Have you ever wondered what the future might look like? Well wonder no more, it looks a little bit like this -
Amy on an Offroad Segway
This weekend we went to Olympic Park which is out West. It wasn’t the gun crime scene that the news portrays but a nice cafe by a river and fantastic park. Angharad, Amy, Leisa, John, Martin and myself went over there for a fun afternoon of luncheon and to learn how to ride Segways.
These devices are $10k a pop which means they cost more than our car. They are pretty awesome very hard to hurt yourself on them but you do stick out like a soar thumb. You start off in “turtle mode” which means they only go about 2km/h so there’s no chance of injury. Later, after we had got used to them the instructor unleashes them so we can get up to 20km/h. The instructor kept coming back over to me to check that he had switched off turtle mode, I obviously wasn’t pushing the envelope enough. I actually quite enjoyed crusing around at a low speed, the top speed of the Segway wasn’t exactly nail biting stuff so a lesiurely pace was all that was needed.
Segway-ing off into the future
It was a great time and a great new experience! Well organized Angharad.
Today was a pretty full day of activities, first off it was Tasleema’s birthday at Public Dining Room in Balmoral. It was really nice and the coffee’s were actually quite strong, I left the place shaking!
Next up, Eddie, who used to live upstairs on Marcus’ level at Uni was in town. Last time I saw Eddie I’m pretty sure it was in a bar in Farringdon about 7-8 years ago, so it was a change of scene to go out surfing in Manly.
The waves were really good this afternoon, after a storm came through the surf looked awesome, so Marcus, Eddie and I headed out for a surf! Nancy was kind enough to take pictures with the SLR. There’s 111 of them on Flickr in the Eddie Would Go set, my favorites are here -
Marcus Smashing the Right
For a monkey wedding day the weather turned out to be fantastic for our surf session -
Me Smashing the Left with Shelly Beach in the Background
Eddie was learning so not much stand up time which is not unusual for the early days I remember them well!
Eddie Would Go
Altogether an excellent Sunday!
If you have not seen the video to my 30th have a look I think it’s my best production yet!
So I organised a weekend away with as many friends as I could afford the deposit for at a location somewhere on the Northern Beaches. It was fun not telling anyone the location as it is more of a surprise when they arrived. The place we rented for the weekend was on Morella Road in Whale Beach, with an amazing view over the surf. The place was very vertical and it had its own elevator. The elevator still didn’t take you to the living area making it a bit redundant but useful for those first few steps.
First off in the morning we met up with Nancy, Marcus and Hugo for a surprise breakfast near their house, which was really nice. It was also where Amy gave me my birthday present which will last a lifetime, although Marcus put a downer on that one when he said I got it a bit late!!!!!
Rimowa Cabin Trolley Present
I was also lucky enough to get cash from my parents and six laps at high speeds around a racing track in Sydney, which is going to be awesome and a blog entry in itself I’m sure.
So the first evening Amy made a lovely chicken dinner with potatoes which was very nice, we also played Bingo which I bought especially for the night. The next day we ate so much food it wasn’t funny, I made a breakfast, Stu and Simone made a delicious home made pizza and Marcy and Chris did their famous Brisket dish for dinner. Nancy and Marcus made a very delicious chocolate cake for dessert which doubled as a birthday cake!
Stu the Pizza Chef Teaching me the basics
Note also in the above picture the clock says ten minutes to three and just below Stu’s arm you can see Marcus is still wearing his pajamas.
To get an appetite for dinner after all of the eating we’d already done before 3 o’clock we headed down the beach to play catch, the USA version of this involves a special glove like the one used in baseball, here is Amy in action -
Amy playing Catch
In the evening we used the roof deck table to play beer pong, Chris, Marcy, Marcus, Stu and I played this awesomely fun game. If you have never heard of it you probably weren’t in a fraternity and didn’t live in America. The idea of the game is to throw a ping pong ball into a cup. If you get it in the other team have to drink the beer that is in the cup. It is a fun drinking game -
Me, Chris, Stu and Marcus playing Beer Pong
The house and some pretty strict rules, one of them was that if we forgot to take a bin out then there would be a $60 fine for each bin they had to throw out themselves. So when Marcy played pretend baseball with a carrot and came within inches of throwing it through the window we counted ourselves lucky as that probably would have been a small fortune to repair, you can see the action in the video.
The Gang around the table
So overall a very memorable 30th, the next one of the weekend group is Hugo’s…. in just over 29 years!!
So this weekend we celebrated my 30th birthday. I’ll do a proper blog entry about it soon but here’s the video of the awesome time I (we) had -
When we went to see Russell Brand a few weeks back, he was telling a joke how Australians have lied to the rest of the world, it is not hot and sunny all the time. Mr G the poet laureate had only bought t-shirts from England. The reality is it does get cold anywhere South of Queensland and at the moment its about 14 degrees, which is the coldest winter in Sydney for a long time.
So what better way to celebrate that than a trip ice skating as part of the Sydney Winter Festival.
Amy and me skating (looks like Amy is going shopping)
It was a fun night, I did a skate train with Chris and Marcy, Chris went too fast for my beginner skating style and Marcy and I ended up crashing. Some nice people helped us up and said “that’s what you get for messing around”, they looked as if they were about 19 years old which I thought was funny.
Amy, Lucy and Angharad enjoying the pro skater and some fake snow
It was an awesome evening and felt like Christmas. I really enjoyed skating hopefully we will get down to the Bondi one.
I have not done an updates about goings on for a while so this is a kind of amalgamation of a few weeks worth of bits and bobs that we have been doing in one post.
A few weeks ago Lorraine cooked us one of the best meals we’d ever had at her house. She did two curries and they tasted amazing. We then played a few games which I’ve got some great video footage of which might make it into a video I’m going to make sooner or later.
Amy with the Curries at Lozzas
We then had to say goodbye to Lozza as she departed on her world tour visiting countries such as Alaska and South Africa to name two of them, so we said our farewells with a dinner at Manly Grill, which is one of the crowds favorite although I still like Ribs and Rumps! One of the advantages of Manly Grill is the amount of sauces you can get, I took it to a new level and decided to get three, one is generally the accepted behavior but that is not fun.
Me with 3 Sauces at Manly Grill
The following week was Marcy’s birthday, we celebrated this at their house in Potts Point. A chef came over and showed us how to make pasta from scratch which was good fun, and then we ate truffle pasta and had some other delicious food which was really good fun.
Chef doing pasta demo at Marcy’s Birthday party
It was good fun and Chris had a go at making the pasta himself and he proved very good at it, a little too good as his turned our better than the ARIA trained chef!
Group photo for Marcy’s Birthday
So that is it for the moment, lots of fun things coming up soon, including the big 3-0!
A couple of weekends ago we celebrated Marcus’ 30th birthday with a difference. We went off to Bundanoon (where Matt and Mel got married) and stayed at a lodge which did a special murder mystery weekend.
Three guesses for who got murdered
The evening was spread out with a couple of murders and the help of a paid actor to keep things running along. It was very surreal we were all dressed up like 1930ies and dancing to the music of the era and pretending to be people who we weren’t. I was the local bookie and I had a little helper go around with me to collect all the debts, “ted the enforcer” was his name and he was very good at it.
Lozza with Ted the Enforcer
In the end we all get drunk and Marcus ended up with his shirt off which is a good gauge of a successful 30th party.
Simone, Stu, Bobby, Amy, Iain, Ian and Gayle
The next day we went for a scenic walk around Bundanoon with Mike, Rach and Mia who were also up but camping nearby which was very nice. That evening we got take-away (which we had to go and get as the lady reminded us we were in the country now) and ate it at the place and played a few rounds of poker and did some puzzles which is about right for people in their thirties I would imagine. Most people were nursing hang overs, especially Amy and Alex who couldn’t even eat their breakfasts!
A great time!!
On Friday Amy and I flew down to Melbourne as I was invited to judge at the AIMIA awards again this year. The presentation was in Melbourne so it was a good excuse to make a weekend of it!
Here’s a picture of me on the red carpet, attribution goes to AIMIA for this photo as I forgot to take my camera. The lady with me is Kristin who was on the AIMIA board and was nice enough to give me a lift from the hotel to the event.
AIMIA Awards 2010 with Kristin from AIMIA
Friday night was awards night and whilst Amy stayed in and watched movies (it is expensive and I got a free ticket) I went off to the awards. I luckly met up with some people I knew and it was a good time. Stephen Conroy (the reason the side bar has a stop internet censorship) was in attendance and gave a little speech about the national broadband network but did not make mention of his censorship plans, which hopefully means they are on the way out.
We stayed at a hotel called “The Cullen” which is part of some Art Hotels which were was really awesome. It was in a district called Prahan which was just off Chapel Street (which has lots of trendy fun shots for Amy to visit and me to wait outside).
Here is Amy in the lift with an Andy Cullen Picture
On Saturday morning we went out down Chapel Street, went to some shops, Amy bought a new pair of jeans whilst I had a cappucino. It was a really hot day and we had to stay in the shade as much as possible.
Here’s a building on Chapel Street that looked cool
We were tired from our adventure so we went back to the hotel and watched “Funny People” as it was $16.95 to hire out and Amy had watched it the night before but we watched it again together to get some sort of value out of it. Whilst we were watching the movie we noticed it started raining. It turned out it was a bit more than rain -
As the storm came I was thinking Melbourne gets some pretty awful weather! I’d never quite seen a day go from nice and sunny to what looked like some sort of minor hurricane and the hardest downpour I think I’ve ever seen! We carried on watching the movie and then I popped out for a cappucino. I walked down the street and noticed half the shops were closed and thought it was strange for shops to close so early on a Saturday. On closer inspection, half the stores on Chapel Street were totally drenched and without power, so it was not necessarily a normal storm for Melbourne but pretty crazy!
That night Amy and I went out in the rain to a restaurant called “FOG” which was a French influenced place just behind our hotel in Prahan. It was really nice and we were glad we didn’t have to go far as the streets were pretty messed up from the storm, I actually kicked a junkies needle that washed up on the street by accident a bit earlier so I was very glad I was wearing shoes and not flip flops when that happened! The service in Melbourne is about 150% better than Sydney which is really nice. We went back to the hotel as the club we were going to afterwards was either not open yet because we were there too early or closed because of water damage. We hired another $16 movie and made sure we concentrated and watched it to the very end, although I’m pretty sure Amy fell asleep as per usual.
Amy and I at FOG in Prahan
The next morning the day wasn’t looking too bad so we hired a little Smart Car from the hotel. This was really fun as it really stands out. They are funny little cars to drive, the red line is way too low and the steering wheel is a lot like the one I have for the PC, complete with flappy paddles for changing up and down.
The Smart Cart and Mornington Penisula
They are semi-automatic so it seemed to change down but not up, but it told you when to change up. I was either doing something wrong or they had skimped on paying for the switch the connected the computer that told you to change gear with the gear box to do it for you.
We drove down to the Mornington Penisula and the sun started to come out which was really nice. It was a nice part of Victoria complete with beach houses that you find on the English coastline!
Mornington Penisula Beach Sheds
We then returned to Prahan dropped off the car at the hotel, checked out our baggage and got the taxi to the airport, which is where we are now. I’ve got some spare time on my hands because the flight is delayed due to a massive storm sitting over Victoria!!! Hopefully we’ll get home at some time or another.
On the way back home we bumped into Simone and Stu who were returning from Brisvegas, which wasn’t a devastation zone like Melbourne -
Amy, Stu and Simone at YSSY Carpark
Peace!
Well it has been a long time since a blog entry! The Melbourne Tennis weekend away was such an event we had to have a bit of a cooling off period! However back now with a new event!
On Friday night we went to the ASX Thomson Reuters Charity Foundation dinner event at the Westin Hotel in Sydney that was a lot of fun. We got to the event late and our table was the only one that was empty but we soon made up for that being the last ones to leave.
Marcy and Chris at the dinner with Opera Singer
The entertainment was really good with an exceptional pianist and a great opera style singer to keep the entertainment going whilst we had dinner. Afterwards there was an auction for all sorts of fantastic prizes like tickets to the Wimbledon finals, US Open, Australian Open and French Open all with flights and accommodation looked after however these were all well out of the budget. You could even by the car in the picture above, although no one did.
Me, Chris, Marcy, Ian, Brent and Amy
It was a real fun event and the latest night out I’ve had in a while! Here’s a quick snapshot of some other things we’ve been doing -
We had dinner at Apres in Potts Point last weekend with a friend of Lozzas from Los Angeles, it was a very cool French restaurant which did the best steak frites I’ve had this side of Paris -
We also celebrated Nancy’s birthday with a dinner at Artichoke and saw how much Hugo had grown up -
Nancy Birthday at Artichoke with Baby Hugo
Next week we are off to Melbourne again so expect another blog post sooner rather than later!!!!!
Last weekend, Amy, Marcy, Chris and I went down to Melbourne for the Australian open. We also did some touring of Melbourne and the surrounding area, which includes Daylesford and The Great Ocean Road. Our first stop was Melbourne, where we watched Baghdatis play against Hewitt, however the match didn’t last very long, Baghdatis gave up due to an injury. We also watched a womens game staight afterwards which was fun!
Baghdatis vs. Hewitt
There’s lots of things to do at the tennis, one of them is to get your photo taken with a giant tennis ball -
Amy with a giant tennis ball
The next stop on our trip to Melbourne was a place called Daylesford which is a small town North West of Melbourne, it was really nice and had Spa’s for the girls (and Chris). We stayed in an awesome house for the night and watched some more tennis -
Chris and Marcy in Daylesford watching Tennis
That evening we went to a restaurant called Mercato which was really good, it felt like we were in someones front living room but the food was awesome!
The next day we set off on our Great Ocean Road adventure, which would cover a lot of miles of driving through the country side, where we even saw a twister style wind tunnel caused by dust. Chris drove us to the Apostles which were a bit out of the way but it was fantastic to finally see them, here’s Amy and I with some of them -
Amy and me at the 12 Apostles
Initially I was a bit disappointed with the Great Ocean Road, at least from Apollo Bay to the Apostles because there’s not very much in the way of Ocean. However the drive from Apollo Bay back towards Melbourne is much more of a Great Ocean Road, we even saw some Koalas in the trees (the first time I’ve seen one in the wild I think).
Great Ocean Road Drive
That brings us to the end of our Melbourne adventure, it was great fun!
