Rainbow beach

The first trip to the beach for surf and ycamping is in the bag. A great weekend with Steve, janine, moochy, and a few more of their friends!

On the way to our camp site:


The spot:








The crew:


My new tent:


My photgenic self:


Rob and moochie:











The ute on the beach, good times:


There's even camels in Australia!!



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First drive

Brissie at night from mount coot-tha. Not sure if u can see anything or not.


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The local chippy

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Breakfast on the window sill

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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:

End week

weekend has come and gone... Friday did the usual drinks and dinner with coworkers, Saturday I had to hang around home for my tv and chair delivery, then went for a game of squash. Saturday night I laid low because of a 6am tee time on Sunday. Played the Pacific Golf Club in Carindale, shot shit. And when u tee off at bloody 6 am u have the whole day ahead of u so I did the natural Sunday afternoon thing by going to loiter in Ikea. The new Ikea him Brisbane is the largest indoor single retail shop in the world, or something like that... All that matters is that Bumerangs were $8 for 8, boo ya. Played game one of the summer (ice) hockey league Sunday night, a 4-3 victory.
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I got outside!

This is my building as seen from the river, in fancy iPhone 1974 effects... Behind the parkade, stupid place for a parkade. "Winchombe Carson ltd", used to be a wool warehouse in 1911.



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30 yr old teenager

My second piece of "furniture".I had to move my ironing board.

Hat

I hope u can zoom in on this hat, it reeks of Queensland...



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Bare bones

My only pieces of furniture:





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Settling

It's my first night in the new apartment... So far my furniture consists of a bed and appliances. I took the afternoon off to get everything delivered and then spent 3.5 hours putting the bed together, rubbing the first two layers of skin off my right hand due to undertaking the entire venture with a single manual screwdriver... What I would have given an hour in for a cordless drill.

But the bed is finished, I have somewhere to sleep. And now I'm on the bus on my way to a soccer match in a thunderstorm, pouring down rain. Hopefully there's a roof over the stands.



Cheers.


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Dinner for one! Lovely... Although I was more impressed by the potatoes than the steak. The mustard went straight to my right nostril, wassabi style. Also, the service sucks. If I could find anyone to ask them the name of this joint I would, but I can't. I could look at the check but I'm going to 'sneak' out the front entrance, no one will notice, seriously.


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Unit

Kitchen:





Living room... Or driving range, I can't decide.





view from door towards living room:

The train

Riding the train tonight...


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Don't Think Twice, It's Alright - Bob Dylan

for some reason

Ice hockey

Played in a pick up game tonight in preparation for the upcoming summer league. It went surprisingly well... I played D and didn't fall down once when turning. And look, I've been rewarded:



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A little pick me up after work... Enough for me to make the 3 block walk...



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What I'm doing right now

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Brisbane's millenium wheel

They built a ferris wheel on south bank... Tourists love it here!



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Test ride

Rode the ferry from my potential new house in New Farm back to city (on my way to the pub).






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The office fridge

Aaaaaaaahhhh.





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I meant hear.

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House hunting

Well, after becoming a slum lord in Calgary I'm now looking for a place to rent in brissie... I'd much prefer to be buying a place here too, but I'm afraid the authorities would suspect something and start to wonder where the money comes from... I wonder if they've heard of $0 down mortgages here in Australia, I here they're a big hit on the mainland.

Here's a pic of West End, where I looked at a couple today...



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I have seen the light.

Well, I'm back at work. This go around I'm working in Riperian Plaza, a 40+ story building where the first 38 floors are offices and the top 5 or so are penthouse condos. Unfortunately my allowance won't cover one of those as they're going for 10g+ a month . But in the meantime I'm working on the 36th floor, and so far the highlight is our coffee room / kitchen:

For anyone who was doubting that Australia rocks, let you be forever silenced. For those of you doubting that America kind of sucks, let you be rebuffed.... because our project is for Exxon/KBR and they both have a strict policies against the use of the more "liberal" substances found in this particular work kitchen.

Tomorrow, I open the fridge. I'm scared. In the meantime the hunt for local bank accounts and a place to live. Any suggestions? City or inner city burbs?

I'm Back

Well, finally... I'm back in Brissie. I arrived today around 11:30am and spent the day re-setting, showering after 24 hours in planes/ports, buying a mobile phone for here, meeting Ed for a beer, and chilling out. It's good to hear Australian accents again.... I'm exhausted and going to bed... But first here is the compulsory pics of the view and hotel/apt... 41st floor, more to follow when my eyes are open again.

Count down

The countdown is on... 3 more days of work and a transatlantic flight and I'm back in Canada. Looking forward to it now, finally! BBQ booked for Saturday, and golf at Kananskis on Monday. I love it when a plan comes together.

Purines

Deuce, you'll appreciate this. Sometime last night I noticed some swelling and pain in my big toe. It kept me up a little last night, but nothing sever, it's happened before. Well... Today I've self diagnosed myself on webMD as having gout. It's almost cut & dry... the symptoms, the causes... It's caused by too much uric acid in the blood, which in turn is caused by too much beer, meat, fish, and even soft drinks in your diet. All of these are staples in my diet. I've read that 6 in a 1000 men are effected... I almost feel special. But of course if it's true and I do have gout, what does that mean? Reading about it they talk about medication, blah blah blah... why do you need full-time medication for something that "flares up" every 2 years or so?? Hmmm... but wait, I guess it could lead to other issues around too much uric acid in the blood. In order to reduce it you need to reduce the beer & meat in your diet. F that, maybe I need medication.

So, I'm taking the afternoon off to rest my foot as being cramped in my Ermenegildo Zegna's all morning didn't bode well for the toe. Hopefully clears up tonight, then I'll get it checked out eventually...

coinkydink

Hmpf. Today I had to go to the Australian Embassy in Cairo. The address is:
12th floor, World Trade Center
1191 El Nil Corniche.

Anyone else think that is too close for comfort, keeping in mind the rest of the world's dates are notated ddmmyy instead of north america's mmddyy?

jinx

I almost want to wait until I'm actually out of Egypt, and possibly even until I've set foot in Australia to say anything for risk of jinxing this, but what the hell...

The Australian work visa is approved. My official last day on the project in Egypt is 11-Sep, flying to Calgary on the 12th. I'll have a couple of weeks to relax (aka golf, eat breakfast at Nellies, sitting on patios, mall-rat it up, etc etc) before flying to Brisbane around the 27th of September.

So that's good news. I won't get my hopes up too high until I'm 2000 feet above the pyramids and climbing.

Oh ya, and let's also hope the airline industry doesn't grind to a halt due to a certain anniversary of a certain event that occurred in 2001.

Bar Names Sue - Fernie

The Bar Named Sue is open in Fernie?? How come I wasn't informed earlier?? tisk tisk friends.

Rough around the edges

I feel like I should be a bouncer in an soviet era underground czech illegal western music dance club with this:

You're supposed to take pics like this of your kids...
After:
Aftermath:

White people like Facebook.

I like this so much I'll provide the link! You know it means that much to me. That's 3 links, you should be able to click on one of them. Oops, four!

T v P

Mmm hmmm.

June Wedding in Cairo

Here's a picture from my friend Andre and his new wife Nancy's wedding on June 12. From L to R: Nancy, Andre, Ryan, Frederieke, Alisha and James. No word on why Andre and I are apparently laughing our asses off.