Mo' money

What: Mo-vember
Get sponsored to grow an outrageous moustache and keep it for the entire month of Mo-vember. Men can get sponsored individually or in teams. Nathan and his male colleagues at Ranford Road Veterinary Clinic are all involved.

Why: The sponsorships raise money for Men's Health, in Australia they focus on Prostate Cancer and Mental Health. These issues are close to both our hearts....as Nathan's grandfather and my dad have been affected.

How: Each participant asks friends and family to sponsor him to grow the mustache. The participant endures 1 month of facial hair with regular teasing and intermittent giggles. For instance, at about 1 week into it, one participant (who shall remain nameless) faced his loving wife to kiss her goodnight, but she started giggling because it was like sleeping with Emilio Estevez from Stakeout.

Participants also report they face endless commentary about the quality of their mustache (what is that the reverse hitler?), who the mustache makes them look like (Seth Green, really?). After a few weeks, participants grow more comfortable with the mustache beginning classic mo behaviours such as the "goatee stroke" and other such grooming (which returns said wife to giggles).

It is a great deal to endure...but it's for a good cause.

How you can help?

Sponsor Nathan at Movember
or www.au.movember.com registration number: 1868476
Plus the website has other cool features like helping you to select your mo style, blog pages etc.

Who do you think Nathan looks like with his mo?
We want to know your thoughts...but remember Nathan is enduring your jeering for charity. So...if you want to tease him, at least pay for the privilege.

Did we forget something?

Like, the month of October?
I don't know if you noticed or care, but we went pretty much from Summer Olympics to election, and didn't tell you all the cool stuff that happened in October! So...quick rundown.
Frantic cleaning and scurrying getting ready for a visit from Todd and Steph. We felt a little nervous, actually, since they had a limited amount of time, and WA is almost unlimited in scope, and we want everyone to enjoy themselves while at the same time appreciating the natural beauty, cultural and culinary delights, and enjoying the weather. That's a tall order for a 10 day visit.
So we tried a trip to Margaret River, a wine region like a cross between Napa Valley and the surf culture in the movie Point Break. Food, wine, and there are some cool crafts and stuff, but we managed to go to town every day 5 minutes after the shops closed. Some kayaking where we showed up the day after the whale encounter. Just hanging out, contenting ourselves with catching up and watching a movie in the beach house while it turned wet outside (thankfully, just after our walk). A little barbecued seafood (just shark and snapper, no shrimp on the barbie), a couple of haute cuisine meals out, and it was back up to Perth.
A visit to Cottesloe to show off the latest in swimwear -- or, more to the point, hang out on the beach and show off your bod wear -- a lunch on the river, where Todd found out all about the Australian fly plague, and a day or two for the VIPs to bum around Fremantle and have a tour from the director of the Maritime museum, prison tour. A trip up north was called off on account of time restrictions and danger of deep vein thrombosis (it's a long drive, folks), so instead we went to Mandurah and cuddled some of the orphaned Joeys being raised by some of the staff members at the clinic in which I work.
The sad time came for those guys to take off, and I went to work thinking of how long it would be before we would all catch up again, only to get the call from Kris that their flight was delayed...12 hours. I think that most of that day was spent hanging out, preparing themselves for the long flight back, and then we had a farewell dinner at a restaurant on the beach.
When all is said and done, it was a great time to catch up, and we'll miss those guys.

A few days of work, then I got another little break. In between hockey playoff games (I played goalie this year, and our team made the finals of the playoffs, only to lose in straight games), I took a quick trip up to Exmouth.
A little over an hour in the air, but 20 degrees warmer than Perth, it was sailfishing with one of the clinic owners. I am ashamed that I was lucky enough to enjoy beautiful, flat water for 2 and 1/2 days during which we saw dozens of sea turtles, humpback whales playing and courting, dolphins, and (it still makes me a little nervous), a shark longer than the boat is wide, at least 9-10 feet, which swam directly over the teasers that we had out to draw in the sailfish.
Strictly catch and release, Steve is only happy with billfish (sailfish, marlin, swordfish), and has a goal to get every member of his family a sailfish. So it was, that we had a day and a half with hi sbrother on board where we saw only bait.
Finally, after much lamentation and a little grovelling on Steve's part, Rick (the brother), got hooked into a sailfish. Much, much more satisfying than the barracuda which hit his marlin rod the day before.
So far, we had caught a shark, barracuda, tuna, queenfish...but I had yet to hook a sail. So when we had a double-hookup, we knew that the time had come for me to finally reel one in. One fish got loose, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since I ended up fighting my fish for over 45 minutes, driving several miles to keep up. But all during the struggle, we kept waiting for the fish to jump, but it would not. This led to speculation about what kind of fish it really was, since it was not behaving in a natural way for a sailfish. We thought, spanish mackerel? Tuna? Bigger shark?
The answer was a sailfish...brought in backwards. I hooked it in the tail, and the line then wrapped around the base of the tail, reminiscent of snagging salmon in Alaska. The fish was exhausted, I was exhausted, and Steve was exultant that we had caught a second sailfish on switchbait. We swam the fish to revive it a little, then turned it loose. If it had had a middle finger, I get the distinct impression that it would have shown it to us as it kicked wearily for the deeps.
So that's all the excitement for October. A short-lived playoff beard for hockey made its way down the sink near the end of the month, to make way for...Movember. You will hear more on this soon. Probably in mocking tones from my easily-amused wife.

Did we forget something?

(the following post is written while hanging in a hammock in the sunshine, glass of chilled chenin blanc nearby, thinking of all of you in the snow...or does that sound too smug?)

Hail to the Chief (Elect)

Ahhh...what a feeling, what a relief.
Of course you know to what I am referring.
It's that sense that, when somebody asks me where I'm from (and this happens roughly a billion times daily), I don't have to be embarrased by saying that I'm American.
Until recently, it was okay to say that I was Alaskan -- but since Palin came on the scene, Alaska has been viewed less as a groovy frontier kind of place, and more as the home of overreaching whackjobs who abuse their authority. That isn't my opinion of course, I'm just repeating what the rest of the world is saying. I still quite like Alaska, think of it as my home, and have great memories of playing hockey in Wasilla against a team that was, mercifully, Palin-free. As far as I know.
I had the day off, more by luck than design, but it was good timing. I drove out to Kris' office, we shared a glass of champagne with her boss John and our friend Phil, and listened to the victory speech. It was a speech so well-crafted that Kris was moved, just for a moment, to go back into political rhetoric. It was enough to bring tears to my eyes. As (president elect) Barack said, speaking to us directly, I am sure, "all those watching tonight from beyond our shores...those who are huddled around radios in forgotten corners of the world..." Now, I wouldn't exactly call Perth a forgotten corner of the world...okay, maybe I've called it that once or twice, but I didn't know that it would show up in (president elect) Barack's speech!

Anyway, this was just to let you all know that we haven't abandoned the blog, we've just been pretty busy. More soon about October (Todd and Steph and our trip down south), as well as November (Nanowrimo, Movember, Triathlons, and more!).