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My flight to Sydney is from Vancouver via Los Angeles. On the way down to LA, we have a spectacular view of snow-covered Mt Rainier and Mt Adams. They each look like a giant plate of ice cream in the setting sun.

I have two hours in LA airport. American immigration doesn't hassle me, as they often do. Beware the solicitors: American-style freedom of speech applies to all public places, including airports, meaning busy travelers are bothered by requests for $$$ contributions to the most obscure of causes.

At the departure gate, three hyper-looking, rapid gum-chewing plain-clothes drug enforcement officers randomly pounce on travelers. In front of me, a single mom with a baby is pulled aside; they begin opening her carry-on bags.

The 747 leaves 30 minutes late. Cattle class isn't too full. We get free socks, free headphones, free wine (I don't drink; Australians prefer red wine), two hot towels, and a choice of meals. I am annoyed United Airlines shows a movie with a hooded man slashing a naked woman with a knife; I wonder what impression that leaves on the children watching. [Later, when I complain to United about the movie, they reply that United Airlines had no problems showing such movies.] I manage a couple hours sleep.

This day doesn't exist for me. I puzzle over whether I should now be celebrating my birthday a day earlier or later.

We arrive late in Sydney. The airport is under reconstruction for the 2000 Olympics and 40% of the gates are disabled. As we walk down the aircraft stairs, the humidity hits us. Today it's overcast in Sydney with the occasional shower.

A double-ended bus rushes us to the terminal building. Customs is fussy about what gets into Australia. As requested, I declare my food (chocolate) and herbal remedies (Echinacea pills to ward off a cold). "No beef jerky?" the immigration officer asks hopefully.

The $6 airport bus drops me off three blocks from the hotel (all amounts in Australian dollars; AUS$1.00 = US$0.67). The Furama Hotel is converted from an old warehouse, but fails to attain the trendy look that converted warehouses are supposed to have. I ask for a non-smoking room. The check-in clerk is regretful but such a room is not available for another four hours. He says I can wait or accept a complimentary upgrade to an executive suite. Yes! Having that extra space makes a big difference for my weeklong stay.

I take a nap, then walk about Darling Harbour, the area of Sydney that becomes my neighborhood for the week. Later, I learn that Darling Harbour used to be an abandoned railroad yard. Over the last ten years, it has been converted into a rich experience. I am impressed; I wish my family were here to enjoy it.

In the evening, I meet with Tony Zilles, who flew in from Canberra. We have dinner in Chinatown, directly behind my hotel. We talk about the future of Web publishing (that's what he does) and ezine publishing (what I do); we think of ways to combine forces. Afterward, we ride the monorail ($2, plus non-stop advertising blaring from the speakers), and take in the laser light show on Cockles Bay.

Due to the time zone difference, I wake up at 4:30 a.m. Tony and I meet at 10 am and take the Sydney Pass. For $25, we ride the red city bus, which drops us off at 24 places. We walk about, then get on the next bus, which comes by every 17 minutes. While on the bus, a CD plays back a description of the city's sights. I decide that the deep, jovial Australian narrator's voice probably gets on the nerves of the bus driver.

We take in the usual sights: Harbour Bridge (for $90 you can take a guided walk up the top of the bridge); Circular Quay (where all the harbor ferries arrive and depart); Sydney Opera House; Mrs. Macquarie's Point (200 years ago, the governor, her husband, had a seat carved out of the rock for her); Wooloomooloo (we have lunch at the pub); Kings Cross (the red light district, sad); Queen Victoria Building (a beautiful old structure converted to a soulless mall); and back to my temporary home in Darling Harbour.

In the evening, I am to meet the staff of Multi-CAD magazine at their booth in the exhibition hall. When I walk in, a security guard immediately stops me. I tell where I need to go; he helpfully pulls out a map, shows me the booth location, and instructs me to go to the show office to pick up an exhibitor's pass. I shake my head over the lax security: to get the exhibitor pass, I have to pass through the exhibition area! In the show office, the staff lets me pick out my exhibitor pass -- without any ID.

I meet the Multi-CAD people. Editor John Teerds is tall, quiet, almost shy. The managing editor is his wife Susan, shorter, red-haired, and active; she has organized much of the Multi-CAD '99 show. Debbie Wilson is the advertising manager. She is constantly on the move: her tiny red cell phone is glued to her ear as she coordinates meetings, hunts down lost contacts, and spontaneously organizes dinners. Lesley Hughes, who does booth duty at times, assists her. We have dinner at Jordan's. That would be the seafood restaurant with the stunning view of Cockles Bay and downtown Sydney. Tipping is not done in Australia; Debbie tips the waiter anyhow, because she likes his attitude.

Today it is hot. But the exhibition hall air conditioning is freezing cold. I return to my hotel room for warmer clothing.

Today the Multi-CAD '99 Rally starts. It is part of PC IT '99, the self-styled "Global Computer Communications & Networking Exhibition" -- Australia's largest computer show of the year. I find it roughly the size of A/E/C Systems.

The CAD corner consists of a half-dozen booths. I mentally chuckle at the noisy, brash, red-black Autodesk booth across the aisle (for once) from the all-business-and-White-Paper blue-green-white Bentley booth; mostly, the personal in the two booths avoid each other.

My job today is to judge two competitions: under-$1500 general CAD and under-$7000 general CAD. The format is thusly: one or two CAD operators from several CAD vendors work through a set of paper drawings given them. They have two (in some cases, more) hours to get as much done as possible. Then, John Teerds, one or two other judges, and myself go through a completion list. The format is designed to create no winners: just a commentary on ability to get the job done. In most cases, however, there was one CAD team who completed the most tasks.

Autodesk has not yet released Architectural Desktop in Australia. Several third-party developers make a good business selling into the unique Aussie market. They worry they will be wiped out when ADT starts shipping. Susan tells me she pressed Autodesk Australia for an answer, but they are ambiguous over a release date.

That evening, I am zonked. I go to bed at 6:30 pm.

Again, I wake up early. I am pleased with myself: I have figured out how to call up my email server using Canada Direct, a service that lets me pay for the call at the Canadian long-distance rate, rather than at the hotel's usury rate.

Going for a walk in the early morning, I discover that not only do Australians drive on the "wrong side," they also walk on the wrong side; even the escalators run reverse from what I am used to. Australians don't have coffee breaks; they have "morning tea" and "afternoon tea." In preparation for the Olympics, Sydney has declared every empty lot must have a building put on it, or be landscaped.

This day I am to give the keynote address, and speak at a seminar on CAD management. In my keynote, I talk about the tribulations of drawing translation for vector-based CAD and the new object-based CAD. In CAD management, I describe the challenges AutoCAD 2000 will bring to everyone in the CAD world.

I help judge the mechanical CAD rally. There I meet Basil Harvey. He's Multi-CAD magazine's "deputy editor" who designed the tough tasks for the each of the five CAD rallies. I figure he could play Jesus in a movie: he has long hair, beard, and a laconic attitude. One participant in the mechanical CAD rally, upon finishing the tasks, says: "Now let's find Basil, shake his hand, and shoot him." When I report that to Basil, he responds, "Well, I don't really care…"

That evening, technical editor Geoff Harrod and I go for Chinese food. Geoff is gray-haired, soft-spoken, and incredibly knowledgeable about just about any CAD system; to me, he seems to have reviewed 'em all. We talk about the many writing opportunities that exist for us freelance CAD writers and editors.

Today is my longest day: the show will be open until 9:00 p.m. tonight. To start off, I sit in on the Live Help panel. I love this stuff! It's me and Geoff Harrod as the independent voices, along with 4 or 5 CAD reps. First Question: "Is there a program that can display all CAD file formats?" I know the answer is No, but the Visio rep beats me with his answer: "With the Visio and IntelliCAD technical bundle, you can view [and he lists a couple of file formats]." The Graphisoft rep recommends that everything be plotted as a PDF file; the audience isn't keen on the answer. Eventually the discussion degrades into a demand by some members of the audience that all CAD vendors use a single file format. I try to explain why it's not possible.

The other big discussion question is, "Who owns the drawing?" The analogy is made with programmers not owning the code they write, unless spelled out differently in the contract.

Later, I take part in a session on the Web. I decide to dispense with my prepared speech and take questions from the audience, of which there are many. First Question: "Is there really any useful CAD stuff being done on the Internet?" I provide a half-dozen examples. Other questions ask about the difference between sending drawings by email, FTP, and Web; does anyone actually use DWF; and issues of drawing security.
In between, I help judge the two architectural rallies: commercial (an office building) and domestic (a home). Susan has promised me that this'll be good. She says the competing teams usually come to blows; I make sure I have my camera ready. Bizarrely, the Graphisoft team decides to draw something different from the required elements. "We don't care if you disqualify us; we just want to do something interesting." We judges spend 20 minutes deciding the exact wording for their disqualification.

I ask one of the judges, an educator, what it is like to teach CAD to 18-year-olds. He says that just four years ago, students were annoyed at having to approach a computer. In the last three years, though, the attitude has changed completely: the students are now techno-savvy. Out of his briefcase, he pulls out visual resumes made by some of his first-year students with a word processor and digital video camera.

I go for dinner with another of the architectural judges. (I have an Aussie hamburger. They don't put ketchup on French fries; instead, they put tomato sauce on the hamburger.) Originally from Scotland, he had been teaching digital media at the local university, acquiring $400,000 worth of equipment, and creating the most popular course at the school. After four years, the politics got bad enough that he quit, and now he consults. I guess his age as mid-twenties.

I am disappointed no fights broke out among the architectural CAD competitors, but there were plenty of heated words. John patiently hears them through, as the competitor teams circle and verbally jab like a pack of dingos.

After the show closes that night, compeitors and judges head over to Choys 1000 A.D. Authentic Chinese Restaurant. Every so often, the ever-active Debbie bops down the stairs to direct -- via her red cell phone -- latecomers to the restaurant's near-hidden staircase entrance. I figure the next innovation in cell phones (called "mobile phones" in Aussie) has got to be GPS mapping so that two people can locate each other.

This is my day off. I have booked a tour to the Blue Mountains. It's $80 and well worth it. We drive through the Sydney Olympic 2000 area (the locals call the 135,000-seat stadium "The Blister"). I wonder to myself why the Summer Olympics are being held during the Australian autumn.

We stop at Featherdale Wildlife Park that heals hurt wild animals, then drive via Leura to see the Three Sisters rock formation and Katoomba Falls in Jamieson Valley. The highlight is "afternoon tea with the wild kangaroos" in Euroka Clearing of Blue Mountain National Forest. Instead of driving back to Sydney, we are left by the river in Rydalmere and take the river catamaran. It is an exhilarating 3/4-hour ride that ends by going through the Sydney Harbour and depositing us at the Circular Quay. There, our bus driver awaits to return us to our hotels.

Again, I wake up early. I pack. I take one last hour-long walk around Darling Harbour. And I have a last breakfast at Market City mall, converted from a 1909 vegetable market. By now, the proprietress has memorized my breakfast order. I catch the airport bus and reflect that this'll be the longest day of my life: 43 hours. I'll be sitting in an airplane for 15 hours; that feels short compared to the 24 hours of airplane travel to Scotland.

I am fascinated by the Australian sense of isolation. They share their island-continent (about the size of Western and Eastern Europe) with no other country. Prices of consumer goods, gasoline, hardware, and software tend to be high because "it costs more to ship it here," a nonsense excuse. Australians are thrilled when the rest of the world notices them. They loved asking how their country compares with mine. The 2000 Olympics are important to them, even through they talk cynically of its success.

As I sit in the Sydney International Airport lounge, I realize I've fallen in love with Australia. For me, the country combines the chic of Europe with the wide-openness of Canada. I am sad to leave this beautiful country.

(c) Copyright 1999 by XYZ Publishing, Ltd.