Jan / Feb 2005 Update

Hi again

Looks like we've been slack and missed a January instalment, but there wasn't much going on until recently. We have become recluses during the California winter and have been brushing up on our movie trivia.

We've just returned from a 3 day weekend trip to Los Angeles to attend the US rugby sevens. Had a fantastic weekend cheering the New Zealand 7's team to victory (photos attached). We spent Friday touring around LA in a bus checking out the major attractions, unfortunately it rained most of the day due to flash flooding on the outskirts of LA, but we got to see all the "totally LA" icons.

We were lucky enough not to have any rain on Saturday & Sunday for the games, despite warnings to the contrary. Highlights of the weekend included a fantastic match between South Africa and Samoa during plate semi finals, NZ having a convincing win against Fiji in the quarter finals and an encounter with some US fans....

During day 1 there was a match between USA & Canada. Since we had befriended some Canadian supporters sitting in front of us (and they seemed outnumbered by USA fans) we decided to add our voices to Canadas supporters.
It was a very tight game and by half time USA were 1 try ahead. It was about this time that some very young and very vocal US supporters sitting behind us started verballing abusing the Canadians. We were also assumed to be Canadians and the horrendous verbal abuse we copped was unbelievable.
This spurred us on to support Canada even louder and would you believe it, Canada scored two quick successive tries at the last minute and ended up securing a 19-12 win. The silence from the US idiots behind us was defeaning - it was hilarious.

Overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend of few beers (at $7.75 per beer our intake was severely limited) and excellent 7's rugby. Looking into possibly organising a trip to Hong Kong or Dubai sevens next year for anyone interested.

Manus work in Indianapolis has not eventuated - the start date was pushed back twice so the client could merge two projects - and progress is very slow. Manu is back to putting his name forward for other projects in the hope of getting away from the proposal work he is currently helping out with. We had fingers and toes crossed for a 3 month role based out of Munich, Germany, but haven't heard anything yet. Unfortunately we've learnt that a promise of work is not final until you are actually on site and working on the project.

Anita's work visa is due at the end of March so in the meantime she is busy studying a Management paper and being a diligent housewife (anyone who knows me knows this is far from the truth - AP).

Planning a trip to San Jose this weekend to take some beginner surfing lessons - looking forward to our first attempts at driving on the other side of the road and some chilly surf conditions.

That's all from us for now,

Take care

Luff and big Manu hugs
Manu & Anita