Sunday, August 24, 2008

Cleaning and Housework ...... and why you shouldn't put it off.

A few weeks ago I ear-marked this weekend for a massive clean of my house. I had been putting it off for months for one reason or another (usually "I couldn't be arsed" or "Won't someone else eventually do it....statistically....if I leave it long enough?"). However, due to the imminent arrival of house guests I couldn't put it off any longer. So this weekend I dove in head, gloves, shears, mops, vacuum cleaner, lawnmowers and sudzy water first and cleaned EVERYTHING that looked even remotely dirty. It turns out it was a good idea and, in hindsight, a very good lesson in why you shouldn't put cleaning off for to long......but more on that later...and be warned it is NOT for the squeamish.

I started on Saturday after basketball (u10's) and after another magnificent win to my team as they are a bunch of pint sized champions and losing is not an option. I did all my grocery shopping and assorted other tasks to get them out of the way to allow no distractions to the imminent mother of all cleaning operations.

I started with my lawn...which to be honest I can't even remember when I cut last...it's at least 2 months ago. I didn't take a picture of the "before" state but a good approximation is thus:


... except mine had more lions and tigers and elephants roaming through it so more like this one:


That's almost an exact replica ...wow....scary how real that looks. Anyway, after a bout of "trying" to get the mower to start for about 1/2 an hour. I decided to check if it had petrol in it ... which is a rookie mistake that you hate to see...and it sort of did. So I put more in it and tried again...still no luck. I tried tilting it left and right while trying to start it ... no dice. I wracked my brain for what could be wrong....I was out of ideas....then I remembered hearing "somewhere" that swearing at it, kicking it and possibly throwing shoes at it has been reported to afford moderate success in getting mowers to start. I did all three...and what do you know it STARTED!!! I think that remedy can now be patented as a scientific fact!!

So I started mowing the lawn....and not 2 secs after *I* started my mower the guy over the fence started his mower...his started on the first pull. Obviously brand new and never been run before, that's the only logical explanation.
I took me a good hour to mow the lawn...which is a long time for about 10m2 of lawn. In parts it was so lush that the mower actually stopped mid-chop, choking on the vegetative beard that mother nature had let grow rampant and unkempt as it was forced mercilessly through it. This happened 5 or so times and thankfully the mower restarted each time :). So now my lawn looks "cut" and has 100% less wildlife stalking through it. Not bad hey?



That was all I had time for on Saturday, I put the mower away and returned my car to the garage and pressed the roller-door shut button on the roller door motor as I left the garage. I then enjoyed the rest of my saturday...a little TV, a little Scrabby and a few rounds of Teamfortress with my various friends. Went to bed and slept like a log :)

I woke on Sunday around 9:30am and got up and watched Stargate Atlantis's newest episode "The Shrine" while I had breakfast (Crumpets and coffee ... yum!) ..my god..I am either turning into a right cry-baby or that was some of the most heart-wrenching stuff I've ever seen in a SCi-Fi show. Especially if you've ever known anyone with Alzheimer's. After that I decided to plow headlong into more cleaning..today it was to be the house interior I checked each room to see what needed doing...pretty much every room needed a vacuum and a wash.......it was when i got to the back room, the "spare" room where stuff just gets put and left and stored that I made a discovery. It smelt ...funny... in there...I couldn't put my finger on it but I thought nothing of it because I also dry my washing by the window when it's too rainy outside and some times it gets a bit musty. I opened the window and as I turned I saw behind my bikes back wheel some greenish, black spots on the carpet. I immediately thought "Oh no, my rear brake has bled all it's hydrolic fluid on to the carpet". I looked closer..it wasn't ..oil..it was...well...it looked like mould??

Some of you may remember I had a rather grim discovery last week when i came home from Adelaide (at 2am I might add) and could smell a strange odor in my house. I found next day that some mould was growing out of the wall behind my washing machine. I cleaned it all as best I could and thought that was the end of it. Today I found out it was not. I moved all the stuff that was piled in the spare room away from the wall which has the laundry on the other side of it and was greeted by this..... (Please Don't look if you are a clean freak or at all squeamish).


pic 1 pic 2 pic 3


Let me just say right here, that yes that is horribly disgusting and quite possibly a health hazard. I cleaned it away as best I can and informed my Real Estate Agency then and there. It is obviously a major problem and I've taken all steps to have it professionally removed.

Anyway, after discovering that I had to go get some stuff to clean it. So I grabbed my car keys and my house keys and...the...where the hell is the roller-door key? I searched for a good 10 minutes ... it was definitely not here. Where would I have left it? Then I remembered that I had put the car in the driveway yesterday when i needed to get to the mower. Whenever I put the car in the driveway I usually leave the roller-door widget in the car :( Yesterday I put the car back in the garage and closed the roller-door with the button on the roller-door motor on the wall. The door opener (which is the only thing that can open the roller-door) was now safely locked away in my car behind the shut roller-door. DOH! "No drama" I thought..."there's a key to the door at the back of the Garage on my house keys", brilliant plan and a saving grace...if only it was true. The spare key was thoughtfully stored on the roller-door opener's key ring bit. So I had no way of getting into my garage :(.

After a brisk 45min walk to my Real Estate Agent and back to pick up the spare keys I managed to gain entry to the garage and rescue the door-opener. So although, In the end I was victorious...I think my "spare key" storage strategy needed an overhaul :) I took the spares back to the Agent (in the car, as i had to go shopping too) and when I returned I got full on into housework mode. Many male people's mothers (mine included)go to great lengths during their upbringing to instill some sort of "Cleaning Responsibilities" into the male brain from an early age. Many fail , and fail dismally and the only hope for these male children is they grow up and get married. Not all men are/were that lucky/unfortunate (take your pick) and HAD to learn the art of cleaning for survival. I lived in share houses all through Uni with (predominantly) women. That is the easiest way to get a guy to clean...because Women are VICIOUS and HORRIBLE creatures when "someone" forgets to clean anything, especially when there is a "roster" which said "person" may or may not know about. but I digress.

Behold the splendor as my house gets "The Treatment"!!!

Cleaning


See. How impressive was that? Not just a pretty face this boy...I have many skills that are useful. Hard to believe that such an absolute GEM of a man is single isn't it?? Smarten up your act ladies!!

After the house "Treatment" was over I had to go and play Taxi for my long time friend Matt who's father had taken seriously ill and had been taken to Geelong hospital from Mt. Gambier in SA. I can't remember exactly what Matt told me was wrong with him (was heart related), but he's been transferred twice already so it was pretty serious. Matt asked me to drive him from Tullamarine Airport to the Geelong hospital and I agreed without hesitation because to say "no" to something like that is just not an option.

So I set off to the airport at 4:15pm to meet Matt's 5:24pm arrival. Upon arriving near the airport I had recieved an SMS from Matt saying the flight was delayed. Seems that this is almost a standard occurrence nowadays with any airline. Remember when things arrived on time?? Nay, neither do I...someone should really do something about that...or...whatever. Now, anyone who's ever been to Melbourne airport will know that there is absolutely NOWHERE where you can park and wait without paying extortionate rates. There is McDonald's of course, but they seem to be perennially trying to disprove the logic that dictates "500 cars can't possibly fit in 25 car parking spaces", I think they are almost there. Their car park looked like they were holding a concert by some hugely popular artist who would attract a lot of fans (I'm sory .. but I couldn't think of one current "popular music" artist whom I could name here to make a really good analogy). There was nothing for it, I would have to use the paid parking :( I went to see just how late the plane was, 30mins. ....hmmm It could be worse. I found a Gloria Jeans near the baggage claim and got a Chai latte to pass the time...... I needed it to dilute my growing disgust with airlines lately. I was so bored during the wait that I tried to see how many ways I could photography the Chai Latte with my phone and make it interesting.....
... Turns out there was only "One" way. So that game got old pretty fast.

Matt eventually appeared and we went back to the car paying the parking on the way ($12!! Highway robbery for 47mins of parking!!) and started the journey from Tullamarine to Geelong. To cut a long story short...Tullamarine to Geelong is a F&%KING LONG WAY!! We left at 6:15pm from Tulla and got to Geelong a little after 8pm. I then had to drive all the way back to Ringwood afterwards. My round trip was Left Home: 4:15pm Returned Home: 9:20pm and did a total of about 300KM's.

That's just the sort of friend I am :)

Hope your Dad is doing alright and gets better soon Matt.

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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Basket-BRAWL!!

Basket-BRAWL!!


Had an earlyish game of Basketball last night due to our team making the finals (wooot). The competition is "Male Over 30's" and at 36 I'd be probably one of the younger players in the competition. This might foolishly make some people think that the games are a bit of a friendly doddle and a chance for the older gents to have a run around and enjoy some healthy competition. Oh how wrong you would be. Weekly you see people going absolutely "postal" on the court and you better believe they are playing for sheep-stations. It's high stakes to EVERYONE who isn't me it seems. I'm there because I was always pretty good at Basketball and because it gets me out of the house and doing a bit of exercise (because..you know...I don't do enough already :) ).
Anyway, last night was as brutal as I have experienced it. I've seen other guys in our team as well as other teams players get pushy and shovey when it gets near the end of the second half and the scores are either really close or so far apart the losing team isn't interested in playing anymore and just wants to fight. Tonight the scores were REALLY close the whole game with the lead chopping and changing regularly. However, the team we were playing we affectionately call the "Tattoo Mafia" because nearly all of them are covered in Tat's and if they feel the slightest bit threatened they get really physical. I copped the brunt of this twice. I was playing quite well in the center (As I was the tallest on our team), I won the tap at the start of the game (insert mental image of me flexing!) and was converting a lot of passes to me at the post into baskets. After a while the other teams center player must have realised that he was getting owned by me on just about every occasion that we went toe-to-toe. So he decided that rather than go for the ball he'd go for my head...with a clenched fist. I got passed the ball near the top of the key, I spun left and dribbled past one guy and start my "2 steps" to lay the ball up to the basket ....1......2.....POW!! Some one pounds me in the back of the head. I'm seeing stars and spots and everything .. I collapse on the ground under the force of the blow and hear the whistle blow for a foul. I roll over and look up and 3 of my team are pushing the other teams big center player away from the huddle of players that is forming. He's staring at me like I just killed his dog...So I guessed it was him who punched me. I got 2 shots from the foul line for my trouble and another 2 for a "Technical" foul because he'd punched me...which "Technically" isn't allowed in Basketball. As a testament to my awesome skills, I got all 4 shots in. ALL OF THEM. I think we need to pause here and reflect on that brilliant achievement ...
So the game starts up again and continues on the same way..lead changing over and over. The opposition had very little luck driving or passing the ball to anywhere near the basket and were relying on 3-point bombs for their chances. Frustratingly, they had this one guy who never seemed to miss them. He'd just hang around the three point line and do nothing else offensively...then the ball would work it's way to him and he'd put up a 3pt shot..we'd all watch the ball arc in the air and "swish" ... GOD DAMN HIM. I reckon he got about 8 or 9 of them in..well over 1/2 their score. Anyway, there is a few minutes to go and I have so far not had a rest so am getting a bit tired. I have been getting a few good rebounds and even blocked a few shots. This again angers Mr. Opposition Center Player who decides again that the best offense against me is still not skill but punching me in the head. On this occasion they have put up a shot and missed, I've launched myself skywards to grab the rebound...got it....landed, turned around to be greeted by their center player who, calm as calm, raises his arm and presents me with a fist right into the left eye socket. Now I wear glasses while playing and for someone to even consider punching someone with glasses..IN THE EYE NO LESS...is really several kilometers away from the coolest spot in Cooltown. Again, I go down to the floor clutching my face. He'd got me a beauty and I was really spinning in "Did someone get the number of that truck??" land. The umpiring at this venue is usually of such a poor standard that this type of "Foul" would need a discussion to determine if the version of the rules used in our division allowed for punching to the head as a legitimate tactic. Fortunately, it seems that it wasn't and Mr. "I can't beat you so I'll BEAT YOU!!" Center Guy gets told to leave the stadium and is promptly ejected. Mind you he's still complaining that what he did was an "Accident" and that the Refs should just "Let the game flow" ..... Tosser.
The game ends with us scoring 31 and them scoring 34 ..... so sadly, and rather unfairly, only the "moral" victory is ours. The moral victory was that "People who are really, really, really, ridiculously good looking and have skill will always triumph over short, fat guys with Tattoo's of motorbikes, strippers and flaming skulls who can only throw punches ... at least in Basketball".
After the game I saw the first aid guy at the venue because I had taken 2 rather hard blows to the head during the last hour and was still a bit "woozy". He said that I wasn't concussed and I should go home and rest. So I went home and had a shower it's then that I noticed that I had had huge chunks of flesh gouged out of my arms and hands during the game also...I looked like I'd fell off a mountain bike and rolled down the side of a mountain (fortunately not breaking my shoulders in the process). Soap and hot water on open wounds is not the best way to end the day. I had a quick Scrabby check but all games were in limbo due to Rach having to "work" a bit last night in order to come to Melbourne soon (YAY!!). We had a quick chat but the "Woozy" was still with me so I decided to go to bed.
During the night I just couldn't stay asleep, my legs were absolutely aching and no matter how I lay or positioned myself they continued to do so. Seems my abundant physical exertion over the last few weeks is catching up with me. So here I am sitting at my desk at work at the crazy hour of 7:45am .... at least the Managing Director saw me walking in and I saw him check his watch...browny points for me :)
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

RADELAIDE!!

RADELAIDE :)


I wrote this on my iPod while waiting...endlessly...for my plane to arrive on Sunday night...


Friday: flight delayed again. Tiger while being cheap and not crashing leave a lot to be desired in the punctuality department. A lot to be desired is actually praising them because quite frankly they are f%$ing USELESS!!!


Met by Rachel at airport and she was a sight for sore eyes. Looking fantastic. Proceeded into the city to meet a few friends for a quick beer and catch up. Then headed to Gawler and sleep. Got to bed about 11:30pm and we both just went out like lights.

Saturday: Went out to Angaston to visit Bruce & tash. Had lunch of pies and donuts/cakes. The nieces were a riot as always, such happy kids.

Left Angaston and returned home to Rachel's to prepare for quiz night at Somerton yacht club with Rachel's parents. Night was good, we came 3rd overall. Food was curry assortments and was pretty good.

Got home just after midnight and went to sleep pretty much straight away. Was a long day.


Sunday: Went for a Brunch of pancakes with Rach. Pancakes were as good as I expected..tres bon :)

Initiated plan "none the wiser" when Rachel's kids were due to return and this worked flawlessly. Was good to see them again they are all such great kids. For a while :P Went to my Mums for dinner and then onto the airport for the flight home to Melbourne.


I don't know if you are familiar with the iPod Touch interface but to type a document you have to press each individual letter of each word...there's no predictive text. I thought I had written "The Pillars Of The Earth" because that took me about 2 hours to type out and I thought it was a HUGE, sprawling narrative and when you actually see it on screen it is actually quite small. The time invested was OK though as my Tiger flight was, true to form, Delayed ....again...GRaAAaaaaAAAaaaaaaARrrRRrrRRggGGGhhhH!!!!

It really makes you wonder whether the "Cheaper" price of Tiger Airways flights is worth it when they seem incapable of running to their schedule. They don't even run that many flights and don't fly to many cities anyway so how do they constantly get it so wrong??. The $40 you might save by flying with them is not really a saving when you are CONSTANTLY delayed and reach every destination late inconveniencing anyone who you've organised for a pick-up or adding $20 to your parking costs in my case.

Luckily I had organised to meet up in the Terminal with some friends of mine from Brisbane who had also spent the weekend in Adelaide. Their plane (Jet star) was also delayed by an hour so we had a very cosy and lengthy chat to pass the time. I remembered REALLY quickly how god damn sexy Geraldines French accent is, it just makes you drool (not literally... but almost). When we were on holidays in Tasmania she would read the travel brochures in the car and you'd just not want her to stop talking :) I went on a brilliant driving holiday with Geraldine in 2007 to Tasmania but I haven't seen her since (except for MSN etc). In the interim since then she met her now husband Diego whom I also met that night. He is a Colombian guy who was really nice and they seem very happy together. One thing is for sure if/when they have some kids they would be an awesome mix of French-Columbian.

We talked for a while until Geraldine started getting chocolate withdrawls (I think she hadn't had any chocolate for a few hours!!) and she asked if I knew of "Haighs" chocolate and if she could buy some somewhere in the airport? I was certain that Haighs had a shop in the terminal so we went looking....and looking.....and looking.... Seems this was one of those VERY rare occassions when I was not 100% correct. Luckily no one was there with a camera so I can plausibly deny that it ever happened. We eventually found a shop called "Aussie Icons" that had a small assortment of Haighs chocolate and we both bought a 10-pack of Chocolate frogs ($20 but SOOO worth it....they're like little frog shaped, chocolate flavoured orgasms). Their plane eventually arrived and they left for Brisbane. It's then that I noticed something about flying to Brisbane from "anywhere" in Australia....you will ALWAYS leave for brsbane from the furthest possible gate in the terminal. In Melbourne..gate 56, In Adelaide gate 25 .... weird. So with Geraldine and Diego on their way I went back towards my gate (Gate 13..how fitting is that!!) to be hailed, not 5 steps into the journey, by an anouncement on the PA that my flight would be further delayed by ANOTHER 30mins. I'd had enough...it was Sunday night and not only did I have to leave Adelaide (which is never easy) I had to go to work in the morning 800km away and the plane was now 2.5 hours late...it was time for beer.

I walked over to the "Coopers Ale House" in the terminal and walked up to the bar, the girls there greeted me with a smile and said "We can tell from your stern, angry and disappointed expression that you are on the Tiger flight. This is the biggest glass we have... what can we fill it with for you?" .. That was the best sales pitch for beer I have ever heard :) I CA'd* and said "I'll take a Coopers Lager" and wandered over to the section of the bar where a small group of people were watching the Olympics. It was showing women's gymnastics of some sort, the event where they run towards a small springboard, bounce off it and then do a hand plant on some vaulting horse thing...chuck a few spins and somersaults and land "theoretically" on their feet. I say "theoretically" because a few of the women competing must have thought this step of the routine was optional as they were landing on their heads, knees, bums etc...was pretty funny, but it wasn't, but it was....

As the "revised" arrival time approached the PA crackled over head again to announce that my flight would be further delayed by another 30 mins. You could actually hear the disgusted growls of people wash through the entire terminal like a tsunami of disdain. Not 5 mins later another announcement declared quite cheerfully that our plane had "Just left Melbourne and it was on it's way here". Now, you'd think they would realise that the people who were waiting for this plane wanted to GO TO MELBOURNE on it...and therefor knew it would take it an hour to get to Adelaide, plus cleaning and refueling. then ANOTHER hour before it arrived in Melbourne...we were looking at an arrival at Melbourne Airport of around 1:15am. Disgraceful for a flight that was scheduled to leave at 8pm and ended up leaving at 12 Midnight.

Inspite of this moronically incompetent end to the weekend I had the best time while being in Adelaide again. Thanks to all involved.

*Chuckled Audibly




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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Never likely to be seen again....

I think I just set a world record on the game on my mobile phone!!!

1482 in a single "Bubble Break" !!!
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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Sods and Odds..

Sods and Odds..

Well, long time between posts here in blog world....
The truth is...well....I didn't really do much in the last week except catch up on housework (and who honestly wants to hear about that?). It's just been a routine week of "get up, get dressed, go to work" ad infinitum. Work has been "retarded" for want of a better word. The project I have been working on gets changed almost daily it seems and i'm never really sure what's going on from day to day. We've almost successfully come to the end of the projected time-line and then the whole thing gets scrapped and re-planned along a totally different route. Plus our "colleague" in the USA sends me emails constantly refuting everything we have accomplished so far in our research and claiming the exact opposite of what we have already reported (and recorded AND witnessed here in Oz). It gotten to the point where I open my email each day and hope that there isn't too many emails there from this guy...because 99% of the time I have no idea what the hell he is on about.

This week on Tuesday I again was called into a "Super Important Meeting" with 2 hours notice given and AGAIN expected to recount the history of civilization from the dawn of time (or rather the scientific equivalent). This is beginning to really annoy me, getting told you are meeting with the companies managing director in 2 hours and "Don't come unprepared!!" really is not pleasant when you are flat out working anyway and have to madly print off half a rain forest of data hoping that the correct stuff will be printed with it. Really gives me the shits when this happens...it's so unfair and I think quite unprofessional.

Today we (me and my trusty Chinese work-a-holic Yi) had our task plan changed twice in the space of 8 hours for the upcoming week. We slaved away at what had to get done then 5 mins before home time Yi's experiment exploded....f%$king brilliant. We decided there was nothing we could do about it then and there and would deal with the fallout in the morning. We're confident that we can save some of it and use it for what it was made for...if we can't ... well, there is a saying you might have heard about excrement and rotating cooling machines and this will adequately describe the consequences.

on a happier note...

Just had basketball tonight and we absolutely smashed the other team for a big win. 40-22. I got 10 points and no fouls because i am just so awesome. Some of my shots tonight were just brilliant...I faded, I pump-faked, I sold dummies and drove the lane.....it almost looked like I had unlimited skills and was unstoppable :) actually pretty close to real life ..

1 more sleep and I'll be going to Adelaide for the weekend too. Always a great feeling to be going back there and I have some pretty good things planned to enjoy myself. This will mainly involve seeing the siblings and parental unit, sleeping, lazing about and well.... more lazing about if I have my way :) I'm pretty sure I can sneak in a monster massage as well if I can find a willing recipient.

Got a funny thing in my email from Christine today at work...it was some Horoscope "personality" generalisation thing, but when I read the one for Pieces (i.e. Me) it said this:

PISCES - The Dreamer (Feb 19 - Mar 20) - Generous, kind, and thoughtful. Very creative and imaginative. May become secretive and vague. Sensitive. Don't like details. Dreamy and unrealistic. Sympathetic and loving. Kind. Unselfish. Good kisser. Beautiful. Great in Bed.
Now really....have they NAILED me there or what?? I can't find a single thing to refute there. Absolutely spot on.

Some others that I noticed seem to describe people I know quite well also.

Take my older Brother for example:

ARIES - The Daredevil (Mar 21 - April 19) Energetic. Adventurous and spontaneous. Confident and enthusiastic.
Fun. Loves a challenge. EXTREMELY impatient. Sometimes selfish. Short fuse. (Easily angered.) Lively, passionate, and sharp wit. Outgoing. Lose interest quickly - easily bored. Egotistical. Courageous and assertive. Tends to be physical and athletic.

I think his wife would say that describes him to a Tee. HAhahahahah NOT.

Or take my Younger Brother:
SCORPIO - The Intense One (Oct 23 - Nov 21)Very energetic. Intelligent.. Can be jealous and/or possessive. Hardworking. Pathetic kisser. Can become obsessive or secretive. Holds grudges. Attractive. Determined. Loves being in long Relationships. Talkative. Excessively Romantic. Can be self-centered at times. Passionate and Emotional.

Again, that would probably be refuted immensely by his Girlfriend..

Seems that the horoscope was only correct about Pieces :)

To be fair, I do know a certain Leo that this fits pretty well to:

LEO - The Boss (July 23 - Aug 22)
Very organized. Need order in their lives - like being in control. Like boundaries. Tend to take over everything. Bossy. Like to help Others. Social and outgoing. Extroverted. Generous, warm-hearted. Sensitive. Creative energy. Full of themselves. Loving. Doing the right thing is important to Leos. Attractive.

Not that I believe any of this tripe really. I always knew my "kind, Sensitive, Unselfish and loving" nature may be genetic. But my awesome kissing, good looks and orgasm inducing mastery in the bedroom is all the result of my own work and dedication and not something I was born with I don't think. It's hard to believe that such expertise can be "learned".... but I am living proof that THESE skills can be attained through dedication and persistence :)
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