Thursday, June 24, 2010

Well, today Australia made history with its first ever female prime minister taking over.  I think the way their system works is that if the current prime minister appears to be losing popularity, like this one was, then his party can replace him with someone else, until another election is held.   Not sure when that will be but this is the first time they've had a female running the country, so things should be really, really good from here on out.

Last Saturday we tried something we'd never heard of before, called orienteering.  Basically you go out to a forested area, they give you a topographic map and a compass, and you're expected to find several different electronic markers before returning to the starting point, with the whole thing being timed in case you feel competitive.  Well Bill loved plotting the course, like I figured he would, and I was just along for the hike.  It's all cross country, except for a short trail in the beginning, and most of the participants were running through the brush instead of walking.  Crazy people.  We finished the first, easy course in less than an hour so went back for a longer one, and that one took a little over 2 hours.  Bill used the compass and map to find the markers, and my sole contribution was to put the peg in the electronic thing to mark we'd been there.  If it'd been up to me to find our way we'd still be out there stumbling around in the bush.