(disclaimer - my connection is snhyte so I might type a lot of stuff, get cut off, reconnect after half an hour of trying, and think, bugger it, they can have the short version......)

 

Anyway this is actual version 1!

 

Today I decided - after a fairly crappy week, to be honest, to take some time out and take my newly purchased camper, the 'BiBi II' for a drive to Cervantes.

 

Cervantes is a wee spot about 200km noth of Perth, lovely drive....scrub. scrub and more scrub.  Its all inland till you get there.  Actually I'm being sarcastic.  As soon as you get out of the city you get a sense of the immenseness of the place you are in.  It just goes on and on, and the sky seems about 5 times its size as it is in the city, the sun is setting out over the landscape (to the indian ocean just a few km to my west) in a great orange ball, setting the surroundings aglow with a peach-orange-hue.  I am starting to feel... THIS is the 'West'  Land that just goes on and on..... its sparse, and scrubby, and yet still stunning, astounding and beautiful. 

 

As the stars come out they are so much brighter than you ever see them in the city.  And still the road goes on.......

 

Its dark now, and the fact that I am driving an old van I brought just a few days ago, and have not put through even the most BASIC of mechanical checks, and that I am way out of phone range, and if that isnt enough theres a fairly decent chance a roo or similar will come out unannounced and bugger up the van and leave me stranged if mechanical failure does not.

Still, this week has been fraught with acts of stupidity on my behalf, so why stop when one is on a roll

 

And somehow I knew Bibi II would get there, which she did....

 

Sometimes you find an animal, a car, a place, that just feels like home, even if you have never been there before.  BiBi II is one of these entities...... Joining the honoured ranks of Greymouth beach, a rottweiller named Deena, and an MGF called CARmen.  I feel comfortable in this camper, I think I knew from the moment I saw her, that she was meant to be mine.  I remember the friend who came to view her with me saying 'so you are buying it?  you have done no mechanical check? "no" did you check the motor and oil? "no"  how do you know this car will not be a piece of shit (these are not his exact words but something along that line).  "I just know"

 

Anyway, enough wanking on.  Here are some pictures I took of BiBi II tonight, and tomorrow Ill take more, plus the Pinnacles and so on.

 

Me (yes guys, Im now single!

 

 

Now finally - in the name of my philosophical mood this week, I have a question for you all....

 

Self, or one of a pair.  How to balance....

Now what I mean here, and I am sure most of us have been through this, you are a happy single.  You have your plans, dreams, goals, interests and actitvities, right?

Then you meet that special someone.  At first you kinda squeeze him/her into your existing schedule (which probably doesnt really have any space).  As things go on, you find yourself more and more into this person, meaning you end up making more and more room in your life for them.

But....

If you already had a forfulling and happy life, you probably didnt have say 20 hrs a week spare for 'getting serious' boy/girlfriend' time.  So what do you do?

Sure you could introduce him/her to your friends and activities, and you may well do this with some of them, but most likely, unless you have fallen for your clone, or your stalker, they are not going to be into every one of your activities, so you need to find some stime to do stuff with them.  Complicate this by assuming their life is also full with their own friends, activities and stuff.

Somewhere along the line, you, they, or both of you will have to give up something you currently enjoy or get satisfaction or fofillment from in order to make some time for this new person in your life.

How do you do this, without giving up at least part of what makes YOU the person this person fell for in the first place?  In orther words, how do you give a little bit of you away, while still remaining 100% you....

comments, emails and general randomisations on this topic welcome.  From friend and stranger alike....

 

 

 

PS!!!

 

Its now 11pm and birds are chirping like its morning..... must think they are in NZ....

This is my first week in WA, and for a number of reasons I wont go into here, its been a pretty rough one for me.

 

As I'm starting to make an attempt to clamber out of the somewhat dark and murky hole I've somehow slid into, I'm left poindering a few things.  (Warning - Im about to get all philosophical, and I'm not even pissed).

 

What is it that makes a friend?  We all know the sayings, a friend in need is a friend indeed, and its in times of crisis and trouble you know who your friends are....

 

But do you?  Ever thought about what I'm going to call the 'grand standers'?  There they are, sitting upright upon white horse/fast car/fashionable boots....whatever.  First to reach the scene of the crime, everyone can see what a committed loving friend this person is.  Heck - if you missed the scene of the crime, this friend will probably be emailing you about it pretty soon anyway... why... because they care....

 

Question is what is it they really care about?  Is it me? or is it the centre of attention they now find themselves in what was (pardon me?) MY crisis???  I've decided to take a closer look at these 'friends' to see what sort of positive contribution they are/or are not making.  I guess you could call them the 'tough love' confrontational type, the one who feels they must step in and save the day before the situation becomes any more dire.

 

I just wondersometimes whether the situation was really THAT dire...? or whether it suits this type of 'friend' for it to be so.....

Then there's the hangers on.  Not sure which way to swing, they usually flail about in a mire of procrastination until someone more opinionated comes along and leads the way.  I cant really blame these types for their action (or lack thereof) until I can justify my own at times very selfish and hurtful actions.  I'm learning that at the end of the day, all each of us can do is look at their own actions, and think about the pain or confusion these may have caused other people, and say to ourselves "how proud am I of my actions right now?   Can I honestly say I feel very good about the things I have done and said, and the way thats affected another person?.     Maybe its time to define for ourselves the person we want to be, and follow that person to the letter, letting neither pride, nor emotions, nor pressure from others sway us from the person we mean to be, and from the way we mean to treat other people.

Anyway, at the end of my few days of pondering, I've discovered another type of TRUE friend.  Never brazenly confronting me with my failures and demanding that I sort myself out - right now - she simply supports me, without judging, and in that, allows me to realise for myself where I've made some (pretty huge) f--k ups.  Coming to these conclusions by myself, rather than in a defensive state of anger, emotion, and mostly, fear, Im able to understand my self and my mistakes, and what I need to do about those much more clearly.

This hero is not parading her 'concern' and love as a friend around to all and sundry (including my personal correspondence to someone other than her!) but is instead probably sitting in a hosptial room right now, in agony, but more concerned about me.

So to that un-sung hero - I salute you.  Its friends like you make the bad times endurable, and the good times soo funny even the taxi driver cant keep driving!

 

You know who you are   this one is for u! -->>

 

Also of course my family....  who, as always, come through in a crisis!

 

And for myself, I'm going to work on taking a lot more responsibility for my life and where it ends up and less time making others responsible for my choices...

 

On a lighter note, I'm off up the WA Coast tomorrow to see the Pinnacles, Cervantes and so on.  I hope to post some pictures tomorrow night from my camp site, including some pictures of my new camping abode...

The 'Bibi II'   (Bibi is a name someone I know used to call me, and always made me feel kinda sweet).  So I'm hoping the Bibi II will feel the same way about her name.  So far shes runnin pretty sweet (x fingers).  Im just there for a couple of nights as I have appointments here in Perth tomorrow morning and Monday am, but will then probably sneak away again...

Later next week I am thinking of heading south down the Bunwoord or burswood or something elseI cant remember the name of and some wineries.  And if its not too totally dangerous by miself Im very tempted to spend and evening meditating under a very starry WA sky.... 

 Keep checking back or subscribe to this page, as there will be some new places and pictures/video here soon!

Thought for today:  Life is what you make it, and only what YOU make of it.  Adios!

 

Thought for today part 2:  When its 8am in New Zealand and you decidce to text or call, I DO want to hear from you(at 4am WA time , but please allow 10 minutes for me to wake up enough to become legible!  - Repeat offenders will be added to my 9 - 11pm chatch up calling list which will be marvellous fun when NZ DLS starts, a few weeks before WA and you lot are 5 hours ahead!!!!!

Sharon I think you subscribe?  Can you please emakil me some info re booking a hotel room on Oct 4 th???

 

cheers

ok its 11.13pm hewr so for all u kiwis its 3.13am..... nite nite.....

 

I've been amusing myself with an apartment scammer, that I came across while looking for an apartment online in Perth.

 

You can tell them straight away - they advertise apartments at about 1/4 the market price, and as you will see at this link... dont give a shit who lives there! 

 

Take a look....

 

I've also sent my scammer there by giving her the link as an 'online receipt' for my western union money transfer of the 1st 3 months rent, so the greedy scumbag will be racing over to the page thinking they have ripped off another poor victim...

Hello everyone

 

had an impulse weekendon the Sunshine Coast this weekend.  Spent Saturday at AussieWorld, which is a kind of retro amusement park.  Unfortunately I have been feeling crook for the last week and after the drive to Aussie World, was too sick to go on many rides - bit of a shame...

 

Had fun with the crazy mirrors though.... here's my butt, with a few extra kilos added by the mirror...

 

And a close up...lol

 

Oh dear...

 

 

Spent Saturday night staying by the Maroochy River, which is nice and tranqual.  We wanted to do a sunlight cruise but for some reason all but one of the operators (and they were fully booked) dont do them on a saturday night - odd you'd think that would be the busiest....

So on sat night we went out to dinner in Mooloolaba, which is also the night clubby area, but I 2was too crook to go out clubbing...

I took some pictures of the beach area:

 

This is me by the 'loo with a view' so named as they face out towards the beach...

 

Walkway by the beach, at night

 

And here are some pictures I took of the beach, I took these in the dark, so couldnt see the picture till aftewards, using the 8 second shutter option on my camera.  I'll upload some bigger versions of these onto my photos page shortly..

 

 

 

The next day we went back to mooloolaba for a quick walk before heading back to Brisbane.  Here are some pictures of the beach by day:

 

 

 

 

 

On the way back from our walk we came across a lot of people watching the re-float attempt for the trawler Miss Melissa (see story here)

Apparently a number of trawlers offered to try and get her afloat again, after a crew member fell overboard and most likely has drowned, and the other two were sleeping and didnt wake till it came aground.

 

 

 

This was digging it out earlier in the morning..

 

Yes really!  78% apparently...

 

Hello everyone.....

I've just recently gotten a new laptop and I have installed Paint Shop Pro, whhich is kinda fun to play around with.  I don't really know what I am doing yet, but it looks to be something that I could do some really cool stuff with, once I do figure out what I am doing.

On this page, you will find some photos I have played around with in it:

Photos are Here.    (Right click and choose 'Open Link in New Window' so as not to close my diary page)

I am also learning to use Adobe Captivate, which is a piece of software which you use to record yourself doing stuff on the computer and then make it into tutorials.  If anyone would like a tutorial on something they have trouble doing on their computer, email me and ask.... I will be making some basic stuff up shortly like how to use your web cam on various applications, how to download and install zone alarm, and as I get used to (and more annoyed with) Vista, maybe some tutorials on how to turn off some of its most annoying features

Some other photos not on the above page:

 

 

Perth:

At the moment I am considering a few options for this, mainly as I am not sure the Pajero is up to the trip, and my friend who was going to do the Nullabor with me is now unable to....

 

I think I'll sell the Pajero for whatever I can get and the camper and:

    Try and get together the $$ to buy a small camper van and do the trip in that

    Or fly to Perth and buy a camper when I get there as there seems to be more on the market there

I'm going to perth in a couple of weeks so some of this might also depend on whether I can get a job offer prior to moving there - which means I dont have to worry so much about keeping savings to live on....

 

Hi everyone

Well, I'm definately moving to Perth at the end of my contract.  Still trying to decide whether to take 2 or 3 weeks to do the journey (this is assuming my car is fit to travel that distance).  I think I will sell my camper and buy another when I get there.  Will also offload a lot of the camping gear, and put a mattress in the Pajero so I can sleep in that on the trip.  Its too much setting up and taking down, to set up the camper and so on every single night after 3-500km driving that day…

I have a couple of options for the journey, anyone who has done any parts of this drive please feel free to email me and suggest stopovers.

 

As I’ll be doing most of the journey apart from the very end, alone, I will be trying to avoid the really isolated parts of Oz where possible….

 

The trip is over 5000km if I take the scenic option, which includes Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide and the Great Ocean Road:

 

I think this route needs modifying to take in the GOR.  It doesnt follow the WA Coastline, not sure if that is worth the extra km's or not:

 

A few hundy more km (whats that when you are doing 5000km anyway?) to see the coastline most of the journey.

 

 

 This is the shortest way at jut over 4000km, but I dont like the idea of all that driving inland where I suspect help might be a wee way away if I broke down....

 

 

 

 

Oh, and here is a picture of where I work

 

 

 

 

My place at the moment (thats our pool you can see to the left).

 

 

 

You can see my red hair in the pictures above, its redder in real life...

 

At the moment I'm having to take the bus to work as my Pajero has broken down.  It will start, and run, but wont idle so stalls constantly.  I'm on the bus until its looked at on Friday.

 

So today I discovered the brisbane Busways - which are cool...roads all over the place, beside the motorways, and under the city, which are just for buses.  Means there is no congestion at all getting into the city!

 

 

 

Hi everyone

 

I am going to color my hair red, because I am bored with Blonde.

 

So here is a selection of reds using a virtual tri it on thing on the clairol website

 

Could you all please choose one or two you think are the best, and email me with your opinion or post a comment?

 

Color 1.  Firey Copper: 

 

 

 

Color 2: Very Copper:

 

Colour 3 - Light Copper:

 

Color 4:Light Auburn

 

Or Reds:

Red:

 

Dark Auburn red:

 

 

Oh and just to make you laugh... heres a colour I'm sure we will all agree I should NOT choose.....

 

Righty-o then.... You have about 24 hours to decide

 

I've created a photos page, and there are larger pix there than I can fit here.  Its at:

 

http://www.photos.boozehag.co.nz/

 

 

Brisbane Skyline (part of)

 

My camera, taking a self portrait 

 

The scales of a tree, for want of a better word to describe, taken in macro about 2 -3 cm from subject 

 

 

My flat, see the Pajy in the pic 

 

 

 The pool where I live

 

 

Pool and spa area 

 

 

 The tree 'scale" I mention above, I was at the very end of the scale (to the right in this pic) taking the photo.