First day in a new rotation

Back to the Death Star.
Bit dejavuie almost the exact same seat as my first rotation just one floor up.
Interesting thing is my house is on the exact corner of the buildings all my rotations have been on.
Let me know via comment if my blog takes too long to load these days I have a few flickr scripts running. I may need to have them on the index page only.

Patricks Farewell

group
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

So my uni mate Patrick is going back to Indonesia for a year.
Top work by Hakan and Jack for organizing his farewell dinner and buying his farewell gift cant remember who did what.

The guest of honour himslef

How to cheat on a trivia night at a backpackers bar

Parmalla Anderson

Photo Courtest of AndyBotting.Com's collection
I'll just say this, chicken breasts aren't naturally that big. Now I'm not saying the Metro are drug cheats but I would be interested to hear the results of their chickens urine test. Ever since that day I have been telling people how its as long as my forearm and that the first sight of it strikes fear in the hearts of mortal men.
Thanks Andy for the invite to the much talked about "North Melbourne Metropolitan Parma challenge".

Here is a link to Andy's awesome entry on the same subject.

Bike ride: Port Melbourne, St Kilda South Melbourne

Another Sunday arvo ride with AndyBotting.Com as our guide(it looks like it will become a tradition) we rode from the Innovation Centre to Port Melbourne then along the coast for Gelati in St Kilda (Genius Idea by Kerr Unit). Showed Andy(originally from Geelong) and our interstate companion(Brisbane) the famous Melbourne landmark "Sam Newmans old house". I am too lazy to take photos these days. Andy should have them on his gallery soon enough (then I'll leech off him as usual) bug him about it.

1 year at Telstra Anniversary

3/4 of DCIT
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

Top job Teleformica setting up a celebratory drink for all us grads who just hit 1 years service.

Here I am telling a captivating story(have no idea what it was).

And here is everone losing interest rapidly.


Check out the rest of the photos from the night on Andy's gallery.

Williamstown bike ride

Smoke stack
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

Good work AndyBotting.Com guiding Kerr Unit and I on a bike ride to Williamstown.
Of special note was resisting the temptation of a train trip home - actually got on the platform when Boot Camp Commander Kerr Unit kicked us into shape.
Andy's birds eye view shot

Andy's one arm self portrait group shot

Pie in the park

Check out the rest of the photos from the ride on Andy's gallery

Scienceworks and Sahin

ScienceWorks
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

We finally got an excuse to go to scienceworks:
Jays 5 year old nephew slept over.
As always the sport section was a heap of fun, we checked out the lightning show which was of special interest to me after almost being struck by lightning 2 days before.

Aussie Lamb day, Kayaking Lysterfeld and BBQ Spa

Action packed last couple of days. Champion work from Harnie for another classic Geelong gathering. We all left straight after work on Wednesday and met him at the pub. Onya Val for driving and talking to that freak at mackas and putting up with little kids in the back seat. Australia day was spent eating $70 of lamb (Val send the photo) and getting hammered by monster waves at Torquay cant get much more aussie than that. On Friday caught an early coach from Geelong and then a train back to parents home before jumping on the push-bike to get to Lysterfield. Awesome work by Chicken for organizing water activities at Lysterfield and bringing the Kayaks - that's a paddlin'. Had a bourbon 'n cola then went on a far-too-long swim straight after. After Kayaking we all went to Jodies place for a barbie. I took a short cut through paddocks on my push bike which involved jumping 3 barbed wire fences, dodging cow pats and blackberry bushes then climbing into someone's yard when they weren't home. We all chilled out in the awesome pool/spa and watched the large horned cows (who's paddock I just rode through) have a good time. The rain got a bit annoying so we got umbrellas.

Lightning Rods
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

5 mins after that photo was taken a lightening bolt hit 100 m from us - we decided to take a break from sitting in the spa with lightning rods in our hands. Here is an interesting article chicken found.

RACV club and retro cricket

Got my 80's retro cricket top in the mail,
they missed an 'N'.
Formicatel has been taking us to the RACV club as guests its awesome. Kick-ass 25m pool overlooking the street as well as a spa as wide as the pool but it can be hard to find. We're getting better doing more and more chicken laps every week. Last week had to walk home through the glitzy entrance with wet bathers. There's also a pool hall and bar with full sized pool tables plus free apples. Oh yeah Arrivaderci Roma is a mad cafe for lunch (4 times a week). Good work Teleformica.
Heres Andy's entry from the grad lunch at Aroma Cafe.

Ayresies Birthday

AyresiesBday
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

Spent most of morning recovering from the night before (cricket and far too much beer).
Had a delayed Birthday Celebration for Jason.
Dinner at Docklands then vodka poker at our new place concluding with King street shenanigans.
I think a wild night was had by all(Still seem to be recovering from it back at work today).

Random domestic stuff

Survived our first week of independence.
Some of the highlights - nolights till Monday arvo
- self-service checkout at QV big W, signed for my credit card with a stylus (what is this Tokyo?)
Both Dave and I put a 30 pack of mie goreng in our shopping basket at the QV safeway(we ended up buying one relax). The hardest thing I have ever done is try to keep a straight face while loading shopping to the sound of the check-out-chick-dude taking one pack of noodles out of the box and beep beep beeping it through 30 times(I am holding back a grin now).
Just finished connecting up my home phone using online chat off the telstra website(purely for the techno-novelty). Definitely slower than if I had of just called up. I think an online voice with chat window and maybe a scribble pad would have been the best. I have heard there were some brilliant students who did this for their final project at a prestigious Melbourne technical university I think the product was called DCIT or sumthin last I heard its being testing it in some university in New Zealand.

Moving out of home

I managed to load all my stuff into my wagon the night before big thanks to Daniel and his mate. Ed arrived on time and we were off to pick up the trailer. Hit our first snag of the day when they wanted to see a driver’s license (we both haven't got one). Legendary Ayresie drove up all the way from Cranbourne. We followed him home and loaded his stuff. Then went to Jimmy's place to pick up Davo’s stuff. And we were off, that’s when the car blew up. The heat gauge raced up to H and well into red. I screamed to Ed to pull over but there was road work on the Monash and the emergency lane was blocked off. A trail of smoke started to stream out of the bonnet. We pulled over popped the hood and a fountain of boiling coolant started spraying onto the freeway. "Harnie was driving on the opposite side of the Monash, saw the
wagon, the trailer, Jas' car then proceeded to break the law and
illegally u-tern[sic] to the other side. Co-incidence that he should be
driving at the same time that the car broke down Lucky indeed!"^
Called RACV and got my car towed with the trailer hooked to the back of the tow truck. The tow truck guy was a real champ and made the distance 8kms so it was included under the RACV limit. Daniel checked out the car and noticed the fan belt was missing, this would suggest that there was nothing wrong with the radiator and that the water was not getting pumped through the engine. My sister let us use her car and Harnie took over the driving duties from Ed. Ed went to Kennard’s to replace the electrical cable which was rectangle to circle for my wagon but need to be circle to circle for my sisters car. The guy at Kennard’s insisted Ed take the original cable as well which Ed refused three times. We noticed that the left indicator was not working on the trailer - a no left turn policy was employed. We made it into town and unloaded all the stuff, Jason's friend Naryan helped with the carrying. Jason and Megan had a lovely Nando’s lunch complemented by Vic market fruit waiting for us. The plan was to drive to Ringwood to pick up couches from Ayresies gran and deliver them to Ayresies sister in Cranbourne. We were in the rightmost lane on Hoddle street and had to cross three lanes of traffic to get onto the eastern. We had to break the no left turn policy - I did the "stick your arm out bicycle indicator" thing which was completely ignored, in fact almost got it taken off twice - to the absolute delight of our support car (whose navigator was responsible for putting us in the wrong lane in the first place).My sisters car started heating up(even though it was pulling an empty trailer) and we pulled into the Nunna Macka’s, we sat outside exhausted and depressed. Our mood was lifted immediately when Megan bought everyone a jumbo sized sugar fix sometimes referred to as a slurpiee. There was a vintage Holden that also overheated at the same mackas, its driver popped the radiator cap and boiling brown water shot into the air the guy managed to dive out of the way of most of it, quite a spectacular sight. Harn had packed about 50 litres of water for emergency use which we shared with him. We made it back to my place and had a couple of cold Heinekens on the deck with my sister and her friends. Harn offered to take the trailer on the back of his "mighty XF"* and offered a "100% guarantee"* unfortunately we didn’t have the right cable (we required rectangle to circle) and besides my Jinx guarantee trumps any guarantee offered by the Ford Motor Company – did I mention each car was a Falcon? (EB wagon, EA sedan and finally the XF offer). We all went to a Greek restaurant at Knox and treated ourselves to a "splendidly delicious meal (meat, meat & more meat - just the way Val likes it)"^ we toasted all things radiator related and finished off with a round of sambuca shots followed by a glow in the dark game of mini golf which Megan won putting and putting all of us blokes to shame.

^"Taken directly from Megans gmail addition"
^"Adapted from Megans gmail addition"
*"Taken Directly from Harnies gmail addition"

Last Endeavour Hills Barbie

Thanks Jase for picking up the stragglers. We had a very successful logistics strategy meeting with all the removalist squad in attendance as well as the sick and twisted humour of Mr.Wing and the amazing bbq'ing of the Fosters swigging Tino.