Michael Sullivan Online

CANBERRA AUSTRALIA - 27 November 2000 - This is the first week that Mike encountered any kind of heat. He spent nearly the whole week in shorts and T-shirts. The temperature was around 80F (25C) during the day. It was a nice change for Mike who hasn't seen warm weather in what seems like a year.

As far as events go, Mike was happy to talk to family and friends at home in Minnesota after they stuffed themselves with turkey. It was nice to actually speak with people he hadn't talked to since he'd arrived.

On Friday evening, Mike played pool with Dave. For a change of pace, Mike actually played pretty well. On a couple of occasions, he nearly ran the table then would scratch on the 8-ball thus losing the game. In any case, Mike did happen to win a game or two and did have a GREAT time.

On Saturday morning, Mike and Chris' Junior team played for the first time in four weeks. They looked pretty sharp and had a 1 hit shut out. They won 9-0. In the afternoon, Mike did some house cleaning then went out to the baseball diamond for batting practice and grounds work. The sun was hot and the team had to do a lot of running chasing down the balls in bp. When evening came around, Mike got a call from Steve inviting him to dinner at an Italian restaurant to celebrate Stacey's birthday. As usual, Mike accepted. He finally got to see Chris, Andrew, Tatia, Steve and Stacey's house. It's a spacious place with a nice deck out the back. After an inspection of the home, Mike, Tatia, Steve and Stacey walked to this quaint Italian place. A sign of things to come was the fact that it was packed. After a short wait, they were seated in front of the kitchen; Mike was often tempted to grab a plate before the waiter could so that he could try a little of everything. After a couple glasses of wine and some fun conversation, dinner was served and it was delicious. The talking slowed down as the eating speeded up. After dinner, everyone walked back to the house. The evening was gorgeous and the stars were out in full force. Once they'd arrived, they sat on the deck and had a drink. There was only a bug or two and the weather was perfect.

The next day was baseball day. It was suppose to pretty warm so Mike did everything to stay out of the sun. In the game, Mike was catching and stayed plenty warm but thankfully the team was able to get outs and short innings. To further ease the strain, Mike's team was able to bat through the order. Mike may have had his best game of the season. Defensively, nothing got by him and for the most part did a good job of calling pitches. With the bat, Mike went 2-3 with a strike out, a walk and a ground rule double. On the strike out, Mike was completely fooled by the knuckleball that Mike let go thinking it would be out fo the strike zone. Mike sat on the bench for the A grade game and had a drink at the end of the day. As is usual on Sunday, Mike arrived at the field at 9:30am and left at about 7pm. By this time, Mike was pretty hungry and had a big supper. He lasted until about 8:30 (I little later than normal) before he fell asleep in front of the TV. After a two hour nap, Mike turned off the TV and headed for bed. All in all, it was a great way to spend a day.

Here ends Mike's thirtieth week in Australia.