A sneaky day off

I took a sneaky (not so sneaky now its published) day off uni with Michelle to celebrate the completion of a conference poster and reveiw article I wrote.

A Michelle in Canberra

Michelle and I enjoyed a beer in the Uni House beer garden before meandering into town to enjoy more beers/cider and watch the cricket at the Canberra Club and the Australian.

We ran into Tristan in town. It was very exciting.

Slightly tipsy we returned home just in time to receive and accept an invitation to go to Broad Burger - a caravan by the lake that sells burgers.

Swans get angry when you take photos of them (also when you through rocks at their babies)

You can thank me later for this!

Good ideas, Great times!

First you need some variety of tinned drink. Most of us chose beer, although there was a couple of ruskis and the DW brought along soft drink.

in a bold move we also supplied nibbles to help us poor wrokers through the tough times

Step two is helmets (pictured). We chose fire helmets because they:

a) are brightly coloured,

b) protect your head in case of an accidental tumble, and

c) are inherently awesome.

A box of helmets was conveniently found in my room

Third, stubby holders for holdin aforementioned cans of drink, and fourthly straws and packing tape.

The mouth of a happy man is filled with beer - ancient egyption proverb circa 2000 BC

Highly recommended are friends and engineering degrees.

This is a two in one package - a friend who moonlights as an engineer

Decorations can also be added to give your helmet individual flair as proudly shown by Matt

There were some issues in stopping the flow once started. This made it somewhat difficult for the Duty Warden to effectively answer emergency phone calls.

Georgia fields a phone call about missing fire helmets

No people were harmed in the making of these phenonmenal and fashioable headwear.

Planning is also not essential

Are the Bombers doomed again?

Essendon have named their new coach - James Hird. While I respect the bloke as a player and he is super knowledgeable about the game I do wonder why Bombers have appointed an inexperienced senior coach for the second consecutive time. Especially given Hird has had extremely limited coaching experience. There is talk of hiring a ex-senior coach for an assistants position (Bomber Thompson's name has been bandied around), but will that be enough to mentor the new coach to his role?

The races

Andrew 'Goofy' Bryen enjoyed the distinct pleasure of turning 30 recently and we celebrated in spectacular fashion.

Six Canberra kids.

I'm not sure whose idea it was, but it was a work of brilliance - seven friends from Canberra and one from Sydney traveled the dusty roads to West Wyalong so we could attend the world renown Caragabal Sheep Races (which involved slightly further traveling on slightly dustier roads).

The event was nothing short of amazing, there was a jumping castle, there was a merry-go-round, there were SHEEP, and sheep being chased by kids. We placed bets, we drank beer, and we bought a sheep for the finals (I think it came in last).

Sheep are funny races - they run about half the track and then stop dead.

Yep, this is halfway through the race.
If your sheep wasn't winning you could scare them to a standstill and hopr for a change of fortune

They look around trying to figure out what is going on around them, and the kids scare them into finishing the race. They also jump a lot. Oh yeah, kids are released to scare the sheep back into movement. After the races we retired back to the 'Goof' residence for an bountiful feast that involved pig, sheep, cow, various salads, bread and more. This was followed by a plethora of desserts including multiple cakes, fruit salad, chocolate, toffee, and other sweet things I cannot name.As usual Goofy, Peachy, and I found the pub and we played Buck Hunter. It turns out I am not the 'Great White Hunter' I was hoping.

The sheep cake made by Amanda! Somewhat amazing.

Until next year Caragabal, we will miss you.

The first of many

Its that stage of life, my friends are starting families while I'm still bumming around at uni.

The first of many to come arrived about six weeks ago!

Aren't those gloves adorable - they stop him from clawing his eyes out!

Welcome to the Sprightly Dugong Owen - you can now join the special few under 1yos that make it to this exclusive website. Owen is the son of Simon and Brooke, from all accounts he has ten fingers and toes - which is about as much information most males need about kids (I assume he was weighed and stuff but that all means nothing to me). Like most people his age Owen's hobbies include sleeping, pooping, and eating. I am yet to here him give a full throated yell, but there will be time for that later.

Adelaide Zoo

Whilst in Adelaide I decided to visit the zoo and see what amazing specimans of animals that are not human were on offer. There were some exciting, and not so exciting times...

Don't be fooled, this was an exciting. The giant turtle may look and move like the rock behind it, but they do live up to their title

All in all it was a bit depressing see how small some of the enclosures were. Larger animals like the lion and giraffes did not have too much space.

These guys were hilarious, at least they had space to monkey around

(not quite as subtle as my inception pun)

A few of the exciting animals are also very lazy and spent too much time sleeping. The so called 'dangerous' animals failed to strike terror, fear, or even anxiety in me. Once again John Cleese has lied to me through comedy.

At least this bloke was awake - the poison arrow frogs (circled) are dangerous in the same way

that playing with fire whilst coated in petrol is dangerous -don't touch.

There some exciting times - I came across my favourite frog (I've never seen one before) and I also saw a snake in the middle of meal (actually I could see the meal in the middle of the snake)

Holy shit, this snake is eating a mouse!

Yeah, this snake was the coolest thing I saw. I watched it for about ten minutes until I too started to get hungry.

Unlike certain animated films lemurs do not dance and sing,

and throwing coins at them just made them agitated...

The zoo had a huge number of animals, but the small cages dampened my excitement a little. The wildlife park was much better, but I do not think many patrons would attend a zoo in which you roamed with the animals. I've read way too much about the ambushing tactics of lions to trust a sleeping one.

I'm also sure meerkats would hunt in packs, sneaky bastards.