sorry - no time to write right now!
No words needed.

Janis joplin and jim morrison

Hey Everyone,
just trying to wriggle out of my slack quota on the last day of the year.
You will see an image of the latest great talents to grace the family .
Launching Place is proving to be very relaxing.The past few days has been too hot to do anything apart form paddle in the creek,haven't even made it to the dam as there is no shade there.
More chrissy pics to follow
gobx

Quick trip to Thailand

Thailand - first visit for me!
Cathy and I got back from Thailand last week. "Flying visit" for a week, which Jetstar shortened a bit for us (more on this later). As Nick has been there for about 13 or 14 years (or is that 3 or 4 Nick?), a visit was well overdue and reflecting on the trip now another one should follow as soon as it can be arranged. We had a great time and kept up a reasonably vigorous pace to see as much as we could in the short time available.

Martin and Ly timed a visit to coincide with us for a couple of days which was fabulous for us and probably a nice break for them. We managed some nice meals with them and Nick and a day out and about seeing some sights in Bangkok. (I will post some photos soon - when my camera arrives back in Australia as it decided to travel independently!) Here's one from Cathy's camera


Cathy Nick and I flew to Chiang Rai and went driving around in the area near the Golden Triangle (Thailand/Burma/Laos) which was very different to the hustle and bustle of Bkk. We went to Doi Tung where the kings mother had built herself a little weekender and also to Doi MaeSolong, the home of tea and coffee growing in Thailand.

Then back to Bangkok for the last few days - some (!!) shopping and some more sightseeing. A lovely lunch with Suphorn (spelling?) Nick's landlord and the joys of Bkk traffic. A visit to Chulalongkorn University, the home of Focus on the Global South, and I even managed to fit in a couple of one hour Thai massages. (Highly recommended - especially at $10!)

I was there on a Monday and I wore my yellow shirt! the Thais loved it.

Special thanks to Nick for being such a good host. It is such a different experience to go to another city/country to visit someone, compared to lobbing as a tourist on your own. As you will see from what we managed to fit in our limited time was very well spent under Nick's guidance and in her company.

And our time was a bit more limited than originally planned because our Jetstar flight took 81/2 hours to finally take off. The plane had a fault and we got out to the runway then went back to the terminal and cooled our heels there for the afternoon and evening. I'm glad they fixed it before they took off!

Photos will follow.

A video for Alex.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slRsexrhbG8

You'll only get this if you played Half-Life 1

Another great video

Mum put me onto this one.... everyone in Australia has probably seen this one....

Language warning - impressionable young people and Martin might find this offensive.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1GJ4j9h0tL8

my life

hey all
this is my first blog since i only received an invite TODAY. its not your fault tony, i blame Mum for being slack. anyway a bit of an update on my life. i am currently in grade nine at Brisbane state high school in west end, one of the best schools around. i play soccer and do rowing, for which i am in the first quad. i throughly enjoy both, despite having to get up at 5 in the morning for rowing and frequently injuring myself in soccer.

quite recently i received an extremely early birthday present of counterstrike source and half life 2, both of which are getting a due workout. books are also good, some interesting ones i have recently read are the otori chronicles by Lian Hearn and twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Terry Pratchett is always good not matter how many times you read the same book, while Operation Red Jericho by Joshua Mowll is a good read too (thanks gob) as ever, life goes on, but you can always lose yourself in a good book.

one of the highlights of the past couple of weeks for me would definitely be a three day camp over at Stradbroke island with school. sure we did work, but we also did some really fun stuff such as kayaking and snorkeling. it was through a one-off program in school called Enviromental Science Investigations (ESI) and was is a student directed program. our theme was the progressive impact of humans on North Stradbroke Island, and involved researching many facets of NSI. in the end we did alot of walking around with clipboards and tick sheets, with a bit of fun and chemicals thrown in. at least half the class is nuts, but thats probably a good thing; it means i blend in.

thats all for now
keep blogging
alex

Go Chasers!

Just in case you are one of the few people on EARTH who has not seen this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXHleozgQ18

Keating

Sorry if you've seen this already...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQdVJL2CO9o

Well, firstly some serious business... Pinch and a punch
Umm, what next?

I've been off all week at Agoonoree running activities and stuff so I'm pretty tired but it was good fun. I basically ran a game every day and had scouts rotate through every so often. It was fairly simple stuff because they invite people outside of scouts to come and participate, who generally have some kind of disadvantage(Physical/intellectual/visual/refugee) but still good fun. I shall post some pics when I get them off dad's camera. Now we are just relaxing with P + D and pottering at home for the rest of the week.
We had our formal on the last day of term which was nice but quite loud, and too discoey for me. Oh well, win some, lose some...

so I have about 8 weeks of school left I think, as I have to hang around for my yr 11 subjects to wind up, but at least I have done the bulk of the exams...

That's about it for now I think

Nico

CNNNN-it could only happen in Australia

For those of you who are far away, busy and not near televisions, I wanted to make sure you knew about the Chasers Stunt. It was a beautiful thing, driving a faux Canadian motorcade through the (alleged)highest security on the planet. They got so close to George Bush's hotel, they shat themselves and turned around, not ever having thought they would make it so far.If you look for their show on ABC Tv on September 12 you will see the police marching away with Julian Morrow, whilst poor old Osama Bin Laden gets no attention from the constabulary whatsoever.
This programme , by the way, got the highest rating in THE HISTORY of the ABC perhaps even all Aussie tv.
Gold.

Gold Logies and my endless admiration to them all...!

gbx


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/06/2026372.htm

Sunset at Bellville

Belleville Park is near Christophe's house. You can see the Eiffel Tower and all of Paris. If you look closely at the beer glasses you will see an upside down reflection of the trees... I actually have a soundtrack for this photo -- 20 seconds of Klezmer music recorded live at the bar, but I can't work out how to upload a sound file. Any suggestions? By the way, the people in the photo are strangers...

Life in KL

I have settled into life here in KL. I have an apartment in a nice suburb called Sri Hartamas. Its basically an expat suburb so there are lots of restaurants etc. Also it is right near my work so it only takes a few minutes to get there.

I've been working heaps so haven't really had time to explore KL very much. The other day was Merdeka Day which is a celebration of independence from the British and this year was the 50th anniversary so there were lots of celebrations. I could hear fireworks going off for at least half an hour. I had the day of from work that day so i went to a workmates place. His father owns and runs a paintball range there so we spent the day shooting each other and then had a BBQ. They had an entire lamb tied to a few logs and stretched out over a fire. It was delicious.

I'm going up to Bangkok for a couple of days next weekend to catch up with an ex-workmate that will be there on a job. Unfortunately Nic is off living her glamorous jetsetting lifestyle so we won't be able to catch up, but I'm looking forward to it anyway. I am hoping to go down to Singapore the weekend after that and catch up with another ex-workmate who will be working down there for a couple of weeks, but i have to try and get time off work first as they are acting like slave drivers.

Anyways I have already paid the bill here at the bar i'm in and i'm going to go home so.... update over!

Jimmy

pinch AND punch

Jack, Matt and Mart visit Nicky

Despite my best efforts to do some fancy captioning (a la Nico) and one armed-colour work (thanks Julie for raising the standards) this is the best I can do.

Marty and I started this blog a few nights ago, but this and that intervened and now the blog has become a slog -- stale news overshadowed by Saddle Club, broken thumbs and the Sollway Lass.

Clearly we are out of the race, but for the record, Jack and Matt came to Bangkok on 5 August, in time to join a small party at Sophie Pinwill's place designed to ease me into my 49th year (you can see my pain).

Jack (left, doing I don't know what) and Matt (below) settled into well (maybe too well... Matt didn't want to leave, but that's another story) . They did Bangkok -- temples, bars, shopping malls, Jim Thompson's house, river trips, more temples, and went to places I have never been -- Pitsanoluk and Sukothai.

I know this is not very funny, but we did have fun. I lost my wallet, Matt missed his plane, Marty had some root canal work and Jack... well I don't know what Jack did but I guess he had fun because he kept getting phone calls from girls he'd met in Pitsanoluk.

Maybe Marty can add some jokes and more photos

Nico's happenings - QLD Venture

Hi all

I told Nicky I would publish something about my latest camp - so here it is!

Well where do I start... maybe some shippy photo's?

The bow, as seen from the bowspirit, and me hoisting a Jib
If you didn't hear sometime or other, I spent the first week of the school holidays up north for Queensland venture. The 8 day long camp brought together some 300 - 400 venturers from across the state for an amazing
week of activities. After travelling on a bus all day, we got to Rocky, where the base camp was located, before pushing on to Airlie beach in the Whitsundays to board the 104 year old tallship, Solway Lass. We spent an incredible 3 days on board the ship sailing to: Whitehaven beach(Whitsunday Is.), Blue Pearl Bay, and Longford reef...

The ship itself was fascinating, for those who care it was a Haemaphrodite brigantine - meaning it had square sails on the foremast, but was gaff-rigged on the mainmast(a sail between top and bottom booms running backwards)... It was very intricate, and there were so many different systems to trim the sails, it was all very confusing at first but we slowly worked it out.

The Foremast

It was great doing it as a venturer group, because we were all quite cheerful(and with similar senses if humour I might add). There was quite a bit of buffoonery, and a good few characters. We got a bit of rough weather but not much, and for most of the trip it was cool and cloudy, but really great fun. They had a cargo net strung from the
bowsprit, so you could climb over the edge of the ship(even if it was moving), and sit a little lower than the main deck as you watched the wash below you... really awesome fun.

We had a few jobs on ship, the washing up of course had to be done but only with minimal water, there were two cooks in the crew because the ship caters mainly for international tourists, the brass had to be polished every morning, and the deck had to be scrubbed once the trip was over.


It was an awesome trip, and we all became quite good friends quickly. The crew loved us because we were enthusiastic and were more than happy to do the hard work for them, like hoisting the sails or the booms.(the booms were really heavy - it took 3 people to lift them, even with the heavy-duty pulley system!)







After we left the ship, we stayed in Proserpine for the night, before rendezvousing with the venturers who were scuba diving, and heading back to rocky. Then we had two one-day activities; I went abseiling at Mt Archer the first, and participated in a "mystery tour" on the second. The abseiling was good fun, it was a great location, and I learnt a lot about abseiling that I didn't know. There were 2 main drops: a 10 or 15 metre on where you had to shuffle from face - to -face to get down, and another 20 m cliff with various overhangs and similar challenges. The mystery tour took us to the Rocky Zoo, the coast around Rocky(which is quite beautiful), and the city. The leader had lots of "tricks" throughout the tour to keep us on our feet; driving off without us, asking for a "fare" every time we got on, getting people to spin a dial to decide which turn to make next... you get the picture!

Back on site, we met lots of new people and there was lots of colour and excitement. I can't tell half of it here, I suppose I should post some more pictures instead!!!!



Nico













The ship, as seen from the ship's boat





Abseiling Mt Archer on self - belay

















Docking after a great trip!

Hi Everyone,

it's official. I have THE GIG . 2nd UNit Director on Saddle Club!!!
I had the interview this morning, seemed to pass with flying colours, then I asked them if they knew I was horsey, well they didn't , but they do now and that was just a bonus.
This is actually better than 1st unit as it is a longer period of work , and I will get to do an ep on 1st Unit too!!!
WOOOOOOOOOO!
Ella and I have been running around singing the Saddle Club song all day-you know it-"hello world, this is me...etc".
So I will be living Monday to Friday in Daylesford for several months. It will be long hours, but I couldn't think of better work, photographing horses all summer.Starting in October.
So, almost all my dreams have come true, I just want to direct Vegemite commercial now.
gob x

Hi sibings I'm catching up....

Well, its a wonderful winter evening in downtown Coorparoo- it is actually dribbling a little rain- we have got to the stage of thinking that 10-15 mm is a LOT of rain. Its pleasantly cool, so we might get another few weeks out of the long sleeves before the 8 month summer. The household seems to be in harmony, and running smoothly, with 4 Wixteds, one Chinese Swiss-German student, and two just arrived Japanese 15 year olds in residence. So thank God I've found something over 20 to talk to.( does a blog have an age?).

Nico is pottering in his downstairs domain, Al is glued to some evil looking interactive computer game called 'Half Life', Phoebe and Raph are pitting their word skills against the Swiss and Japanese -in English of course. 'Kath and Kim', is recording on the hard drive,for later viewing, and the kitchen seems to be 'done'!!!!

NOW, I am going to have a crack at posting pics, so that you can all sign my big heavy uncomfortable left arm(remember, I AM left handed) PLASTER, which I am so stoicly wearing , after extensive surgery to my seriously fractured THUMB, injured in a high velocity spectacular skiing accident at Mt Hotham 2 weeks ago.(in my first break sans children, since Marty's getting married trip) I will have it on a month all up, small price to pay for an EXCELLENT weekend's skiing!!

This has only taken two hours, maybe when I (shortly) finish installing skype I can talk to you all in less time!AND I need to understand more of how the little digital (birthday pres) snapper goes, tonights photos of the painful plastered hand were b a d. However.......its a start

Love and kisses to all on your various continents, or planets xxxxxxxxxxxxx J

cute and cuter

Posting for the lazy

I have to post news for those who are obviously too busy to do it for themselves (or possibly lacking the technical skills, interest or social responsibility required).
Jack is in Bangkok for 8 days with his mate, Matt. They went courtesy of a Jetstar sale back in April. First trip o/s for Matt, lucky he's got an experienced traveller in Jack to guide him!
They are being hosted in Bkk by Nic, and Martin is also in Bkk to lead them into trouble. He's there to have some dental work (some people have all the fun!).
Photos may be posted at some time in the future, in the meantime here's one I prepared earlier, Republic Tower in LaTrobe St Melb, late afternoon a few years ago.

p.s. I wrote a long one and added a photo, then the whole lot disappeared on me and didn't get posted, I had to re-log in.
Perhaps it was the content of the photo-Jim and Ella. CUTE

tech tips appreciated

what the Dickens

Dear Everyone

slack it's true, here we are, both riddled with winter germs, last time I was sick was two years ago.

Still looking into the launching Place pad. Told the owner I am interested but not able to make an offer until I know what's happening at this end. Hopefully he wont sell it on me.
Ella is learning romantic dancing with current international guest Aurora, to the sounds of Miles Davis ballads.
My biggest current dilemma is not having any movies we can watch together whilst coughing. There is only so many times I can watch Saddle Club. Soon Ella will be able to contribute(is it open to all ages?)
Currently her computer use is limited to Playground Radio-ABC Kids whilst I watch Neighbours(for grown -ups)

So, another coughy night, lucky we live in a resort.
Got a ripper flokati rug at the op.shop today
nighty xxg

The latest Live Action!!

It's always a challenge to commit to words without having a point to impart, but sometimes to simply spew forth and see what happens is the best strategy...
Tragedy struck in my life today, in a relatively minor way, thank allah, when I approached my car returning from the QV market to find a grey ghost ( disguised in blue ) affixing a ticket to my car. It's not as easy as some people say, living in the city with poor compliance skills. 55 Damn Dollars! But we will eat lamb tonight.
I am listening to some fine music at the moment, if you would like a taste go here.
That link is directly to an mp3, so you might want to right click/save rather than load it into your browser... or whatever...
It's just the first track of "the way up" Pat Metheny Group 2005. If you like the taste, maybe i can hook you up with, shall we say, a more substantial quantity...
In the further spirit of dazzling y'all with my web 2.0ness, here are some DIGITALLY CREATED images of the new unit, Arlen...














Obviously he's really a nice guy, with a great sense of humour. He's always shitting in his pants though, which I personally think is a bit weird... I know it happens to us all, but he doesnt even seem embarrassed...
This looks interesting... if anyone is in a position to stump up for it, I'm sure we would all be appreciative...
C'mon ya buggers, have a go!!

Slackers ahoy!

Hello, hello (serious rising inflection - do I sound like John Howard trying to be hip?)
I set it up for you all, but there is a readily apparent lack of application on the part of potential bloggers. Lazy bloggers!
Some of you have excuses:

• seriously busy lives;
• seriously dull lives;
  
• total lack of computer skills;
• disinterest.

Personally I get 4 out of 4, yet I manage to post, even if just to chide everyone else (well it is my role as eldest).

So don't be bashful, put something up so the rest of us can have a giggle with/at you.

monday

wow finally somewhere someone may (or may not) laugh at my jokes
or true life stories of life in dickens (st)
onya spok

soccer - who needs it?

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone (you know who you are!!).
I went with Chun, Dung and some mates to the "football" and was amazed by just how lazy these people really are. - the 'pitch' is about 1/2 as big as the goal square at a real footy game.
You'll notice I wore a blue shirt as to stand out from the sea of green & gold just in case there was trouble or horriganism. Later in the evening a mate's Mrs met up with some of the team at their hotel bar. Here is her account of the conversation with Lucas Neill:

Loan: Hello
Lucas: G'day
Loan: Were you one of the people who missed a penalty?
Lucas: Yes
Loan: Are you the famous one, or the other one
Lucas: I'm the other one
Loan: oh, so where's the famous one?
Lucas: I think Harry's upset, he's staying in.
Loan: So your team is like Vietnam. You are losers.
Lucas: (inaudible grunt)
Loan: Can you smile for the camera?
Lucas: sure (smiles, evidence available if you care)
Loan: Thanks...why aren't you dancing?

I'd like to know if anybody watched the game and if so did you notice me?

Bonjour!

Bonjour everyone. Thanks Anthony for setting up the blog. I am in France at the moment, at Christophe's place in Juvanze. It is a big house in a small village, halfway between Troyes and Chaumont, about two hours east of Paris. It's probably not marked on any map. Here is the view from my desk. The river is excellent for swimming, but can be quite cold. The house has many bedrooms and beds so you are all invited. I can supply everything except the airfare... I will be back in Bangkok on 24 July, looking forward to seeing Jack and Jim in early August.

happy birthday Martin

Go to the amazon and enjoy a ZinTonic for me :)

By now I expect to be seeing regular newsy and entertaining contributions. At least something a little better than Jim's meal reports.

It snowed on the Dandenongs this morning!

The little fella!!

our little boy

Update

Dinner was delicious....

Translation/KL

Hey martin. Try going to the page through google and translating it into english. It might help a bit?!

Everyone - update on myself:

I am in KL at the moment. I have started my new job here, its basically the same as back in Melbourne. They have organised me an apartment not far from work so I will move in there tomorrow.

Kuala Lumpur is a strange city. They all talk about how the different cultures get along famously (chinese, malay and indian) but they are all racist and hate each other. The city itself is nice, lots of big residential apartment blocks that seem to rise out of the jungle in the area I am in and it is also very hilly so there are lots of mansions perched over the edge of a hill. In the middle of the city it is just like all other asian cities, huge shopping centres and bright lights. The area I am living/working is a major expat area, particularly with korean and japanese expats.

Well i am off to dinner so bye!
Jimmy

Everyone's invited

I have sent out some invitations which will enable people to post to the blog. If you don't get one it's because:
(a) I used an out of date email address for you;
(b) I misspelt your email address;
(c) I forgot to send you an invitation;
(d) I forgot you exist; or
(e) I don't like you.
Whatever the reason for my snubbing you, email me at denuto1atfastmaildotfm to get your privileges granted.

Good start!! (by that I actually mean very weak start - no info of any interest and no jokes at all)
All my controls on this page appear in Vietnamese so until I find Chun I'm not really able to join in.
I'm not even sure this'll work but just in case it does - well done - good start!
martin

Welcome ab(r)oad

Welcome.
Everyone will be invited to post news on this blog, as a hi-tech means of reducing any actual interpersonal contact to an absolute minimum. Henceforth, instead of talking to, or even worse having to see, other people you'll be able to commune with a screen and come away up-to-date with all the Bullard news.

What with skype, email, text messages (txt msgs!) and cheap phone calls I'm heartily sick of hearing from everybody. This way if I get a sudden and uncontrollable urge to know what is happening to my relatives I can sneak a peek and the good thing will be that no-one will know that I care.

So make what you like of it. The more posts there are the more likely it will be that there will be a regular readership. Actually it's not so much quantity as quality I suppose, but to make it work you'll have to put in some work.

So my opening post will be a quick report on life at Pooby Corner. Cold, wet and miserable outside - gloriously warm dry and comfortable inside thanks to the new heater that came onstream only in the last couple of weeks. Extension is progressing slowly but is now a completed shell and only needs flooring, kitchen and laundry cabinets, painting, electrical and plumbing fit off and painting. Easy! I might even figure out how to post a few small photos.

Who wants to be next?