Ding Dong - The Audit Is Done!

It seemed like an eternity but it was only 7 months of my life. That's the time that it took since I arrived in Australia until the day that the big controls audit was completed. And yesterday, on Friday, October 5th, 2007, it was finally over. The result - a "Pass" rating with "No Observations" - the best I could have hoped for. We did receive 3 "Comments To Management" but these do not go any further than our immediate corporate group so... there you have it! Now I know that most people who read this have never gone through a controls based audit (primarily based upon issues relating to current Sarbanes - Oxley legislation) so if some of the arcane language I'm using seems a bit foreign - well, thank your lucky stars! I don't know if you have watched "The Smartest Guys In The Room" - a documentary on the rise and (mostly) fall of Enron but after this audit, I have a new disdain for those creeps and all of the resultant pain inflicted on businesses who now have a million compliance hoops to jump through to keep everyone (everywhere) feeling comfortable that nothing "bad" could ever happen. I won't belabor this other than to say we have spent a zillion hours here locally on audit preparation, had dozens of people here to help us prepare - at a cost of probably several hundred thousands of dollars - and now it's all done. Monday, we'll have to figure out what "normal" is because it's never been "normal" since I arrived.

On to something more enjoyable - Nancy's back here with me! She arrived last Thursday and we've almost gotten used to being together again (2 months apart can do that). She's settling into a bit of a daily routine and has custody of our friends fish "Stupid" while they are off in Singapore for a few weeks. She's navigating the buses, trains and ferry system to get around and looking forward to heading off to Coolum with me the week after next. I have to attend a Regional Airline Conference and she can explore a bit of the Sunshine Coast while I'm occupied with "business".

We have done a bit of personalization to the apartment and it's a smidgen "bolder" than we might have attempted back home but it seems to work here. There's a box Nancy shipped before leaving the U.S. with a few more things that will make the apartment more like home - it should clear customs maybe this week. And then there are Australian taxes to file (their tax year ended June 31st), long(er) term visas to secure, a "real" Australian driver's license - blah,blah, blah.

I've included a video of our "temporary neighbors" departing to give a sense of how it looks from our apartment. It's a bit long so feel free to fast forward to Nancy's greeting near the end. There will be more updates soon - hopefully some "we went here and saw something cool" news now that the audit is finished. Thanks for your responses to this Blog - it's really great to hear how you all are doing and what's happening with you back in "the real world" and we really look forward to each and every one.