Moderm times.... the dictionary update

Got one of those circular emails which really made me laugh today. Some modernisms which were so apt it was almost scary... i especially like the "McShit".... come on we've all done it!

TESTICULATING - Waving your arms around and talking Bollocks.
BLAMESTORMING - Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
SALMON DAY - The experience of spending entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.
SITCOMs - Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a "home business".
GOING FOR A McSHIT - Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you're just going to the bog. If challenged by a pimply staff member, your declaration to them that you'll buy their food afterwards is known as a McShit with Lies.

Suspicious Rocks

Part of my new routine, engineered to try and save my sanity of working from home, is to get to a cafe each day, be it before work when not up for a swim, run or surf or at lunch to break up the day. I read with great interest, and amusement, in the Sydney Morning Herald that Britain has been caught putting monitoring devices, disguised as rocks outside buildings in Moscow. When you come across statements like "The FSB is also hunting Moscow for other potentially suspicious rocks", I cannot stop but think it could be a fairly lengthy task!
Even funnier is a quote from the Telegraph about a cartoon (can't seem to find it online) of a rock sitting a bar ordering a martini, shaken not stirred, its good to know the "bad" old cold war days are not completely with us.

Dispelling the mith - its not always sunny

As you can see
its not always sunny here. I know I may have lost a few friends back in pommy land making a few probably rather tastless comments about weather, being on the beach etc. etc. Well the last two weeks its been pretty wet to be honest. What most do not appreciate, and I'm usually loathed to boast about, is that summer is wetter than any other season. Okay so its raiining, its 25deg+, but the english mind in me still associates these rainy days with colder english winters. This could be why I still don't really cope with eating huge amounts of fruit for breakfast whilst its pouring outside... does not compute!

Looking like a Blue Propalactic first thing Sunday!

When you haven't done an ocean swim for a while you forget many things out of the default list of things to do and remember. Unfortunately the most unavoidable one is that you're forced to wear swim caps for the
event. Mine, due to my 30-34 age group was a lovely pastel blue. The only thing I could think about while keeping nerves at bay on the start line was similarity of some comedy sketch where everyone is dressed as Propalactics! Luckily there are no photos (AFAIK) so you'll have to take my word for it.
As its name suggests ocean swiming is basically swimming in the ocean. But having not done this for a while, I forgot several of the important items for Ocean Swimming
1. prepare - i forgot Vasaline, which you need to stop under arm chaffage (sea is full of salt and sand, its like sand blasting your arm pits after 40mins in the water)
2. always look up - school boy error on a couple of ocassions this a.m., followed the person in front. Think my 1.8km turned into about 2.2 km!
3. always swim in the middle of the pack - 500 people, statistically you've got more chance of getting nibbled by a water based predator if you're on the outside. [mum, sorry, its safe as houses, there hasn't been a shark attck in Sydney for like 20 years]
Didn't do too bad, not sure precise time, it will be on the website at some point. But the buzz running up the sand to finish the race (even if you've got no chance of finishing in the top bracket) is great. Plus it means by lunch you really think you've done something with your day... allows me more time to sit in the hammock finishing the blog on the topic!

Wedding Etiquette

So we're going to a wedding in Jan (which is summer for all those not downunder!) and the wedding ceremony starts at 5:30pm. The big dilema has settled in about what to wear. The definition of lounge suit seems pretty varied, and couple that with potential for stinking hot evening here in Oz is very likely so I'm backing the well trusted beige linen suit, alas not seen eye to eye with rochelle who thinks it should be dark.... bugger it why don't i just go in board shorts and tux jacket. We did this at the buck / stag do and it went down very well in Airlie Beach... not sure if the bride would see the same humour value in the hunter valley ;-)

How do you stuff a pita bread?

Okay I love bread. Probably a little too much, hence why i don't support a Van Dam six pack. Variety, being the spice of life 'n' all, results in trying all sorts of different breads. Pita is yum, but for the love of me I can't seem to stuff them (even with a minimum number of ingredients) without breaking the pocket. Nothing worse than a pita with a flap! Is it cause we're freezing and defrosting the pita... are there any solutions or ideas out there I wonder...

New Year 2006

Up until 3 days ago we had no plans. A fair proportion of the Manly crowd had departed to elsewhere, it seems many were not taking it that seriously. Many retiring to "simple" affairs at home or around the dinner table of others. We had guests in town and had originally settled on a local pub that was known to be a good crac.
Then as if by magic an angel appeared, a friend we caught up with drinks on the 30th made us an offer of a life-time. She was planning a small do at the city pied-a-terre of her Boss. It just happens to be opposite the harbour bridge in circular quay (see how close on this google earth link, btw you can install google earth here); 4 floors up above the "un-washed masses", with glass of champagne, on one of the 3 balconies ... it really was the chance of a lifetime.
It all lived up to expectation. Catherine laid on the food and beverages and we talked hte night away and "wowed" the night away through 2 sets of fireworks with the warm-up at 9pm, the final big ($4m worth actually) midnight bash was worth the wait.
Unfortunately the camera doesn't really do any of it any justice, but it was fun capturing the many "oh ah" moments . In fact looking back through the photos I think I must have been more drunk than I remember... lots of blury ones!
Hope everyone had a great time where-ever they were.... look forward to hearing comments on what people got up to!

Sailing on the harbour

This has been organised weeks in advance, the perfect start to the new year, a nice half day sail around the harbour for a bunch of friends, most who hadn't been sailing before. This was also well before the weather forecast had predicted that it would be 45degrees on the day, and before R & I had accepted a NYE bash which ended at near 4am!

Oh well all went well in the end, a fun time had by all. Well that was except one poor lass who had a rather bad vodka induced hang-over.
We pottered around, stopped off at Balmoral beach for a well earned, and much needed swim in the much much cooler water. All in all very nice....

Perth, a weekend trip

So I was fortunate enough to have a conference in Perth in November, so Rochelle & I decided to pop over for the weekend before. I've been before, but for Rochelle, like most Aussies, she'd never been.

Perth is one of the world's remote capital cities, and it certainly feels like it when you spend almost 5 hours on a plane. I mean its like flying from London to New York (almost).

Its known as a "Big country town" to many, and the first thing that strikes you about it is how tranquil it is and then how small it is, we basically backed everything into the first day including
Freemantel for breakfast
Drive to the local wine region.
A chocolate factory... aw my gawd!
Trip to the beaches
Back to the hotel to change, out for a bottle of rose for the sunset at cotasloe Beach (v. famous, and a real novelty for us as we never get to normally see sunsets over water as we live on the East Coast!).
Fish and chips
...phew
All of which are documented very nicely here.
The next day was a trip out to a local island, "Rotnest" (or Rat's nest). Hired some bikes, had a picnic, more views over the ocean and finding the local wildlife. These gorgeous Marcupials, called Quokkas. (originally mistaken by settlers as rats). Have to say v. cute. Apart from a rather rough blowy trip out on the ferry a lovely way to spend the day....

I can recommend Perth!

Lots of photos

Have finally got a decent photo arrangement. Hosted on my not so active cheepdial web site! :-) Can be linked to from this blog all the time, but will be referencing them as I go....

My first proper power tool... I feel like a man

Okay so i've used power tools before, dad had loads them - hammer action drills, circular saws, etc. I've done shelving, drilled holes all that kinda stuff, you know a little knowledge can be very dangerous 'n' all that. But none of it compares to actually walking into a hardware store and asking to purchase your first power drill, with hammer action, keyless chuck, depth guage and laser guided drill bits.... okay i didn't go for the last option, that was just silly. But it was great to walk up, utter the modern yuppy masculine declaration "I'm renovating".

I think the sales guy, who turned out to be a nice enough chap, really thought his luck had come in for the saturday when I uttered my father's famous mantrer (sp!?) "spend good money on decent tools and they'll last for ever"... so I walked out with 800bucks worth of goodies, but I know it'll all last. And of course I can rationalise, I was going to save 1000's by doing the floor replacement myself, and I'd get proper tools out of it... .brilliant!

Renovations Stage 1... ground zero, flooring...

We'd already removed the carpets, so we knew that floor boards needed replacing. The whole place had been covered in a single horrible green carpet, and over the years certain boards had been replaced with odd pine snippets, obviously just to make do. So of course, doing the modern thing, removing all carpets and sanding back the floors everything needs to look the same... or at least vaguely similar!

The task, according to Bunnings Hardware was to remove offending boards, simply and easily using a saw, a chisel and a hammer. All sounds simple. I had the tools so i'll just rattle through these. The wood came from a recycled place near the city (A saga in itself to get that back without a ute or stationwagon!

2 days later and the place still looked like bombed out beruit, but my confidence had actually improved and i kinda knew what i was doing! (its all in the dress sense)... the end result actually looked pretty good... but if its taught me one thing.... get a professional ;-).

The holiday Passport Saga

"But sir", he said in his heavily accented English, "they're not open until Tuesday. Monday is a bank holiday". It was at that point my jaw hit the counter. In my very broken, rusty French, the counter attendance, slightly better English, we'd cleaned the crux of the matter. No your parcel isn't here, and you (a) can't find out the parcel number as the visa office will be closed (b) the post office will be closed. Stood in the blazing Saturday morning sun in 'La Poste', Belle vue sur Mer, the wonderful 2 weeks holiday seem to disappear. I had no passport, we had flights from Frankfurt, over 1000km away, on Monday evening. The passport, 'somewhere' between Paris and Nice (ish).
The long story short. I had my Aussie residency granted (another story in itself) had arrived. The big problem, you have to leave the country, get your passport 'evidenced' whilst abroad, and enter back through passport control on your new visa. Archaic you might think, yes i'd agree, but okay lets play with that. There was surely no point in planning another week away just to get the passport. But our original plans for the holiday did not include more than 5 days in any one spot. The real kicker is that you need to allow 3 business days for your exit from Australia to register with the foreign offices, then another 5 days for the office to process, then the delay to pickup or post to you. This would be all too good, except where we were going there is no Australian Embassy. None in Nice, none in Switzerland. Only Paris, Berlin or Rome. So the decision, post / courier (registered of course!) the passport to Paris from Chamonix, then get it returned to our Friends residence near where we were finishing up the holiday. All went to plan, email correspondance confirmed everything had arrived, was processed and sent back within 3 days - v. impressive. We then had hope when friends said they'd been one of those "we delivered but you weren't in cards" at their Villa. The only draw back, which we only discovered on Saturday a.m. on the last weekend - this was in fact just a " you've successfully SENT your documents and they've arrived. At this point all sorts of issues arose - we didn't have the tracking number of the sent postage (from the visa office in paris), we'd just been told it was a public holiday on monday, and no idea where the parcel was.
So our original plan of leaving on Sunday, leisurely drive north, perhaps a stop in Annecy, flying back on Monday night, was not really going to happen. Luckily there was lots of availability so flights weren't the issue (apart from a later start at work!). The problem was just not knowing when the passport would arrive. Could be Tues, who knew.... Anyhow, managed to be very nochalant about it over the weekend, well "what can you" I'd say, which was true, totally out of my hands. So we proceeded to enjoy the weekend. Not really that hard in the sundrenched cote d'azure town, a "fairly" relaxed gorgeous girlfriend, a fantastic collection of old Uni friends, an incredible wedding, no work and a not too shabby hotel room.
It was all a bit of an anti-climax in the end, Tuesday I shot to the post office immediately. The passport was there. Right, checkout (well luckily Rochelle managed all that whilst I was battling with traffic), throw everything into the car, and start the long hall back. This time however we had decided on the France, Italy, Switzerland & Germany route. Again, not a good start to the journey as the single file traffic inched its way from Nice to Monaco. Luckily we got to Italy and then started to open up the Alpha, it may not handle well on the alpine routes, but once cranked up to the 150+ would cruise quite nicely. Its well known the Italians, bless their coffee drinking, olive oil eatening hearts, like to disregard road speed limits.... when in Rome! The same was basically true of Switzerland and especially Germany. We had a day in 4 countries, a real novelty for my antipodean lovely, and quite entertaining when you think about it! We managed to accomplish the trip, a touch over a 1000kms in just over 8 hours, 2 petrol stops and almost $250 aussie peso's worth of fuel. We had an extensive 3 hours in the first class lounge at the airport. An eventless flight, no good movies I might add (maybe Sahara http://www.saharamovie.com/, which is a bit of a laugh), was followed by a rather arduous 2 days at the office...

We bought a house!

So we finally did it, most remarkably for me, it was "almost" an impulse purchase... again (people who know my tales of the first purchase in london will know it kinda happened by accident).

Anyhoo, Rochelle found this place quite by accident walking to the ferry down one of the backstreets to get to manly centre. A hand scribbled sign advertising the vendor's intentions, without an estate agent logo in site - perfect.

The long and short of it, we're now proud owners, due to exchange 4th october 2005 (normally 10 week exchange, but they wanted longer which suits us as we have holiday in between). The place, a small class federation terrace house, laid out most bizarrely on a narrow plot not far from manly centre, 3 blocks from the beach. Totally livable, but definitely needs some work as the kitchen & bathroom, tacked on the back like so many houses round here, really do need replacing!

A few piccies of the outside here.... Outside and this gives you an idea of where it is.... map

Surfing with a Dolphins

So I have my work from home friday in sydney today. got up to have a bit of a surf and ended up being out on the glassy waves with a pod of dolphins. Granted I thought it was sharks initially and nearly died on the spot from shock, but when you realise its actually the friendly kind a bizarre euphoria takes over.
Now of course, putting everything in context, when you read surfing, read "Attempting to stand on board", when you read pod, read "2". But its still way cool.
Right, no milk so i'm off to get a coffee before embarking on a days grind, but with a bit of a grin..... almost makes up for the manic form my life seems to have taken over the past month.

Busy Busy Busy....

I haven't been busy like this for a while. Forgotten what its like... no time for personal emails, idol chit chat with friends over the phone in the evening, weekends seem to just go by far too quickly.

Work seems to have got the better of me recently. We had a rather quirky evening the other day, with 4 of us (3 directors and myself) in the lab till 3:30 am assembly one of the products that we had originally intended to go to factory had to be done last minute "in house". Quite a bonding session - bit of music, lots of beer, and we did it - soldering, assembling, gluing, debuging etc. etc. Not something to be repeated!

In the meantmie we need to recruit at a rediculous pace, the growth is scary. But it IS great to be a part of it, learning so much about how a small company and a true "business" copes.

I know i'm stressed, not sleeping well blah blah, really need to get a grp and make sure it doesn't overpower me....

Its a crap day... yeehah!

One of the many reasons I love this country is the weather, for sure, its generally much better than I'm used too. However its got to the point where one just has to get outside when the weather's great, as a result, nothing "inside" gets done.... so what does "doing things inside" consist of on a day like this:

1. catching up on DVDs - west wing series 3 is almost complete
2. personal emails - the inbox is full like I can't believe, so finally making inroads and making sure I still have friends at home ;-)
3. golf, well can do that in any weather, so got up v. early with some of the guys and went for a quick 9... played for breakfast, and the other team lost... good outcome for us as a deserved breakfast at one of the local joints.
4. admin - normal stuff, being away all the time means the mail, bills blah blah builds up
5. walk on the beach - even thou its a gray, pretty chilly (by Oz terms), doesn't prohibit that wonderful feeling of soft sand in the feet.

Can't really complain....

Did you know bananas catch fire in the microwave

Its true. A banana, frozen for later use, put into the Microwave to defrost, has a repeating tendancy to catch fire at its stalk.... would never have guessed...

Dave Matthews Band Rocks

Can't say I was originally a massive fan when Rochelle introduced me to Mr Matthews CDs (http://www.dmband.com/), but over the years certain tunes have grown on me.
However to see the man live, with his zaney band of merry men strutting their stuff, was superb! Great lyrics, amazing musicians... just brilliant. Its weird to think with such a keen following over here, this was the first time DM have actually toured down-under!

The long weekend

Bizarrely Sydney has not lived up to its tropical reputation, the last week has been atrocious, but the results have been quite spectacular, with massive waves Sydney Massive Surf this week, not that it helps my learning curve!

So the weather's been bad, its kinda good to lounge around, watch DVDs... we got through 5 episodes of "The West Wing". Tomorrow, gonna bet more active, hopng a bit of a golf, Dave Matthew's concert, BBQ, and a bke ride on Monday.... what ths place is made for!

Clock's go back, or is it forward, what-ever, this weekend, so alas tis the start of winter, but that should mean less rain and clear cool days... back to wearing jumpers.