Weather was great today but I spent in the Opera House with some friends. For the first visit there, we all agreed an opera was in order. We went to La Boheme, an Italian opera by Puccini, about 4 young artists living life to the fullest. Running at 2 1/2 hours it surprised me how quickly the time flew. During intermission, we could see a wonderful view of the harbor during the remainder of the Saturday afternoon.

Afterwords, we grab a quick bite to eat while we sat doing some people watching at Circular Quay. I didn't get to stay long since I had to catch a ferry back home.

One week later and after my checkup today, both eyes are 20/20. There's a great freedom in not being tied to my contacts or glasses any more. It's just great to wake up without grabbing glasses first thing.

Latest news- I'm working and planning for my next couple trips. I hope to get up to Brisbane over Columbus day weekend and I'm looking forward to a trip to New Zealand in November. During the interim I'm still cycling and running, at least starting to run this weekend now that my shoulder is feeling better. My boss lent me an Ironman video about Western Australia's Ironman race. So now I'm feeling the call to test my mettle. We'll see how that turns out as I get back into working out.

Not much else to say but my prayers go out to those still needing help from the aftermath of Katrina.

Take "Clockwork Orange", "Six million dollar man", and "Minority Report" and you get what I felt like walking in to the Eye Institute to have lasik surgery. But my worries were taken care of shortly by the professional staff and first rate surroundings.

PLEASE NOTE SOME DETAILS OF CORRECTIVE EYE SURGERY ARE WRITTEN BELOW.
I went in for a pre checkup early this morning and shortly after began the steps involved to correct my vision problem of over 32 years. Alot of the questions I had were answered last month during my regular checkup, but I still felt the need to double check on what was involved during the mornings events. I won't go into the details for the sake of the skimish. But even after talking to several people over the years that have had the process done, I still knew there would be moments of the unknown and didn't know for sure how I'd react.

After the initial cutting of a flap on the cornea, (ok I gotta talk about it) I was told that was the most nervous part most people encounter. During the cutting, I was laying on a aoft table with my eyes propped open and a device that covered my each eye while the lasik process caused a feeling of pressure on my ansesitised eyes. It told about one minute for the cutting of each eye.

A short rest before the surgery and then I was takin to main operating room where my Doctor was waiting to do the voodoo that he does. This process was a bit longer and it involved once again securely positioning each eye for the surgery. The Doc repositioned my cornea and then the coolest part of the whole operation started. A computerized female voice quietly said in a calm tone, "Aquired". The laser tracking began and I watched as the overhead device began finishing the corrective work. I forgot to ask for valium before the whole process. I was surprised how little pain was felt during the whole thing.

So now I await the recovery of my vision. Already my eyesight is better than it was without glasses.

Since I'll have to wait for the first X-wing or Landspeeder to be invented, I'm looking for something to use on weekends or supply runs to the stores. I heard Sydney has auctions with used scooters for sale but haven't had any luck seeing any listings. If anyone knows of any going on let me know. I could buy a car but due to the limited time I'll be here it's cost prohibitive to invest in one and sell it before I leave. Where as a vespa or vmoto scooter could be taken with me to the next post. Drop me a line if anyone seeing this knows of regular auctions.

The day has finally arrived. If you want to see some of the sights around Sydney, I've linked several web galleries to the left for your viewing pleasure. I know I promised them weeks ago but it's hard to sort them out for posting when every day seems to taunt you with warm weather and blue skies.

More pictures are on the way. I promise. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures from the Sydney Harbor bridgeclimb I did last week to celebrate my birthday. I know it's a corny tourist thing to do but I couldn't resist.

On that note, I'll like to go on record as now being one of the only people in the world to; jog over, drive on, traverse by train, climb over and cycle thru the Harbor Bridge all in the matter of seven days. Get the Guinness people on the phone.

(Sept 4th, traveled over by train
Sept 5th, climbed and drove over
Sept 11th, jogged and cycled over)

The jogging was accomplished with the 9km Bridge run I did this morning as part of Blackmore's Marathon race day. If the training goes well, I might be doing the actual Marathon next year.