The Big Question: Answered?

Hello all. Well, it has been 2 months since I have even bothered to look at this thing. Sorry. In that time lots and lots has happened. Like lots. I should be finishing my master's any day now. Rachael got herself back from Nepal and moved house. My cousin, Lisa, got married and brought over her new hubby for a bit of their honeymoon. I have been hiking, climbing, caving, run a fund raiser and gone out for numerous other social events with my awesome outdoors club.

Despite all of that, perhaps the biggest news has come from my employer. I have been doing work with them since October and they are pretty happy with the things I do. In short, they have offered me a position and sponsorship to stay in Australia temporarily for the next year or two. I have accepted this offer and the first steps have been taken as far as obtaining the proper visas and permits to allow this to happen. So if all the paperwork goes through in the next 2.5 months, I will be sticking around down under for a little while longer. To say that I am psyched about all this is a real understatement.

What that means for all of you is that I will be hanging out just a short 20-30 hours of travel away, waiting for visitors for another year or two. Really, you need to get down here before you die and if I can put you up or travel with you through this lucky country, so much the better.

The last 16 months living in Australia have been absolutely incredible. I can't say what the next 12-24 months hold but here's to hoping they are every bit as good. For those of you that are worried about me never coming back to the US: Melbourne isn't my home, and I don't know if I will ever call it that, but for now it is where my life is for now. I have an awesome girlfriend, some of the best friends I could ever ask for, a decent job, my health and a permanent smile on my face. There isn't much more I could ask for.

Maybe a nicer bike. But other than that...

So, the big question has been, "When do you come back?" or from down here, "When are you finished here?" The answer, it seems, continues to be what it has been, "I don't really know, but not for a while."

Google My Maps

So yeah, it has been around for a short while now, but I would like to point out the easy ability to create custom map mashups quickly using Google Maps now available over at http://maps.google.com...

Of course, this is basically what I was doing above with a load of Javascript, but now they have taken almost the work out of it, so cheers to Google for making my life easier. Now maybe you will see more than one addition per six months to the map mashup above... but I wouldn't count on that.

Also, I just thought I should throw up a few pictures from recent times because, well, I never do anything on this blog any more and quite frankly, I don't even know if the people who would care have seen pictures of me recently or Rachael (the girlfriend, which you also might not know about...) at all. So here for your viewing pleasure, some photos from the climbing trip over Easter to Arapiles and a few of me and Rach.

Me belaying Gary off an anchor on Aphrodite(10).

A nice view from the top of Heckle and Jeckle area (I think) behind the Pharos

That's some slabby stuff!
Don't remember the name of this one, but it was a nice 13.

Rach and I down at Phillip Island before going out for the evening.

Yeah, I agree, she is pretty cute :)

Trailwalker - 22:51

Thanks for the support Mom & Pop, Rae, the cuz Lisa Powers, and good ole Pat Cohoon!

Give me money!!

Ok, unless you are unable to see the large green letters above, you already know what this post is about. Just wanted to drop one so that it hit the RSS feed automatically and anyone watching that would know that I had something to say.

From March 23-25^th I am walking ~2.37 marathons (100k)in under 48 hours to raise money for an Australian charity called Oxfam that does work world wide. So crack those wallets, break out the plastic, and give us a hand. See above for links to donate or just find out more about Oxfam.

Thanks for your help, it is appreciated.

More Thailand Pictures

So this one will cover most of the rest of my trip photos in Thailand. Because the camera was broken (now working again!) for the second half of my time there, you will just have to do without until I can get some off of my friends. Anyone that wants to see the full set will have to email me so I can invite them to a share folder on xDrive. Yeah, I know, you have to register... sorry... but you can use your AIM screenname as it is owned by AOL, so it isn't that bad.

MONKIES EVERYWHERE! (Lopburi)

A monkey dozing on an ancient statue in Lopburi.

Bye Winyou!

Feet massages are the best.

Very cool ruins at Sukhothai.

Tobacco drying hut (I think) amongst rice paddys.

Food.

Pesky waterfalls always mucking up a nice forrest hollow...

Hill tribe village kids. They know Kung Fu.

Yeah, I rode an elephant.

More food. Except I made this stuff. That's right ladies, I got game.
Like, wicked thai food making game. Word.

The Aussie crew, minus Derick.
From L to R: Gasser, Claire, Billy, Sven, Scottie,
and the token American, Phil.
Wait, I thought I was supposed to be the token American...

We climb on rocks.

Last picture my camera took before dying for the rest of my trip.
Kind of fitting, I spent almost all of my non-climbing time
in pretty much the exact spot from which this photo was taken.
Does anyone wonder why I might have fond memories of Ton Sai?

Sometimes It Sneaks Up On You

Disclaimer: This post is not to be read by mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, children or anyone else who might be disabused by the debauchery about to be described. For the rest of you deliquents, please delight in the fallowing tale of what was supposed to be an early night.

So again this is going to be short and without pictures, but I just thought I had to share a little about last night. I was just over an illness that has had me the better part of a week and was about to call it an early night. Then a fire broke out. Literally. No, I mean like a real fire, with flames and stuff, up on a roof of one of the beach establishments. Naturally, everyone gathered and, with a combined effort, we all managed to get in the way. But seriously, with much running from the beach with improvised buckets and a few people hanging off the roof throwing water, the fire was extinguished and we could all get to the serious business of drinking tequilla. From there, things got interesting. It wasn't too long that I found myself boxing in the ocean on a platform that was destined to collapse under our weight. For the record, being on a collapsing boxing platform in the ocean is perhaps the single funnest thing for witch it is possible for a human being to participate. Not long after that, or maybe just before - I can't be buggered to remember -it seemed only natural that Sven would need to borrow my pants for what must have been a very compelling reason. I can't remember the last time I was walking around a beachfront bar in knee length tights and they were happy to continue serving me. Come to think of it, I still can't :)

See Mom, that's why I told you not to read this one; I knew you wouldn't like the idea of me fighting fires.

Finally a Linux box.

Right, well my fears were confirmed that when I had a little encounter with some overzealous antivirus software and my camera it mucked with the file system on my memory stick in the camera. Not to worry though, it just meant that Windows wouldn't recgonize any of the photos and I just needed to find a *Nix box and we would be good.

Wholly unexpectedly, I chanced upon an internet cafe with such a thing today and I am going to slap up one or two of the photos I have taken so you can have a look... I would normally just archive the almost 200 photos I have so far and put them up somewhere for download, but at almost 2 Megs a peice, that would take about two days to upload the 358.7 Megs of photos to somewhere like filewind with the internet around here, so this will have do for now.

A bunch of little Chidis at Wat Pho in Bangkok.

A lovely little Thai girl all dressed up.

Winyou at a cafe in Pittsanlok.

Some ugly guy in a Tuk-Tuk in Ayutthaya.