I went to the US consular office this morning to submit my visitor's visa application today. The surprising thing was that they told me my passport will be returned by the end of next week, after the horror stories about waiting 30 days or more. I was on the verge of telling Sing Teck that we might have to cancel the trip and do it early next year instead. Well, I'll hold my breath and see what happens! Hopefully it'll work out and I'll get to go on my dream trip. Oh, another bonus is that I got most of my money back from my tax return because I didn't work the full financial year here in Australia. That will go nicely towards my trip. Last night I got Polly to buy a Powerball ticket and we got 3 numbers. I think it's the last prize - division 7 or something. I still don't know how much we won, exactly, but the pool was $9mil. I was driving home last night in the beat up Pulsar, thinking what I would do with $9mil! So far, things have gone rather smoothly the last few days.

I gave some thought to doing Photography as a freelancer this morning. It seemed like a fun thing to do, and it was something i could do while still working full time as an engineer. This could translate into some form of business later down the track, like opening a studio or selling my skills. I really have to decide what it is I want to do pretty soon, time is not on my side.

Oh yeah, and I noticed something in my passport this morning while I was flicking through it at the US consulate. It had me down for "Selangor" (!!!!) as my place of birth. Those in the know will realise that is wrong! Damn! All these years of travelling with that passport I never noticed. So right there and then, I had to decide, whether to lie or to go through hell trying to explain why my passport had the wrong details! I made up my mind pretty quickly, actually. I had absolutely no proof in Australia that I was born in Johore and thought it absolutely useless to try and change what is already black and white. So I lied. To the U S of A. I lied to the President of the World.

I must be some fucking terrorist.

I'm slacking off writing this site, but I promise to be better. Water restrictions is in force, and on Saturday we saw some dick hosing down his driveway. We wanted to stop and yell at him, but we drove by pretty quickly and by the time we decided we were already too far down the street. It hasn't really affected anything I guess, as we're not heavy users.

Sing Teck rang on Friday night and was saying that he's keen to go to the US to watch some NBA games over the X'mas period. I'm in a bit of dilemma. Apart from potential problems getting a tourist visa and getting the dosh together, do I bring Polly or not? My sole intention in going is to watch those games, which I've been wanting to do the last 12 years! That's a long time. If I bring Polly, I won't be able to spend as much time as I would like watching games, going to hotspots like Madison Square Garden, and other basketball related locales. Not only that, it will cost me double to bring her along. Airfare is very expensive at that time of the year. I was thinking maybe we should go together next year and catch some games as well, but do more of a holiday thing. Yes, I think that's the sensible thing to do, so that everyone's happy (I hope). I will talk to Polly about that tonight.