People:
Britt
Caille
Ching
Colby
Dan
Danny
Emily
Janice
Jennifer
Jess
Jodie
Kendra
Kevin
Kieryn
Laura
Lindsay
Lisa
May
Mike
Rachel
Ray
Shannon
Sherlee
Tamica

Request-o-matic:
Josh Woodward
Scott Andrew
Spanners Forums
The Ferrett
The Presurfer

Places:
Lange time
Questionable
Clango

Pictures:
The Zoo
Sydney
Fountains
Dooralong
Blue Mountains
More Mountains
Wild Sydney
Dylan's Party
Wondabyne
Apartment
More Sydney
BME Ball
Festival of Winds
Kayaking One
Kayaking Two
Thanksgiving
Tasmania
Lisa's Birthday
Biofutures
Emmy and Gaby
New Zealand

Things:
Sign Guestbook
View Guestbook
Contact me
Feed me

 
Just a quick hello and goodbye to everyone out there. I'm off to Perth in a few hours, and won't be back till the 2nd of October, so don't go expecting to much from me till then. Once I'm back though I'm sure there will be tons of pictures to peruse. I'm just glad the day finally came when I can stop thinking about work and just enjoy the week off.
8:58 AM 0 comments

 
Figured I could cheer for another college for once since I got an unexpected gift from one of it's residents today. I got a notice in the mail saying that I had a package and wondered who in the world it might be from. Got to the post office to find one of those cd mailer type envelopes from none other than Rachel, who rocks my world. So I'm now the proud owner of 5 brand new sharpies (1 each in black, blue and red and 2 in metallic silver) which is great as I've never seen them here in Australia (and I went a looking for them a while back). I also now have strawberry pop rocks and a multipack of Fun Dip. Sugar sure is grand, and now I have another little card to hang on my mirror of cards. Woo!
8:23 AM 0 comments

 
Everyone go out and celebrate talk like a pirate day! Oh, and if you meet any, remember they prefer to be called buccaneer-americans.

This post brought to you by the letter 'r'.
5:00 AM 0 comments

 
"It's nights like these that I'm glad I only have two eyes." -Me
9:47 AM 0 comments

 
From the makers of penguin baseball comes a whole line of fun flash games. Enter the world of Yetisports. Or, if you think you can handle it try the ylympics.
4:38 AM 0 comments

 
Oh wait. I mean Happy Birthday Colby! I gotta remember that living in Punxsutawney does not automatically make your birthday Groundhog's Day.
11:36 AM 0 comments

 
Idea here. Implementation here.
7:54 AM 0 comments

 
Geocaching is a relatively new idea, made possible by the rapid assimilation by the masses of handheld GPS (Global Positioning System) units, that combines a walk, hike or other outdoor activity with the fun of a treasure hunt. The basic idea is that you are given a set of coordinates that tell you within a few feet of where the treasure (or cache as they call it) is hidden. Then you put the numbers into your GPS and go searching. Sometimes the coordinates will give the location of an object (waypoint), which will tell you where the next thing is hidden in a series of ‘follow the clues’ steps.

Although it sounds easy, my Australian experience with geocaching has been anything but simple. The first adventure occurred just over a week ago, on my birthday. On that afternoon Lisa, Cindy, Ryan, Christina and I headed for La Perouse and Botany Bay, located about 10 miles south of our apartment. With Cindy’s GPS in hand we quickly found the first waypoint, a tower that stood overlooking the bay. Then, using numbers found there on a dedication plaque, and other given instructions, we calculated where we thought the next waypoint would be. However, we weren’t quite sure due to some slightly misleading instructions. Regardless, we set off for where we thought it would be, following a trail along the coast. The first shocker came when we got to the end of the trail, which terminated at a beach. Not just any beach though. It was a nude beach, complete with lots of naked old men and a brisk, chilly wind coming in off the water. We made our way across the beach to pick up the trail on the other side to find that it was little more than a narrow dirt path that seemed to wind its way through the dense trees, often shooting off side paths to unknown locations. We trad through the thickening vegetation for a while till a look at the GPS said we were going in the wrong direction. No comments on who was leading us for most of that trip. So back we went, trying to find a path to the right place. After backtracking across the nude beach we eventually found a trail that led up towards where we wanted, eventually finding a paved road to walk on for a bit. We followed the signal as it led us along the road towards a golf course. Fortunately right before we hit the putting green it looked like we had to head into the woods at its side. Unfortunately there was no path in these woods, but since we were now within a couple hundred feet we figured we could bash our way through. So we did. Only when we got to about where we thought it would be we found we were in the middle of the woods where obviously few had gone before with a large fence with a big no trespassing sign on it not too far away. A cursory glance told us this was obviously not the right place (as there were no cliffs as mentioned in a hint). So we went back to the road, sat on its side and pulled out our lunches. The strange looks we got from passing cars and golfers were well worth it to eat after the long walk we’d already done. We then decided that our original calculation was likely wrong, although not really our fault. The directions said to ignore the decimal for the calculation, which to us meant to ignore everything right of the decimal point. Apparently it was supposed to mean ignore the point itself and just treat the whole thing as one big number. Deciding that going back now and trying to find the other location would be a bit much, and we decided to call it a day, grab a bus back home and get ready to hit the town that night.

The second experience happened just yesterday, on the way to the Festival of Winds mentioned earlier. Cindy and I had walked down to Coogee beach, and I commented that I knew there was supposed to be a cache in one of the tree groves that sat on the ridge above the beach. Lacking the GPS, we decided to just take a look around and see if we could find it. Cindy and I walked along the trees, searching high and low for what I figured would be a small plastic tupperware type container. On the first pass we didn’t spot anything, but as we turned around something caught my eyes on the ground covered in ground shrubbery about 3 meters into the trees. It was red and quite big. It didn’t seem like the right size for a cache, but we decided to check it out anyway. So we climbed into the trees and found a big red gym bag that looked like it was stuffed to the gills with fun stuff. Then we opened it up. The first thing we noticed was the stench of wet, molding clothes. Then we saw them and both thought that something was wrong. This was definitely not a cache placed for geocachers, but rather someone’s very well hidden (or discarded) clothing. Judging from the smell they’d been there a while. So the bag went back into the woods and we emerged disappointed once again at our inability to find a simple little plastic container. It would have been quite funny though, to see the look on our faces when we realized what was actually in the bag.

So, 2 searched for and none found here so far. But that won’t keep me from trying to find others. I’ll just have to get a GPS of my own and spend my weekends hunting treasure. I figure that the searches can only get better from here, and even though we didn’t find anything, we still had fun both times and came back with great stories, which was really all we wanted. Till the next cache…
6:03 AM 1 comments

 
Just a quick note to say that pictures from the Festival of Winds, held earlier today at Bondi beach can now be found here. More later on kites, caches, and long walks on the beach.
10:52 AM 2 comments

 
Saturday night and I'm sitting at home folding laundry as a break from doing work. As depressing as that sounds, its really not so bad as it means that tomorrow I will be free to go the the Festival of the Winds, an annual kite flying event held at Bondi Beach. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures cause its supposed to be a great day with perfect wind for kite flying.

In addition to that, last night I went to the Chauvel theatre to see "The Corporation", a documentary about big business and how they have shaped the world and all their inherent evils. It was really well done and sparked lots of good conversation.

And I can tell that I've been working too long on the computer because everytime I finish a paragraph on here I hit ctrl-s to save my work which ends up publishing the post and having to come back and re-edit it. 2 more shirts to fold and then back to work!
6:57 AM 0 comments

 
So I should be writing in here more, but this week has just been crazy with the amount of work. This will likely continue for the next several weeks till the break when I am going to Perth with a group of people from here. For now I can waste more time with the recently opened, and only sparsely populated so far, Sydney craigslist.
10:42 AM 0 comments

 
Just a big thank you to all who helped me celebrate the coming of my 23rd year. Had a wonderful day from the midnight calls to the late night partyers and continuing to the calls tomorrow morn when its still the 4th back home in NJ (and LA Dan). Thus, my birthday will have spanned a whopping 41 hours of celebrated time. Can't really ask for much more than that.
1:42 PM 1 comments