Bridge to Brizzie!

I never thought I would run 12km in my whole life, let alone all in one go... but I must admit, I actually enjoyed it. If you care about the figures... I came 4128th in a time of 1hr 7 mins 39.783sec. I was actually shooting for 0.002 of a second better than that...

And as a postscript - below is a happy snap from Ben's camera at the Soccer World Cup celebrations - Christel and I enjoying some German ale.

Purchase of the Week

Sometimes you really like something, and then you see a whole heap of it for sale for a cheap price, so you buy lots. Then pretty soon you realise you don't actually like that thing so much anymore...

Well I hope that won't happen with the 2 kg of Haloumi cheese I just bought from the famous fruit shop at Stones Corner. Mmmm Haloumi with bread, with sweet chilli sauce, with ice cream, with coffee...

YAY!

Last weekend Di/me and Ben/Sarah drove south to the TEAR conference at Stanwell Tops just south of Sydney.

Had a fun time and it was interesting/motivating hearing from people working with poor people in various places.

Krispy Kreme donuts were a bonus too.

The photo is near the conference centre, Mark (Ben's Bro-in-law), Jo (Ben's sis), Di, me, Sarah, Chris Martin (AKA Ben)

This one had to be included...

 

See Ya Ev and Mel!!

I went out to Cecil on the weekend to have a final catchup with Ev and Mel Rohde (and Kai, Braithe and their 4 huskis) who are moving up to Atherton in a couple of weeks. Nice to have a bit of a 'mountain biker reunion' too (minus the Canadian Breezo unfortunately). I must say that there are two things that Rohdes do better than anyone - Hungis and Bonfires. We had both on saturday night. All the best Ev, Mel and Family!

Ev 'The Master' Rohde in the front with Jaydy, Gregory, Bradley, Daniel and Screndells along the back.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum

'Inmates' being Engineers like me, and 'The Asylum' being the world.

I like whacking a quick review of some of the books I read on my blog. This one definitely falls under the 'nerd' category. However it's the type of book that if more engineers (mainly software engineers) read, would potentially make life a little better for most people!

It basically rips apart the usability of technology and puts together a case for having 'interaction experts' in any organisation that develops technology. This is so that Engineers stop having to be the ones that design interfaces that normal people have to use. the classic example is (of course) how unnecessarily hard it is to program a video recorder.

It was a little demoralising at times, but overall I think good stuff for me as an Engineer to read!

A Canadian Blonde

The brewers are back. We brewed a Coopers 'Canadian Blonde' and named it 'Bunny' after our favourite Woolloongabbian Canadian!

Shown in the piccy is our dedicated brewing headquarters. Or the 'Situation Room' as I like to call it.

Home again

Back in Bris Vegas! The trip home wasn't too bad. Flew from Vancouver to Los Angeles - which was spectacular, the highlight being Mt St Helens (see the photo). It was truly massive and beautiful!


Los Angeles is truly massive as well, and I guess beautiful in it's own way (as Ben Lee would say 'living proof that people need to be together...'). I visited a customer for work, and then did a little shopping and also drove aimlessly around downtown for a while since I had never really done that before. Amazing how one avenue changes from being swanky downtown office blocks to a block with hundreds of homeless people on it in only a mile. The scale of homelessness in some parts of LA is really shocking.

The other major story of the day for me was that I ate donuts from both Tim Hortons (in Canada) and Krispy Kreme (in LA) in the same day. A feat worthy of note methinks.

More Wedding Photos Here!

HERE!

It is DONE!

Yes, Benjamin Peter Briese is married! The day quite possibly the most beautiful day ever seen - SERIOUSLY. Not a cloud in the sky, snow capped mountains in the background - the first beautiful day since I've been in Vancouver! The wedding was fantastic, Ben and Charlene are happy, and perfect for each other and I'll be posting many more photos soon!

Prado

Just hanging at what's become my chill-out / internet catchup place - Prado Cafe on Commercial Drive. Why don't cafes in Brisbane offer free WiFi?? Out of the eight tables occupied here, four of them are people on laptops, one couple of guys playing chess, someone reading a book, a couple of girls hanging out and one freak sitting in the cold outside doing a crossword. Speaking of cold... I went to the dawn service this morning at Trout Lake, near Ben's place. It was outside on the shore of the lake. It must have been hovering near zero degrees, and started raining halfway through the service. Then to top it all of, at the end of the service it started hailing. I haven't been that cold in many years... I'm definitely heading back to MEC to spend some money on warm clothes tomorrow!

Me and Benny!

IMG_3658
Originally uploaded by luckyforehead.

Coopers in the snow

IMG_3676
Originally uploaded by luckyforehead.

Mount Seymour

coming down the mountain

IMG_3683
Originally uploaded by luckyforehead.

This family was pretty lucky they didn't go off the OTHER side of the road

Commercial Drive

IMG_3603
Originally uploaded by luckyforehead.

The main street near Ben and Charlene's place. Lots of great places to eat, coffee shops with WiFi and bookshops with dogs in them. Love it.

Owen and his favourite Sushi joint.

IMG_3597
Originally uploaded by luckyforehead.

It's my favourite sushi joint now too... (But not Ben's Mum's favourite sushi joint) I think his Dad likes it. Esepcially the wasabi.

DJ Turtle, Skyping Corrina

IMG_3600
Originally uploaded by luckyforehead.

Wasabi

Instead of posting heaps of photos here, it's a little easier to put them on Flickr - Photos at Flickr.

Mostly just walking around Commercial Drive, hanging out with Ben/His Parents and Owen. Today we hit Mountain Equipment Co-op. I managed to resist buying anything - but I do need to head back there to get some mountain biking shoes. And probably a warm coat.

We then drove to the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus. Huge place, nice drive and interesting anthropology museum. Sushi for lunch, including one of the funniest moments I have ever experienced as Ben's Dad put a lump of wasabi in his mouth despite Ben, Owen and I strongly urging him not to. A general drive around North Vancouver was next, including Lynn Canyon (forest / suspension bridge), Mount Seymour (where it snowed - yay!), some of the North Shore Mountain Bike trails (no biking for us...) and Deep Water Cove (I think that was what it was called). Fun day!

I'm off to Owen's place to be reprogrammed as an ice hockey fan.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

How to take photos from an LA freeway

Hi from rainy, cold Vancouver! The locals assure me that it's been sunny for the last few days, but I'm not so sure...

Had a whirlwind trip to LA - straight off the plane, drove downtown to our customer, spent the afternoon there doing Vigil engineery stuff, back in the car to the airport and on the plane to Canada. Toni Collette was the person in front of me in the immigration line which was pretty funny. I learnt never to try saying hello to big movie stars. Not their fault... my fault for not being able to think of things to say, whereas I was able to have a normal pleasant conversation with the person behind me in the immigration queue...

Got to Vancouver around 11pm - great to see Benny and to finally meet Charlene! We basically just went straight home and straight to sleep. Today I'm hanging with Owen!


Ben's place on a rainy Vancouver morning.

Coona

Di and I drove the 700km down to Coonabarabran this weekend for the wedding of Lizzie and Doug. Lizzie was a student at Googa when Di worked there, and ended up at uni with Di for the last few years.

The wedding was at Doug's parents place, in the Warrumbungle Ranges - just outside of Coona. His Dad, John is an astronomer so had some very fun toys on their block of land...

I didn't know anyone else going to the wedding. Di knew a couple of girls who had also been to Googa. We had an absolutely fantastic time - getting to know some great people, dancing to Cat Empire and doing the usual fun wedding stuff!

Doug's parent's house is made of mud brick and feels like something out of Lord of the Rings. He has a couple of observatories - one is a completely automated, computer controlled telescope, accessed remotely by Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, USA. When it is day time classes in the USA, students can see the Australian night sky.


Inside the observatory accessed remotely by American college students. Yes - real NASA stuff!


The front door of the beautiful hobbit house. We were being shown around by none other than beautiful Lizzie the bride!

Di, exiting the observatory after viewing Saturn and it's rings, Jupiter and it's moons, the Earth's moon and a globular cluster of a million or so stars. Fun!!!

This is the BIG telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, where Doug's Dad, John works.


The Warrumbungles - viewed from the observatory.

Brisbane's Biggest Nerd

I'm going for the "Biggest Nerd in Brisbane" title. My entry consists of a video/position logging system on a mountain bike. Pictures below.

Yes, I get paid for this.

Two Cameras and a GPS on my helmet.(One camera on the front (right), one on the back (left) and GPS on top (the clear thing with the green ziptie). A third camera went on the handlebars.

Andrew (workmate) setting me up. He's holding a Tablet PC that goes in my backpack.


Ready to roll.

VigilView Playback software.

Fernvale Canoe Trip

Some guys from Fiona's church organised a 30km canoe trip on the weekend on the upper Brisbane River. Some BEAUTIFUL places along the way... fish jumping and swimming, people capsizing, arms burning... what a fun day!

Corrina, Matt, Bec, Chey

Corrina, post capsizing

Fiona and Mark... again, post-capsizing

Fiona again

Brad the Rowbot

Download the Google Earth file so you can replay our adventure ni the comfort of your own home

Car Wash

Following Erin's good example in a blog post I couldn't find on the spur of the moment... here is my attempt at an arty photo taken while going through the car wash. I felt a little self conscious as the car wash attendant was hanging around and watching the whole thing. Don't know what he thought when flashes started going off in the car.

Dad's 60th Birthday - Coolum

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!
Any ideas why he had his eyes closed? Anyone?

FUN - FUN (Guest Blog by Miss Diamond)

Otherwise (more honestly and less-affectionately) known as a FUN - RUN...

For International Women's Day.

You may stop scoffing now. I ran part of it. And it was super-fun. Except for the cold and rain and early wake-up and the waiting around before and after it. The company was great!

Here's some photos of the team, before and after. Although, as Cathy pointed out, no photos of the actual FUN (run).

xxx Di

Combining Beer Brewing and Aquariums...

So if you inject CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) into an aquarium, it makes the plants go better. CO2 is produced when yeast ferments. This happens to be the key process involved in homebrewing beer, which I am a fan of... SO I think I've just found a way of combining two of my favourite activities!

Geotagged Photos from Flights in PNG

This is pretty cool! These were done using 'RoboGEO' software for geotagging photos.

See Google Map with photos HERE

Photos from PNG

Finally got our photos from PNG together - about 200 of them!

Have a look!

Latest Project

Thanks Erin for the 3ft fish tank!!!

Of course, then we needed something to put it on - hence the cute second hand sewing desk.


Then there was the gravel, filter, light, heater... I love this stuff!
This is the current state of affairs... the fish in the old 2ft tank are looking excitedly at the new tank... waiting for grand opening day