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Published: June 13th 2007
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Kangaroos!
If you look really closely, you can just see them in the distance, enjoying the last bit of sun for the evening... Had a great weekend! The footy Friday night was a lot of fun - I've got the basic flow of the game and the scoring down, but I'm still not real sure about all of the penalties. There were a few times they would stop the play, and I'd have to ask Frank and Lina what the penalty was (or sometimes, I could just discern from what the people around me were yelling at the umpires!!) haha - It felt a lot like a football game at home - same atmosphere, just a different game. By the end, though, I was following pretty well and was yelling along with the crowd when our team made a "mark" (part of the game, kinda hard to explain in writing) or scored! The teams I saw play were Essendon (the Mighty Bombers - the team we were cheering for) and West Coast (the Eagles, I think). Going into the game, Essendon was ranked 6th, and West Coast was ranked 1st - so it was expected to be a bit of a blow-out. West Coast scored three times right away, and everyone around me was apologizing because my first game wasn't the best game
Wallaby!
Cute little bugger, isn't he? to go to. But Essendon made a little rally in the 2nd or 3rd quarter, fell behind again, and then came back to win by only 1 point!! VERY rare from what everyone has told me - they said it's very rare for a team to win by 6 points much less 1 (their rules allow them to score either 6 points or 1 point with each goal - again, hard to explain in writing and without a visual - sorry). So, I guess to put it into perspective for all the SEC fans back home, it would be something like Carolina beating Florida with a field goal or long touchdown pass at the very end of the fourth quarter. I definitely plan to go see some more games, and after I figure out which team I like best, I'll buy a jersey or scarf or something (or maybe I'll be a stereotypical girl and just pick the jersey that looks the best!!)
On Saturday and Sunday, I tagged along with Clara to Inverloch to visit some friends who have bought a house there and are renovating it to rent out later as a holiday home. We left on
Saturday morning and arrived around lunch time. There was a little kiosk near the beach that used to be the kiosk for an RV park (or caravan park, as they say down under), and we had sandwiches for lunch there. We spent the afternoon walking along the beach, went back for afternoon tea and "nibbles," then went to the local pub for dinner. I had kangaroo for dinnner - much leaner than beef (but tougher, too - it's best cooked rare). It tasted familiar, but I couldn't figure out what type of meat it tasted like. Sunday morning, we walked around a little market that had books, produce, plants, etc. Ate a small lunch at the house and then went for a long walk along the beach and up to an overlook, where we could see out over the beach and the ocean. The weather was nice for the trip - a little chilly, but sunny - it didn't get real cold until the sun went down. Clara and I came home Sunday night and had "takeaway" fish and chips (I put that in quotation marks because my mom laughed at me when I said it on the phone -
that's just what they call take-out in the rest of the world).
We had the day off from work Monday for the Queen's birthday (it's a public holiday here - don't ask me why), so we slept in and then went browsing around the mall for a little while. We spent the rest of the afternoon and the night watching a couple of DVDs (we realized later that they were both British movies - I told Clara we were just keeping with the day's theme around the Queen's birthday!)
Had to come back to work Tuesday - it was REALLY hard to make myself get out of bed after 3 days of doing nothing! But the day went by quickly - I talked on the phone with a few of the sales managers to get a better idea of the market here and how Laerdal's products compare to competitors. Tuesday night a group of people from the office went out for drinks at a local "pub" as a good-bye to one of the girls who is transferring to the New Zealand office. (I say "pub" because, from what I've seen so far, both places they've called a pub
have been like regular restaurants to me - not quite the same as the English or Irish pubs I've been to). It was good getting to hang out a little with people from work - they've been very welcoming, and the small office is making it easier to get to know people.
I'm starting to make some good head-way on the market analysis section of my marketing plan. In short, we have GREAT quality (if not the best on the market), but we're getting killed on price. The market is being inundated with low-price copycat products coming out of Asia that look similar and cost about 25% less. Thank goodness for Laerdal's strong brand image - it's helping them hang onto market share, but I'm not sure how long that will last by itself. So, that's where I come in! I'm working on the plan to re-launch at a lower price point - same great quality that Laerdal is known for at a competitive price for the market. Oh yeah - and I've managed to impress my boss the first week on the job! We have an internal relational database system that allows us to see sales broken down by region, product line, customer, etc. They just recently got the system in Australia, so David (my boss) had suggested that I get some exposure to it in New York. The reports I ran for him were just sales of each product for a specific list of distributors (not very impressive, really), but it was something that he didn't know how to do, so he greatly appreciated it! Funny how things work sometimes, huh?
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http://davesjourneys.blogspot.com
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As it should be, you are playing hard and working a little in between. The pics look great. I was talking to a man "down under" where you are today. The accent makes me want to visit just as much as the scenery.