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It’s been a long summer. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my wife (or any of the wives of my co-workers, for that matter). I started a new job in February. Things ramped up at work until around May, then things got busy.

We picked up speed through June, and then through July and August, it wasn’t uncommon for us to be working 18-hour days. I even had the opportunity to do some of that work over a 2-week period in Melbourne, Australia.

The end result of this crazy summer is that we are part of the Australian Government’s NetAlert program, which makes internet filtering software available for free to Australians. You can read the press release about it here.

We’ve mostly wrapped up the work for the launch of that project, and we needed a way to celebrate. Last night we had that celebration.

Shane and I brought the “Aussome Burger” back from down under, so we wanted to share that “aussomeness” with the rest of the gang. Additionally, we had giant prawns and grilled kangaroo.

Al Zeigler from Zeigler’s BBQ (official caterer of InternetSafety.com) did the cooking for us, and he did a splendid job. He had never cooked kangaroo before, but (being the catering pro that he is) he had it grilled to perfection. The prawns were marinated in a marinade that our mate in Australia sent us. And the burgers…well they were great. We also had the (amazing) side choices from Zeigler’s.

After we consumed pound after pound of animal protein (mmmmm…), we moved on to dessert. Alecia is one of the wives of the co-workers, and she handled the desserts. If you’ll take a look at her MySpace page, you’ll see pictures of some of the things she has made. What’s crazy is that her treats taste even better than they look. She made a cake that was all 8 letters of the words “Safe Eyes.” It was probably 4 feet long.

Throughout the night, we enjoyed the DJ talents of G-side, whose day job is managing our customer service department. He did a great job mixing in all of the terrible songs we requested. Yes, the bad requests were intentional attempts at humor; nobody would seriously request Celine Dion (I hope).

The night was a good time, but for me (and I suspect for those guys that I work closely with) it was more of an emotional release. There’s some normality in life now, and we welcome it with open arms - and a full stomach.