RIGHT NOW!!!11!!

I had Montezuma’s for lunch with Leyton yesterday and burned the roof of my mouth. But man, was it delicious. No hangover, either, so it’s definately not the cheese on a pizza that causes that effect. My meal was far cheesier than even the cheesiest pizza. And people who know me know that I like cheesy pizzas, am I right?

What else? Had breakfast with the folks this morning after dropping E to the airport. Amazingly tired, can’t wait for sleep time to come.

Oh, it’s Mum’s birthday on Saturday, so I must remember to buy her present. In fact, I’ll do it right now.

Road Trip (again?)

Very little to report this morning, I’m sorry to say.

The best part of yesterday is that I got back up-to-date with Lost at Leyton’s place at lunch yesterday. For some reason they only showed one episode while I was away, but luckily it was an AWESOME episode. Anyone watching it on TV should DEFINATELY make sure they see episode 18. It’s hilarious.

I also dropped in at Godfrey’s to deliver his new computer, and burn some holiday snaps onto CD there. I then went home to M&D’s for Family Night. Was nice … bored them all with photos from the trip, which were annoyingly repetitive. “Here’s a picture of me in NY on the Staten Island ferry … here’s the same picture out of focus … here’s the same picture with Godfrey instead of me .. here’s the same picture as that one but not in focus …” and so on. Poor family.

This morning I picked up Edward on the way to work because his car was at the shop. I’m such a nice guy.

Which brings me to my next point:
On Sunday, I’m going to the gold coast to collect Godfrey, and take him to the airport. For some reason, he has declined the supremely generous offer to borrow my car, and has instead elected to catch the train. It’s not merely an errand trip, however, lordy no. We’re also having lunch/brunch at the Casino/Ashmore’s. If anyone is interested in tagging along - that is, they have nothing better to do … be honest, that’s most of you - I have between 2 and 3 spare seats in Big Blue available. RSVP biatches.

Eggstravaganza

Howdy howdy,

I trust we all had a good Easter. I did, and quite an exciting one at that. I went hiking through Girraween Nat park (about 20k’s South of Stanthorpe) with Cebs, for the 4 days.

Mum and dad left for Bribie with Gary and Romaine on Thursday, and I sat around, doing nothing for most of that day thinking “what the hell am I going to do for Easter?”. At the Maundy Thursday service that night, I decided that I would go hiking with Cebs, so when I got home I frantically packed my stuff to last me a few days in the bush.

I was carrying 6L of water, a few pairs of clothes and 2 army ration packs that Steve and Al source from, none-other than: the army. They’re designed to last 24 hours, but have so much food in them, that you can conceivably stretch them for 3 days. With the first 2 days on fresh rations, I came home with one complete, unopened ration pack. I’ll use that on other Cebs hikes and camps.

The Granite Belt is certainly an apt name for that region. We stopped at one place that had a boulder about 4 times the size of our house which was it’s summit, and every few metres were outcrops of bus-sized rocks and “scabs” in the leaf litter and ground cover. We saw two male lyre birds! That was quite exciting, because they’re about as rare as hens teeth to see, and we saw TWO of em.

Our map was less than useful… It was a forrestry map, and as such, didn’t have any grid lines or topographical information, other than some indications of where the ridges were and that some streams and tracks were in there, so we found ourselves not quite where we thought we were at times but GPS saved the day.

We got back at about 4pm on Monday, and I bummed around for a while until Netball was on at 7:30. I didn’t play, because I had about a dozen blisters on my feet, plus there were already other guys too.

Today, I do nothing. Dean - doing anything for lunch? Get your people to call my people…

We’re BACK! (HB 2 Lara)

Well, as you can probably guess, I’m back. Good trip, but very glad to be home.

First and foremost, HBs to Lara, who is officially “old” today. :tongue: We had a good night at the Willow on Sunday to celebrate. But let me do this chronologically.

Thursday we did very little in Utah, besides watch TV and do washing. Oh, we had Apollo Burger for our one meal that day. Delicious - I had an Apollo Burger and a Chilli Dog, Godfrey (mistakenly) ordered 2 Apollo Burgers. I think he may have exploded.

We also went shopping for some drive-time groceries - including a huge (about 1 litre I’m guessing) energy drink to pep up our spirits and a 12-pack of Krispy Kremes to provide a sugar rush. I bought enough pink lemonade powder to make 8 gallons of delicious pink lemonade. That should last about 8 weeks. :poke:

Friday morning, we were up at 5am, Utah time. Godfrey is the egg-poaching master, so he poached up a storm and we headed off. There was a freaking BLIZZARD in southern Utah that day, and we spent the morning driving through moderate snow. The visibility was amazingly poor, and in some ways it’s a miracle we survived. Of course, you can only voice that kind of opinion after the fact. It was pretty scary though.

We drove for 12 hours, stopping briefly in Las Vegas to use McDonald’s restroom and eat a $1 double cheeseburger each. Reaching the airport was a major relief in terms of management - our previous experience with Los Angeles traffic indicated that the trip could take between 10 hours and one billion. Fortunately 12 hours was within the window of acceptable outcomes.

The QANTAS lounge at the Tom Bradley International Terminal is actually a JAL lounge, and quite poor. The one at Terminl 4 is better, but that only goes to Sydney I think. We ate a few packets of chips, drank a fair slew of free drinks and read the newspapers for 6 hours. Boring does not even begin to describe it.

The flight was long. You forget how long 14 hours can be … it takes a long, long time, when those 14 hours are uncomfortable and noisy. I managed to sleep about 6 hours, which was an improvement from the flight over. That still left 6 hours of almost unsufferable boredom. Snod sat next to the biggest jerkwad in the history of the world, but we had an empty seat between us, so it wasn’t all bad.

Got in, cleared customs relatively painlessly. Mum “made” breakfast (which means she went to McDonalds) and then I had a nap. I set the alarm for only a two hour sleep, because I wanted to sleep as normally as possible that night.

Man it feels good to drive my car again. Bench seats are the devil. So uncomfrotable compared to bucket-stlye seats. I picked up Godfrey at about 4 and we headed to Moorooka central for Lara’s party. It was fun.

Yesterday I worked with Leyton on the business pretty much all day, with breaks for pizza and swimsuit model search on television. You’ve gotta have your priorities straight.

Lisa in America

Lisa - if you read this, would you please get on ICQ or call me … we want dinner at Bucca tonight, finishing here at the trade show by 6:30pm (I hope) …

Super Model Fine Tuning

yup, here I am killing time at Brainshare waiting until the sponsors party starts tonight. I use the word “partry” in it’s very loosest sense. It’s normal trade show time, but with a theme and booze. Utah-strength booze, so nothing much to write home about.

The conference is boring as crap and I’m looking forward to the last day tomorrow. Andrew’s having a great time, you’d better believe it. Sitting at the booth, having lunch most of the day, ferrying cokes and icecreams from the dining hall to the stand … who wouldn’t be having a blast?

He’s tuning this model who’s handing out free stuff. Time will tell.

Oh, also, had dinner at Buca di Beppo (no link, who do you think this is, Leyton?) and it was great. Hopefully will make it there again, perhaps with Lisa, who we’ve not seen since we arrived.

Glad to hear that things are going well at home … Lara and I had a few smses back and forth, someone else send me one during the day today, It’ll break up the monotony of Mardi Gras night.

Life Goes On Back In Brisbane

Well, it’s 8:30PM and I’m still at work. I’m meant to be here again at 6:30AM….so much for cushy government jobs.

Anyway, enough moaning. The point of this is to let Chuckler know that life does go on while he is away and there is some semblance of social activity without him organising it….just.

On Saturday, Blacky came out to the pub with Lara and I, mini-Glara and Lara’s Mum for a punt on the horses. This didn’t go real well, although Blacky managed to pick up some cash on the Golden Slipper - the main race of the day.

After that, we (including Blacky) caught up with Brek, Leyton and Linda for dinner at Sitar at West End- fantastic Indian food at a pretty good price, plus it’s BYO. We had 5 curries and 4 naan for 7 people and still had some food leftover.

Linda and Lara then hit the Valley, while the rest of us, sans Leyton who had to study, went back to Blacky’s (that’s right, it’s called Blacky’s at the moment) for some Puerto Rico. After a few interruptions from Charlotte - including her rolling off of Dean’s bed - we managed to get through a couple of games. Bek won the first and I won the second, with Blacky threatening in both games. Let’s just say Brett was not particularly threatening in either game.

Brek, having had a hard day riding motorbike, headed home while Blacky and I watched the Broncos lose until Lara was ready to be picked up from the Valley.

That’s about the extent of our social activity as a group, but at least it’s something.

And don’t forget Lara’s birthday extravaganza this Sunday at the Willows, Moorooka.

Twist and jar

So I’ve been busy, and haven’t updated in a while, and I keep saying how I should update more regularly… Slack. That’s the only way to describe it.

So, I’ll talk a bit about what I’ve been doing, and you’ll feel much more enlightened and relieved!

This time last week, I was sitting in a booth for Cebs. Rotary put on a display for “Effective Parenting”, with an acronym RACEPP, and I organised Cebs’ booth. It was cool - we had a canoe, archery gear, pulley for flying foxes, and a DVD running of the camp we went on over January.

Got lots of interest, which was really good, but when packing up, I hurt my back. Physio reckons there’s some inflamation between vertebrae, but the discs are fine.

Sunday, Cebs went canoeing at Fernvale. Met up with Ipswichers, and Toowoombanians, and went canoeing up the fresh water part of Brisbane River, near Wivenhoe. Was a lovely day to catch up with all the mates. I tipped our canoe over, because Bradley and Ashley wanted to - the water was beautiful, and then Dugget wanted to come out, but he said he didn’t want to get his shirt wet. As we were coming back in, he stood up and pushed the gunnels right under and jumped into the water, so much for not getting wet.

Have had Uni this week, and no work, due to my back. Uni is proving to be a lot of fun! Thursday we made pottery. I made a little… thing, and took it home. Steve’s birthday dinner was on in the valley that night at Simon’s Place, Thai and Cambodian restaurant. One of the curries - Chicken I think - came out in a real pumpkin bowl.

I’d arranged to meet Missie at the casino for salsa dancing, and Tim and Zannah would come later, but they changed their mind, so I walked into town. Didn’t get to do much dancing, because they weren’t playing music we knew how to dance to, so we drank cheap daiquiris, which tasted a bit nasty. One could argue they always taste nasty, but that night they seemed MORE nasty.

So, I saw Missie to her bus, and went and watched that guy that does the spray-painting in the mall. He seemed very mellow and at peace, as he was doing a little goldfish. I asked him how he could go at doing a double headed eagle, and he did it. Rather stirling effort too, which I purchased off him.

I missed my bus though, so I cabbed it home.

I’ve been asked to go to Adelaide for Cebs National Council later in April, which is all paid for, so that should be really good fun. I was considering going up to Rocky over Easter to hang out with Jake and see what he’s been doin up there, but flights are (for me) prohibitively expensive. I was hoping to go on a hike with Cebs, but, with my back the way it is, I’m not likely to go, which is a shame. I would indeed like to go. I can hope it’ll be better, but, probably not a great task to do straight away.

Feeling delicate

Hi there y’all … It’s Saturday back home right now, but only Friday night here, so I still don’t feel super geeky about whipping out an entry for the ole’ blog.

Dear oh dear … what a couple of days it’s been. On Tuesday, we had lunch at Quarks and then played poker. I got up a bunch, Godfrey down a little. Mad fun. That’s when the trouble started.

Food poisoning.

Tuesday night wasn’t a happy night, and then Wednesday was spent in the car for 6 hours driving from Las Vegas to Utah. Not a pretty time. Let’s not dwell on it.

Because Wednesday night we were tired, had a good nights sleep and on Thursday I felt mercifully better. Starving, having not eaten since Quarks (which narrows the blame down a little, no?) we hit Quiznos with a fury - perhaps too much fury for someone with a stomach so delicate. A few false calls, but I survived. It was good to be back in the saddle.

We caught the Bruce Willis movie, Hostage, which was pretty cool, and then today we ran some errands, did some shopping and so forth, and saw Robots, which was childish and a bit stupid. Tonight it’s a slow night, and then tomorrow I setup for the show, which opens on Sunday.

We’re in the home stretch now, will be good to get home again. Especially now that I’m paranoid about anything I eat. :mamoru:

Sorry about last night …

Hi again. Let me apologize in advance for anyone that got drunken SMSes or phone calls last night. We were retarded drunk, and Godfrey with a mobile phone is worse than Shane Warne.

*ba-doom-tish*

It was a fun day yesterday, actually. We decided to gamble and enjoy the free hooch that the cocktail waitresses would bring around.

Started at Excalibur on the Texas Hold’Em $1-$3 tables, and I played while Godez watched. Played for about 45 minutes and won $10. Not a bad bit of entertainment.

We then hit the buffet at Alladin, called the Spice Market. We were starving, and wolfed down several plates of reasonably good quality buffet food. I particularly liked the “Middle Eastern” food they had, which was basically a combination of Greek and Turkish food. We are still no wiser as to what they eat in the Middle East.

Amazingly full, we came back to the room for a rest. When the resting was done, the craziness started. Godfrey decided that he’d play Texas Hold’Em this time, and we joined the poker room here at The Orleans, which had $2-$4 tables as its lowest. It was fun, we played for hours. I was slightly down, Godfrey was waaaaaay up, and we were both merry on free drinks. The casinos have made an art form of supplying the exact amount of alchohol in a mixed drink to make you happy, but not too drunk to gamble.

When we checked in, we got a book of drink vouchers we could use at the bars in the casino. Unfortunately, we made friends with the bartender, and as a result, the drinks were stronger than they needed to be, and the delicate balance was destroyed. We got hammered.

What followed was a little hazy, so let’s just say it was a good night. We got back to the room and ordered hamburgers from room service, but Godfrey passed out before it arrived, and I ate his. Sucks to be him.