Flying Kites with ze Germans and ze Kiwis

Last Saturday after a few beers Vern took Jeremy and I to the park to show us his kite. Vern is quite the skilled kite flyer, while Jeremy and I struggled to keep the beast in the air.

Here I am dodging the kite strings, while Rover strives to catch them.

After a few hours of fighting uncoordination and tipsiness Jeremy and I were able to keep the kite flying. A roaming dog had different ideas and amused himself greatly by trying to bring the kite down!

Success to the little guy!

The not-so-obvious dangers of running

I found this sign on the east side of Mt Ainslie.

On average I have run through here once a week and have done for the last 7 years. I wonder for how long 'unexploded ordnance' has been a potential threat (besides the constant threat of boxing kangaroos). I think they have struggled to find all of the still-live ammunition as the closure to this area of the nature reserve has been extended until the end of Jan 2012.

Natural Australian

I was watching the third day of the third test against India today. Unfortunately I missed Kumar's wicket. Why? I was busy putting tomato sauce on my meat pie!

New Years Toga Party at Coogee

Is there any other combination of words that describes awesomeness better than that title? It pretty much sums up my New Years.

Pictured : Awesomeness

On the 28th December I was at a Amanda and Goof's place pondering what to do for New Years (the Ainslie football club was looking pretty certain for a while) when Amanda suggested I join them in a trip to Coogee beach to party with Alison Campbell in a toga (you may remember her from the sheep races).

Alison and her house mate Dan

Pinko joined us to turn our trio into a quartet and inspired the next greatest idea - to turn our small group into a ninja turtles tribute.

Pinko, Amanda, Goof and me proudly representing the 1980s childhood TV

We arrived at Alison's on New Years just in time to help make punch and fill up the beer bin. The beer bin was an inspired idea by Alison's roomie, Dan.

Genius on wheels!

We carted all of this to a park by the beach (it was a 3 minute walk) and then set up toga volleyball, toga cricket, and toga badminton. Oh yes, toga sports - somehow they day just got better.

We were soon joined by other like minded Roman wannabes Natalie, tall bloke, Geoff, and Geoff's missus. Pinko, who was visiting a friend also turned up. He found us by walking through the many parks on Coogee beach while helpful people gave him directions - "the other toga people are over there!" I guess we had grown in notoriety.

Apparently we stood out.

The BBQs were fired up and Pinko, Goofy, and I decided it was high time we tucked into my massive bottle of Duvel, a farewell present from the Fenner sports and arts committee.

That beer is bigger than I am

The Bondi fireworks followed dinner and then we packed up to continue the party at Alison's.

Goof and Amanda watching the fire works.

Once back we talked, we danced, we limboed (I only limboed on my way to the beer fridge), and we had water fights.

Natalie, in her stylish fitted sheet toga.

At around midnight we wandered to another park (next door to Alison's) and watched the Sydney New Years fireworks.

This is Geoff - he appeared out of nowhere. He also wins the best toga prize.

At some stage we slept.

Dan and Alison prepared brekkie for us the next morning. We visited the beach, I visited a pub and then...we punched on again!

Punching on!

The long and dusty road home

I returned to Canberra via the snowy mountain highway once again - enjoying the empty and windy roads through the foothills of the Great Dividing Range.

Jingelic - what you see is pretty much the entire town

All was going swimmingly until the long patch of dirt (about 35 kms) between Tumut and Wee Jasper. I took the signposted turnoff to Wee Jasper, but I supposed to take the next, unsignposted turnoff. I ended up doing an extra 10 kms of really rough dirt road. The other trail, although supposedly longer is better graded and has less hairpin turns despite being the more minor road.

The memorial at Tumbarumba

8 kms out of Wee Jasper, on the final hairpin, my concentration wavered and my front wheel found a nice big trench on the side of the road. Even though I was moving quite slowly down I went, the rocks gouging massive chunks out of my right fairing.

Luckily all the damage is aesthetic and the bike still works fine. I stopped in the Wee Jasper pub, The Stables, for a beer and to watch a bit of the cricket. I ran into a young bloke who also recently walked away from a motorbike accident, although he was hit by a moving car and his GS 500 has since been totaled. Here is a link below to a great video of him and his bike zooming around Wee Jasper.

Wodonga Races

I went to the Wodonga Boxing Day races this year. Pictured is the fascinator that stood out the most.

It is exactly what you think it is.

And people wonder why I hang shit on the south side of the Murray

The Earledom

After a decade of campus lifestyle I finally took the big step forward and moved out. I found a great place in Lyneham, just around the corner from Tilley's. My new address is on Earle St.

My new abode, nicknamed the Earledam.

It has a large kitchen and a servicable, if lightly overgrown, backyard. It also has a garage for my motorbike, which saves me about $100 a year in insurance.

I no longer have to worry about bums stealing/vandalising my bike

I live with two ex-Bruce Hall residents, both of whom have graduated from uni. One of them recognised from the interhall AFL competition as we played against each other.

The kitchen in it usual state of repair

It's a bit further from the city and uni than Fenner, but it is much easier to get to Mitchell (the location of my new job).

The backyard, just ripe for some beers in the sunshine

Stubbsy has made the transition across to the Earledom ready to resume his mascot duties, although he currently just resides on my bed watching TV all day.

Stubbsy making himself at home on my bed. He seems to have lost his Bombers scarf.

There is only a small amount of storage space in my room, so I a using plastic tubs for my books and DVDs. I also had to buy a new desk for my computer.

My new desk. they are much more expensive than I remembered.

I also have too much beer to easily store. Here is a photo fo half of the beer that had to be transported (by motorbike) from Fenner to the Earledom.

Half of my undrunk beer. I found space for it all, but it was tough.

It took me one and a half days to clean by flat in Fenner, but I guess I did a good enough job as I got my bond back.

My flat in Fenner. I lived here for 4 years - that's longer than most degrees!

And so it was with a heavy heart I finally packed up my things and left Fenner, which has seen me through a Bachelor of Science, a graduate diploma in Science Communcation, and 90% of a Phd.