Hail to the chief

I thought I agreed to come to Australia to get away from bad weather... On Saturday I was driving around looking at cars and surfboard when I had to pull over under a tree to avoid my borrowed car being pelted by hail. When the hail started getting too big and coming through the tree I had to back the car onto the sidewalk and park under the overhang of a liquor/beer store. The owner of the store had moved his car there too and helpfully guided me in. I thanked him by buying 2 bottles of wine and a case of beer.

My friend Kate's car, safe and sound:

Saturday night was relatively quiet, went to a show and was in bed by midnight. Sad I know, but I had to golf at bloody 6:30am Sunday morning. The show I went to was "Choke", based on a Chuck Palahniuk novel that I had read a few years ago. Interesting show, I'd give it an 8. The tee box on one of the holes at Ashgrove, I wasn't alone:

Sunday afternoon Jeremy, who I visited in Vietnam Xmas'06, spent the day in Brisbane after coming here from Perth for a wedding. He had to drop some keys off at Ed & Kate's because he stayed there Friday night... that's when we discovered one of the patio doors had been smashed. By what we don't know, it wasn't a break and enter, there was no dead bird on the patio, and the weather wasn't crazy in their suburb... we're not sure. We spent a couple hours knocking the glass out of the door, cutting a piece of wood to put over it, and skillfully taping it into place.

Jeremy and I had had aspirations of heading to the beach for a few hours before he had to fly back to Perth but the glass incident cut into the day... so instead we drove inland toward Ipswich. I'd liken it to Longview... we went a little further on a "tourist" route and stopped in another small town, Rosewood, for a pot of Gold (that's Australian for glass of beer) and quick bite at the fish & chip shop, which every town has at least one.

On the homefront... I still don't have furniture, I think it's set to be delivered this week. But by a stroke of golf enthusiast luck and next day shipping my golf driving mat and practice net showed up last week! Right now it's in the spare room, but I'll move it to the den once I get something to put under the mat (and over the hardwood). The ceilings are tall in my place and the lack of female influence allows me to turn a room into an indoor driving range. So far no complaints from the neigbours or holes in the wall. You have concentrate pretty hard not to toe a shot into the wall of a rented flat!

Furniture schmurniture: