet day.  We went to the Greek Club for lunch, which we became members of last week-end.  It was a great lunch, followed by dinner with my officially assigned "Syndicate Buddy" and his family, Rob and Gail Sanders and their son Matthew.  We had a great time eatting home-made pizzas which Gail is very good at making.  We sat and talked about where to find things in Australia and what to see on vacations.  We talked mostly about Tasmania, since I think that is our next trip.

We also joined the Irish Club and will be going there for dinner tonight to hear Irish folk music and enjoy some traditional Irish fare.  But, this morning, we are going to the Hall Markets, which is a flea-market sort of "trash-n-treasures" in the town of Hall in northern Canberra.  It is the largest one around, and only happens once a month, on the first Sunday.

Good luck with your next week!

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 9:59 PM CET

Updated: Friday, 8 February 2008 9:48 PM CET

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