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.


-- Post From My iPhone

Unit

Kitchen:





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





view from door towards living room:

The train

Riding the train tonight...


-- Post From My iPhone

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:



-- Post From My iPhone

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



-- Post From My iPhone

What I'm doing right now

-- Post From My iPhone

Brisbane's millenium wheel

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



-- Post From My iPhone

Test ride

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






-- Post From My iPhone

The office fridge

Aaaaaaaahhhh.





-- Post From My iPhone

I meant hear.

-- Post From My iPhone

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...



-- Post From My iPhone

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.

Dive vid

By the power of greyskull, here's the video:

Sharm El Sheikh Diving

Since my tenure in Egypt is nearing an end I decided it was time to see a bit of the better side of Egypt. A good excuse to do this is to get certified for scuba diving and go to Sharm El Sheikh. So over the last few weeks I've gotten certified and this past weekend I headed to Sharm with my Canadian friends James & Alisha, Greg & Lisa, and their daughter Alexis and her friend Kim. We had a great time diving, gambling (winning!), poolside drinking, and basically no relaxing. Good times, I needed it to get my head off of work which has been driving me a little bonkers lately. I thought I was leaving and things would slow down, but on the contrary I've been busier than ever. WTF? Anyways, on day 2 of our diving trip the diving company (http://www.cameldive.com/) sent along an uderwater videographer. I'll try and upload it in the next post...

In the meantime here are pictures. They're a combination of my iPhone (thpt) and Greg and Lisa's camera, and their underwater camera...

The group at the hotel, waiting for pickup for diving:

Walking in the streets with giant Heinekens, only in tourist towns in Egypt:

Poolside Mai Tai's:

The reverse pyramid of Mai Tai's:

Approved headgear after a day of poolside Mai Tai's:

After diving cheers with the dive master back at Camel Dive:

Egyptian version of Vegas-Luxor, very sad:

On our way to the dive sites:

Getting our 'kit' on:

Underwater shenanigans:

Scorpian Fish:

Nemo! Clownfish:

Blue-Spotted Sting Ray:

Moray Eel:

A small Napolean:

The always elusive bowl fish:

Egypt Train Crash

I commented recently on an article about a train crash in Egypt...

Letter from Cairo

Not my letter, an interesting read anyways... read it.

Blossoming LDR

It's been 13 days since my last post.

My shoulders are sunburned from a session of beach volleyball on Friday. I'm ok though, it's a good hurt.

Mike Z, my friend and former landlord in Ft. McMurray has moved and is living in Victoria and still hasn't worked in over 9 months. He's attempting to go green in both his professional and personal life. I'm jealous and inspired.

I'm going to a wedding in Cairo this weekend. More importantly, I have a date. Some of you know this story from phone calls or emails or were eye witnesses, for others this will be news. In the middle of our European hockey roadtrip in March we stayed in Den Haag. If you'll recall from my earlier post we happened upon a birthday celebration for an attractive brown haired Dutch girl. Well, one thing has led to another... Our stop in Tilburg was mostly due to me wanting to visit Frederieke again, but it wasn't too hard convincing my fellow travellers to make the detour.

Frederieke visited me here in Egypt in April for a very quick 5 days. The time flew by but we had a great time hanging around the resort during a big Egyptian holiday to ring in Spring. Now she's due back this Thursday for a longer 10 day visit, starting with a wedding in Cairo! Then back to Sukhna where I still have to go to work and Frederieke is going to write her bachelor thesis for her psychology degree. This is the last step to receiving her degree before moving to Ireland to start her PhD. But in the meantime we'll enjoy some quality time together here in Egypt...

The latest on the work situ... There were murmurs of going back to Brisbane on the PNG project at the end of June, but those have essentially past. The possibility of me going back there eventually after Egypt is still open but just not yet... So I'm here until further notice, it's looking like the end of August. SO, I'll get another 2 week vacation / rotation leave here at the end of June or early July. I'm not sure what I'll do though. July 3rd is the first day of the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, which I think is the front runner. I haven't seen friends and family in Calgary since Christmas, and that was only for a quick week when everyone was busy during the holidays anyway... A dose of home could cure the sickness and tie me over until I wrap up here in Egypt... Something to think about anyway. If anyone has any suggestions please leave your comments, remember to sign your name so I know who's talking...

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