Playoff Fever!!

Hello everyone and welcome back to the United States Tim and Lisa! I hope your trip to Europe was incredible and I can't wait to read the blog and see the pictures. I am so very jealous of you two and I can't wait to have a trip there myself!! Visiting Prague, Greece, and Rome would be such an inspiring trip. So much beauty and history, I think I should start planning right now!!

On this hemisphere things are just as exciting as my time here begins to draw to a close. Over this past weekend my team scored another victory cementing our place in the Finals (playoffs). Our team puzzle is nearly complete, except that I am still sitting out with a knee problem. I tried to go, but after the first ten minutes I was in pain and had zero mobility. At this point we were already up by 4 goals, so I decided it was about time to get off the ground. It's really disappointing to not be playing because this is the most important time of year and I would do anything to finish the season strong. The knee is healing slowly, but I'm going to see a sports doctor to get a proper assessment. Hopefully it's nothing serious!! This weekend we're playing Wembley and we should come away with another win. This will give us home field advantage our first playoff game, which will also be against Wembley. Wish us luck!!

Another exciting/humbling event is that my time here at Meerkats is nearly expired. My list day is Friday (tomorrow) and it's really excited to branch out into other work, but really sad to be leaving. I've had such a great time working with everyone here and made so many memories and friends, that saying goodbye will be difficult. These people have become like a family to me (a loud, swearing, and beer drinking family) that I will never forget. What a experience this has been. What a lucky man I am. One of my co-workers in the IT area has volunteered to burn all my files/photos to CDs for me to take back to the states. It will be nice to look at these in 10 years to remember all the great times.

In some positive news, my car is back up and running!! After a few discussions with the mechanic, the problem was a bad circuit/relay board under the dash board. Apparently when it overheats it short circuits, cutting power to the fuel pump. This car has been such a clunker, but it sure has kept me on my toes and kept things interesting. It has also really made me appreciate public transportation.

One thing that I am looking forward to when I'm home is football. I love watching footy and all Australian sports, but since pre-season NFL has started up things around the house have been buzzing. I forgot that Jared and James are from Wisconsin (born and living in Green Bay for a number of years) and are crazy Packers fans. Both have been wearing their hats around the house and downloading all the video clips every day. It's great to have such excitement, but these guys are total Cheeseheads. I can't wait until Detroit takes them to the cleaner!!