Tempting

Fancy Dress

I’ve never been to a fancy dress party before, I’ve dressed up once or twice, once for easter (came across more like Donnie darko) and once back when I was at school.

When the end of year work party lined up nicely with my resignation and combined with the fact that it was dubbed as fancy dress where you have to come as your favourite movie character I couldn’t pass up one of the all time greats........................ Jason Voohees

I love movies, there were soooo many to choose from. I couldn't possibly pick my favourite movie character. I wanted something simple to make and easily worn on a warm Melbourne night and something creepy as hell.

Some other possibilities that didn’t make the cut were:
Michael Meyers
Grim Reaper
Chewbacca

A trip to the magic shop in the city made my mind up for me comparing the $100 michael Meyers mask to the $20 Vorhees hockey mask. The Meyers mask looked awesome but was too expensive and I wouldn’t be able to drink with it on.

So I ended up going for a Jason Voorhees hockey mask, a meat cleaver (I realise a machete would have been more suited) and some artificial blood

The plan is to rough up an old work shirt, add some tears and scuffs then dirty it up with black and brown paint. Then cut up a tshirt for underneath, add some bullet holes and stab wounds and splatter it all with fake blood and a dirty/scuffed pair of pants.

Stay tuned............

A Walk In the Woods

I started training at the beginning of the week. I’ve procrastinated about if for far too long so with a little over 3 weeks to go at my job I figured I might as well leverage the ability to leave early and arrive late as well as the extra daylight on tap of an evening. I’ve wanted to start walking/jogging for ages, the problem has been getting into a routine. What’s helped has been the discovery of some awesome trails to walk that are in close proximity to our house.

My first run didn’t kill me, but man it felt like I was close to death, when I say it’s a steep hill its very steep, and long, I would guess from my front door step the first 2km is straight up the mountain. On night number 1 I got what could be only explained as a stitch in my neck, not the most pleasant feeling. I’m not sure if it was my heart trying to pass a cheeseburger of old into my brain of just the blood plumbing getting a good workout. Night number 2 yielded some ease in the breathing and stitch stakes but my calves burned the whole way up. By night 3 wI was able to complete this first 2km stretch without a break which I was very pleased with. My aim is to complete the circuit every night through summer. Lets see how I go.

There is an old aqueduct trail that runs along the mountain range I can access after about 2km up the steep mountain road, this serves as a great warm up. B & T my 10 & 8 years olds also tagged along last night, we walked for approximately an hour and forty minutes. It proved to be quite an informative trek. There are hundreds of wildlife trails up and down the mountain that converge upon bridges over the old aqueduct serving as a crossing for all manner of creatures. We have spotted trail from deer, wallabies, kangaroos & wombats. We have also observed wild cockatoos as well as rosellas.

What amazes me is how the bush changes from one corner to the next, some areas are thick overgrown rainforest style with tree ferms reaching 20 feet tall. The scenery then turns to open & more traditional aussie bush with mountain ashes reaching hundreds of feet overhead. Turn a corner to a “dark side” where light isn’t as prominent and the landscape changes again. The temperature drops and enormous dead conifers give an almost haunted look.

I’ve done the walk every night this week and always arrived home just after dusk so what I’m really looking forward to is doing it in the dark armed with a torch to really see some wildlife. Its proving to be an challenging and educational way to restore my fitness. I aim to do the walk Sunday morning armed with my camera to see if I can get a shot of a deer, if the tracks are anything to go buy there place is very well travelled.

Until next time………

Rollin on a River

One of the many awesome things about living where we do (just east of whoop whoop) is the close proximity of plenty of nature related things to do.

One such thing is the river, it flows through the valley we live in and is easily accessible by foot.

Sunday we chose to drive a little out of town to a shallow spot where the children could try skimming stones.

While our house doesn’t have AC I am still looking forward to summer and plenty of evening dips in the water, hopefully it’s a little warmer than it was on Sunday.

Time For a Change

I know I had a bit of a moan about hating my job a few weeks back. After some more thought on the issue and time to reflect I can probably shed some more light now as I resigned a few days ago.

The issues I had with motivation didn't stem from having a boring job, it wasn't the long commute, it wasn't the company I worked for. It was my boss.

I started with this multination shall-remain-nameless company almost 5 years ago. I was head hunted, and at the time, we were living is Brisbane, C had just been born and we were still coming to grips with his nevus and what parts of our lives would have to change. I started in a great team, great manager, very positive atmosphere. Unfortunately that manger moved to a new role and a re-org saw me answering in to a new manager, a woman who had been with the company for quite a while as a contractor. She came from a Project Management background managing a team of contractors. I wont go in to all the details, i'll just say that this womans people skills were not the best, and she managed everything like a project.

It was the best feeling to hand her my resignation, she was surprisingly positive about it.

I've done the whole permanent employee thing for years so I was keen to try my hand at consulting. After a week of applications the interviews started to filter through & mid last week I received an offer & accepted an initial 12 month contract with plans for extensions, & its government.

Yahtzee!!!

I start in a few weeks. I'm nervous because its a new, its not finance (I've been in Finance IT for almost 8 years) but its in the city so I have a 20 minute drive then a 55minute train ride. I'm hoping the reduced amount of driving will also contribute to being more mentally fresh when I get home of a night.

To begin with I'm contracting through the firm that hired me but i'm going to look at setting up my own company eventually (never thought i'd be saying that).

Stay tuned I guess.......

Play Well

Thats what Lego means in Danish......

Today we hit up the Lego workshop with a bunch of home educated kids for some Lego learning.

Todays classes were focused on gears, the children learnt about driver gears, follower gears, gear ratios etc etc.

I sat out for the 1st session where they made mini-merry-go-rounds.

The after morning tea session was spent making race cars, powered by a capacitor that they hand charge with little Lego magnetos.

B's Concentration T' made friends

Again with the concentration

Is it that obvious who is the more laid back out of B & T

Race Time

B won his first round

As did T

B quickly worked out a secret

Smoother wheels = fast speed

T was more content to just tinker

Some of the other education Lego stuff

Away put your weapon I mean you no harm

The last activity was building a gear driven croc bot whose actions would be driven by a computer program the children wrote.

Hard at it

Paying attention

The program

Until Next Time...............

(I'm spent)

Back To Our Regular Programming

We have a camera again

The last decent shot off the old point and shoot before its swim
Now a play toy.