Software update complete.

Well, today I managed to get over to Knox city to pick up my phone from the 3 shop. I got home and attempted to synchronize my phone with my outlook, but I can't get it to work! Looks like maybe I will have to get everyone's contact details again. just what I didn't want to have happen.

The long arm of the law.

I had a little scrape with the long arm of the law on Saturday night, following dinner at the Manhattan. I was driving Chris's car from the restaurant to Grandma's house when I got ushered into the booze bus. They asked me to blow into the machine so that they could test my breath, so I did..... and guess what he did! He asked for my license and said that I had blown a reading on the breathalyser. So I had to get out of the car, and follow the officer to the booze bus where I would have to take another breath test, on one of the proper machines (not the hand-held ones). I waited for what must have been about 45 minutes outside in the freezing cold before they could take me into the booze bus. I was wearing only a light shirt, and some jeans, so by the time I got into the bus, I was most appreciative of the heating! Once I finally got around to blowing on the proper breath testing machine it read 0.00 BAC, so I was safe to drive away, but oh boy, what an adventure! I don't want to have to go through that again.

Quite amusing

Here is an amusing little snippet that I found on Dwain's blog: http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.html

Jules is going home, and Di is having a birthday! Smile for the camera.  

Our rover crew. (As serious as we will ever be.) 

Di had her 'boot' party on Saturday night, and we all got the chance to properly farewell her from our rover crew.  

Brendan is back from the USA, clearly, nothing has changed!  

Lots of the relos came along for the lunch, feasting upon unlimited pasta and pizza. 

More family bonding was in order to celebrate Grandma's brother's birthday. Great Uncle John (I think) 

Shane turned 18, and Nicole celebrated her 20th birthday, so it was the perfect excuse to goto the manhatten hotel for a meal. They have an all you can eat buffet, which costs $20, yet they charge $10 for a jug of soft drink! 

Dad bought a car. A 2004 Statesman. It's very slick, but I have not had the chance to ride in it or drive it yet.  

Soon I will. I have ordered that sexy little white box, and am waiting with baited breath for it to be delivered. It's supposed to land on my doorstep around the 8th of August. 

Michael looks way too excited over a game of counter strike. 

More members of the winning team. 

Red team (all the cousins) won out of the three teams.  

The olds came for dinner, but not for DarkZone. 

Dinner with the cousins before DarkZone. 

The cousins. 

Happy Birthday Ian 

Two proud Grandmas. 

Ian't 21st birthday cake appeared to say "Jan" instead of Ian, but I am told that that's how all old people write the letter "I"... Guess that means Ian is now old. LOL 

The work week

This last week has been very hectic. Most of the week was spent
working at Kmart and Alfresco. I have a real appreciation for anyone
who works full time after this last week.
I suppose I should start with last Sunday, which I spent most of the
day at Kmart, only getting along to evening church at Glen Waverly.
Jules delivered a touching reflection about Jonah and his adventures
inside the fish. Jules also shared a story about a young man who was
probably about my age, I would like to share it with you now:
There once was a young man who had not always been faithful to his
family. He moved out when he was a teenager, and went to fend for
himself in the big city. He never made contact with his family, and
had nothing to do with them because he was so wrapped up in his own
life. One day he realised that something was missing from his life,
and decided to go home and try to re-connect with his family. He wrote
them a letter explaining the train he planned on catching, and
instructed them to leave a white handkerchief in the window if they
wanted him to visit. He also said that he would understand if they
didn't want to see him. His family could have moved address for all he
knew, so he was not expecting anything much from his visit to his home
town. He got off the train, and nobody was there to meet him. He
walked down the streets he used to be familiar with, and got to within
a block of his old house. When he walked around the corner, he could
see the family's home, with a white handkerchief hanging on the
letterbox, and another in the window...... and a white sheet hanging
in the window... and a white blanket hanging from the roof... in fact,
every white cloth the family owned was out on display. The message was
clear... DUH! Of course we want to see you! We love you.

Monday during the day I was hard at work drafting carports and
verandahs for Alfresco. That night I didn't have work at Kmart, so we
organised to go out for dinner and DarkZone with the cousins while
Doug was down from Queensland. It was quite enjoyable, and we managed
to win DarkZone! (Go RED team!) Unfortunately, during the game, Chris
decided to walk backwards, and he fell down some stairs while he was
trying to avoid the laser beams! After DarkZone, we headed to a LAN
games place that Matt knew of, and played a couple games of Counter
Strike.
Tuesday night, I had my first chance at trying to feed the cats and
dog at Barbara's house. I was house sitting for the week, so the cats
had to get used to a new person bringing them food and drinks.
Tuesday I was hard at work again, drafting my little heart out from
8.30 til 5, then working at Kmart from 5.30 til 9. I ended up getting
home at about 9.30, by which time the poor animals must have been very
hungry!
I think my day on Tuesday was indicative of the rest of the week, with
work filling in most of my time. The animals at the house got fed
around 7.30 am and around 9.30 pm, which I don't think is quite what
they were used to!
Highlights from the week included tasting decadent chocolate cookies
for the first time, after talking to Michael. He said that Kmart was
famous for them, so I just had to try some! LOL.
Another highlight of the week was Saturday night. Although I had been
working all day, Chris and I managed to make it down to Thelma and
Tony's house to celebrate Tony's 50th birthday. We left around 1am,
which was a little later than I had expected, but it was worth it.
Today is my first day off in 2 weeks, and I spent the day going to
church, then doing the shopping with Chris. Chris's family has decided
that from now on everyone has to fend for themselves as far as food
goes. This means yet another expense, and more fussing over food. I
guess it's all ok though, because it's just another stage in growing
up. I had better get used to it.

Ian's 21st

OK, so it's been a couple days since I last blogged. I know it's quite unusual. I have had a couple really hectic days, due to the fact that Kmart is having a really big toy sale at the moment. I'm working on most days for the next two weeks at Kmart. Between that and working with Uncle Steve at Alfresco, I don't have much time for fun. Thursday was the worst day, I worked from 8.30am till midnight, then had to be up at work again by 8.30am. It nearly killed me. Friday night I got the chance to curl up and watch some TV, which was nice.
Saturday, before work, I went to the Three shop to get my phone repaired. I have now got a loan phone, an LG flip phone. It's not as nice as my Nokia was. Hopefully my phone will get back and will feel much better.
Last night, I went to Ian's 21st birthday. The evening was held at Ian's house, and all the family was there for dinner. The party continued on during the night, when more of Ian's friends showed up. The whole evening was really enjoyable, even if it was very cold! I have some photos to come....

Scavenger hunt

Tuesday night for rovers was an activity I organised. I had mapped out
a set of clues for a sort of scavenger hunt through Little Chinatown
and the Greek precinct. Chris, Brendan, Kimba, Tim and I all met under
the giant pocket watch at Melbourne Central. (I couldn't believe that
Tim was not familiar and had trouble finding it, he calls himself a
Melbournian!)
I had hoped that more of the rover crew would show up, but no such
luck. Apparently, "it's too cold in the city in winter" and "the city
is just too far". I should probably point out that it's not too far
for me to have to drive to Mudbash so I can visit them for an hour,
when it takes over an hours drive to get there! Not to mention that
there was no complaining about the sub zero temperatures at Mudbash,
but when it's in the city (which is statistically a warmer location)
it's "far too cold". The excuses were not the only thing that annoyed
me, it was the fact that three weeks ago, these same people were
complaining that we didn't do any activities away from the den! The
first activity I plan that is away from the den gets basically
boycotted because it's not at the den. Is anyone ever going to be
happy?!!
I will stop my little rant.
Once we actually got started on the scavenger hunt, everyone seemed to
enjoy themselves. The first couple of clues (which I thought were
pretty easy) posed a problem for people who didn't know what QV was,
or how to get to it. It was at this point that I realised I clearly
have a shopping addiction. The rest of the clues were pretty straight
forward though, we even stopped along the way to sample some Greek
food and some Chinese food.

Hard at work.

I know my life has been a bit boring to read about of late, today is no different. I woke up, went to work, stopped for lunch at about 1.15pm, then continued working till 5pm. I then got into my car and drove home. I should probably be riding my bike to and from work, seen as it is not that far, but I'm too lazy, and the mornings are too cold. Today I read on another blog: "It's true folks - this June has been our coldest overnight temperatures since 1972. AND even more depressing - we have had our driest June in 148 years!"
So yeah, cold and wintery.

New Job =)

Over the weekend, I managed to work quite a lot at Kmart, which is good, because it will help plumpen up my bank balance. On Saturday night, Mr Dean and Mr Drew joined CJ and I for dinner. Chris and I had spent all day cooking and were able to have a really nice vegetarian meal ready for D&D. Unfortunately, Drew was not feeling the best, so they headed home reasonably early. It was good to see them and catch up though. Dean has finished work with his current company, so I guess dinner was a little bit in celebration.
Sunday was pretty normal, went to church in the morning then worked in the afternoon, and went to church again in the evening. (Wow, normal is pretty busy!) After church, CJ and I caught up with Brendan.
This morning, I completed all the preparation for rovers tomorrow night. I' looking forward to it, even if the weather is going to be a bit chilly for a outdoors scavenger hunt.
Mum and Dad are in renovation mode, getting new flooring through half the house, and buying a new washing machine and dryer. Dad wants to top it off with a new flat panel TV, but I don't think Mum will let him. LOL. The flooring man is here measuring the house to give us a quote, so I had better go.

Russell's favourite pic.  

Since Wednesday

Last time I wrote was on Wednesday, after returning from delivering
phonebooks. I spent the rest of that afternoon fiddling on my
computer, trying out different skins on my blog. I found some nice
ones at blogskins.com, but I felt a little bit funny about just
slapping someone else's work onto my website. I decided that I should
try and make my own one, using Photoshop and Dreamweaver.
Thursday I spent the day fiddling with photoshop before I had to run
to work at Kmart. I went for lunch with Cheyne, and managed to get to
the tail end of a meeting at church after work.
Friday I started a new job, working with my uncle. He works for a
company that designs pergolas and decking. I will be helping out with
the drafting work while I am on holidays. I started off with just some
basic filing and other office stuff, because we couldn't find the
AutoCAD CD so that I could install the drafting program and get
started.
I left work around lunchtime, then Phil and I went shopping for
laptops. Dad decided he needs one, so we were searching around to see
what's out there. I found a nice SONY one I think Dad should get, but
I doubt he will.. it would be too fashionable for him...
Last night I went to see "The Break Up" with a group of people from
church. It was a really weird movie. It has funny moments, but also
has some tragic moments too. It's not really a happy ending, but I
guess there are a few issues covered during the film. I couldn't
identify with some of the issues, having never been through a major
break up. I hope I don't have to go through one either.
After the movie, we headed over to the Pancake Parlor for some
ice-cream and drinks. It was some good social time. Russell and Di
joined us for some ice-cream too, which I didn't expect.
Di and Russell are planning to drive to NCYC in Perth, but somehow I
don't know how keen Di is on the idea. I suggested that Di and I could
catch the plane over together, while Russell and Chris drove across
the desert. I don't know if that will happen or not. LOL.