July 2006 (Month View)

 

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01.01.2006 – Sunday 1 January – The Year of Work

Dawn

• I woke up to the new year when some Tibetans began chanting, finding myself lying with hundreds of other people on a hilltop, and the dawn just beginning to break. After watching the sunrise over the horizon, I went back to sleep, waking again when it got too hot, and carrying my camping mat back to the tent, waiting in a queue for ages, finally having a quick shower, and rushing down to the shop to prepare for the first eight thirty shirt.

8:30am

• Surprisingly, the shop was busier today than any other day. I guess all the people who hadn’t yet bought anything now were.

Noon

• Bronwen and I finished work around the same time, and spent the rest of the day watching random acts, culminating in the closing ceremony. The closing fire ceremony was quite spectacular. Thousands of people camped out at the natural amphitheatre, with nothing happening for quite some time. Eventually, an aboriginal made fire with sticks, lighting a torch, which then lit an explosive fuse that ran instantaneously up a wooded hill, setting off fireworks. Then, in the resulting gloom, an unrealistically large, spectacularly close moon was seen slowly progressing across the sky, eventually revealing itself as an earth, coming to rest to our left as thousands of lit paper-lamps walked across our field of vision, not doing a great deal. A plethora of strange oversized lit paper constructions, and numerous fire things, along with music from the stage, filled in the gap until a large trebuchet fired a flare at a large sun and moon construction, which turned out to be full of various fireworks, burning dramatically until all that was left was a pile of sparks.

02.01.2006 – Monday 2 January – Brisbane

• Bronwen and I got a lift back to Brisbane with a man camped in the camp just across from ours, and spent a relaxing day recovering from the sensual excesses of Woodford.

03.01.2006 – Tuesday 3 January – Sick

• I’ve developed a twenty-four hour flu—unsurprisingly given the amount of dust I ingested at Woodford, and am very sick and unable to do much at all. Despite my weakened state, I eventually managed to make my way up to the real estate and set up our rental payments, and do a bit of shopping in town.

04.01.2006 – Wednesday 4 January – Relaxing

• I woke up feeling much better, but still weak. I had a look around at the plethora of ADSL plans on offer, selecting and signing up for an Exetel ADSL plan. It got very hot, and I felt rather weak after this, so spent the rest of the day relaxing, finishing off with dinner at a curry place at Rosalie.

05.01.2006 – Thursday 5 January – Cleaning Joe’s

• I headed out to Joe’s to do a final cleanup, finding a note from Tonya that her door had been forced, presumably while she wasn’t there, and asking if I had any clue why or how. I stopped by the shops on the way, buying some clothes, and buying groceries in the city on the way back.

07.01.2006 – Saturday 7 January – Narnia

• Moved furniture about. Walked to town and did shopping. Went and saw “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” at South Bank, which was enjoyable but overly simplistic—reflecting its children’s book heritage I suppose.

08.01.2006 – Sunday 8 January – Good Night & Good Luck

• I had a quiet day, watching “Good Night and Good Luck” at the Palace Centro with Bronwen at night.

09.01.2006 – Monday 9 January – Faster Online

• ADSL was connected today, providing me with a faster, and always-on, connection. Other than that, a reasonably relaxing and uneventful day ensued.

10.01.2006 – Tuesday 10 January – Nothing Much

• I messed around with Clint, being unproductive but enjoying it.

11.01.2006 – Wednesday 11 January – Wireless

• I bought a wireless router and setup wireless here, finally removing the cable that was running halfway across the house. Somewhat worryingly, that’s all I can remember of today.

12.01.2006 – Thursday 12 January – The Legend of Zorro

Day

• After a relaxing morning making a few phone calls, Clint and I drove out to Mount Gravatt and after a short bushwalk, found some rather large, and relatively unknown, caves. This made us hot, so we stopped at a supermarket where Clint bought coke and twenty-four sausage rolls, and I banana milk, soft drink and ten ice creams.

9:55pm

• After eating a lovely curry Bronwen made, Clint and I went and saw “The Legend of Zorro” at South Bank. We were expecting it to be extremely bad, after it got one out of ten in a review, but it was extremely entertaining and quite amusing, in its own crappy way. We finished off the night with a drive around Mount Coot-Tha.

13.01.2006 – Friday 13 January – Contact Bond

• Clint and I drove to Toowong, so I could pick up some mail, and then to Kenmore, via Cold Rock in Indooroopilly, to buy contact bond. I then contact bonded floor to floor, in a very touching way, and with several bricks.

Comment by Maz – Sunday 15 January 2006, 12:01 PM

  What did you do with bricks? Did Clint have purple hair at this point?
  Plenty of cold rocks here when they're left out in the snow.

Comment by Ned – Sunday 15 January 2006, 12:19 PM

  It’s actually not very interesting—the bricks sat on a piece of wood, which sat on a piece of linoleum, which sat on a layer of contact bond, which sat on a wooden backing plate, which sat on the floor. Clint’s hair had not yet changed colour.

Comment by Mum – Monday 16 January 2006, 8:54 PM

  Clint's hair not yet changed colour? Why not? Is Friday the 13th after all. The best time for one's hair to change colour. All by it self.
   Bat's toenails, witch's brew, eye of newt..
   Witches brew up here was a monster mud bog en route from my little job to home, which I did not even think about traversing, going to friend's place for the night instead. Don't think I shall ever become accustomed to "driving" down the road sideways. Two trucks had gone off the road on the same mud bog, on Friday the 13th, one of them perilously aslant, so I was not going to even contemplate it on a Friday 13th, not that I believe all that jazz, um, but then again......

14.01.2006 – Saturday 14 January – Clint’s Birthday Bash

Day

• Bronwen and I went shopping, returning the ridiculous cheese slicer that doesn’t slice cheese, and getting keys recut. The first cut, they didn’t even fit in the locks, let alone turn them. This time, one actually fits, and will turn the lock with difficulty. The other key still doesn’t fit in the lock, so I’m not overly impressed with these key cutters.

Night

• Bronwen and I made our way to the Good Knight Bar, to witness Clint’s twenty-first birthday spectacle, and eat some pancakes. A good night was had, ending up at the Casino, and I think everyone managed to survive.

Comment by Maz – Sunday 15 January 2006, 12:25 PM

  Maybe your cheese cutter that doesn't cut cheese would do a better job cutting keys?

Comment by Ned – Sunday 15 January 2006, 12:30 PM

  It couldn’t do much worse, although I don’t know whether the key cutter could cut cheese. How much cheese could a key cutter cut if a key cutter could cut cheese?

Comment by Mum – Monday 16 January 2006, 8:58 PM

  Happy 21st birthday Clint.

Comment by Clint – Tuesday 17 January 2006, 2:04 AM

  Thank you Mrs Martin.
  
  The story of the hair purpling is a bit of an epic - a lot like the Iliad really, except without all that dodgy homosexuality and with women's tennis and Tooheys Pils in there somewhere as well. Dunno about the whole Greece part either, although I think the tennis players were from Belgium which is sort of near there.
  
  Clint

Comment by Ned – Tuesday 17 January 2006, 1:58 PM

  Clint has managed to survive, so far, but it is not known if the hair dye has managed to reach his brain, and if it can ever be removed if it has.

Comment by Mum – Tuesday 17 January 2006, 7:28 PM

  Purple haze!! (For all you youngsters, this is the title of a Jimi Hendrix song)

Comment by Clint – Wednesday 18 January 2006, 12:08 PM

  I prefer 'Purple Rain', that wonderful movie starring (and perhaps scripted by) Prince.
  
  How come I can't type out his symbol on my keyboard?

Comment by Mum – Saturday 28 January 2006, 7:28 PM

  Wills or Harry?

15.01.2006 – Sunday 15 January – Pizza

• Bronwen goes to her parent’s place for the morning. I glue things, flash the router with DD-WRT firmware, and try, unsuccessfully, to work out how to monitor individual ports’ traffic without running a server.

Night

• Three pizzas are taken to Mt Coot-Tha, and in the dark, eaten—Clint, Bronwen and Ned slink away with Pepsi.

16.01.2006 – Monday 16 January – Keys & Rental Applicants

Day

• I spend the morning not finding the statistical analysis of teaching evaluations that I need to find, and then head off to put up rental notices at the Wesley, and from there, uni. I meet Clint at uni, and we go searching for noticeboards that will never be exposed to IT or engineering types, and place rental notices upon them in such a way that intelligent and feminine eyes will find them. We then make our way, very slowly, to the city, where I get keys cut.

Night

• Alex, our first rental applicant, is met at the train station and shown around the house. After this, Clint and we go Microwave hunting, finally running one down in a shopping trolley, as it was trying to hide under a table.

17.01.2006 – Tuesday 17 January – Uni & Aboriginal Art

• I clean the microwave and modify a website, before going to uni with Clint, via the St Lucia bakery. At uni, I get a new student card, climb through a hedge and knock on a window to get let into the teaching and education development institute—somewhat ironically, given UQ’s recent awards for excellence in teaching—and then go on a search for the hidden teaching evaluations department; they end up being through a small door behind an external stairwell, where no one would ever think to look. Once found, they print out my required teaching evaluation, which I drop off at ITEE, and Clint and I go walking around an aboriginal loop, coming across ludicrous “aboriginal artefacts” such as a ring of painted white rocks, carved stones complete with snapped drills still embedded in them, and “Wattyl Ochre” cave paintings.

Night

• I was about to head over to Kieran’s, but someone called, wanting to see the rooms we’re trying to rent. Nearly three quarters of an hour later, Nitin and a friend arrived, and we showed them around the house. Clint arrived shortly after they left, and we drove over to Kieran’s, where we argued philosophically until the wee hours of the morning.

18.01.2006 – Wednesday 18 January – Fingers

• Bronwen—who was home after nearly breaking a finger—and I had a lazy morning, going shopping in the afternoon, and showing Kalina around the place at night.

19.01.2006 – Thursday 19 January – Job Hunting

• I had a quiet day at home, eating breakfast, looking through online job ads, eating lunch, showing two girls around the place, eating dinner, and going to bed.

20.01.2006 – Friday 20 January – Underworld

• I spent a quiet morning, meeting Kieran after lunch and going grog and microwave bulb buying with him. I showed a bloke around the house in the afternoon, unfortunately before Bronwen arrived home, and went shopping after.

9:45pm

• Clint and I saw “Underworld” at South Bank, and continued our late-night driving escapades, turning the wrong way up a one-way road in front of a police car, then proceeding to drive the wrong way down said road, turning into a no through road that turned onto another no through road, and so on.

Comment by Mum – Sunday 22 January 2006, 8:33 PM

  Am interested in your promise to "view all the highlights for 2006". Wow. Aint even happened yet!

21.01.2006 – Saturday 21 January – Exploring

• Bronwen and I went exploring, finding the shortest routes to bus stops and the city, with the help of Google Earth, which unhelpfully crashes randomly on this machine. On the way home, we discovered a supermarket not much further than a (very large) block from here that is open until midnight every day.

Night

• I messed around with remote assistance, connecting to Mum’s computer via her 28k dialup connection, and managing to get her email working again. It’s amazing that a full graphical interface works so well over such a slow connection—the command line is so very obsolete. After this geeky interlude, Clint came around and we went for a walk through the darkened suburbs, up a random hill with a nice view over the city.

22.01.2006 – Sunday 22 January – Phone Cabling

• I got lost on the way to Jaycar, made my way to Dick Smith’s, bought twenty metres of phone cable, moved the phone and all the geeky computer gear in the lounge room to the bedroom, where it can coexist happily with all my geeky gear already there. I then had to run the phone line back out to the lounge room again for the VoIP phone. To finish off a geeky day, Clint and Sméagol dropped off my very heavy 28 inch monitor and a bar fridge.

24.01.2006 – Tuesday 24 January – Microwave Bulbs

• I went looking for microwave bulbs to suit our microwave, finding out that they’re horribly rare and being unable to find any. I then had dinner at the Indus, who do a two-for-one deal on Tuesdays. Traffic work on the road near here has seen a lot of traffic diverted past our place, making for a noisy night.

25.01.2006 – Wednesday 25 January – Jarhead

Day

• Two girls and one bloke phoned to look at our rooms today. One girl subsequently found another room, less than two hours after phoning, and the other two came around in the afternoon to check out the rooms.

Night

• Bronwen and I saw “Jarhead” at the Regent. It is a graphic, powerful movie, and was very, very loud. We then walked to, and had dinner at, Toowong memorial park—enjoying the luscious and healthy mosquitoes—before walking through Toowong and back home along the river.

26.01.2006 – Thursday 26 January – Australia Day

• Bronwen and I walked to South Bank, where we went on a free paddle ship cruise on the innovatively named “River Queen”, got sunburnt, watched the Australia Day parade, and lost hearing from a ridiculously loud fireworks extravaganza. We finished off the day by watching “Lethal Weapon 3”.

28.01.2006 – Saturday 28 January – A flatmate appears

Morning

• Another girl came around to look at our rooms, who we liked, and subsequently phoned back to tell that she could have a room if she wanted. We then walked into town to buy pots so I can grow some parsley, instead of buying it for the ridiculous amount it now costs. I also went hunting for the fabled home brand two-minute noodles, but as usual, no one had any. I cunningly avoided meeting the woman who served us when we were taking back my dysfunctional cheese slicer. Some time later, we got a phone call accepting our offer of a room.

Night

• Bronwen and I went food hunting, bumping into the famous Lachlan on his nightly prowl. Surviving the encounter, we continued to Windmill’s, eating the second best pizza in the world—not much could beat a Lion’s Den pizza.

29.01.2006 – Sunday 29 January – Arguing, Flat-mating & Rocking

Morning

• Our new flatmate moved in, we filled out lots of paperwork, she headed back to the city, and we went to the shops to get exciting things, like rocks, cans of tomatoes, parsley seeds, and toothbrush holders. Later on, we had an argument, resolved our argument, had lunch, digested our lunch, and relaxed around the house.

Night

• I planted my parsley.

30.01.2006 – Monday 30 January – Fridge Man

• I phoned the real estate to let them know their fridge didn’t work when we turned it on yesterday. I then went to the hardware to investigate bed slats, finding them too expensive, and sat around all day waiting for the fridge man to call back, something he never did. It was very hot, and not very exciting.

31.01.2006 – Tuesday 31 January – Queen’s Batons, Cheerleaders & American Pie

Morning

• I again phoned the real estate about the fridge. Apparently yesterday was a hectic day, she’s faxed them something with “urgent” all over it, and they should call today. I then went into town to buy a dish drying rack, but there are no dish dying racks in Brisbane, apparently due to some action at the ports.

Afternoon

• The fridge man is going to come tomorrow morning, so I went to Toowong, no longer having to wait around all day for the fabled fridge man. I got four DVD’s, “Nicotina”, “The Hunt for Red October”, “Jacki Chan’s First Strike”, and “Blade Trinity”. I met two American girls on the bus heading back into the city, who were doing a travel-writing course from UQ, were on a sort of informational treasure hunt, and needed to meet someone like me to complete it. This gave me a fantastic idea to reinvigorate the sad state of BITS, and turn it into UQ’s premier club—the one everyone wants to be in but can’t because their lunch hour is shorter than the queues at the ticket office. I then watched the Queen’s Baton Relay, which was mildly interesting, seeing some famous Olympians, watching the traffic get very messed up, and two human-sized geckos climb down from the clock tower. Unfortunately they had Australia’s only cheerleading display, so the American girls, who I suspect were cheerleaders back home, got a very sadly biased view of Australia’s similarity with their own cheerleading culture.

01.02.2006 – Wednesday 1 February – Bribie Island, Mosquitoes & Mines

Morning

• I caught a nastily early train up to Clint’s parent’s place, packed kayaks onto his parent’s car, and drove to Pumicestone Passage. From there we kayaked over to Bribie Island, against a strong wind, lathered ourselves in mosquito repellent, and pushed our way as fast as we could through scratchy mangrove scrub, infested with enough mosquitoes to stop any Japanese invasion. (Meanwhile, back home, the fridge man arrived, and condemned our fridge.) Once through the scrub, we walked along a deserted beach, thankfully mosquito free, and had a look at several abandoned military things—quite run down, and dangerously collapsing, but still quite impressive in their bombproof steel reinforced concrete selves sitting alone amongst the scrub. Fortunately, due to America’s amazing missile targeting technology, we managed to find the kayaks hidden amongst the mud, mangroves and mosquitoes, and paddled back to the mainland. Unfortunately, due to America’s amazing missile targeting technology, we paddled back to the wrong boat ramp; one Clint had set as a waypoint on a previous trip, meaning we had to paddle upstream against the tide, with no wind to help us.

Afternoon

• Clint gave me a grand tour of the area, seeing famed sites such as the “worm man”, “local school”, and “dead end road”. I then caught a train back to Brisbane, and went to sleep feeling suitably exercised, having kayaked around six kilometres and travelled a total of fifteen kilometres through water, mud, scrub and sand—perhaps not quite commando style, but fairly close.