The Home of Tom & Morven

Congratulations to Paul who won the eBay auction for the potato chip for $1.55. So when are you actually going to pick it up mate? :S I’m looking forward to getting rid of it.

I totally wore myself out yesterday (Sunday), I caught a taxi to the Bio Dome, a nature walk around this dome with all these eco system environments. I took a few photos but the flash wasn’t allowed so they’re not very good ones. I also went up the Olympic Park Tower which gives an awesome view over Montreal, which is where all my scenic photos are taken from. I also went to the Insectarium, a museum of insects. This was inside the Botanic Gardens, so I did a huuuuuuuge walk around there. I then walked the 5km home (again, using the GPS!) and so in total I probably walked about another 20km on Sunday. I got home, and just fell asleep at 5pm, waking up at 10pm. This was bad, because then I had to just watch TV until I got tired enough to go back to sleep, resting up for the first day of the training course.

Today was the first day of the training course, the actual reason I’m in Montreal. It was quite fast paced and difficult to keep up, but I managed, and possibly better than most others based on what they’ve said. I’m heaps tired now, and looking forward to bed. My entire body is really sore from all the walking, and from the plane trip over. It was a really good thing to come over a couple nights before the night before, otherwise I wouldn’t have absorbed ANY information today!

Since I posted yesterday, I went for a walk. It started raining, and I kept walking. Just randomly walking around in the rain, getting wet. I don’t know how everyone here does it, but everyone else walking along was always looking dry. So anyway, I went a few kilometres in some random direction, and walked through a university of some description. I got directions to the main shopping area in the city, worked out I had to go due East for 1.4km. So I turned on the GPS and found my way there! *cough* *geek* *cough*

I’ve got heaps of photos of the walk, and of the shops. Lots of their big shopping centres are linked together so you don’t have to walk outside to get to other shops, which is pretty cool. You can even catch a sub from the level at the bottom of the shopping centre. I was thinking that Montreal is so nice, and how much I’d love to live here, but I wonder if I’d say that in a couple months time when it’s winter and down to -30C.

I bought a few things in the shops, and a lady I bought a couple things from gave me a list of pubs to visit. I then decided it was time to go back and rest up for a Saturday night out. Unfortunately I was a bit over confident with the direction I was going (to get back to the hotel), and after forty minutes I decided I was lost, so I turned on the GPS again and realised I had walked 40 minutes in the wrong direction, and was now 7km from the hotel - wooops! Love the personal sat. nav. - must be a geek thing.

We went on a pub crawl last night, having one or two drinks at every place, and we worked out the deal with the tipping (*I think*). The bar staff don’t get paid by the hour, and they earn ALL their money from tips! The only problem being that the “tax” gets taken out of the tips they make. Tax is about 8%, so it’s generally accepted you tip around 10% to 15% so that they make about 2% to 7% as their ‘income’. Supposably this avoids them having to charge us some other sort of tax. I don’t know!

By 3am everywhere closes, because I don’t think they’re allowed to sell alcohol after 3am. This was mildly dissappointing, although probably a good thing. Ben had beer confidence that he knew the way home, and I was encouraging him to try and find the way home by following his nose. I was looking forward to getting lost, just so I could have an excuse to crank out the GPS again! After we were about a kilometre in the wrong direction, I politely showed him which direction we had to go

Last night we spoke to a couple from Boston who recommended we go visit the “Bio Dome”, this big dome thing which has 3 or 4 different seasons of climate inside, with different plants/animals or something. I’m not really sure what it is, but it sounds like it’s something worth visiting so I’m going to go check that out right now. Afterwards I’ll probably go for a run in this park that from a map is about 10km^2.

Flights & Customs

Misery. That’s enough said about having to do an extra stop between Sydney and NY at Los Angeles airport. Apparently all incoming traffic to USA has to stop first in Los Angeles, no matter which direction you’re coming from. This is so they can haul off all your checked-in luggage and scan it, etc. I go nailed hardcore for having face-wash in my carry-on luggage. It didn’t help when I gave a smart remark to the customs officer about recommending he use it on himself!

In Love with Montreal

Totally in love with Motreal. We (colleague and I) got here last night (Friday night) about 11pm, and very impressed with the hotel we’re staying at. We tidied up and went straight out for some grub. Got 2 MASSIVE - and I mean absoutely MASSIVE slices of pizza (each one equivalent to half a Domino’s large pizza) plus a can of Dr. Pepper for CAD$5. It was the Dr. Pepper that really made it extra special. People were talking to us in the pizza place because of our Oz accents, which makes it easy to have a good time.

We went on to a pub to get a few beers into us - purely for the health benefits of being able to get asleep. (It was 1am and we were buzzing (timezone lag). I bought the first round for $10, gave the bar chick a $10 note, and she looked at me funny. Slowly, she folded it in front of me, highlighting the fact that I hadn’t tipped her I guess. Got VERY bad looks from her, and very bad service. Quickly, we realised everyone tips here as standard. We think it’s about 20% that you have to tip or risk being not very popular at all! Fortunately we realised early enough, apologised, and tipped generously thereafter. (Minor culture difference!)

Our hotel is right in the middle of the city, with heaps of night life action. Lots of variety of pubs and clubs, it’s great. I’d love to live in Montreal purely for this reason.

Going to go see if Ben (colleague) is awake yet, will post again soon.

P.S. In the net cafe I’m at I’m hearing lots of Starcraft sounds!! If I was here for more than a week I’d join in on this Starcraft action going on here

Adelaide Marathon

This was a couple weeks ago, but I’ve been “a bit busy”, such is my favourite line at work these days. After talking to someone for a couple minutes and you feel like getting back to work, or just getting away from talkign to them, I say “anyway, gotta go, i’m a ‘bit busy’” - regardless of how NOT busy I am Anyway, my bro Mike and Dad entered the event too (10km run and 10km walk respectively) so that was great to have them come out and participate too. Mike had a rough time with blisters afterwards, and Dad had sore legs the next day I think, but both of them have just started getting back into running and walking, so soon it won’t be painful for them, rather it will be 100% enjoyable.

Anyway back to me, I got a new PB of 3hrs, 26mins (4 minutes faster than last years Melbourne Marathon). I was set for a 3hr 10min finish until the last few kilometres when everything cramped up and I was destroyed. At the finish line I got stuck because I had to dig my fingers into my quads or otherwise they wanted to snap into a cramp, so I couldn’t let go of my leg. It didn’t hurt or anything, just needed time to be massaged out. The volunteer helper people tried to push me through the finish area so I didn’t clog everything up, but I just had to tell them politely not to touch me. Later on, Morv gave me a really long massage that hurt lots and lots even though she was barely touching me (my fault for running 42km, not hers!) Even still after a 1 hour massage, I was completely ruined and could hardly move. I think this might have been from getting on the p**s with Tom V, Nick, Gary on the Friday night before.

Morvie & Tom 3 Month!!

Morv and I had our 3 Month on Friday! woot! She took me out to dinner at the Snake Charmer on Wednesday night. Definitely a big contester to the Raj on Taj Indian restaurant I normally go to. Delice! (That is delicious pronounced how Shaun Micallef would say it after having a sip of some random drink after sitting on a random chair at the start of one of his shows) Anyway, Thanks Morv it was a great night!!

City to Bay Fun Run

Best City to Bay I’ve ever done! Even though it was my worst time by 5 or so minutes, it was great to start at the back of the pack with Mike for the full run. After I ran with him for a few minutes, using my GPS watch to help him work out what a good 65min pace was, I left him to go hard and try to match my previous times. Unfortunately it succed hardcore having to push my way through everyone constantly for 12km, and apart from probably running an extra few hundred or so metres (from all the sideways movement), having to slow down and speed up constantly to get past people, I also p*ssed a few too many people off by bashing into them for my liking. In particular, there were 4 or 5 or so girls running SLOWLY abreast each other right at the finish line, and I swear I yelled very loudly “coming through” but they didn’t move, so unfortunately they felt the need to yell out “idiot” and “jerk”. Hopefully by next year if I build up some race cred I might be able to start with the elites or something. They start a minute before everyone else you see.

Afterwards, I met up with Mike and we took drinks back along the course for Nai and Morv which I think they appreciated. I feel sorry for Nai who had mega blisters from her shoes being too small. I know what it’s like to have bad blister problems and hopefully I can help her sort them out.

Indoor Soccer

I’ve started playing indoor soccer again in a team that Chris Soo started up. Our team name is “The team that very occasionally doesn’t lose!”. Quite appropriate, given we lots 16 neil today, and they lost 10-2 last week. This was my first game today, and heaps of people couldn’t make it so we got Morv to fill in to play as well She did an awesome job and is an indoor soccer superstar professional! I’m trying to convince her to just charge at the guys with the ball, and because she’s a girl they won’t tackle her so she’ll get the ball by default. But the team this weak was pretty gnarly looking, so it probably wasn’t a good first game to try these sorts of shenanigan tactics.

Work / Portland / Montreal, Canada

On Sunday I left to Portland with Ben from work. We tested soil for a wind farm for a couple days, which was definitely interesting. Unfortunately there wasn’t really much to do in Portland at this time of the year, so we got a little bored at nights. It’s a small town between Mt Gambier and Goolwa (Goolwa in Victoria, not the suburb of Adelaide). It comes alive in the holiday season over summer, with lots of tourists. Anyway, our stint in the field was very successful and we came home a few days early. I left my wallet at the airport on Wednesday which wasted most of Wed afternoon at work as I desperately rang everywhere looking for it. Got it back eventually, thanks to several very honest people, the key person being a worker Hudson’s Cafe at Adelaide Airport (ground level) that handed it in. Thank you so much you’re a champ!!

This coming Friday I’m going to Montreal, Canada, to attend a seminar on this software used for earthing of distribution systems. It will definitely be extremely intersting and I’m looking forward to it a lot. I enjoy numerical software, CAD, and FEA software, so this is exactly the kind of thing I should (hopefully!) be good at doing at work. It will no doubt take a few months to become reasonable at it, and intimidating for reasons I won’t publicly speak about, but I’m definitely glad to be doing this. I feel extremely fortunate to be given this opportunity.

Latest Beats

Roni Size. OMG he’s coming to Adelaide but I”m going to miss it as I’ll be in Canada!! ARRRGHHHHH!!!!! I missed out on the Red Hot Chili Peppers tickets, and now I’ll miss Roni Size. Just so you know, Roni Size, DieselBoy, and Klute are probably my three all time favourite DNB artists - which basically means my three all time favourite overall artists! So I’ve been listening to all my Roni Size music which I don’t seem to have listened to for over at least one year, and i’m loving it! I was getting a little tired of a lack of variety of DNB music I seem to have these days, but I’ve just got to learn to shuffle my CD’s in my big stacks of CD’s around a bit, and wipe and re-download new music to my mp3 player. Also, I think I need to go through and check that all my mp3-alised music is properly tagged so it can be searched for and sent to my mp3 player.

So my favourite album at the moment is definitely “in the mode” by Roni Size. There is this one track in particular “Centre of the Storm” which has the guy from Rage Against the Machine (Zack de la Rocha). It’s totally fierce, and should be awesome for running marathons to. It’d totally make me feel “pleasantly angry” which is exactly the kind of emotion I like to feel when running as it helps the release of lots of adrenalin. I was talking about types of music to someone at Morv’s friends 21st (Christina) last weekend for when you’re out running, and I really think it’s quite interesting to find out what people listen to. It can really help to just make you start to feel a little angry from the music you listen to, because it stops you thinking about the pain your legs go through. When I say I like to feel angry, I don’t really mean I”m going to go biff someone, I just mean it makes me not give a stuff about things. In particular, the pain of my legs.

Another Roni Size track I really like is “Lucky Pressure”. I would love to put these mp3’s up on my blog but I don’t think the record company would appreciate it. If anyone is reading this and would like to hear them, leave a comment and perhaps I’ll just put up 20 seconds of each track and provide a link to where to buy them from In fact I’ll just do it anyway! Here they are They’re deliberately in really bad quality to help prevent roni size from suing me :S

Lucky Pressure:

Center of the Storm:

Both these tracks are from In The Mode which you can buy for yourself and myself at this link, which is with Full Cycle Records. Unfortunately I don’t think he has a standalone website but let me know if you find one. Roni Size, I think you are a fool for not purchasing www.ronisize.com

Other wicked tracks are Brown Paper Bag, Play the Game, Dirty Beats, and OMG the list is endless! Best DNB artist, please buy me all these CD’s - in particular In The Mode

Other music I’ve been listening to a lot is a Cafe Del Mar album “La Caina Vue Mer”. It’s very relaxing and good for listening to just before bed, or whilst typing massive blog posts.

Lawn

Things on the lawn front are looking quite promising. I’ve done a little bit of back lawn transplantation to try and encourage the santa ana cooch to grow into the shaded areas of the lawn. I think it will be possible, but will be hard to keep through the winter. Weeds are extremely minimal after the extensive effort I spent last year. A bit of oxalis still which is under control, and a tom thumb type looking weed which I forget what it’s really called, still remains, but also under control using Paul Munn’s B6. All winter grass is dead from my mid-winter wintergrass poisoning. The very odd bit of kikuya keeps popping up every few months, but becoming a lot less frequent giving the huge dosages of Round Up I give it whenever it does, muahahhahaa. The only other weed is the bindii-eye which has popped up just a little bit, but nothing I haven’t been able to keep under control by hand and with B6. I guess this is the seeds of which was dropped last year before I got really stuck into my hand-removal regime. I should really take photos of our lawn now for completeness of my blog, but I don’t really want to until I’m totally happy with it.

This summer, absolutely MINIMAL water will be used on the lawn, and since we’re extending a veranda in to the yard this will further help to keep water down. I’m working hard to get the roots deep deep down, and the soil conditioned to absorb water as best it can, all before the summer kicks in.

Love this video that my cuz Krarl sent me

I just wish it went for longer!

Also, have a listen to this answering message the coolest Aunt in the world, Aunt Chezza sent me

Sorry I haven’t introduced AFL to my blog, apologies for potentially misleading you with the entry title. Morv found this awesome documentary footage and I just have to put this up! I am so behind in blogging but I’ve been extremely busy. Got back from a field trip interstate today. Anyway here it is!

Clever Crows Who knew they were so smart?

P.S. The Adelaide Crows are probably fairly smart too. But I’d like to see a footballer swoop down from a powerline for a strategically dropped and cracked nut!

URL of the Month goes to Leo for telling me about Uncyclopedia Wiki:
http://uncyclopedia.org

So I’m selling a potato chip on eBay!