Have I really not posted anything since the end of May?? I get so confused... between Facebook and this blog I'm not sure where/what I've posted.

Anyways, here's some pics from my home leave to Canada. I'm stranded in Vancouver as my flight to Sydney is delayed 2 hours, so it's going to be a 4 or 5 hour layover. Oh well, flying bidness class so the Maple Leaf lounge will get a work out. They better not run out of Crown Royal.

Downtown Calgary, businessmen in cowboy hats, yee haw!

Driving to BC to see g-ma... miss those mountains:
James and Alisha's wedding in Toronto, here's the CN tower view from my hotel room:
Happily married, Alisha is already dozing off! lol, great wedding though and lots of fun:
Golfing at Kananaskis... more good views:
Not complete without wildlife on the course:
More wildlife, my new drive club cover. Say hello to the Beav:

Perth

Flew to Perth this past weekend to see a few friends. James and Alisha who I worked with in McMurray and Egypt, Jeremy who is an Aussie I worried with in Perth and visited in Vietnam, and Joe and Leigh Ann who I worked with in McMurray on UE1. James is here temporarily working on another job in Perth and Joe has made a permanent move here...

The pictures are pretty sad, oh well. I'm missing a few pics of the Swan Valley and all tv wineries we tasted, as well as a couple breweries... Which was definitely a high light from Saturday.

Saturday eve we went for a great dinner and then out for a night on the town, which was great. Sunday we spent mostly in Fremantle for some more touring and beer tasting...

Jeremy and his housemate Rob at the Duckstein brewery in the Swan Valley which is where a few Western Australian wines are made. We toured around the area tasting all of Saturday..


James and alisha--








Little Creatures brewery in Fremantle:





More Freo:














Post From My iPhone

Shirt pockets

Today is the first time I've ever put a pen in a shirt pocket. It was just so convenient. In the past I've just clipped the pen onto a book or whatevere else I was carrying at the time but today the book was too thick and I didn't want to bend the pen's clip, so the shirt pocket was a natural alternative. I'm afraid to use this option on a regular basis though because of the sterotypes associated with pens in shirt pockets. Dorky engineers walking around with pens of each colour plus calculators and rulers sticking out of their shirts. Or anyone over 50... I reckon the only people who it suits are carpenters or cooks, and even they usually have those cool carpenter/chef shirts that have the pockets on the sleeves.


-- Post From My iPhone

Camping, surfing, tryin' to lose my mind

This past weekend was another classic chapter in Queensland lifestyle, spent with the Collin's crew camping on Moreton Island. Moreton Island is just east of Brisbane and is only an hours ferry ride away. We loaded the ute Thursday evening and then blasted off early from work to make the 1pm ferry on Friday arvo.

There was an oil spill off the east of of Queensland in March, which was pretty serious and had actually caused the closure of the Moreton to the public until last week. Here's a picture of the beach during the spill:

But good news, it's clean now and ready to be enjoyed. This pictuer is of Honeymoon bay, which is about a 5 minute walk from where we camped. Perfect.

This is the Collins family on the ferry on the way over (from L to R: Mikaela, Steve, Janine, Chloe):

Here are the Tangalooma wrecks, just off the coast and just next to where the ferry drops us off, right onto the beach. Great snorkling and fishing around the wrecks... I guess Moreton Island was an old whaling station and these are old whaling boats after they decimated the whale population:

This was a quadding tour leaving Tangalooma as we arrived:

Driving up the beach to our camp spot on North Point:

A bypass inland for a little ways:

Sunset over the glass house mountains as seen from the north shore of Moreton Island.

This weekend was the first time I actually felt like a surfer... as in I stood up almost more than I fell face first and bounced off the bottom. There was a sweet little point break off the north point where you had to hike in for about 15 minutes because there was no other access. On Sunday we actually walked down the sand blow you see in the pic, wicked scenery. Dive in off the rocks and away you go. Sunday's session was the best surf experience I've ever had.

Part of the reason we started from the sand blow on Sunday was because we ran into a ranger who told us about the spotting of 5-6 5m+ bronze whalers (f'ing man eating sharks) on the south end of the island. So we took the high road to see if we could see anything in the water before we dove in.... luckily no whalers in site that day... Here's a link to a story about the siting, there was a picture in the paper but I can't find it online.

Good times.

This weekend I'm off to Perth to visit my friend Jeremy (visited him in Vietnam in '06), James and Alisha (fellow Cdns who I worked with in Egypt and Fort McMurray), and Joe Lyttle (worked with in Fort McMurray but he now lives in Perth). Just quick Friday to Sunday jaunt, looking forward to it though!

GT's

What else have I been up to besides reading about the collapse of my condo building (just joking I hope)?

This past weekend was a combination of law students, a couple movies, a 70's rock & roll themed birthday party, metal bands, midget wrestling, hockey, and all around good times.

The weekend before that I tried my hand at kite surfing, although the weather/wind didn't cooperate so it was basically a kite flying lesson.

And somewhere in all of that I saw Cheech and Chong live in concert. I gave it a 7/10 entertainment value, and 5/10 value for money. Funny, but too expensive for the final product.
This is them, honest:
Pro wrestler:

In action, tag teaming with a giant versus 2 ninjas, a classic match-up:

The timetable for the night's metal/wrestling combo:

70's b-day party. I'm Lennon'esque, and that's supposed to Oko. GT's for real.

Sinkhole forces Beltline condo residents from home

Uh oh... follow this link to a CBC story on my condo building on 13th... not good news. Wonder how this will play out.

Sailing & Diving the GBR

So we had a 4-day long weekend for Easter. The Australians do it right, they take Good Friday and Easter Monday off even though general secularism is increasing in Australia. Anyways, I flew up to Cairns with a friend from work Thursday after work, overnighted at the Hilton overlooking the marina, and then boarded our boat at 8am Friday.

Here is our sailing vessel, the Santa Maria, built in the tradition of Caribbean rum runners from the 1800's. It was actually built in 1982 by a father-son combination in New Caledonia.

Here she is in action:

Here she is at meal time (with me sucking in my gut):

And then the diving began. We did 8 dives in the 3 days were aboard, including another night dive. Overall, the visibility was great and I think the highlight for me were the 3 sharks we saw as well as the interesting shapes, cracks, nooks, and crannies of the bommies we explored along the Great Barrier Reef. I still think Sharm El Sheik in the Red Sea was the best diving I've done to date the GBR that I've seen so far is impressive, although I can't claim to have seen the best it has to offer. Here are some underwater pics our dive master took along the way.

At one point we dove/swam through a massive "android" colony... they sort of look like jelly fish but are totally harmless. But there were so many of them it was like swimming into that jello dessert with the fruit suspended in it, whatever that's called.

At night, after dinner, we delved into the cask wine. We even had an official blind taste testing to see who could identify the various brands. The shirtless Swede won this round...

We arrived back in Cairns Sunday arvo, showered up, then joined the crew for 2 for 1 happy hour at a joint on the marina. From there we headed to the Woolshed for some (in)famous $8 steaks. After dinner the Woolshed turns into a full-on casual/backpacker'esque club complete with dancing on the tables and bars, of which I participated gleefully and thankfully there is no pictorial evidence.

I sort of wish we went here though... anywhere that advertises Beer, Steak, and Good Times is tops in my books.

The next day (Easter Monday) we bumbed around the town before our flight back to Brissie. Eventually ended up at the mall and were delighted to stumble upon Melville's Farm petting zoo with some funky ass chickens.

And how better to close out a weekend of diving and sailing than with an eight minute go on the mall's ever popular massage chairs? Good times. Erin appears to enjoying the massage chair a little too much...