Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Catch Up, Again

It's safe to say that I've done a pretty terrible job of writing this blog during the move and the start of the new job. Hopefully I can break that cycle soon. Let's try to start tonight, shall we?

When we last left off with anything of importance, I think I needed a car. Check. 1998 Impreza Rx-I, with about 169k km on the clock. Needs a cam belt (timing belt) as there is no record of replacement ever but I didn't exactly break the bank getting the car, so I can sink a little cash into it. Clutch squeaks, too, but I can deal with it. First project for myself is adjusting the wiper throw. Second is taking pictures so Shannon can see it, because I am slack. Key detail - it is silver.

I got moved into our new place. Our stuff was delivered. Because they could only drop off on a Tuesday, I only opted for the partial unpack, which left me with twoish weeks of lovely unpacking. But, there is no more cardboard in the house, so it's basically done. Victims of the move - one pint glass and our washing machine, making this the Worst. Move. Ever. The plan is that it was sufficiently insured. We shall see.







Two weeks back, I took my first trip to Melbourne, so it was the first time I had seen Shannon in three weeks. It was a lovely trip, paid for by someone else. But we had a lot of fun. We got to see some old friends. We got to act like we didn't have the 10,000 lb gorilla in the room (living internationally) and mill about the city like tourists. The weather was awesome, although it got quite hot Sunday.





We had a Brew Dog Hardcore, which Ryan hasn't had. We had to sell an organ to get it, but quite tasty.


There was new street art in Fitzroy, as you, loyal readers, may recall from my occasional series on the same.

It had recently been Australia Day over there, so there were some remnants of the annual protest of Invasion Day.


What I didn't realize until this year was that Australia day is the day of landing, not the day the colony became a Commonwealth country. So I can now understand the resentment. We'll not get into any religious debate, as that's not the point.

Sunday was easily the highlight. We went up in gliders! We went to a place in Benalla, which I think was called the Victorian Gliding Centre (or GC of V or something close) where they drag you up in a two seater with a pilot behind a tail dragger to 4000 feet, and let you go for about a half hour. You get to fly a bit once you're up and stable. It was a blast. There was a decent view of the mountains, but generally, it was just awesome to be up, and essentially floating.  It's also extremely quiet (save wind noise) after you pop the tow rope off.

Shannon, taking off, and landing.


 
And me, getting out of town.



Photos from flight were take with Shannon's camera, because it's smaller, so I'll need to pick those up this weekend, when I head back. According to my pilot, we were in a sort of touchy glider, in terms of flight controls. I found it pretty tricky, but still a lot of fun. Definitely makes me think about flight lessons. Again.

On to more serious matters, this is my 5th week at work. Things are going well. I'm learning things and leveraging my previous experience. I like the people I work with, despite missing the folks I used to work with. I think I'm getting good experience. 

The goal, after this weekend, it to finally start exploring New Zealand. I think I'm finally set up enough to work on that. More to come...

3 comments:

Swapna said...

Ooh, jealous about the Brew Dog!!

Pat said...

d00d you got to go up in a glider!?! freakin awesome. want to do that but the wife for some reason forbids any thing that might result in my demise... speaking of which i brewed my first beer last weekend - a pale ale. perhaps i'll send some if it doesn't totally suck - PAT

Brendan said...

Tell the boss it's not so scary. And the odds if bodily harm are no worse than when you cart the kid off the day care in the morning...

Looking forward to trying that beer one of these days.