This is a diary of six months in Australia in 1994, with
my family - Bev, Adam age 5, and Nathan age 2.

**************11 July**************

   I'm here!

   The first day here we bought a car.  Exhausting, but I think we got 
a reasonably good one.  Huge, actually, an old station wagon, large
enough to hold all our 8 big duffel bags & suitcases, assorted carry-ons,
and family, and still see out the back.  I'm sure the gas mileage is abysmal.

   The next two days we spent visiting a family, who kindly
offered to host us.  They had visited the states a while ago, and knew
a friend of Bev's.  We had a great time there -- spent one day
bushwalking (hiking in the forest), in a national park.  Quite
different scenery from here, odd rock formations, very different
fauna, mostly eucalyptus trees.  The colors are different, more muted,
greenish-blues and browns, almost as in a dream.  We hiked to a remote
valley, and the kids (theirs and ours) had a blast throwing rocks in
the pool, trying to splash each other.  Spent the next day at an
animal park, a private zoo, where we could pet wallabies (small
kangaroos) and koala bears.  Koalas are cute, lethargic, and very
soft.  They also had a crocodile, about 4 meters long---very scary,
especially considering that they get up to about 9 meters long.  I
don't want to meet one of them without a nice fence in between.  Lots
of other interesting fauna.  I enjoyed the grossed-out faces of the
11- and 9-year old girls of the family, after they witnessed a very
large bat pissing.  Got that on video.  Nathan's reaction to emus was
"big-big-bird".  He got that one right.

   We're now in Canberra.  A planned city, or so they tell me.
Personally, I'm not sure that anyone planning a city would be crazy
enough to lay out the streets like this, all curved this way and
that, nearly impossible to find your way around in.  Well, OK, I'm
starting to get the hang of it.  And I'm getting used to driving on
the left side of the road.  Though, at the beginning, Bev nearly had a
heart attack.  It wasn't actually that I was driving on the wrong side
of the road.  It was that the first evening, after we bought our ocean
liner, and were driving in the dark out of Sydney city to the family
on narrow fast roads, Bev kept thinking that I was too close to the
left side of the road.  Well, if I'd moved to the right I would have
been in the next lane.  And, then there's the truck that strayed into
our lane, and I swear that the bed of that truck was above my
rear-view mirror at one point!

   Back to Canberra.  Planned city, with hills maintained as open space,
many parks.  Reminds me a lot of Palo Alto, CA --- dry landscape,
Eucalyptus trees, many beautifully-landscaped homes on relatively
small lots.  There is actually logic to the planning of the roads,
especially if you like fractals---large curved roads, curved roads
attaching to those, smaller curved roads attached to those, ...
I think I'll submit a map of the city to a fractal art contest.
There are a fair number of bikeways, which is how I'll probably
eventually commute.

   We're living in university-owned housing, and meeting many other 
foreigners.  We might send Adam to a different pre-school, rather than
the neighborhood school, just to give us a better chance to meet Aussies.
Not too many people are around the university right now, as it is the
vacation both for the university and for schools as well.  It's been
a bit difficult getting set up for classes, because of that.  But I'm
making progress.  And I haven't seen they guy I came to visit yet.

   We rented bikes one Saturday, and took a ride around the
central lake in Canberra with another couple.  A wonderful scenic
ride, about 15 miles, on great bike paths.  We passed the Captain Cook
water jet, a fountain that squirts water 140m (about 450') into the
air, the National Capital exhibition, a striking Carillion, the High
Court, National Gallery, Yacht Club, and National Aquarium.  Then the
other woman mistook a white barrier in the middle of the bike path for
a white line, and ran into it.  She broke the pedal off the bike, but
more importantly, she heard her baby's bike helmet thud and scrape
along the ground.  Only a cut lip, thanks to the bike helmet.  Bike
helmets are required in Australia, and almost everyone uses them, and
I'll never go without one again.

   The stars are incredible here.  Took Adam and Nathan out for a walk
last night, around 6 (remember it's winter here).  The air must
be drier, with less light pollution, than in PA.  So Adam wanted to
know about planets, and stars, and humans on other planets.  Very
contemplative questions for a while, before he turned back into a 
5-year-old and raced me to the next tree.

************** 7 October **************

   Well, it's been a long time since I wrote.  A bit about our
daily life.  We live in a church built by dwarfs.  The showers are a
perfect dwarf height, but I have to shower on my knees, and even then
must bow my head.  The ceilings are high and sloping, to give glory to
God - never mind that the meager heat rises straight to the top.  The
university has even taken to installing large 20' socks in each
apartment with a fan at the top, to blow hot air from the ceiling down
to the floor, but mostly the fans make the place even more drafty.
The church is designed to encourage plenty of fresh air, with plenty
of cracks around windows and doors, and a large drafty window on the
side of the upstairs shower.  That window is the right height to let a
dwarf see out, but is low enough that Bev is too embarrassed to use
the shower.

   The great thing about where we live is the community of other
visitors to the university.  Bev and the kids have "tea" every morning
and afternoon with other families, and there are plenty of kids around
for Adam to play with.  Bev was quite apprehensive about coming here,
because she anticipated being stranded alone with only our kids for
company; exactly the opposite has happened.  She once remarked that
she would "move here in a minute".

   The next great thing is the city of Canberra.  It's a great
city, with a lot of parks and playgrounds, good bikeways, and many
interesting things connected with being the nation's capital -- a
wonderful science museum, Parliament House, national aquarium,
national library, museums, etc.  We've done something different almost
every weekend day since we've arrived.  Cockington Green is a very
detailed scale model miniature English village, with trains you can
ride on.  Weston Park includes playgrounds, a walk-through maze, and a
train you can ride on.  We went to a train museum, with old cars and
locomotives, and a model train you could ride on.  We visited a model
train convention with some wonderful old trains and many elaborate
setups, including one you could ride on.  Do you notice a common theme
here?  Adam took a camel ride at the train convention.  Do you know
how big camels are?  And how awkward they are when they get up?  They
straighten out their back legs first, with no attempt to keep the top
of their body level.  Adam loved it.

   The Weston Park playgrounds deserve more description.  They
had a huge tree house, a maze/tunnel setup sized for kids, streams for
kids to get wet in, long walls like old pioneer forts, and finally a
round castle-tower like object, about 25' tall, with horizontal beams
inside you could climb on to get to the top.  This, and many other
playgrounds, are great fun, and would never be built in the
U.S. because of liability concerns.  Those concerns are not
groundless.  A six-year friend of Adam's slipped off one of the beams,
and hit his head on another beam on the way down.  He had a minor
concussion, but might have been killed had he hit the beam more
squarely.

   Another way that Australians are safety conscious is with
respect to the sun.  The national slogan is "slip, slop, slap" -- slip
on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen, and slap on a hat.  Many, many,
people wear hats here, and kids have to take hats to school.  Some
people walk around with umbrellas on the sunniest days.  We buy
sunscreen in big one-liter (1.1 quart) pump containers.  "Skin Cancer"
shops sell clothing with an SPF factor of 100, for children and adults
to wear to the beach and elsewhere.  This concern is justified -- the
sun is much more intense here than anything I have encountered in the
northern hemisphere, and we're not even into summer yet.  The official
word is that 2 out of 3 Australians will have skin cancer at some time
in their lives (3/4 of those cases will be the nonlethal but ugly
form, the rest one of the two potentially deadly kinds).  You don't
find the same complacency about the ozone layer there that you do
here.  The ozone layer may be thinner here, and we're not far from the
yearly ozone hole over the antarctic.  There is speculation that the
sun may be why some kangaroos are going blind.  We found an absolutely
great hat for Adam at a flea market, khaki with a wide brim.  He looks
like a real outback Aussie.

   The birds are amazing, to one accustomed to the relatively
drab birds of North America.  Sulphur-crested Cockatoos are a large
bird, pure white except for light yellow under the wings and a yellow
crest, a set of feathers on top of their head that they fold out like
the crest on a Roman soldier's helmet.  They frequent the windows by
my office, because some people nearby feed them.  They expect me to
feed them too, sometimes landing on my windowsill, and threatening me
by pecking the window, sticking out their gray tongs, and bobbing
their heads.  King parrots (orangish-red belly, lime-green wings) and
crimson rosellas (deep red bellies and deep blue wings) also frequent
the feeders.  Rainbow lorikeets have just about every color of the
rainbow.  But the Cockatoos are the king of the roost, chasing other
birds and each other away from food.  Their cawing sound is
unmistakable, and ugly.  In contrast, the black and white magpie
("Pie" to Nathan) has a sweet warbling I love.  But, these sweet birds
turn aggressive at breeding time, defending their territory from other
magpies, other birds, and humans.  People call it the "swooping"
season; and they don't just swoop, sometimes they peck.  Some people
paint eyes on the back of their bicycle helmets and hats, because the
magpies like to attack from behind.  One swooping magpie chose
territory that included a playground we wanted to use -- we went
elsewhere.  Ah yes, and then there is the crying-baby-bird.  You know
how every mother knows the sound of her own baby?  Well, these birds
sound like a perfect generic baby.  The first time Bev and another
mother heard one of these, they both jumped up to help their babies.
There are gallahs, gray birds with rose-colored bellies.  Don't forget
the kookaburras, the unmistakable kookaburras, with their
insane-asylum laugh.  Finally, spectacular twin-breasted birds can be
found on some of the beaches, particularly in Sydney, where the
Japanese tourists line up with telephoto lenses to shoot pictures of
the wildlife.

   We live a short walk away from Red Hill, one of the many parks
spread throughout Canberra.  Bev goes for a walk three mornings a week
there with other women from our neighborhood.  You often see kangaroos
there in the morning or evening (during the day they keep a low
profile).  I bike to the Uni now, and the shortest way is over Red
Hill, a rather extreme climb.  The ride takes me about 25 minutes, at
a stiff pace.

   Kangaroos are lovable creatures.  They hop when they want to
go far or fast, and it's a spectacle to watch a mob of them hopping.
Mostly they forage, moving around the most awkward way possible --
supporting themselves with the bottom of their thick tail and their
undersized front legs, while they move their large back legs a bit
forward, then roll forward off their back legs to begin the process
again.  The young do ride in the mother's pouch, sometimes diving in
head first, to ride around with their back legs and tails sticking
out.

   The other national emblem of Australia is the emu, a large
bird like an ostrich.  They have thin black feathers on their neck, a
mass of feathers hanging over their bodies like an early Beatles
haircut, a long supple neck, big wide beak, and to top it off, long
eyelashes that make it look like they're trying to be pretty.  It
doesn't help.  We had a picnic in Tidbinbilla Nature Preserve and one
joined us, looking for handouts.  Having an emu as tall as me lurking
around trying to steal food made me nervous, especially after hearing
of a previous visitor who was pecked during such a picnic, and
hearing that emus can peck your eyes out.

   Also at Tidbinbilla was a complex of large fenced areas we
could walk through containing different kinds of Australian fauna --
the large red kangaroos that are native to central Australia, grey
kangaroos from around here, wallabies (small kangaroos) from the
forest, many kinds of water birds, parrots, and koalas.  Koalas are
lovable creatures, but not very exciting to watch.  They mostly sleep
during the day.  The rangers go around each morning, trying to spot
them, and put signs by the trees they're in.  Then visitors go to
those trees, and even then it is hard to spot the koalas.

   On the way home from Tidbinbilla we stopped at the Canberra
Deep Space Communications Complex, one of three such facilities in the
world.  They had HUGE radio antennas, and various films and exhibits.

   Let's run through some of the other things we've done.  The
highlight of the Australian War Memorial was a huge "Lancaster" bomber
hung from the ceiling.  There were also mock-ups of the WWI trenches,
that the kids enjoyed.  OK, so Adam got the biggest thrill from the
volunteer there, who would roll up a bandage like a roll of toilet
paper, then unroll it fast, and repeat the process over and over
again.  Yarralumla playground had a huge, 30' tall spider web you
could climb on (which would never be built in the U.S.).
Cuppacumbalong Craft Center and Ginninderra Village have historic
buildings, housing shops.

   Lanyon is an old sheep ranch, with a beautiful old house, the
old kitchen, old gardens, old storage buildings, etc.  The ranch was
started with convict labor, back in the earliest days of Australia,
and we saw the first stone building built there, using convict labor,
which was the storehouse for seed.  The first owner of the property
had a lot of problems with his help.  One of his convicts "lost" a
whole herd of sheep one time, and 450 sheep another.  The owner made
frequent use of the system of justice (flogging) provided in the
nearest town, but that seemed to make matters worse.  At one point
that owner had eight of his convicts who had "gone bush" (run away and
turned into bushrangers, i.e. outlaws).  He went bankrupt.  Later
owners were more prosperous.  The biggest thrill for the kids were the
two old tractors -- one immense old steam engine, with 8' wheels, and a
McCormick Farmall, perhaps 40 years old, like one I used to drive on
Grandpa Hinsman's farm.  I let them "drive" that, and explained what
the various buttons, pedals, and other contraptions were for.  On the
way back I stopped with the kids (ours, and some of Adam's friends) at
a stream, where we waded through to sandbanks, and attempted to make a
dam out of sand -- but the narrower the hole got, the faster the water
went (funny how that works), so we never finished, but still great
fun.

   Mugga Lane Zoo is a caricature of what a zoo should not be --
small cages, underfunded, few visitors.  Still, we enjoyed it, because
the owners encourage people to feed the animals -- in fact, your
admission includes some crackers for the animals.  The hard part was
making those crackers last past the monkeys, various sheep and goats,
birds, donkeys, dingos, kangaroos, wallabies, emus, and the camel.
The emus were our first up-close-and-personal encounter with that
bird, and they were rather insistent about being fed.  The camel, on
the other hand, ignored us, and ignored us, but then came running over
at a trot.  Did you know how big a camel is?  Nathan was terrified,
and Adam even passed on feeding that creature.  It's quite an
experience to have a huge camel, with huge lips and teeth, take a
small cracker from your hand.  Poor camel -- that small cracker was all
we had left, as we (like most visitors), went the way around that put
the camel at the end.

   One Saturday I took Adam, Nathan, and two friends Elizabeth
and Bronwyn to Ginnindera Falls (while Bev checked out a crafts
center).  Saw the Falls from a (precarious) lookout, then went above
the Falls and spent the day playing by the stream, on the rocks,
painting the rocks with water, and all the other things that kids
think of.

   We went to the National Aquarium with other of Adam's friends.
It's like the Baltimore Aquarium, on a smaller scale, but has a neat
clear tunnel through the big tank.  Then outdoors is a big area, with
tasmanian devils, wombats, kangaroos, dingos, etc.

   Kangaroos seem to be almost everywhere.  Not only in zoos, but
in the wild.  They are actually a hazard when you are driving outside
of cities, because they can do a fair amount of damage to your auto if
you hit one.  Many people have "roo bars" mounted in front of the car
to spare the car.  Driving along you see many road-kill kangaroos, and
we've driving within 5 feet of kangaroos foraging at twilight beside
the road.

   You can ask Bev about the National Gallery, National Library,
and American Embassy.  We all went to Parliament House, a huge, $1
billion complex of buildings on top of a hill, visible from all over
Canberra.  The flag over the building is the size of a double-decker
bus.  It's a beautiful building, designed to reflect Australia's
outdoors.  The lower chamber is decorated in subtle shades of grayish
green, like the Eucalyptus forests, and the upper in shades of brick
red, like the great red center of the continent.  What did the kids
like best?  At the end, when they rolled down the grass that covers
part of the building, and then played in the fountains out front.

   Oh yes, the Eucalyptus trees, known as "gum trees".  They are
the dominant tree around here, as they are able to withstand drought
and fire.  In some parts of Australia, like the rain forest, trees
grow straight, but not here.  The gums twist upward like a meandering
stream, searching out the path of least resistance through the
atmosphere.  They are fragrant in the morning.  Koalas eat nothing but
gum leaves, and have the most fragrant droppings of any animal on this
planet.

   The Science Museum is great fun for the kids (OK, and adults
too).  We've been there twice (well, three times if you count the time
we went for an award presentation for Adam's preschool class).  The
first time we went the had a special exhibition for kids.  We couldn't
get the kids away from the gear and pulley system, where they turned
cranks to push plastic balls up ramps and elevators.

   The Telecom Tower is a monstrosity, 195m (650') tall on top of
Black Mountain overlooking Canberra.  It looks very out of place, as
the rest of the hills are maintained as parks and nature preserves.
It was bitterly opposed by many citizens.  Guess who won?  Still, it
offers a great view of the whole city.

   The Botanical Gardens are at the foot of Black Mountain.  Not
far away is the playground on Black Mountain Peninsula, another of the
exciting and marginally safe playgrounds.  Adjacent to both is the
Australian National University, where I teach.

   I'm teaching one class, one more advanced than any at F&M.  It
takes a lot of time for preparation, both for the lectures and the
computer labs, but its an enjoyable class to teach.  I haven't gotten
as much research done as I had hoped to so far; teaching, getting my
computers and computer accounts set up, seminars, and tea time, take a
lot of time.  I had four computers in my office until I brought one of
them home, and unfortunately that represents not a wealth of riches
but a patchwork of make-do solutions.  I use those computers to
connect to accounts on four other computers -- one for teaching, one
for reading mail and writing papers, one for doing more intensive
computing, and one in Brisbane for the work I did there.  Keeping
these coordinated is a pain.  There are between 2 and 4 seminars every
week.  Tea time is at 10:30 AM and 3:00 PM, and lasts for 30 to 60
minutes each time.  How does anyone get any work done, you may ask?  I
don't know.  I have mostly stopped going to tea.

   I seem to have some reputation as an S wizard here.  I suppose
that's because I've contributed to the S-news discussion group, and
contributed S software.  So they asked me to give an introduction to
S to students in four classes, as a kick-off to a series of S workshops
for students to learn S, prior to using it in their courses.

   I have done little work with the two people I came to work
with.  That's not completely unexpected.  My main sponsor has been out
of the country much of the time, and working in other areas, with
other visitors, much of the rest; it has always been our plan that
November and December would be when we work together.  The other
person is in Brisbane, where I spent a week and a half.  We didn't
work together as much as I hoped, because she was teaching classes
while I was there.  But she will also come here in November and
December.  On the bright side, there is a third person I didn't expect
to work with, but we have done some work together; but now he left to
spend two months in the U.S., and won't return until shortly before I
leave.  But we can continue to work together via email.

   Now for some really bright news.  I'm going to Tasmania!
People from the HEC (Hydro-Electric Commission) there heard about one
of the talks I gave here, and called me up, saying they were keen to
hear it, and could send someone up, but would I like to come down
there instead?  Absolutely!  So they'll pay my way, and my consulting
fees beyond that, to spend a couple of days discussing work I've done
at Pacific Gas & Electric in California, and discussing current
problems in Tasmania.  I'll take my family (no, they won't pay for
that), and we'll spend a week total in Tasmania.

   More bright news -- another paper I have submitted has been
tentatively accepted (pending some revisions).  This was a key paper
for me, as many of my other works in progress refer to things I
discuss in this one.

   Some more bright news.  Another talk I gave was on seismic
deformation estimation.  I discussed that work with a couple of people
who work in smoothing (two of the people my main host was working with
for two months), and they thought it was very promising; they way one
put it was "as an associate editor of JASA (the top journal in
statistics), I strongly encourage you to write this up for JASA", and
they even mentioned the possibility that the article might be chosen
for the JASA invited session at the next Joint Statistical Meetings
Great!  But when do I write it?  I have seven or nine other things to
work on with the three people I mentioned before, whereas this is work
with a geologist at F&M, so might better wait till I return, but I
want to do this ASAP.  Well, we'll see.

   More bright news.  I've been invited to give a talk when I
return on some of the work I've done.  So I'll be headed to Alabama in
March.

   More bright news.  Another paper has been accepted.

   Finally, we just came back from a three-week trip to Brisbane.
The following is a collaborative description by Adam and me.  Let's
see if you can tell who wrote what.

   We just came back from a trip to Brisbane.  And he was talking
about our holidays, not all Brisbane.  We went to Sydney, where we
played with David, making forts mostly.  We also went to the beach,
and played in the sand and water by the rocks.  Next we went to
Armidale.  There was a big humongous slide there, and we mostly went
to that playground, and there was another playground there, but mostly
we went to the big-slide playground.  Then we went to Tenterfield, and
on the way we saw Thunderbullet's hideout.  And we climbed up part of
the way on Bald Rock.  Then we went to Brisbane.  We stayed in
Brisbane in a house hotel, and mostly, most of the days, we went down
to South Bank Parklands, even some days to watch movies.  There are a
few playgrounds there, but even more beaches than playgrounds.  We
were there a week and a half.  We also took the ferry across the river
some days to go to the Botanical Gardens and the Warana festival.  We
rode the ferris wheel, and that was funner than jumping on the castle.

   David, his parents Steve and Faye, and brother Andrew, lived
50 yards away from us for 2 months in Garran before they moved to
Sydney.  I carpooled with Steve.  Adam didn't like David much at
first, but then they became great friends.  Adam was very sad when
David moved to Sydney.  He was also very sad when we left Sydney,
because he loved to play with David.

   Steve and Fay have had quite a bit of trouble in Sydney.  They
were both sick when they moved from Canberra.  Fay kept getting
sicker, and sicker, and finally went to the hospital when she could
hardly breath; on the way there she thought she was going to die.
They gave her some powerful drugs to deal with the swelling in her
throat.  Turns out that she was allergic to all the mothballs that had
been left in the place they moved into.  And Steve has no sense of
smell, so he had trouble finding them.  So Bev and I helped search them
out.  Then, two weeks later, on our return through Sydney, we found that
Steve had been very sick -- he was allergic to the dust mites in the
house.  But he was getting better.  Aside from nearly killing both
of them, their house is great, with a wonderful view of a bay and the
ocean, and very close to a cozy beach.

   Thunderbolt was a "bush ranger", i.e. an outlaw, and he had a
hideout in a cave in a remote area.  In Brisbane I took the ferry to
my work most days, and Bev and the kids mostly went to South Bank
Parklands, the site of a former world's fair.  There were playgrounds
there, and artificial streams and beaches.  The castle that Adam
jumped on was a big inflated castle.  Warana is a big arts festival,
with some rides.  Adam and I went on the ferris wheel.  I gave two
talks and one three-hour course while there, and worked on research
with someone there, but that was frustrating because she didn't have
much time to work with me, because she was teaching.  But we went
to her house a couple of times, which was wonderful -- the kids loved
their pool, and going to Alexander's birthday party.

   The floor in our apartment in Brisbane had an odd slope
coming out of the bathroom.  The first night Adam slipped coming out
of the bathroom, and landed smack on his but.  Boom!  Then along comes
toddler Nathan, and guess what?  Did I ever mention that he likes to
be kissed where he has an ow-wee, and can be rather inconsolable until
a kiss makes it all better?

   After Brisbane we went to Binna Burra Lodge in Lamington
National Park.  All there was in that hotel was beds, but we liked the
bumper (bunk) bed.  We mostly went on walks and were in our hotel.
James is really my best friend.  We played pool a lot.  The first walk
was the longest walk, down to a river and pools, and we fed a sandwich
to eels, and the way back was even longer, because we took a different
way up.  The second walk was the caves walk, but only we were on the
walks, and the adults and Nathan were on the walks the other way
around.  Karen was the teacher.

   When we pulled into Binna Burra Lodge, Bev went in to check
in, and I noticed a van full of kids. I quickly asked if that was a
program for kids, and whether it would be suitable for Adam, and it
was!  So I loaded Adam on that bus, and off he went.  Bev had a
surprise when she came out, because Adam was gone!  He had a blast
with Karen and the kids.  She was great with the kids, took charge of
15 kids all by herself!

   Binna Burra is surrounded by rain forest, but it has been very
dry there, so it wasn't very lush.  Still, we some some interesting
plants, like many vines, and strangler figs, that start growing from
the top of another tree and send their roots to the ground, and
eventually circle the tree and kill it, at which point the strangler
remains as a hollow tree the height of the original host tree.
We saw a goanna, an impressively large lizard.  The Aborigines
used to love to eat them.  They also used to love to eat the
aborigines.  Well, not the kind we saw.  But 20,000 years ago there
were 7-meter (23 foot) long goannas that would sometimes eat 2 or 3
people at a time.  They went extinct during a major drought, together
with the giant kangaroos and other giant animals they used to eat.

   I went on a great nocturnal walk.  We took powerful
flashlights, and shined them up in the tree's, looking for the retina
flash of animal's eyes.  We saw a tawny-mouth (a bird like an owl,
that feeds on mice & beetles), many paddington's (a small kangaroo),
trap-door spider's, funnel spiders, possums (much cuter than those in
the U.S.), cute native rats, and an echidna (the moral equivalent of a
porcupine, but you can safely touch them, if you're careful; we about
gave that one a heart attack).  OK, we didn't really see the retina
flash of the spiders; if you look carefully in the right terrain, you
find little round doors, which the spiders are ready to open and to
dash out and grab breakfast.

   Then we went back to Armidale.  There was a waterfall that
didn't have any water in it, but it would have been the biggest
waterfall that's in Australia.  We went to a couple of museums in
Armidale, and played outside while Mommy went in one.  The other one
never opened up.  It was very windy.  We played outside while we
waited for it to open, and we rolled garbage can lids in the wind.

   Armidale was disappointing.  The parks nearby are supposed to
be very lush, but they were dry because of a four-year drought.  The
museums were (1) disappointing and (2) closed.  We thought we'd rescue
the day by having Bev check out the downtown and go shopping, so we
dropped her off while I went back to the cabin to rest with the kids
and play on the humongous slide, but guess what?  It rained hard, so
we had to stay inside.  And, Bev found that all the shops were closed.

   Then we went back to Sydney, and stayed with David and Faye
and Andrew and Steve.  There are two beaches there.  Once we went to a
beach.  One of the beaches we got into the water and me and David
waited for a big wave to come, then we went back and made a sand
castle, and we kept going back and forth.  At the next beach me and
David were making sand castles and going and running around and in the
rocks and in the water and stuff like that that they have at a beach.
The next day we went to the zoo.  The zoo was pretty fun at first,
because we took a ride to see over the zoo, then we walked around
which I at first said I didn't want to do, then after we were done we
didn't know which ferry was ours because it was the first time any of
us had ever been there.  I went around with Adam & David, at their
pace -- we saw frogs, birds, a platypus, elephants, giraffes, a
crocodile, monkeys, etc.  The best animal there was frogs.

 ************** 28 December **************

   We're back!

   It didn't feel like Christmas while we were in Australia.  We had no
tree, no lights, no presents (we asked Santa to come on New Years
rather than Christmas).  I hardly noticed Christmas at all, until I
saw a man in a Santa Claus hat braving the element to play Christmas
songs at a mall.  He did make allowances for the weather, though -- he
stayed in the shade, and wore shorts!  (Ugly ones, at that!)  No white
Christmas there!  It was 100 degrees before we left Canberra.  My
office was on the sunny side of the top floor, and no, there is no air
conditioning.  Christmas itself was a bit of a bummer; we were in
Sydney, waiting to fly home, and nothing was open.  I went out hunting
and gathering, and found one restaurant open.  Well, the door was
open, anyway.  I went in, and called "hello", no answer.  After a
louder hello someone appeared.  Then she went and got her 7-year-old,
who could speak English.  They weren't really open, but they sold me
some of the food they had cooking anyway.  So we had a terrific
variety of food for Christmas, a choice of boudzas, boudzas, or
boudzas (steamed pork rolls).  That was the low point, before & after
were better.

   Adam's pre-school had a Christmas program, a picnic where the
children sang songs.  Bev's favorite song went "compost, compost, put
it in your garden ..."  They seem to be more environmentally aware
there.

   Commuting by bus and bicycle is much more common in Canberra than
in the U.S.  Part of the reason is that gasoline prices are much
higher, around 75 cents (Australian) per liter, i.e. $2 (U.S.) per
gallon.  That, combined with the atrocious gas mileage on the old,
large, station wagon we owned, meant that it was cheaper to ride the
bus than to drive, even before parking, the cost of buying a car,
insurance, and the risk of an accident.  I continued to bike to the
university.  I also got faster, under 20 minutes (some other bikers
were openly skeptical about that time -- I really pushed it hard, and
got in great shape).  I wish that our own country would be so
farsighted as to raise gas taxes to a reasonable level.  Our air would
be cleaner, not to mention the benefits to our balance of payments,
national security, economy, and livability of our communities.

   Australia is a big country, and we saw only small parts of it.  I
told you about our Brisbane trip before.  
We spent a week in Tasrainia; oops, I mean Tasmania.  I gave a talk
for the Australian Statistics Society, and someone at the
Hydro-Electric Commission in Tasmania saw the abstract, and called me
up to say that they were keen on hearing the talk, and would fly
someone up, or would I like to come down instead?  Yes!  We spent a
week there.  We went first to a Bed & Breakfast near the Mount Field
National Park.  That was beautiful -- lush waterfalls, fern forests,
and the incredibly tall Swamp Gums (a kind of eucalyptus), the tallest
trees in the world aside from redwoods.  We meant to go back to the
park the next morning, but we never got there.  You see, we got
sidetracked by the charming children of the folks who ran the B&B, who
showed our kids their chooks and their chicks, and how to play with
the snails they'd caught.  We walked through their cow pasture to
their pond with trout and platypuses.  

   Back in Hobart, Bev and her mom took the kids on a cruise to a
chocolate factory and other sightseeing while I slaved away at two
days of meetings with the HEC.  Then on to Bicheno, a seaside village,
where we watched the Fairy Penguins come in for the night.  They are
charming birds, and very shy, first hiding among rocks by the water,
then cautiously, when they think things are clear, waddling quickly
across the sand to the grasses and their burrows.  So, if they're so
shy, how did we ever see them, especially since they wait until after
dark?  We went with a tour with the Park Service, to a spot where we
would not be threatening, but could see them with spotlights from a
distance.  There's a sad story here.  Penguin numbers are declining by
10% nationwide every year, primarily due to feral dogs and cats.  In
Bicheno a dog killed a hundred one night a few years back.  The night
we watched the penguins were especially reluctant to leave the rocks,
but we didn't know why until later, when we spotted a cat.  It's due
to the efforts of the Park Service that penguins are surviving there;
in other words, "that putty tat is going to heaven tonight".

   We did a bit of hiking the next morning, but the rain, off and
on, meant that we saw the beautiful Wineglass Bay only from a
distance.  And this is supposed to be the "Sun Coast" of Tasmania.  The
rain continued.  We spent two nights at Port Arthur, and toured the
Penal settlement there in spite of the pouring, cold, wet, miserable
rain.  Australia was founded as a place for England to send their
castoffs; people were transported for stealing as little as a
handkerchief.  The island of Van Diemen's Land was one of the last
places in Australia to accept England's felons, and was notorious for
its treatment of the convicts.  They considered it a great advance to
use isolation rather than the lash to break the spirits of prisoners.
They were serious about their isolation.  Prisoners had to be
perfectly silent in their cells, could make noise only once a week,
singing in church, where they were in individual cubicles from which
they could only see the minister, not each other.  They were let out
for exercise, wearing helmets that only let them see straight ahead,
and had to hold onto ropes while they walked.  Extra punishment
consisted of days in a completely dark, sound-proofed cell.  I spent a
few minutes in one, and it's worse than it sounds.  People were so
ashamed of Van Diemen's Land that they later renamed it Tasmania.  Now
it's a beautiful island, and don't let the rain scare you off (it was
raining on the whole southeast of Australia at the same time).

   Bev and the kids went with her folks to South Moll Island, a boat
ride from the Great Barrier Reef, while I stayed at home a gave final
exams.  Wish I'd have been there.  So does Bev -- Nathan was clingy
the whole time, insecure without me, and when Bev wen snorkeling he
was hysterical (she could hear him crying the whole time).  But they
had a good time the rest of their stay on the islands.  Grandpa even
got Adam to enjoy being in the water and swimming (sort of).

   Our final trip was to the beach, to Murramurang, notable for the
many kangaroos had the run of the place, and were completely
accustomed to people.  The little ones are adorable.  But one big male
let Nathan know when he got too close, scary.  The males are a scream
when they box -- they tilt their heads way back so they can't see what
their doing (protecting their eyes), then try to box and scratch each
other, with occasional big kicks from their hind legs.

   Nathan calls kangaroos "kangaroo jumping".  That's from all the
times we'd see one hopping away, and say "Look, Nathan, there's a
kangaroo jumping!"

   I taught one course, but gave two finals (and you thought finals
were bad in the U.S.!), one theory, the other using the computer,
doing the kind of data analysis they'd done the whole semester.  The
course was fun.  It was something I'd never taught before, and I
learned the topic much better myself.  It was interesting teaching students
who are older than I usually teach at F&M, so some could immediately
use what we learned in their research or jobs.  One guy was doing
research into the visual acuity of wallabies.  He'd give the wallabies
a choice between two buttons, one covered with gray, the other with
fine black and white lines; if the wallaby could pick out the striped
one it got food.  This guy understood what we were doing in the course
well enough to adapt it to the special nature of his project.  Oh yes,
wallabies are like small kangaroos, as are wallaroos, paddingtons, and
long-footed pootoroos.  Remember how Eskimos have so many words for
snow?  It's like that here for kangaroos.  There are even kangaroos
that live in trees.

   My research experience was mixed.  I had a number of my own papers
that I made significant improvements to, four were accepted to
journals, and started others.  I gave three talks in Canberra, two in
Brisbane, in addition to Tasmania.  I got some great news from home --
we (a geomorphologist at F&M and I) were awarded a grant from the
United States Geological Survey to continue our earthquake work.  Some
reviewers said privately that it was the best proposal, out of over a
hundred.  I think the combination of disciplines was a strong plus,
and I see possibilities for other joint work with geologists.  We were
the only grant fully funded.  Then, later, we heard that we were
awarded another grant, this time for a longer period, from the
National Science Foundation, highly ranked!  Again we were fully
funded, except for duplication with the USGS proposal.  We'll work
for two and a half years, have two students working with us, refine
our previous work, apply it to new areas, make a field visit, attend
conferences, and replace the outdated computer I've been using.
My co-author is terrific.  She even got other grants at the same time.
  I didn't get as far on joint work as I hoped, with three joint
projects started, but none finished; they'll all continue
long-distance.  I had wanted to finish one or more papers with the guy
I went to visit, but we were working on a project that turned out to
be much more difficult than he anticipated.  We'll continue it long
distance, and should finish it up this Spring.  I had really wanted to
work with him on ideas I brought along, but I guess that will have to
wait till next time.  That's a positive note -- he asked if I would
like to come back, and thinks he could get funding.

   So would I like to come back?  Does a boomerang return?  Yes!
(Sometimes with a vengeance -- I threw one that nearly took the legs
off the guy next to me.)  So there's a very good chance we'll return
when I have  a sabbatical, in two or three years.

   Bev, Adam, Nathan and I loved it in Australia (though Adam will
never admit it, with typical 5-year-old pride).  Adam was great buddies
with some of the other kids there -- Megan, Giuseppina, Dominique,
Bianca, Rhiannon, and Bronwyn.  Poor guy didn't have any boys to play
with.  He and Nathan went wild when we got together with their old
buddies, David and Andrew, who moved to Sydney.

   Going there makes me more eager, on the one hand, to visit other
countries and see new places.  On the other hand, I realize more just
how important it is to have friendly people and friendly housing, in a
livable community, and where the language and cultural differences
aren't insurmountable.  Here Bev and the kids could just walk outside
and play with other kids, and Nathan could ride his backhoe toy around
(and ride, and ride, and ride).  Canberra was very livable, relatively
clean air, bike paths, nice places to go walking, and there are bonuses
like the kangaroos and foxes I saw while biking to work.  Sydney, or most
large cities anywhere, would be much less pleasant.

   There weren't many language difficulties, but there are a few
cultural differences.  They spend countless hours at tea -- morning
tea, afternoon tea, and tea (the last one is what we would call
supper).  I don't know when they ever get any work done.  There are no
auto body shops, but countless "smash repairs" shops.  They watch
rugby league, rugby union, and aussie rules instead of gridiron
(football).  They play cricket instead of baseball.  I saw a match on
TV, quite exciting.  Warne, the great leg-spin bowler, bowled Gooch
out on the last ball of his last over (it was a limited-overs match,
of course), after which England had nothing but tail-enders left, who
had their wickets knocked over in short order.  Ta!  Huh?

   Well, you've made it through these long letters, good on yer!
Hope you enjoyed them.  Adam and Bev are writing accounts, if you want
to hear more.

Tim