Something Original (Not Really)

The Big Question: Answered?

2007-06-15T14:00:00.000+10:00

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

2007-04-15T16:29:00.000+10:00

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

2007-03-29T22:28:00.000+10:00

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

Give me money!!

2007-01-30T21:06:00.000+11:00

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

2007-01-23T19:55:00.000+11:00

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

2007-01-06T17:26:00.000+11:00

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.

2006-12-19T18:48:00.000+11:00

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.

Ok, there were going to be pictures here

2006-12-16T19:51:00.000+11:00

Ok, there were going to be pictures here, but the Internet place I am at thinks the photos on my camera are trojan horses and won't let me touch them... it actually tried to automatically delete everything on my camera... good thing I know a little bit about computers or we would have problems right now. Now I just have to pray that it didn't mulch the file system on my camera so I won't have problems at the next place.

Long story short, I arrived in Bangkok and everything went crazy. I immediately got lost and had a wonderful time doing it. Ended up in the right place about 3 hours late. The next day I walked around Bangkok, got adjusted, saw some things and bought some things. Bangkok is big, dirty, loud and dirty. It is also pretty neat and I won't terribly mind spending three hours there before I leave Thailand. As for the rest of my time here, I will gladly be somewhere else!

Second day here I took a train to Ayutthaya. Met a nice Thai girl named Winyou ('You' for short - have to love the simplicity on that one) on the train. She doesn't speak English at all but that didn't stop her from showing me around for a few days. We saw some incredible ruins and watched a sound and light show that was amazing. Ayutthaya is ok, but you really only need to see it once. Plus it is still too close to Bangkok for comfort.

Headed to Lopburi after that. Took You along because she wanted to go and I can't say no to pretty girls. Lopburi is full of monkeys but otherwise unexciting. Stayed there for one night and headed to Phitsanulok in the morning. Took You along because she wanted to go and I can't say no to pretty girls. Phitsanulok has a great night market and a couple of notable temples. We went to all of them and had a great time out on the town last night.

This morning I left for Sukhothai. You didn't come along because she wanted to go but my wallet can say no to pretty girls. Didn't do much today except get here, find a guest house and do some things on the Internet whilst planning the next few days. And updating this thing, of course.

Food here is great, the people are friendly, everything is cheap and there is no shortage of interesting things to do and see. For the first time traveling, I don't mind acting a bit like a tourist because there is no way that I could fool anyone in to thinking I was anything else. I still don't know what is going to happen next week or even tomorrow, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Sorry for not having any photos, but we will get that sorted soon enough.

Yeah, It's On

2006-12-10T08:50:00.000+11:00

Ok kids, this one is short and sweet. I know it has been a month, but this is all you are getting for now. It is 8:50 in the morning. I fly out at 2:10 PM for Bangkok. I get there at 9 PM (local time). My bags are packed, I'm ready to go. I am not standing here outside your door.

I get back on the 19th of January. Which is 40 days from now. 2 Days in Bangkok; after that I don't know and probably won't know until it happens. You won't know until much later. So yeah, game on. Yes kids, a pile driver. The tires have been kicked, the fires have been lit. Now the only thing to do is walk out the front door, get up on it, and ride this pony. It is on like Donkey Kong.

All except for Cain & Able & the Hunchback of Notre Dame

2006-11-09T21:31:00.000+11:00

Everyone is either making love or else expecting rain.

I couldn't think up a catchy subject for this post. But it's my birthday and Desolation Row always made me think of birthdays with the line, "Ophelia, she's 'neath the window. For her I feel so afraid. On her 22^nd birthday, she already is an old maid."

Ok, so it isn't the most uplifting of associations ever, but it is stuck in my mind. Doesn't hurt that I have been listening to lots of Dylan lately as well. Despite whatever the previous bit might have indicated, today has been really great.

What did I do, you ask? Well, for starters, I worked all day. I really like the job I am doing and the 9 hours at the office just flies by. Really. And then I came home to find that the gear fairy finally arrived!

Jeanne, Earl, and Co. also were nice enough to give me a very nice shirt (also pictured).

I remembered that Earl bought me a Belgian beer some time ago after I mentioned that one of my favorite beers of all time was a hard to find cherry flavored brew called Red Erik. So I popped the top on this guy:

As I relaxed with my tasty libation, I took some time to watch Seinfeld with Earl. In a great moment of serendipity, it happened to be an episode I have never seen before. One where George poses for some semi-nude pictures to woo the lady at the photo development place...

Now for a little backstory. One of, if perhaps not the funniest things that ever happened to me was one night while I lived at the house on Miami St. Nate and Haime were... in a compromised state of mind. Perhaps they had had too many tasty libations. I was sleeping. Perhaps I had had too many too. They got the video camera and the garden hose. Both of them, the camera, and the hose came up the stairs, burst through my door and I was "blasted out of bed with a firehose." (See Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas) A few frames on this video caught me in a very funny looking pose which everyone referred to as "George Costanza." I laughed along, because it was funny as hell, but I had no idea what they were talking about. Until tonight. Now I laugh even harder.

//Thanks for all the birthday wishes

ActiveLife.Cells.(Working, Stiff).Activate

2006-11-01T23:01:00.000+11:00

OK. So I just had a nice little post here about my new job doing some VBA for a financial planning company and how that was all going well. Then I talked a little bit about how awesome I am. Then I threw in a couple of embedded songs from Rhyme Torrents Volume-I that are really geeky. Then Blogger munched my post because of a server timeout.

So now you just get the songs, and none of my usual highbrow, $0.50 words because it is getting late and I have lots to do.

Right, well I hope you have a sense of humor or else you probably won't like the second one.

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Rippon Lea, Kayaking & New Gear

2006-10-23T16:53:00.000+10:00

Ok, so the last week has seen me up to a few things and here are the pictures to prove it. Last Tuesday I headed off to Rippon Lea, a preserved 19th century estate surprisingly close to the house. Apparently, apart from the house, the estate was planned out by the first owner who designed an irrigation system for the entire grounds including an artificial lagoon and all kinds of crazy stuff. Supposedly the place is around 85% self sufficient for water and the extent of this system still isn't known. All in all, pretty impressive in a country that is constantly concerned about water. I intend to add it as a marker on the Google Map above, but we will see if I actually get around to that.

Also got out kayaking on the bay yesterday. It was good to get back on the water, I hadn't been kayaking since... I don't know when, 2003? Anyway, it had been too long and was a good time. Even got to see a small grey penguin marking my first sighting that breed of flightless bird in the wild.

My bike.
And a boat that might take me to Tazzie one day

Shot of the city from the bay.
Actually came out better than I thought it would.

To top it all off, I bought a bunch of gear with my upcoming Thailand trip as an excuse. The climbing stuff (some quickdraws and slings) is coming from the states and I hope it gets here in the next week or so. I picked up some dry bags and a Thai phrase book from a place in the city today. And a pack. A real serious pack. All this is in addition to the Typhoid I got injected in my left arm the other day and the 70 pills of doxycyclene on my shelf. Six weeks to go and the shopping is almost all done. This is going to be fun.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. - Douglas Adams

For the sake of putting something here

2006-10-19T18:10:00.000+10:00

Ok. So this site is pretty much a failure for keeping anyone informed of my life. If you are interested, things are pretty much the same as they were last week, or the week before that or whenever; of course, there have been some minor changes. Classes are pretty much done for the semester... Lectures finish next week and then there is something like 3 weeks for exams which shouldn't be much of a problem.

The roadie employers haven't had much work for me lately, and I haven't been able to push boxes at 2 AM for them in a while. I kinda miss that. Next Wednesday I will start some a job for a financial planning company doing some contract VBA development for them - it should be a quick job and isn't anything on a long term basis, but it should give the finances a much needed boost for the time being. Even if it is a small boost.

In early November, just before my birthday, I will be taking a lead climbing course over the weekend. This is my birthday present to myself, as for the rest of you, better get them in the mail soon or they won't be here in time : ) I think we will even make it back in time to catch the Melbourne Cup which is ostensibly a really important horse race as the whole country gets the day off to watch it.

Plans are moving ahead for Thailand in December. Tomorrow I will have the distinct privilege of paying a man $55 to write a piece of paper to allow me to pay $150 to another guy to give me injections of virii. Apparently I will be paying the same man for bunches of pills so I don't die from mosquito bites...

IE7 dropped today, and it doesn't render the google map I have had sitting idly above the posts properly. Isn't that just amazing.

I don't really like audio mashups, or Curtis Jackson (50 cent)'s music (even though we once shared a plane to New Zealand) but I cannot stop listening to Q-Unit. In short, they did a mashup of Queen and 50-Cent. I mean, gangster rap + classic rock... who didn't see it coming? And I think it is hilarious. If you can't get a good laugh out of this song... then you are probably my mom. Mom, do I even need to tell you that playing the song below is a bad idea?

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Kathy & Keith

2006-10-09T20:38:00.000+10:00

So yeah, Kathy and Keith (maternal aunt and uncle) are in town for about 10 days. I have some photos up over at the flickr account if you want to take a look. Here are one or two just so there is something new here...

These two should get a room.

Jeanne & Kathy at Paringa Estate Winery

The coolest tractor you have seen in a
while courtesy of Montalto Vineyard.

For your viewing pleasure

2006-09-20T00:03:00.000+10:00

OK. I know I don't ever update this thing, but honestly, only I would find most of the stuff I do interesting. This however, is an exception. It is another long delayed video of a trip I took and I hope everyone can get a good laugh out of it. If you couldn't guess, yes, that is me making a fool of myself. There is a bit of a good reason, look closely and you will see me try to throw a snowball at Billy as I hit the jump. I maintain that that is the reason I biffed this one so hard. Oh and I took out the audio for two reasons: 1) it made the file smaller and B) it was nothing but expletives anyway.

I am awesome.

Falls Creek = Sore Legs

2006-08-21T23:05:00.000+10:00

So I took a weekend trip to Falls Creek in the Northeast part of Victoria this weekend and went cross country skiing for the first time in my life. In fact, it was the first time I have ever been skiing of any kind, ever. Below are a few pictures, full set from the weekend is up over at flickr. I will see if I can do a quick and dirty mashup with the google map and flickr or photobucket when I get time later this week.

If you want to see some real photos of this trip, I would give mine a miss and go check out James' site. He has an expensive camera and a heck of a nice site on which to post his shots and he isn't half bad at taking them either.

Also, keep your eyes out for a video of me face planting off of this jump - it will be up as soon as I can get a copy. As for now, just look at these:

Mappings

2006-08-08T13:58:00.000+10:00

Ok, you see the map above? I am going to be playing around with Google Maps API and see if I can do a fun thing or two. I don't have much time to mess with this, so expect nothing great for a while, or ever, but you will have to deal with a map or two up there for a while.

Siam & Speakers

2006-08-06T01:14:00.000+10:00

OK, so maybe some of you have heard this, but my plans for at least part of the summer are taking shape. Turns out that several of my friends are going on a trip to Thailand for climbing/tourism and I am tagging along. For close to 6 weeks (Dec. 10-Jan 18). In THAILAND. Backpacking and climbing. Summer. 39 Days. THAILAND.

You've just discovered that your jealousy knob goes to 11.

AND get this: If this week wasn't going well enough, I also landed a casual job at this lighting and sound company. Essentially they are going to have me help set up and tear down events from time to time. It should be pretty funky and I think it will be quite a bit of fun being a roadie.

NOW if I could only handle the girlfriend issue, or the more aptly named lack of a girlfriend issue... and finish Atlas Shrugged. Bets on which one happens first?

//I'll let you know when I figure out just who this John Galt person is...

Aperiodicity

2006-07-25T12:53:00.000+10:00

Well, it's official. I am just not vainglorious enough to post here with any regularity. Over the last three weeks I have done plenty but not much of it was noteworthy. I have been climbing a little around the city and a day trip to Werribee Gorge last weekend which was quite good. Also made it down the Mornington Peninsula with Jeanne and Earl on Sunday.

Classes are back in session as of yesterday and they should be better this semester than last. Saw the film 'Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story' last night which was pretty good. They also have a neat, flashy website if you are a techno geek and want to see some small but clever tricks. Tonight I will go see if I can join the RMIT Occasional Choral Society whose fliers advertized that I could sing about beer if I joined. Really I am just hoping to meet some women, but don't tell them that. Tomorrow night I will do a follow up to the anchors course I took at the beginning of the month. The Melbourne Film Festival kicks off on Thursday and I am booked to see 10 movies over the next two weeks. If you are lucky, I might not give a play by play of all the crapy art movies I see in the next two weeks. I think I am going climbing again this weekend and maybe the weekend after that as well and someone mentioned a kayaking trip mid-August.

Oh, and I see that a there are about 3 people who visit per day, so thanks for your patience and interest in my life. I will try to make more regular updates, but let's all be serious here, it will probably go further downhill until I am updating once every 6 weeks with only an Oscar Wilde quote and a picture like this.

Some shots of Werribee Gorge.
Only about an hour by car from downtown Melbourne.

Me on 'Snatch and Grab' (20/5.11a).
Didn't even come close, but it was fun.

Jeanne checks out a Wattle tree at Ten Minutes by Tractor winery.
Good wines there, BTW.

A shot over looking of the Mornington Peninsula.

MORE BANGERS AND MASH!!!

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

Independence Day Post

2006-07-04T20:37:00.000+10:00

It's the 4^th of July, w00t, Go America! Someone make one of these for me.

So the last few days have been go, go, go. Last Thursday I went out with Kate, Aden and Travis to LaTrobe Uni's end of exams party and had a wicked good time. While there, I found out that some room had opened up on an anchor setting course with the RMIT outdoors club, so it was off to Arraps for the weekend. Unfortunately, there wasn't any time to get some climbing in, but the course was more than worthwhile and a good time on its own.

Saturday night we went to the nearby small town of Natimuk and had a real shocker of a night on what was going to be a quiet evening. It was almost single-handedly due to a random local guy named 'Phelpsy' who bought a round for all of us at a key moment in the evening when everyone was just gearing up to go back to the campsite after dinner. Then we heard about a party a few doors up and that sealed the deal - it was going to be a long one after all. I was playing DD, so I was alright, but most of the others had a fairly rough Sunday morning.

At the pub in Natimuk.
The guy in the back is 'Phelpsy', he
shouted the group three pitchers (also pictured)
because we are so awesome.
In other news, why do we only get free beer
from random strangers when I am the DD?

Yesterday (Monday) I took Zöe and her friend, Natalie, to see a movie in the afternoon and got home just in time to run off to the 4^th of July party Jeanne and Earl were hosting downtown. Kate was kind enough to accompany me so I didn't die of boredom in a room with 400 suits and we went out for dumplings and drinks afterwords with Steve and a few other people I don't remember.

Kate left to go home to Alabama this morning, which is a bit of a bummer because she has been a really good friend and has helped me get out of the house on more than one occasion. I wish her all the best and hope to meet up with her at some point in the future. Catch you on the flip side, Kate.

Today it was off to the Yarra Valley to visit the Healesville Sanctuary with the whole family and Natalie. Below are some of the better shots, full set will be up on flickr one of these days.

Yarra Valley from the Clarendon winery where we stopped for lunch.

First one of these animals I have seen.

Kangas catching some rays.

Zöe and Natalie feeding one of the roos.

I don't know what this plant is, but it is pretty cool.

Rock Wallaby - I guess there are only like 20 of these guys left in the wild.
Pretty sad.

I really like this picture for some reason.

Tasmanian Devil!!

Roos Advance!

2006-06-23T15:48:00.000+10:00

Last night I went in to the city to watch the US play at midnight... and then stuck around to see the Aussies play at 5 AM. Cheers to Tiff and Kate for coming out to watch! I think it goes without saying, I am still pretty tired so I will just put up a few pictures and videos. Bean footage.

I don't even know how these photos really happen.
At least Tiff is a good sport.

When I see this man, I think, "Australia."

Super Timmy Cahill!

It really does look like a table cloth.
Funny how I never noticed that.

The videos have been a bit dodgy so if they don't work, try again later. There really could be more to this post, but I think I would rather take a nap. Go Roos!

I'm not dead. I feel fine, think I'll go for a walk.

2006-06-21T22:10:00.000+10:00

Contrary to popular belief, I have not died. I have just been playing this damn game. Don't even try the harder version linked the bottom or you will go crazy and then people will think that you too, are dead.

And between all of that I have managed to do a few cool things in the last three weeks. First off, I went hiking up at Mt. Feathertop and Mt. Hotham. Funny story 'bout that: First time I heard about this was via text, thought it was pronounced hot-ham, told everyone that I was going to Mt. Hot-ham to go hiking. Turns out it is pronounced HOTHam. Like an ice planet from The Empire Strikes Back followed by 'am'. Haha, I looked like a big idiot, everyone had a good laugh, the end. But really, it was a stellar hike over maybe 30km (19mi)and two and a half days. Saw some beautiful country and on the last day we tried to summit Mt. Feathertop but were blown off by 80-100km/hr (50-63mi/hr) gusts. We calculated the wind chill from that particular episode to be about -26 C (-15 F) when we got home. You could stand at a 45^o (^π/₄ rad) in the wind without falling over. Fun fun. I think there might be a few pictures over at the flickr account but I am waiting on some more from Billy. Below is my favorite of Nick featuring a large amount of, well, wood. (The cottage and the bench, you deviant!).

Nick outside Dibbin's Hut, an old cattleman's hut.
If you don't think this is funny, well, you just don't know funny.
I mean, just look at his face - pure comic genius.

Let's see, apart from the hiking, I have also been out until 5 in the AM watching the Socceroos loose to Brazil in Federation Square. Fed Square, along with Flinders St. Station across the street, serve as the focal point for downtown Melbourne. Didn't bring along the camera, but it looks like the Aussie, Aussie, Aussies (Oy! Oy! Oy!) will probably move on to the round of 16 . I will do a repeat trip down there then and get some shots for the people that can be convinced that I have not died.

Yes, and some time in all of this and more, I managed to finish exams and am in the clear until next July some time. Currently looking for a job to put a little jingle jangle in my pockets, wish me luck.

Oh, and heard from Cousin Ms. Lisa Powers that she will be getting a name change to Mrs. Dave Somethingorother come April 28th of next year. Congrats, Cuz! Now get your brother hitched because someone has to carry on the Powers name; I'm not a likely candidate right now and Russ's future kids will either A) Disown him and his name and/or B) Never know his name in the first place.

//HAHA public places are a great place to burn your brother.

Theobromine... Who knew?

2006-05-30T23:21:00.000+10:00

Ok, well, an update every 10-14 days makes me a good absentee landlord of this, my digital domain, right? If you are saying no, you are probably right.

Just about finished with this semester and don't have any plans for break. I might head up to the 'top end' if I can work the money end, convince myself that this is a good way to find a job, and maybe find someone dumb enough to travel with me. It looks like travel plans to the red (as in Oklahoma, not communism) center will have to wait until later this year, but have no fear, I will get to The Rock eventually.

Oh, and some pictures for those anti-intellectuals among you who dispise the squigilies.

Went to a Vietnamese place today. This was my drink.
You guess the name and secret ingredient.

English side of the can if you didn't get it.

Oh and it wasn't all that bad.
For a bird's nest made of fungus anyway.

Note: If you order bamboo duck noodle soup in a
Vietnamese restaurant, it includes almost a whole duck.
Really.

Ok. That about does it. If you are just aching for more pictures of me, you can always check the flickr account. And how come no one bothered to tell me that the methylxanthine in chocolate is not caffine!!

Indian Food, Danish Parties and Aussie Rules.

2006-05-20T18:01:00.000+10:00

Ok, so it has been almost two weeks, but I swear, nothing is really going on here right now. Well, maybe a few things, but you don't want dialogue, you want pictures. So once again, we will roll the beautiful bean footage.

At the best Indian place in town, I had this ginormous Masala Dosa.

Went to Thorb the friendly Dane's 25^th birthday party.
So if you turn 25 in Denmark and are still single you get cinnamoned,
which as you can see, is awesome.

See the guy in the background? The one with the beard?
Yeah, he is on exchange, from UNO... and a Scott Scholar...
and remembers me from the Scott Scholar party I threw 1.5 years ago.
Ran in to him randomly at Thorb's birthday party.
World.size(setEqual(small));
Leave comments on how bad my syntax is.

Mayur suited up to go in to the (not so) clean room on campus.
In other news, the preceding sentence has way too many prepositions.

Went to my first 'footy' (Aussie Rules) game last night. It was a BLAST.

This man was there to cheer on his favorite team: Gryffindor.

Oh and at half time, these volunteers in lab coats come out,
set up, and ref like a billion simultaneous kid's footy games.
It is almost like they still actively promote and support
kids participating in sport down here.
Weird.

Tiff evinces the proper meat pie eating etiquette.

Outrageous Headware

2006-05-07T20:12:00.000+10:00

Ok this one will be short, essentially I just wanted to put up some pictures of Nick's Outrageous Headware theme party (full set on flickr) of last night. So on with the wacky, weird, and wild - roll that beautiful bean footage.

Trish always looks like this.

Damien and Annita; he has part of a gum tree, she has a tomato.

Nationalaties from left to right: Swedish, Swedish, German and Peter.
In other news, I am moving to Denmark;
is right where I would like to be.
Ba dum ching!

Another German, Helmut, shows some love to
Marvin the Martian with a very clever homemade...
no, no, it is just too obvious.

Billy rocks out his functional, head-mounted flashing traffic light.

Kathryn gives us a chuckle with the
tin-foil pope hat guy laying it down in the background.

My Mongolian twin, Stavros and Timo drinking
something flamable out of lemons because we were
silly enough to listen to the Goonah (also pictured).

//Come on, the Denmark joke was kinda funny.

I'll give you negative refraction and raise you a squeaky beach.

2006-05-05T15:05:00.000+10:00

Ok, so nothing much going on. Did get to a public lecture on left handed materials today. For those of you who don't really want to get in to it, left handed materials are materials that simultaneously have negative electrical permittivity (ε) and negative magnetic permeability (µ) for a given wavelength. These materials are not found in nature (because that would be too handy) and we have to mimic them as metamaterials. One of the curious properties of these materials is that they should have a negative refractive index. This is a direct consequence of the fact that when ε and µ are both less than zero EM wave energy (of a proper wavelength) in the material travels in the opposite direction of the wave propogation! This is where the materials get their name-they don't follow the 'right hand rule.'

But anyway, if you are still reading, you probably care enough to look some of this stuff up on your own. And if you have stopped reading, well, you will miss out on another mind-bending natural phenomenon but this one in video form: Squeaky Beach.

Some studley dude demos Squeaky Beach.

Squeaky Beach is a fine white sand beach found in Wilson's Promontory in the south of Victoria and I was lucky enough to visit there a week or two before the advent of this blog. I had forgotten about this short clip, which Thorb, a friendly Dane also on the trip, was nice enough to film and send along.

Big M and the Dinamasorus

2006-04-26T21:35:00.000+10:00

I haven't written anything here for a while because things have slowed down a bit. This weekend I did manage to get out of the house for a night on the town (or two) and Monday night I joined many of the Outdoors Club members in celebrating Claire's birthday. But then again, you don't really know any of these people and Mr. Digicam was not along to help you meet them, so you will just have to trust that they are all very cool people and that we had some good times and even a few good rhymes.

Today on my way to the tram stop I met Marvin. Marvin is the kind of wonderful drunk you just love to meet. First he made some keen observations about global climate change as a way of introducing himself from the middle of the road. After that, we got to know each other better when he noticed my accent and slurred, "Yu ara, ummm, Canaadin?" in a half statement-half question. And before I had time to correct him, he went on to tell me that he was quite fond of the city of Canada before he put the icing on the cake by telling me that his father was in fact from said city. Then, through Marvin's marvelous powers of deduction, I was probably a close relative to his father.

"Wotsure name, mate? Yu knew me dad?"

I didn't think it would do any good to try and correct things, so I went with my name and let him know that I didn't think I knew his father.

"Bot, I did knew yu ara Canaadin!"

I smiled and did my best to look intent on anything other than Marvin.

"Yu see, Ima psycic! Thas how I knew yu was from Canaada City!"

I just managed another smile and a thoughtful, "hummm" because luckily, the tram had just pulled up. Marvin staggered on and the other passengers looked at me as if it was somehow my fault that this man was drunker than drunk at 4PM on a Wednesday. And, because we knew each other so well from our time at the tram stop, Marvin (I was coming to think of him more as 'Big M' by then) hung around me like an old chum. It was then that I was to learn just where Big M had been getting his drink on...

"I's ben athe ibrary!" --Everything in Marvin's world is an exclamation.

"The Library?" Wahhh? They have drinking in libraries here? Surely he must have ment a pub called the Library... "Is that the name of a pub around here?"

"NO Cannnnniaadaia man, THE liBRAry! I's ben readin up!"

With a flourish out came a children's book on dinosaurs. I almost couldn't take it at this point, I mean, you can't make up a funnier situation than being stuck on the tram with a drunk Australian psychic convinced that you are from Canada City, the birthplace of his father, and learning he has spent his Wednesday afternoon meaningfully studying up on dinosaurs in the children's section of the library & drinking his face off.

But before I could really appreciate the whole scene, in one dash-cunning move, before I, anyone else, and almost certainly before he himself knew about it, Big M had left me and the tram in an earily quick shamble while sort of mumbling something about 637 million and today's Quote of the Post: Dinamasorus!

Testing. 3, 2, 1, Testing

2006-04-21T11:54:00.000+10:00

Alright, this post isn't so much as a post but an adventure in embedding video with Blogger. None of these videos are mine, but each of them is probably worth watching if you have some time to spare.

This one qualifies, as the Aussies would say, "Funny as ..."
Personally, when I hear this I can only think about poor Ned Beatty.
Original here.

NOT A DUP. I don't think google video wanted this one shown
as embedded; the option for code generation was disabled...
However, with a little tweaking...

Original here.

This one is about 2 hours long,
but well worth every minute if you have the time.
Original here.

Hilarious Colbert Report segment.
Bonus: It has Rick Ocasek from the Cars

Daily Show reports how Exxon can afford to send off CEO with $400M package.
Note: No one is getting screwed at the pumps; the $36B
(yes, B. As in Boy, Baboon, and most importantly, Billion)
profit recorded by Exxon last year (despite record oil costs...)
and retirement packages like this are proof.
Originals here.

Ok, well wasn't that just the Bee's Knees (Beez Neez?)? If it wasn't and you have a bent for programming but haven't tried out Ruby, check out this interactive tutorial. It is a marvel of web programming in and of itself.

And, since everyone (including me) forgot about it, we will revive the Quote of the Post: A fine is a tax for doing ill. A tax is a fine for doing well.

Hajj

2006-04-19T11:12:00.000+10:00

I have made my pilgrimage to Mecca.

Well, not exactly, but I have just been to a Mecca of sorts; more specifically, the climbing kind of Mecca: Mt. Arapiles. Mt. Arapiles, affectionately known to climbing enthusiasts as Araps, is perhaps the most popular climbing spot in Australia. Containing over 2000 climbs, many of them absolute classics, and less than 4 hours drive from Melbourne, it is little wonder why. Needless to say, I had an absolute blast. I would be remiss to say it wasn't the best Easter ever, despite its conspicuous lack of pagan symbolism superimposed with Christian suggestion. Peter Griffin knows what I'm talking about. (Damn Longears)

Without further ado, we should cut right to the pictures; they tell it better anyway.

Shot of one wall of Araps. Tell me this wasn't made for climbing.

It is somewhat of a popular spot, especially over Easter.

Nick beginning to lead our first climb, "Mantle" (14/5.7), with a
pretty good shot of the famous "Watchtower Crack" in the background.
Note the other climbers on this face...
this one was one of the less populated areas.

Matt at the fun overhang on the top of "Sexless Sue" (13/5.6).

Me top roping on some enjoyable 14/5.7.

I played around on this 15/5.7-5.8 quite a bit.

Don't remember the name of this one either.

Tim gets started on the very pumpy "Little Thor" (20/5.10b-5.10c).

I give "Little Thor" a try.

But I pretty much got stuck here.
Too bad, would have been a personal best.

Nick serves up some humble pie by taking it down clean. Bah!

I think that is pretty much it for decent pictures. We had a stellar time despite getting rained off the rock the entire first day. Weather was a bit on the cold side as well, but hey, you can't ask for everything and I certainly don't have any complaints. If you want to see more pictures, check out my Flickr account which has all of my pictures from the trip. And for some better shots of Arapiles and climbing there, check out this site. I am guessing that even some non climbing folk out there have seen photos of people climbing "Kachoong" that can be found there.

In other news, Melbourne International Comedy Festival is in full swing right now, so I will get back to all of you with some reports on that. I have been to two shows so far and one has to have been the worst comedy performance I have ever seen, including some of the sketches from Mrs. Krall's junior high variety nite. Honestly, I'm not joking. The other was a very clever, extremely tight written one man musical act. More to come, so keep coming back for more!

An Internet Star is Born

2006-04-13T10:38:00.000+10:00

Alright, I am off to Mt. Arapiles in a few hours for four days of climbing and camping over the Easter break. So don't expect any updates until next Monday... but the next post will probably have tons of pictures from the trip!

On other site related notes, this weekend I went over my 100^th unique visitor. It also looks like there is a pretty steady contingent of about 5 returning visitors a day. So apart from my parents and my very own stalker, there are at least three of you out there interested in my every action. At this point, I am just going to consider myself a star.

Oh, and thanks to Travis for pointing out that there was no RSS link on the site. There is now, so for you three salivating over my next post, you can know within the update interval of your RSS reader when it happens. Normally, Travis' action would have landed him a permanent link in the vaunted People I Know and Like section of the page with its one distinguished member, Jason, but until he gets a site up, we will just have to leave a placeholder prompting T to get his ass in gear.

Bells and Whistles

2006-04-12T01:10:00.000+10:00

This is something I have been putting off for a few days mostly because I don't want to think about it, but I should say a few words about my former Algebra instructor, Mrs. Kay Janzen.

I had some very bad news this weekend. Mrs. "Bells and Whistles" Janzen passed away after a short, and what I presume to be horrible bout with an extremely aggressive brain tumor.

It hasn't even been 4 months since she found out she had a brain tumor.

Mrs. Janzen was the first to show me the quadratic equation, how to multiply polynomials, complete the square, and solve conics. I remember them all to this day because she taught them so well. If it was only for those things, she would have my eternal respect, but there was much more to her than that.

She was my favorite instructor, not because she could have taught rocks to solve for X (and she could have, too), but because she gave a damn. I can still hear the distressed strain in her voice when she talked about students falling behind and the distinct note of pride when they succeeded. She couldn't have had more concern for her students had they been her own children; this is a fact, because sometimes, they were.

Mrs. Janzen was an absolute treasure of a woman. She was kind, understanding and upbeat to a fault. I have never met anyone who has faced what she has and will certainly never again meet someone who could keep laughing (and keep us laughing) through it all.

Mrs. J, you will be missed. The world is a darker place without your light.

Prevaricator, the Jive Turkey

2006-04-12T00:16:00.000+10:00

I have changed my name to Prevaricator, the Jive Turkey being that I am a cad full of codswallop. Or am I a cod full of cadswallop? After promising everyone I would relate the rest of my wonderful weekend on the marrow, the marrow came and went and no relating was done. I feel as if I have betrayed all three of you...

Sunday consisted of a trip to Ballarat with the entire Irving clan. We spent the whole day touring Australia's Leading Tourist Attraction! Sovereign Hill is a flat out crazy recreation of a circa 18 HundredandSomething's goldmining town built in the place of, get this, an 18 HundredandSomething's goldmining town! But no, seriously, it is the most fun and expansive museum type recreation thing you could ever imagine. Actors in full old-school-Aussie-goldmining-town-citizen regalia operate all the old-school-Aussie-goldmining-town shops. Plus there are underground tours and fun machinery and contraptions running all over the place. And best of all, all the great stuff that would have been closed down in the states due to asinine "saftey concerns" is still going strong. There are dark passages, slippery floors, working pnumatic drills, and an underground rail ride where if you stood up, you would probably die a sudden violent death! If I were 8 years old, I would have ran away to go live in Sovereign Hill ten minutes after getting home.

After the day at Sovereign Hill, we got dinner at the only place that was open in the town of Ballarat on a Sunday night: an Irish Pub. Yep, that clinches it. One weekend, two dinners at two fine Irish Pubs. I passed up the Bangers and Mash this time for the Dublin Burger, a charred hamburger served not on a bun, but on a potato pancake. This meal demanded that I accompany it with Guiness or it would start trouble in my colon. IRISH trouble.

Oh, and quite naturally, there were about 7 gnarly guys playing traditional Irish music live. And three young people with them that were dancing along RiverDance style. Probably the most fun I had had at a pub since, well, the night before...

Bill & Ted's Wicked Weekend

2006-04-09T22:31:00.000+10:00

So it is 11:30 Sunday night and unless something terribly tragic happens in the next half hour, this weekend might go in the books as one of the most awesome in history. Well, my history anyway. And to top it all off, it began with a terribly boring Friday night. If you look at the timestamp on the last post and do a little math, you will realize that I spent the night at home, updating this page. Excitment.

BUT early Saturday morning it was off to Wabbit Wocks for climbing. I have some shots which you will have to wade through below to get to the rest of the post. I will let them do the talking, because I don't much feel like it. However, if you haven't figured it out, it was a pretty sweet day of climbing.

Random Climbing Shot.

My first climb of the day.
Don't remember the name, rated 18 (5.9-5.10a).

Claire on "The Thin Edge of the Wedgie" a 16 (5.8)
that would be my second climb of the day.

Great shot of "Inquisition" and people sitting/climbing around.

My "Inquisition" Climb. It is just a 14 (5.6-5.7) but hella fun.

Get together at Pug's Irish Bar and Grill back in Melbourne.

So it was a great day of climbing. Two of of my climbs, "Thin Edge of the Wedgie" and "Inquisition" had stars. Stars are bonuses for the climb being particularly enjoyable. One star for a very good climb, two for great climb, and three for an absolute classic. Thin Edge had two stars and Inquisition had three, all of which were well earned in my book. My first climb of the day was a personal best (18!) so every climb yesterday had a bonus for me.

After getting back to town, most of us went out for dinner at Pug's and then went off to some clubs. Oh and get this. I danced. Right, me + dancefloor. And not just for a little while, no, like hours and hours. Normally this would violate some core principal of being an awkward nerdy type guy and would make small children cry, but last night it was alright and no one was harmed. I still don't know how this happened, but hey, it was cool.

Umm, yeah, this is getting kind of long, so I will cut it short here. I will tell you about today tomorrow. And even if you normally don't read comments, check the ones from last post... there are some beauts in there. And for your viewing pleasure, a shot of the bangers and mash I had at Pug's. They were awesome beyond compare.

BANGERS AND MASH!!

From the 56th President of the United States

2006-04-07T18:39:00.000+10:00

If the last post left you with a feeling of malaise and vacancy, I apologize. It was just that I really had nothing to write about, but felt something had to be written nonetheless. Although it defies intuition, today I had even less happen than the last few days, but have more to write about. In part, this stems from my recognition that the word 'blog' is derived from the combination of 'web' and 'log.' So today, I extend the finest pickings of my web logs.

It began innocently enough, I suppose you could say, with some innovative arcade style games over with the hydrocarbon based Martians. It is very easy to find oneself addicted to their take on Breakout. Next was a check in to the Uncyclopedia, a hilarious parody of Wikipedia. It was there that I discovered that I was the 56^th President of the United States. Who knew?

After that, the irreverence machine was in full gear and I couldn't help but go check out how to install linux on a dead badger. This of course went down hill on a badger theme until the point where I was brought back to the ever popular, always annoying Badger loop. Snake! Snake! Oh, its a SNAKE

Oh, and then there was this pretty cool set of photos, taken from Hastings, NE in 2004.

Apart from the surfing of the information kind, today was mostly just a prep for tomorrow's day trip climbing at Wabbit Wocks. And no, that name is too good for me to just be making it up. For any climbers out there, you can start being jealous, umm, now.

And of course we can't for get the newly established quote of the post, which will be addressed, for no particular reason, to my unwitting stalker,209.0.51.23, a technogeek message most of you won't get but can infer: "There's no place like 127.0.0.1"

//Please leave comments as to why this should have been ~/ instead of 127.0.0.1

My fourth post and I am out of material already.

2006-04-06T22:56:00.000+10:00

I think the title says most of it. I did the sanctimonious initial "I don't really want to be here" post, then the clever play on words/chemistry post, and, for those of you with extremely fleeting memories, yes, I did the "I don't have time to post, so here are some pictures" post.

So I guess that leaves us with the only thing remaining in the bag, the "I don't have anything worth posting" post.

I could let slip that Jason and Mary's wedding invitation reached me today. But then again, relating that as the high point of my day discloses a bit too much of how boring my exciting life can be. However, kudos to them for spending the US$1.80 to send that all the way out here when they know quite well that I can't make it. And to show my appreciation, I will put a link to Jason's site under the new subject area off to the right entitled People I Know and Like. This is, of course, contrary to the dreaded People I Know and Don't Like section and contrapositive to the not-so damning or populated People I Don't Know and Don't Like category.

AH!! I just saw the stat counter move up by one!! There are people out there that actually read this garbage!! Here's to you IP-209.0.51.23, you have renewed my faith in humanity. Wow, and you come here every day... more than anyone except my parents actually. I mean I always though about having a stalker, but this is kinda creepy...

//Creepy AND AWESOME

This post made me late for class... oh, darn.

2006-04-03T11:15:00.000+10:00

Busy catching up after the weekend, no time for a proper post. Here are some pictures to satiate your exigency for information about my life instead.

A Huge Huntsman Spider

A look up at the face of Mt. Difficult and our climb called 'Queen B.'
Queen B is rated 15 or about a 5.8 for any climbers out there

First ledge on 'Queen B'

Second ledge on 'Queen B' where I stood for
about an hour belaying Anita while she lead.
My foot for perspective.

Anita leading me on 'B Line,'
rated a 12 or about 5.6-5.7

View from the top of Mt. Difficult. In the far distant center is
Mt. Arapiles where I plan on climbing over Easter.

Some super-stud on top of Mt. Difficult

Everyone from the trip (minus me) at George's Fish and Chips
on the way home

Wallabies!!!!

AgBr - Do YOU get it??

2006-03-30T23:54:00.000+11:00

What? You didn't think it would all be such an abstruse, punctilious and insufferable exercise in the application of a thesaurus, did you? No, surely, you apprehend that I am not so bromidic...

Not that I have much in the way of being able to prove it exactly, being as my entire day consisted of updating my CV and attending class. Although I did come very close to asking out a cute girl on the tram... I swear, had the number theory text I was reading not blown my cover story - that of being a race car driver in town for the Melbourne Grand Prix this weekend - I would have done it. Honestly.

Speaking of and probably much to the chagrin of my close racing fan friends, I will be missing out on the Grand Prix to visit the Grampians on a rock climbing trip instead. Many slightly skewed and generally poorly taken photographs will supervene. They will be right here for you viewing pleasure anon and may finally provide some definitive evidence that no, I am not so much a binary compound of bromine with another element. : )

//See what I said about the smilies! My downfall is already come!

My ideals are broken.

2006-03-29T10:49:00.000+11:00

OK. I abjure. I just don't have the time to do my own site, at least, not if I wanted to do it right. So I have descended in to and among the Internet masses; I find myself now an information age plebeian, now a Blogger. The implications of this move are immense and crushing to my psyche. The very idea that I will soon be reduced to cutesy smilies, banal templates, and daily updates to define my Internet persona reeks of suburban tenor, shaking me to the core. I don't know that I will ever recover.

However, all things fall to time and therefore convenience rules the day. Speed and ease overshadow hubris and we find ourselves here among the generality of speaking individuals in this unique medium that allows ten thousand million voices to clamor for our attention simultaneously. My ideals are broken yet this way at least my spiel joins the stream.