Rain, pain, staying sane

We've had 11 days straight of rain, with the last several of the all-day-gray variety. Things are green and brown - grass and other greenery is greener than ever, the deciduous trees growing browner and more denuded daily. Definitely feeling like Autumn.

All this weather makes us a little more housebound than usual - Supadog and I still do our walks to Rushcutters Bay Park. After all, if there was ever a dog designed for rain, it's the Old English Sheepdog. We now play kong or ball every time we go there.

My shoulder continues to improve, but it's definitely not a direct path forward. Many nights (last night was one of them) I can't sleep well at all because of soreness or straight-out pain. Mobility and strength continue to improve, but here over a month later, I still can't raise my arm above my shoulder. My physio says this is completely normal, so it's all good.

I've been doing a fair amount of research on carbon trading, mostly just trying to figure it all out. Check out that blog for the boring details here. Overall life is good. This Friday we're seeing Henry Rollins.

Topography and Scale

The architectural scales of my neighborhood vary tremendously. The block I live on is an example: it has mostly two-story terrace houses on the west side, but on the east side are one-story homes, two-storys like the west side, four- and five-story apartment buildings, and similar low-level office buildings. But just a few blocks away are five- to eight-story apartment buildings, mixed in with three-story houses, and 10- to 15-story buildings. Just a few more blocks away are 30-story buildings, and within a ten-minute walk is a 42-story building.

You would think that this would be an architectural disaster, but it's not, and that's because of the extreme topography here. A building may look like it is only one-story in front, but in the back it's three floors, because it is built on a hill. Near a park we walk to every day is a 6- or 8-story apartment building, that rises maybe two floors above street level, because it's built in a ravine.

Because the landscape is rolling up and down everywhere, small and large, short and tall, can all fit in together and still look pretty good. There are some exceptions of course: some pretty ugly stuff from the 1960's or 1970's, but it all fits in real well overall. There are some pix of all this on my flickr pages. Take a look:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mgt33139/sets/72157604067232214/

Some of the pix in the set above have sailboats - well they're on Rushcutters Bay, and this satellite pic is the same scene from above, from an earlier entry ...

http://startnewsydney.blogspot.com/2008/03/yarranabbe-park.html

Yarranabbe Park

Yesterday, V, Supadog and I went on some great walks - first to Surry Hills, then to Rushcutters Bay and then on around the Bay a little to Yarranabbe Park. From the point you get a great view of the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Harbour. Here's the route: