A Touch of Music

Now, I'm one of those people sitting on a plane with $700 Bose QC3 Noise cancelling headphones operating off a 3 year old mono-display Apple iPod mini. My current iPod still works; well, almost all the time. It's just not a good look - technology plus, and technology minus.

I got an email today from a computer equipment supplier about the new iPod Touch - I'd never heard of it before... I must be pretty far out of the loop. It looks pretty awesome and had a lot of features. Will have to buy myself one for Christmas!

Sliiiiiiiiide...

I just spent the last half an hour fighting velcro with my motorbike key to get these damn things off. I was starting to worry when the key looked like it had a bend in it. Then mum comes in complaining that the velcro sound was annoying her. I did it one more time just to make sure...

The shiny new red Spidi knee sliders that I bought in Singapore over a month ago look odd, but they'll match my boots and helmet. I finally got around to pulling the old scraped ones off so I can tear these new ones up on the track in two weeks time at the PSB Trackday.

The suit, boots and gloves are still in dire need of some Jif and Chux attention as they all still have mighty amounts of bugs on them from the Curry Run of two weekends ago. Yeh, should get around to doing that :|

World Tour Phase One: Tasmania and Victoria

Tuesday: Perth - Melbourne
Wednesday: Melbourne - Burnie
Thursday: Burnie - Melbourne
Friday: Melbourne - Perth

My schedule was pretty hectic, but I had an enjoyable yet tiring week traveling to Victoria and Tasmania.

I flew out of Perth at about noon on Tuesday, having a great lunch with mates then jumping on the plane. I had quite a large lady sitting next to me with tuck-shop-lady-arms that were spilling well over the armrest between us and into my personal space. Luckily, I was two rows from Business class so it was quieter, there were no kids and the drinks came out quickly. All I can say is that every time I use my noise-canceling headphones, I wonder why it took me so long to actually go and buy them. They've paid for themselves many times over now. The peace and quiet was priceless.

I didn't eat on the plane as I was still full from lunch, and I was expected over at my Aunty's house. Like all Polish mums, she had also been cooking for the last few days just for my arrival.
I'd barely landed and checked in when I phoned them and my cousin was already on the way to pick me up. I set a world record time for quickest shower and was ready in a measley 15 minutes.

I spent the evening with them, then got dropped back off to the hotel. Midnight. Need to be up at 5am for the flight to Burnie. Fuck.

I had a can of Red Bull for breakfast, I knew I was going to be fucked. The vending machine at Melbourne airport provided some awesome entertainment as it took about 6 minutes to spit out my can, and then a further 6 minutes for my workmate Brad to get his chocolate milk. The machine was one of those with a little conveyor, and the bloody thing kept resetting and thinking about it... Took forever.

Onto the plane to Burnie which was only an hour away but we must have landed in 1975. I wasn't born for another 7 years, but if someone else tells you that, they're probably right. It was very chilly and windy, but the sun was warm and it was a perfectly clear day. A toasted sandwich for breakfast then it was off to the office.

I spent most of Wednesday in the Burnie office and the workshop (doing work things), but due to daylight saving, when we knocked off not long after 4pm, my workmates (Brad and Ian) and I checked in, jumped in the hire car and decided to find Cradle Mountain. Never in my life have I felt car-sick, but then again, never have I been driven through such twisty, turny and undulating roads! I was feeling below average, but never sick enough to be sick. A bag of chips and a coke kept me in check, and every time I was feeling crap again, I'd burp and be apples again :D

Driving along towards the National Park, I saw some of the most awesome roads and magnificent scenery. I really don't think we could have picked a better day to head to Cradle Mountain.

Life's pretty straight without twisties

Along the way we stopped at Lake Barrington - the name looked good and there was a cafe there. Not open of course. As it was in 1975, everything closes at 4:00pm.

Yeah, it was THAT cold

Heading towards the rangesNearly there

Wombats. What? Yep. Brad was pointing out the window with a puzzled look on his face. A few seconds later he says "Wombat". I reply with "You're a wombat". "Nah, seriously, there was a wombat near the road". "Whatever Brad".

A few kilometres later I see a wombat. "HOMG!!!" Freaked us all out. Wombats everywhere!

Fatso the fat-arsed wombat

Holding up progress

The sun was dipping after the 150km trip, and we finally made it to Cradle Mountain just in time to see the sun setting over the range and the temperature drop to very low single figures, if not zero. We threw around snow balls, Brad ate snow, my hands froze, my nose was cold, there was a chilly breeze, but it was so very worth it. I'd never seen snow before, let alone touched it. It wasn't snowing, but there was enough snow to know what it was all about. It is October remember, heading into summer.... or was it?

Sundown

Cradle Mountain

The J4 team: Ian, Brad and I

Cold, cold snow

Postcard perfect

Once back in the car, it was time to defrost and wonder who would still be open for dinner - it was close to 7:30pm, and we knew it was at least 90 minutes back to Burnie. I was looking forward to some more local cuisine. Luckily, we made it back to find a very nice restaurant still serving. We ordered chilli bread, periwinkles, baked oysters with Camembert and strawberry as entree, then I got wallaby salad with apple, parsnip and pepperberry sauce. Soooo tasty. We finished off with local cheeses and delicious figs. One of my favourite parts of traveling for work, is the food. It's usually hard to actually see anything good usually - especially if you're in a remote area. But there's always good food. I tried something very new in the beer stakes, when you're in Tassie, you have to drink Boags! For the first time I went out on a limb and bought an ale, Wizard Smith's Ale to be precise, and it was fantastic! Can't buy it in Perth yet :(

It was back into the office on Thursday, chatting to the technicians, and visiting our suppliers and steel fabricators. Around midday it was time for the last meal in Burnie, with fish and chips and another Wizard Smith's Ale to help push that great meal along. There was just enough time to head over to visit one of the electricians at his property in Sisters Beach. As per the rest of Tasmania, there were more brilliant roads up the coast. It was very much a splash and dash trip because we were to be on a plane later in the day.

Northern Tasmanian coast

Brilliant view

From the cliff

Tulip farm

Looking towards Burnie

It was back on the plane to Melbourne and the trip was quick and smooth.

Melbourne from the air

That night, as before, I'd barely checked into the hotel and I had phonecalls and messages from my Aunty and cousin inviting me over for dinner. This time they put on a BBQ which was lucky because I was starving!

Eva, me and Kasia

Stan and I

Kasia and me

Loonies

After dinner, mum rang and asked what we had planned - the general idea was to have a night on the town. The girls rugged up and we then headed into Melbourne, parking at Crown. It was more of an evening of sightseeing and doing touristy things.

Self titled

Melbourne loves its art

More art

Looking towards the CBD

After walking up the river, Kasia suggested we try see if Eureka Skydeck 88 was open. She explained that it was a viewing platform on the 88th floor - which would be a new record for me after the New Asia Bar in Singapore on the 71st floor. We got up onto the 88th floor and checked out the views. My photos weren't fantastic and they didn't do the view justice. Kasia and I also did "the Edge" which is a platform that moves out 3 metres from the side of the tower and is suspended 300 metres above ground. Truly awesome!

The view from the Skydeck 88 at Eureka Tower

The Edge

We then headed down to the river and towards Federation square where it was $4.80 for a glass of apple juice that was two-thirds filled with ice. Damn expensive restaurants. I knew I should have asked for no ice.

Federation Square

Another late night in Melbourne and it was starting to wear on me. Friday I spent a few hours in the branch office and then it was back onto a plane to Perth. This time I was in the front row with two blokes next to me that were either asleep or reading a book. I had all my presonal space intact during the flight. I even ate the braised lamb on the plane and it was actually good!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to conk out and get to bed early as I had an industry dinner to go to. *sigh* Lots of napping during the weekend then!

More beautiful photos of Melbourne and Burnie here.

Sponsor me for Movember!

Movember - Changing the face of Men's Health

Movember the month formally known as November is a charity event held during November each year.

At the start of Movember guys register with a clean shaven face. The Movember participants known as Mo Bros then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache and along the way raise as much money and awareness about male health issues as possible.

Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and David Boon look-a-likes battle it out on the catwalk for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title.

While growing a Mo is left to the guys, Mo Sistas (ladies that support their guys or just love Mo's!) form an important part of Movember with their powerful feminine touch, by recruiting Mo Bros, helping to raise funds and attending the highly anticipated Gala Partés.

But it' s not all fun and games, so why the extreme behaviour?

Which ever way we look at it, men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy for men is five years less than for women.

The obvious question is why? The answer is because men lack awareness about the very real health issues they face, have a "she'll be right" attitude and are reluctant to see a doctor about an illness or to go for regular medical checks.

The aim of Movember is to change these attitudes, make male health fun by putting the Mo back on the face of fashion and in the process raise some serious funds for key male health issues, including:

Prostate Cancer: because every year in Australia 2,900 men die of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually. [Find out more].

Male Depression: because one in six men experience depression at any given time but most don't seek help.
[Find out more].

Check out Movember photos [here]

XIII: The Curry Run(down)

Curry Run 13.

Saturday the 13th of October, 2007.

13 riders.

A total of 500 kilometres today.



We headed north for Curry Run XIII. Up the Mitchell freeway out towards Bullsbrook and out towards Chittering Valley Road. Everytime I go up there I wonder why the hell I go up there. I really do *hate* that road. Stopping in Bindoon for a fuel-up and a leak, we headed out towards Bindoon and then god knows where until hit an awesome stretch of straight roads until we finished in Mogumba. I'd never been there before, and seriously, there's a couple of houses, two streets and a pub. The smallest of small country towns. But they had the MotoGP qualifying on, the beer was cold and the pizza was hot.

Heading up to New Norcia for fuel, that stretch of road was awesome. Lots of flowing roads - something I don't get to do too often, keep pace and just GO!

Back down to Mogumba and out towards Bindoon again. That was my favourite stretch of road apart from the straights into Mogumba. Between there and Bindoon, the roads were clean, there weren't many shadows from trees, passed two cars in the space of about 40 minutes and just nice flowing road.

Was then back towards Toodyay where we headed on... some thinking we were going to stop for fuel, the back towards Great Northern Highway. When Savi and I came to a halt when we saw Glen and Keith stuck on the side of the road. "We're outta fuel!"

I gave Glen my camelbak and jumped on the back of the bike with Savi and headed about 10km's up to Muchea. We bought some water, drank some of it, tipped the rest and filled up 3L of fuel. Wrapped in a plastic bag and in my lap, we carted the fuel to the boys, who (by coasting) made it to Muchea and then the four of us filled up and headed to Joondalup for a cold beer and wedges.

Mister Curry and Trist then joined us at the pub only to report that Trist had also run out of fuel, but further up the road and left, just 10km's out of Bullsbrook. The first half of the pack had gone to Bullsbrook and some of them came back looking for us!

Either way, the day was incident-free and it was full of great roads, excellent riding and good mates. There was also chat of a Curry Run overnighter coming up...

No Fellas

Saturday was the first ever Ladies Only Track Day, and with 52 participants and another 4 female coaches, it was the largest turnout of women on a track in Western Australia.

There were three groups, two groups of new riders (Groups 1A and 1B) and a smaller group of advanced riders (Group 2). I was in group 2, but it was my first time on the R1 at Wanneroo, so I was going pretty slowly at first.

I also had the new Continental tyres on which was good because I could finally give them a workout and actually see how good they were. I must say I was very impressed with them as they heated up quickly, had excellent grip and didn't wear too much after a full day at the track. The suspension setup was also pretty good and I didn't have any "moments" where I thought the bike was going to get away from me.

Having a track day with only girls meant that there were no "racer boys" and all the girls rode to their skill levels. I was pleasantly surprised that a few of the girls in the advanced group were super quick! I was lucky enough to excell during the day and was going very well in the second last session, lapping all but 3 girls in a group of about 15.

Thanks to Sandra for organising the day, to the Trakdayz crew for being patient and offering excellent advice and support, and to the girls in my group - it was a pleasure riding with you all!

There were a few people taking photos, namely Dugy and Stuart who both did an excellent job making all the girls look really fast. Photos from Dugy have a watermark for now until he gets around to sending the photos out to me.

*best blackboard voice* HURRY UP!

The Trakdayz crew were pretty keen to scope out talent and were on the hunt to recruit future racer girls. To make the transition easier, they offered a 150cc 4 stroke race bike for a few laps during lunch time. Unfortunately, all of us forgot as we were much too busy eating. Luckily I persuaded one of the guys to let me on during my own session (went on last) and I ended up doing about 8 or so laps on the awesome little 13HP banger! I even managed to overtake a 600cc Ducati around the basin as this thing had crazy corner speed and I guess I was mental enough to take it for a spin. It was almost like my 400, but much, much thinner.

The 150cc race bike. Go Maya Go!*makes racebike noises* Brem-bem-em-em-em-brem-bem-bem...