by ·0 Comments

Yes it is that time of the year again. Its Halloween. That means that little boys and girls will try to roam the streets in the endless pursuit of their favourite friend. Sugar. Unfortunately for most kids, Halloween is more of an american thing. However most adults my age will see it as any excuse to get dressed up and get fucked up. So endless weeks of Halloween parties happen. Hell I am going to one next friday.

The good thing about these parties is usually the hottest girls will wear the least which is great for everyone! Me though. I am not quite sure what to go as this year. Part of me wants to just grab a sheet, throw it over my head, cut two eye holes and ta da.. Ghost. One part of me just wants to grab my army helmet (used it for an avis party last year and it has since been repainted and looks spiffy, although it could do with a clear coat or something like that to make it shiny) and just go with that. However another deep down part wants to go all out, however then my wallet pipes up and tells my brain to STFU and get back to work.

So at the moment unless I can find a white sheet, *edit found one* then i will just use the helmet. Halloween parties are always a good excuse to get drunk. Cause if your face is covered. no one can see who you are! Which means you can drink yourself stupid and chat up all the randoms you want!

Another good thing about halloween is all the sugar! gotta love sugar. one of my favourite things beside alcohol. I mean who doesn’t like sugar? So since we are having a food day this week, we are having a Halloween food day. So usually when I want a really good sugar rush and I want something easy to make. Rice Krispie treats to the rescue. When I was in the states in Orlando they had big Rice Krispie treats but they had them all flavoured and with stuff in them like m&ms, skittles etc. So I took my usual Rice Krispie treat recipe (which is pretty much marshmallows, butter and rice bubbles) and poured them into the tin over a layer of M&M’s. Had lots of mixture left over so made a Rice Krispie cake. I haven’t got photos of the end product yet but when I do, I will throw them on the net somewhere.

by ·0 Comments

So a couple of weeks ago I received a Think Geek care package. Inside was some random stuff. A Little metal Bender figurine, My “I See Fragged People” band, some hazardous waste lunchboxes and a book that I had wanted to read for a while. The Zombie Survival Guide. Not really like any book I usually read. This book seems to be semi serious & semi comedy. It’s hard to tell exactly which one it is but it is a good read. Zombies, Pirates and Ninjas’s seem to be a staple for the internet community. Ninjas and Pirates are always constantly being fought over which one is better but Zombies is like this endless topic that everyone knows about. So I decided to get the book and read it.

The book is full of so much information pertaining to how zombies arise, where they came from, the different sorts of outbreaks and also how to deal with an outbreak. The book goes into quite a bit of detail about the ways to escape zombies but also how to hunt zombies and ways to dispense with zombies. I’m enjoying it immensly.

Bessie has also had a good day today. I pulled her open today, gave her insides a good cleaning and swapped out some old parts and put in some flashy new ones. Enough of the suspect female references. Put a new Video Card and some ram into the PC today. 4 x 1GB DDR2 667 DIMMS today along with an Asus EN6800GT 512MB Video Card. She is working sweet right now I tell you what. Battlefield runs like a wet dream. So smooth and loads UBER fast compared to what it used to. Love it! Bessie wont need a good update for a while now (till the CPU’s get a decent update in speed but till then, she can sit and relax for a while).

not a very exciting weekend this weekend but I might be heading to the airport tommorrow to get a shot of “pinkie” which is Qantaslink’s new Dash 8-Q400 painted half pink. Work is not doing to bad however my co worker (there are only 2 of us in groups) has decided she is going to resign so it means I will be on my own for a while. DAMMIT! Hopefully they hire soon!

by ·0 Comments

Yes I have been slack and not updating. Then again nothing really that interesting has been happening. I’m off detox at the moment, although only really had 1 beer since Sunday. Work has been pretty full on the last few days since there is only two of us in Groups and my co worker has been off sick. Last weekend I went to the OCAU meet. Didn’t drink though (which was a dumb idea cause I would of had much much more fun!) but still had a good time. Went to Brewhouse, Omalleys for dinner, Bowling at Strike, then onto the Brewhouse again for a little while. I went home early as I was intending on going to White Water World the next day but I stupidly fell over. O how smart am I! Took a nice big chunk out of my heel and then also a few big chunks out of my shins. I’ll live. Just like Uncle Chop Chop says. Harden the FUCK UP!

In other news I have found an awesome little extension for firefox called “Bork Bork Bork”. It changes all of the text in any website as though the Sweedish Chef from the Muppets is talking. God its funny. Sadly though when looking at my own website I can pretty much understand it. 🙁

I think thats all I have at the moment. Pretty boring life at the moment. Might take some time out on the weekend and go take some photos somewhere. Maybe some night shots in the city with the new lens. l8r

by ·0 Comments

So during the trip to the USA I took around 2500 photos. I don’t think I have ever taken that many in such a short duration before. I don’t think I will ever do it again! It has been a nightmare working on all of the photos. I have finally finished touching up, resizing, watermarking, scanning, sorting, captioing and uploading all of the photos.

More photos have gone on the net since the last update including a folder dedicated to just the shots taken of the Aircraft in the USA. I had a good time spotting in the USA. Would of loved to of had the time to do some serious spotting but didn’t. Closest I got to it was at JFK while waiting for my flight I had a beautiful shot of the runway from the Terminal 7 food court, that was until a British Airways 747-400 blocked my view when it pulled into the gate (bastards). Also some shots from the Helicopters that I went on along with the Heliport at Manhattan.

Of the photos that I have uploaded is my first ever Panorama shot. This was taken at our final stop in the Grand Canyon on our way out of the Canyon to Monument Valley. The photo turned out pretty good considering. Not 100% happy with it but it is not to bad!

Back at work now, trying my hardest to get my head back into the groove and it is slowly happening. I think once I have to start looking for somewhere to live, the world is gonna come crashing down fast! One departure at work this week I was a little saddened to find out about. Katherine Laing, a beautiful girl, who turns out to be a bit of a spotter as well has left. She was a very kind and lovely person and I would of loved to get to know her better as we only really started talking after the conference like 2 weeks before I left for the USA. It sucks! Life moves forward though.

Anyway below is the link to the new folder for the Aircraft shots along with another link to the USA shots. Also I have updated the Photo page with information on my new camera since I broke my A10 while I was on holidays.

Spotter Photos USA
USA 2007

by ·0 Comments

So I’m home. The flight home in Business was well worth the $$$. The space, the comfort, the privacy, all add up to an experience that I must go back to. The Business Class suites (yes they are called suites on Air NZ) were just so comfortable. I managed to get 3-4 hours sleep which for me is a miracle. And in the little privacy of the suite your able to just sit back and watch movies if you want and you won’t really disturb the person next to you which is great. I managed to watch only a couple of movies and a few tv shows because of the sleep and got off in Auckland after a wonderful Supper (4 courses) and Breakfast feeling amazingly refreshed. Went to the lounge in Auckland and cleaned my teeth etc and missed saying goodbye to Amy 🙁 Amy was rushed off to her next flight as we arrived late so she almost missed her connection to Wellington.

My flight from Auckland to Brisbane was uneventful, watched a few TV shows and just relaxed as the final 3 hours of the trip sank in. I got home realising it was all over. Depression didn’t really set in I guess thankfully as I know during the tour we talked about how rough it can be coming home from a big trip and just feeling like its back to the grind. I didn’t get that feeling (yet) thankfully. It was wierd to come home and a lot had changed. Beattie no longer Premier (WTF!), the dollar hitting an all time high while I was away (dammit!!!), Mum and Dad had been away and even they had been out of touch. I had changed a bit from this trip, I realised I need to be more tolerant of other people and have looked a lot more at the history of things. Hitting all the museums and memorials in DC (a lot of them War memorials), part of me sort of looked at the memorials and saw just how much people sacrificed for our freedom and I know that I need to pay that back by being a good person.

So after one day off and catching up with Suzanne & Brendan and hearing all the stuff that has been going on, caught up with the lovely Yena and told her about her body double in Cairns. Lizzie in Cairns scared the crap out of me as I thought it was Yena to begin with and I was like “WTF she didn’t tell me she was coming to Brisbane” but all was fine and Lizzie was a great person, hopefully can catch up with her in the future. The big thing that I have been doing since I got home was unpacking and putting stuff away. My 2nd bag turns out was screened in NY or LA as it was opened and a nice little note was placed inside my bag by the TSA. I was a bit suprised that it had happened but I didn’t have any locks on it which was probably a good thing in the end.

I have been working on the photos I took which worked out to be a total of 2500 photos. I still have to work on my panorama from the Grand Canyon (i’ll probably do that on the weekend) and still scan in all the group photos, but I have cut the 2500 back to 379, touched up, adjusted, removed red eye where needed, captioned, ordered and reviewed everything and now they are online. I could not believe how long it has taken with all of these photos. Captioning them last night took almost 2 hours! plus another hour to save them all and then upload them. But I want to share all the photos with everyone so they can see the amazing things I did. Some of the shots from the Canyon look stunning!

Anyway it is time for me to go to work. 2nd day back. Found out yesterday when I got to work that I am now permanently in Groups which is good as I don’t have to worry and can just put my self back into concentrating on work for a while. It has been good to be able to just relax while away, come home refreshed and now can start a new chapter in my life!

USA 2007