Melbourne Toast

Have you ever seen "The Dish"? The movie pokes fun at two societies engaged in the outer space business. I have met people from those Apollo-era days, humour a side effect, not a cause. I've worked with people Up Top and Down Under, almost moving to Melbourne for a sewer flow monitoring contract by ADS Environmental Services. Folks from the sticks outside Sydney traveled to the U.S. for training, marveling at the choices of salad dressing, like French, Italian, Russian; wondering about the types of animals the U.S. has, with Australia having its own share of unusual creatures, looking at a U.S. restaurant menu offering chicken fingers and Buffalo wings.

A friend of mine, Ganesh S., is a big fan of a U.S. university football team. He grew up in Mobile, Alabama, so some of you will know his team. If not, I'll tell you a quick story.

Ganesh and I were working in an office outside Seattle, Washington. My wife and I had bought Ganesh and his wife a collection of items covered with logos of his favorite college team that I brought with me to Seattle just for Ganesh. Another colleague, Ann P., stepped up and asked if this was more of the stuff from his Red Tide team.

Ganesh replied. "It is not the Red Tide. It is the Cr-r-rimson Tide. Red tide kills fish. Cr-r-rimson Tide wins football games."

We have laughed about that over and over. Ann is not a football fan. She has hiked many mountains, one of her favorites being Mt. Kilimanjaro while there was still ice on top, with 40 porters carrying gear and singing songs along the trail.

Of course, Ganesh's team is doing better than usual these days. Were it not for a big boy acting like a snow plough in winter pushing through a glacier, my team would have beaten Ganesh's over a week ago. We'll remedy that situation next year.

Meanwhile, a 15-year old ficus tree grows in our living room, a 1990s-era gift from a work colleague in Sydney, a thank you for the late-night technical support calls I gave, being half a world away and willing to give up some sleep to diagnose problems related to the software we designed in-house.

We forget how small this world is, I think. In my country, isolationists want to segregate people again. My wife and I ask where are the moderate integrationists like us going to go? We have conservative fiscal beliefs but progressive social beliefs, too. It's good to remember parts of the past and celebrate the good parts, as long as we remember how much history pastes over the bad parts. The last time I looked, the words united and union are inclusive, not restrictive. Sure, we can stretch the term "politically correct" to ludicrous lengths but there's value in rationally discussing fixes to any ridiculous looking solution.

Time to focus my thoughts on two startup companies, one with a product for sale and one with a product under development. A tale of two reciprocities. A place to employ those with talents but no income?

A nod to an Internet friend, Babli, who writes a blog from Australia. Your poetry is more than music to the ears, more like sweet curry to one's thoughts, the taste delightful and the after-taste insightful. I don't know everything about your life but friends like Ganesh, Rajen and Beena have shown me part of your world, both ancient and new.