Totally premature and running counter to my last post, I found some relatively cheap round trip tickets, which I have booked. I don't have to pay for them until Oct 8, so if the sox fall on their face early against Oakland I won't pay for the tickets. If they win the first round but loose the ACLS, I can cancel the tickets for a $170 penalty. Thats about as cheap of a penalty I've seen. Of course, the flight is Sydney -> Tokyo -> New York -> Boston with a long layover in Tokyo, but it would be $600 more for a Sydney -> LA -> Boston flight. Also, with the limited vacation time I have left, I can't be there for the whole series and for the ultimate party in Boston so I'll be flying midweek. Basically the scenario would work out that I'll still be in AU for the first two games in Boston, then fly out sometime between games 3 and 4. I think I'll arrive in time for game 5 (still in the National League park), putting me in the Cask in time for games 6 & 7. Short of The Boston Globe, or The Boston Red Sox sponsoring my trip, I can't see a cheaper alternative. Giddy up!

For what its worth, I do have the OK for taking the time off, and yeah, this is a tough choice and I'm not all that psyched about it at all. BUT I'm starting to think that even if the sox are in the world series, I won't fly home to be there to see it. This decision hurts a lot. If they win it all and I'm not there to partake in the destruction of beantown by the drunken and merry looters, I will never forgive my employer for agreeing to send me to Australia in the first place (I gotta point the blame at someone, and you can't blame me because what are the odds, right? and you can't blame the red sox for actually winning). But its about 30 hours flight each way, and I only have 7 or so vacation days to blow, so when you subtract flight time, I'll have about 6 days max that I can be home for. Not much time for that much travel. Next you gotta figure in the cost of the tickets. I actually found some fairly cheap tickets, but at $1200USD, thats still a very steep price to pay for the transportation end of a vacation. Nevermind the beer, sausages and pepper sandwiches on Lansdowne, beer, peanuts, beer, and oh yeah, beer that I'll be consuming in my short stay. For about $300USD, I can get round trip tickets to New Zealand, which is also about one tenth the travel time. Looking at the guide book I picked up, this country looks amazing. Heaps better than most all of Australia. So, barring any hasty last second decisions, I'll be watching the 2003 baseball playoff series from either Oneworld Sports in Darling Harbour, or off of mlb.com. I'm not crushed by this but it does suck to have been following more or less every inning for the past few years only to miss what appears to be their best season in nearly 20 years. (World Series collapse aside, the '86 team was pretty solid). Paul Pierce, you gotta step up and deliver some playoff magic this season.