MOOMINS M.C.

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 03:54:00 +0000

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOSIA!!!!

You don't look a day over (insert appropriate number here).

Lots of love from your brother, Annemarie, Tom and Amelia.

OUTBACK TRAVELS AND SOME......

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:30:00 +0000

As of 3 weeks ago I am a domestic manager.

That's right. Stay at home dad.

Snorkmaiden has gone back to work at the coal face and as we weren't able to get any childcare so I am at home hanging with the little feller.

Apart from looking after him and trying to finish off my folio for school, we have been busily fixing up our place to sell so we can buy something a little bigger for the future.

For my folio I had to shoot 2 sections: people based and and open theme.

For the 1st section I shot some friends and their family at home and the second was shot on our outback trip.

What a trip it was too!!! Travelling with a 9 month old and camping was an exercise in organisation, patience and luck. We got flooded in at one point on a cattle station in the Flinders Ranges after 85mm of rain fell from midnight till sun up causing the dry creek bed we drove up the day before into a 6 foot deep 100f foot wide white capped torrent that was threatening to flood our campsite.

All in all we had a great trip covering about 6000 km including a 4wd trek at Willow Springs which was 60 km and took 6 hours to complete, most of which Tom slept through.

Here is a small selection of pics from that trip that I submitted for my folio assignment:

4 YEARS ON.....

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:09:00 +0000

Been a while since any sort of posting on the blog.
I think that between having our son Tom around, working, being back at photography school, preparing us and the car for the outback trip in April and trying to maintain some semblence of a social life, the old blog has become somewhat neglected.
Like on a favourite toy that now sits in the corner abandoned. Its layer of dust gradually becoming thicker and thicker with each day, slowly covering a distant memory until only its vague outline betrays its existence and once past companionship.

Occasionally I have agonised over my lack of posting, only to have my attention violently tugged towards my son's newly discovered ability to babble, or some other thing that is happening in our lives.
Somehow the poor old blog just seemed to get put on the backburner every time.

Maybe it has served its purpose, whatever that was. Come to think of it, the purpose originally was to document our escapades on the motorcycles. Funny how it's changed over time eh?

A couple of days ago I was contemplating the 4 year anniversary of that crash on the 18th of March 2006, which turned my life inside out and upside down.
From being scraped off the bitumen by the paramedics, airflited to the trauma ward, the subsequent half a year of hospitalisation including being bedbound for two months, the relearning of how to walk, to the numerous surgeries right up until last October to finally being able to run again as of last Christmas.
I looked at how different my life is now. Married with a beautiful wife and child, studying photography, enjoying life in general.

With those thoughts running through my head I left work yesterday only to pull over about 200 metres up the road.
On the roundabout was a delivery truck. It was stopped in the middle of the roundabout and my initial thought was that it had either a mechanical failure of some sort or there had been a collision with another vehicle.
As I slowly drove around it I saw what the truck had collided with.

A motorcyclist was lying on the road in front/underneath it, his bike some distance back lying underneath the truck.
It must have just happened as there were two cars that had only just stopped and one woman was getting out of her car.
I pulled over and went to see the rider and was pleasantly surprised that he was conscious.
1/3rd of his back was a bright crimson due to the flanelette shirt having instantly parted company and his skin having been souvenired by the bitumen. Given a lot of his inappropriate clothing had torn away I was able to see some serious bruising around his right hip area as well.
I figured he had sustained some fairly heavy knocks and probably had some fractures and potentially some internal injuries. ( later confirmed by the paramedics as fractures in the clavicle, ribs and pelvis plus bruising, abrasions, cuts, possible internal, spine and neck injuries)

Someone had rung the ambulance and there was a man standing by so I asked him to wave the passing cars on so none would run into us while we attended to the rider.
My recently completed first aid course came into good use indeed and I began to implement what I had learnt.
Thankfully he could wriggle his toes and fingers and didn't seem to think he had much pain in his spine or neck.
I explained to him that he had injuries on his back and hip area and that I know exactly how he feels right now. I also told him he should have been wearing leather, to which he replied that it was too hot. Well, there's the trade off then isn't. Too hot but keep your skin on, versus nice and cool and no skin. Not much of a choice really I reckon.
He was lying in a kind of 45 degree angle and moving around a lot. I wanted him to roll onto his side, in case he decided to vomit into his helmet, but he found that way too painful and preferred to roll onto his back. As he did so he let out an anguished cry and I realised that he sustained some serious pelvic fractures, so I supported his right leg in the most comfortable position.
The woman who pulled up earlier was still there so I asked her to get his phone from the bag on his bike so we could call his family. I spoke to his sister and gave her directions on how to get to where we were.
From there on I just comforted him and kept talking to him until the paramdics arrived.
Once they started attending to his injuries I was left still holding his leg in position and helping the medics, talking to the rider, making sure he doesn't nod off from the morphine and eventually seeing him off as he was loaded onto the stretcher.

I said to the senior paramedic that it was 4 years ago that I was in the rider's position and that it was quite bizarre to now be on the other side and seeing it from such a different perspective.

What a strange way to mark the 4 year anniversary.

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OF MASTITIS, COLDS, PILLS AND A LITTLE POO......

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:29:00 +0000

As if looking after a baby and a husband, who is laid up on the couch as he is not allowed to weight bear on one leg wasn't enough, poor old Snorkmaiden copped her first bout of mastitis.
Fever, flu like symptom accompanied by a sensation of needles flowing through her boobs when she's feeding were not much fun for anyone.
Added to that, she caught an actual cold.
Fortunately we were lucky enough to have mum and sis readily on hand to help out.
So for a while there, the entire family of three was on antibiotics.
There's nothing quite like spending your friday night, lying on the couch and popping pills with your girly.

Wednesday I had an appointment with the plastic surgoen and I was so relieved to have that damned half cast removed off my leg.
By that stage it was already starting to give me sore / pressure points.
Expecting to see a heap of staples holding my leg together, I was surprised to see steri strips ( like sterile sticky tape ) holding the incision closed.
Having prepared myself for the sometimes unpleasant act of staple removal, I now understood why she put a cast on and forbid me to use the leg at all.
Apart from 4 stitches, the skin was left to heal by itself, so any muscular movement from leg use could have potentially torn the skin apart.
After removing the strips and cutting the stitches, new strips were put in place and I was given permission to finally start putting weight on the leg. ( The following day I went for a walk to a mate's café and realised just how quickly the leg had become stiff and useless. )
The surgoen was pleased with the way it was looking, apart from a couple of oozy spots, which should clear up soon enough and I was a bit surprised to see that apart from having a reduced scar, I was now sporting a new incision at the back of the knee.
Basically, the doc had started at the left rear side of the right knee, cut down at 45 degrees towards the right side, then all the way down to the ankle.
The incision at the back of the knee was required to locate the motor control nerves in order to divide them.

Day 12 post op. and I'm still somewhat sore and restricted in movement, but at least I've been getting around without crutches, which is completely different to when my leg was operated on in the first instance back in 2006.
Looking at returning to work next Thursday.

On a completely separate issue, there is nothing quite like your son telling you he loves in his own little special way.
I was giving him a bath a couple of weeks ago.
In order to stop him performing an impersonation of the Titanic I was holding him up against the sloping part of the bath by cupping his bum.
Imagine my amusement when he decided he wanted to have a little bubble bath spa by making his own bubbles.
Then, imagine my abject horror as the water changed colour and little 'bits' started floating about.
With one swift motion he was hoisted up out of the now polluted bath and given a thorough spraying down with the hand held shower.
I'm sure he thought it was all very amusing.

And now, for your viewing pleasure:
Starring: The plastic surgeon with a support role from: my leg..........

The back of the knee. The nerves are the bits with blue tape around them.

Skin graft site reduction on the lower leg.

OF COUCH AND CRUTCHES.........

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:56:00 +0000

Wow, talk about slack.
Over 3 months between posts, sheesh.
So here's a brief synopsis:

Young Thomas is going well. Doing all the things young babies should be doing.
Poo, wee, feed and sleep.

After the initial chaos of having a newborn to deal with, things settled down a bit.
Slowly a routine was established by the new mum, dad and baby.
With mum recovering from the C section we spent the next few weeks finding our feet and learning about the needs and wants of the new addition in our lives.
Pretty steep learning curve it was too, as all new parents will testify.

As mum was recovering from the surgery I was preparing for some more.
This time nothing related to the smash.
I needed 3 wisdom teeth removed and this was done towards the end of the 7 weeks I had off work. All went well with the surgery, but a few days later I got a dry socket infection which required another visit to the dental surgeon.
This time he flushed out a bunch of trapped food in the socket and caused me some of the most awesome pain I have come across.
Being no stranger to pain, this time I was literally speechless and semi rocking in the chair.
Took me about 10-15 min before I could hold a conversation again.
Given the complications, my return to work was delayed by a few more days.

Flushing out the infected socket......

So the weeks rolled on, with mum and bub at home and myself at work.

Whilst I was at home I managed to do a small commercial photography job for a plastics company.
It was certainly a good experience in regards to just how much people don't know what they want, or are unable to communicate it effectively. I learnt quickly that you almost have to be a mind reader, or at least be able to steer them in the right direction, in order to come up with the goods that they will be happy with.

I also managed to get a domain name and host for a future website, but still don't have a logo, so the design has kind of stalled at the moment.

The photography has taken a slight back seat at the moment as one of my main projects is to get the Subaru ready for the outback 3 week trip at Easter.
You may ask why do that now? Well, because by the time Christmas comes, then January, then back to school, then there is no time to get any of it done, so I'd rather get it out of the way now.
There's a bit to do. A cargo barrier was bought and needs to be installed, as we will have more gear in the car now + an extra passenger. A new roof rack / tray to take the tent and fuel cans, the holey exhaust was replaced with a better flowing system, a new carburettor going on, 2 inch body lift kit will be fitted, new rear shock absorbers and I have to make a spare wheel carrier to fit on the rear bumper as the off road spare will not fit into the normal spar tyre spot.
Still a few things left.

As I write this I am lying on the couch recovering from my latest bout with the scalpel.
Tuesday I arrived at the hospital for some plastic surgery on my leg and as I alighted from the car I managed to jam my little finger in the door. Blood was drawn and more pain. I looked at it as a warm up for post surgery.
Thankfully the 3 hour long operation went well and the surgeon managed to divide a motor control nerve to a muscle graft ( which will hopefully allow me to run ) and also take out a 2cm section of scar tissue/ skin graft going from knee to ankle.
I was able to go home after only one night in the hospital, with strict instruction not to put any weight on the right leg until I see the surgeon in one week.
She also mentioned that she may do one more operation to remove another section of scar tissue later on down the track.

For now, it's back to lying around on the couch until further notice.
Here, in no particular order, are some pics of our son Thomas Jakub, as taken by his new parents:

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AND THEN THERE WERE THREE.......

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:08:00 +0000

It's been two weeks, but finally I have had a chance to download the photos off my camera and post on the blog.
After a 36hr labour, followed by a ceasarian section young Thomas made his grand entrance on the 1st of July 2009.
Snorkmaiden was just amazing to watch, putting in a monster effort only to be denied full dilation by 1cm in the end.
All ended well with both mum and bub a little sore but well.
Thomas suffered a bit of jaundice at the start and was placed in a baby solarium to get some extra vitamin D.
The delivery staff were absolutely fantastic, however the post delivery care was pretty bloody ordinary.
From conflicting opinions between medical staff to post operative mum and Thomas sharing a room with a methodone mum who was clearly not all there. ( can't believe it was her 5th child )
Fortunately mum and bub were relocated to a room of their own the next night, all three of us couldn't wait to get out of there and be home.
Once home we slowly started to find our feet and routines.
Thankfully we've had some good help from family members and it's all slowly moving forward.
Snorkmaiden and I appear to have lost our grasp of the english language as well as various other objects ( bub excluded of course ).
Tipping it's it sleep deprivation or something.
Anyway, that's enought for now.
Here are some shots of from the hospital:

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OFFICIALLY OVERDUE BY ONE DAY........

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:39:00 +0000

About a week ago we were fortunate to have been graced by the presence of Maja and JJ who were over from the west coast on a little sojourn.
We joined them and my sister in a restaurant called The Hellenic Republic for dinner. It's literally just around the corner from the old Casa del Pollo Polvoriento and is owned by George Calombaris, one of the judges on the show MasterChef and owner of the fancy pants Press Club eatery and they serve the most delicious Greek tucker.
It was a top night with top company, top grub and top time with my only complaint being that it was all too short.

As of today we are officially overdue.
Baby Cashew was due yesterday and failed to front up.
We can only assume that it's a minor case of stage fright.
It's been a mixture of excitement, impatience, resignation, expectation and anxiety the last few weeks.
We have been trying various techniques and methods to trigger labour.
From authentic Indian curries to raspberry leaf teas and everything in between to no avail.
I have a bottle of red wine riding on it with my boss as to whether it will be a boy or girl. I reckon it will be a boy and he's convinced it'll be a little girl.
I don't really care either way as long as it is all healthy.

In one month I have an appointment with the burns / plastics unit at the hospital to see if we can carry out surgery to divide the motor control nerve to my muscle graft.
This will hopefully allow me to run again.
Having that ability was never as important before as it is now.
I feel that if our little one needs to be run down and caught in order to stop the kid from getting into trouble, I would like to be able to do that.

There have been many moments of uncertainty during my recovery from the motorbike crash.
Some filled with scepticism, others with optimism and others still, with a tinge of fear, especially some of the surgical procedures and prognoses.

This surgery I am hoping will be my last, both in terms of the last I have to go through and also the one to give me back that last bit of mobility I am missing.
The plate in my pelvis still gives me pain, discomfort and restricts my movement, but that one is staying put.
It was difficult and painful enough inserting it in the first place let alone having to go through the same ordeal to get it out.

Due to bubs coming into our lives and the surgery, I will be postponing photography school for six months as I believe it would just be an extra strain on my time and energy and I don't think I could devote as much effort to it as I would like.

Here then is my end of semester folio. I can't quite remember what the exact order was as that is in my visual diary, which is also submitted for marking, but you can get a bit of an idea anyway.

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1 MONTH TO GO AND COUNTING

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:18:00 +0000

Dear blog,
A thousand apologies for neglecting you recently. It's not you, it's me. I promise.
I've just been so busy lately, that I've found it difficult to make time to foster our relationship and rekindle the closeness we once had.

Anyway, the last couple of months have been steadily busy. A sustained continuing mish mash of going to work, preparing for the coming addition to our family, school work and some semblance of a social life shoehorned in there somewhere.
Between managing to maintain a focus on making some head way with my folio and everything involved with the coming birth I am rather happy with the way things are progressing.

After getting my camera back from the repairer I shot some images to be used on a friend's website. I got to a point that I was not able to shoot the subject matter as it was getting too dark for the auto focus to work and the lack of ambient light combined with the tiny viewfinder meant I was not able to focus manually either. As well as that, my preffered zoom lens was playing ( not the one that was repaired ) and that is now also in the camera service centre.
After some thought I made a decision to jump in the deep end and buy a new camera as I figuered My old one had served it's purpose well, but was not up to the job anymore. The old Canon 350D was purchased with the intention of helping me learn how to use a proper camera, and that is exactly what it's done, but now I must move on to bigger and better things.
So with the imminent price hike I bought a Canon 5D Mark II with 24-105mm lens.
Mmmmmm....Tasty.......
The problem is that my old laptop is 3 years old and just like in Star Trek, "she just hasn't got tha power!!" to effectively deal with the file sizes that come from the 21.5mp sensor and progressively get larger and larger as more work is done in Photoshop, which incidentally is an old version and not compatible with the CS3 we use at school.
So.....most of my work on the folio images has to be done at school, which means more time spent away from home and being limited to the amount of work I can actaully do to the images due to time constraints.
Boo....

As it turns out I have to take a 6 month deferral as the 3rd stage only starts in February and I started my schooling in the mid year intake. Oh, well. I will probably need that extra time with the bub coming on anyway, so I'll hold off acquiring more computing power untill then as 6 months can be a long time on the IT world.

Snorkmaiden is going very well. All within specifications according to the obstetrician. We recently attended some pre and post birth classes at the hospital and let me tell you now, no one really wants see video footage of other people giving birth, especially when there are forceps, tearing & talk of C sections involved!
She finished her book on pregnancy and childbirth and has decided that she will not be giving birth after all. Reckons the whole thing sounds terrifying and she's happy to get an entire new wardrobe and stay 8 months preggers for the rest of her life.

Our little Cashew is not so little now and I'm not too sure what kind of organic nut, fruit or vegetable to compare it to. Maybe a kickboxing bunch of carrots? Iit loves using it's mum's spleen as a speedball and liver as a body bag, when it's not using her inestine as a skipping rope that is. It has certainly had bouts of great activity and most times when my hand is placed on the belly it calms down and stops. Not all the time, but definitely a lot. I hope this phenomenon translates into something useful when it's born.

I've been plaing quitar for it and we've both been singing Rainbow Connection. Maybe we can use its familiar tones to settle the bub when it's grumpy on the big bad outside.
Who knows, but the song is certainly fantastic and fun to play.

It is exactly one month to go for both my endo of semester folio and the bub!
Yay!
I just hope the little one can stay inside until the folio is well and truly printed, mounted and presented.

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3 YEARS LATER...................

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:44:00 +0000

18th March 2006.
18th March 2007.
18th March 2008.

3 years on from that fateful day and I find myself in a totally alien position.
Lying on the road / helicopter ambulance stretcher / hospital bed, I don't think that even in my wildest drug induced dreams I would have imagined myself in this situation.
Gone from bed bound on a regular diet of morphine and other drugs, surgeries, stints with a plastic bubble over my head in the hyperbaric chamber, to a relatively physically capable husband with a gorgeous wife and a baby on the way, working full time and studying photography part time.

At the moment I am waiting to see the plastic surgeon in regards to the muscle flap on my leg that was sliced off the calf and flipped over to cover the metal on the side of the knee. As it is still attached to the rest of the calf muscle, the sensation and motor control nerves are still functioning. What this means in real terms is that if something touches the side of my knee, it actually feels like it is touching the inside of my calf muscle. That I can live with, but what is troubling me is that whenever I use the calf muscle for its intended purpose, the flap contracts too and feels like it's pulling tendons and what not across the side of the knee. Not to mention that it cramps up after prolonged strained use ( which is not all that long ).
The result is that I am unable to run as I cannot put full strength / force through that muscle. I can do a slow limping jog, but feel that I could do more if the motor control nerve was snipped.
I don't want to run any marathons, just be able to run a short distance if the need arises, or one day to be able to indulge in that sort of behaviour with my daughter/son.

I still find myself looking on in a third person kind of way and thinking just how bizarrely the world turns and how I should never take anything for granted though.
I am busier right now than I have been in a long time and yet I feel full of energy to tackle my regular duties and the potential circus that will be the threesome at the end of June.

Actually, it's a circus at the moment, what with all the baby books to read and preparations to get under way.
We are still gathering baby 'stuff' and have so far managed to accumulate a pretty sweet cot off ebay, a heap of sheets, bottle insulators, change mat and clothes from a garage sale, which we got word of from my sister, a car seat, steriliser, and some presents like the baby jumps suits from Snorky's mum and and alpaca jumper my father bought in Argentina when working there.
Yet there is more 'stuff' to acquire, but I reckon it will all come together in it's own time and way.

I am still waiting to get my camera fixed. The insurance company is dragging it's feet and has assigned their number one 'useless employee of the month' to my case. I received a phone call from a confused case worker not understanding all the paperwork I sent in with my claim. This is after I made sure that I filled out all their required forms, and supplied all the information and paperwork they could ever possibly need to make a decision. Reports, quotes for repair and / or replacement, receipts, little notes to clarify certain bits of paperwork, etc.
So, after patiently and calmly talking to the dufus "Can you see the figure on the form in front of you? Good, that's the part with the amount and the note explaining the sum, etc " I was informed that it's all too complicated and that the claim will have to be forwarded onto another dufus who is paid $2.42/hr more so they can make the decision.
Bearing in mind that when I called them a couple of weeks ago to see how the claim is going, I spent 1hr 50min on hold. That's even before I got to talk to an actual real live person!
My recommendation is: Do not under any circumstances take out travel insurance with RACV or Mondial!!! It will drive you to drink, and commit acts of violence upon your telephone handpiece.
In the end I gave the camera repair shop the go ahead to repair the camera and lens as I really miss it and need it for school.
I'll deal with the insurance company in good time. In the mean time, at least I have my 'Hoff to shoot with.

So, in short: 3 years on and life is good. Who knows what the next 3 will bring? But for now it's full steam ahead.
Thank you to all who helped in their own ways. You know who you are so please don't ever hesitate if you need the favour returned any time. I will gladly do what I can and just hope I never have to return it in the same circumstances.

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2.5........ OR HALF WAY TO 3...............

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:32:00 +0000

Been getting slack with the postings lately and suffering some sort of interweb guilt trip.
I know the whole point of blogging is to keep it regular, but I've been finding it harder and harder lately, for no apparent reason.
It's not like there's been a lack of things to write about, it's just that I seem to be preoccupied with general life stuff.
Anyway, I digress.

The morning sickness has abated pretty much since we came back from the Claytons honeymoon on rockin' Norfolk Island.
I think at a later time we will organise another honeymoon, preferably at a more reliable location, but that won't be some time.

"Wow. Look at my belly! It's only half done. Just how much bigger am I going to get!?" - Snorkmaiden looking at maternity clothes.

This pregnancy caper is an interesting thing eh?
We've just reached the half way mark and the further we get into it the more decisions there are to make.
What style of pram? Cot? Name? etc
There is the inevitable array of volunteered advice and luckily for us it has mostly been helpful.
If we thought the amount of advice was overwhelming and plentiful then we weren't ready for the simply stupefying plethora of choices when it came to prams!
They range form the extremely cheap and dubiously constructed to the ridiculously overpriced for something that doesn't even fold down. And if you can afford the $4000+ price tag then you can probably afford a nanny, the wet nurse, and the therapy sessions for your child when they get an unloved complex in their teenage years and turn into an emo, spending the most productive of their hours writing atrociously bad and depressing ( to read ) poetry, listening to equally atrocious music, practicing their sullen expression in the mirror ( let's face it there is only one ), in between making pathetic incisions into their forearms and thighs because they don't have the balls to actually cut their wrists.

We found ourselves asking total strangers about the prams they were wheeling and pretty much always got the same result. "Yeah, it's great."
I guess no new parent is going to admit in public that they bought a dud because they let their partner do the choosing, or bought on the basis of colour, or got sucked in by the sales person.
One memorable moment occurred when we went to a baby shop for our first real look at prams.
Outside in the car park was a couple. The pram appeared to be semi disassembled. The woman standing helplessly aside whilst the man became more and more confused as to why the thing wasn't folding down.

"Its been great for the last four months, but for some reason just will not fold down."

It was scary watching this normal looking man, squatting next to the recalcitrant pile of me metal and plastic, initially pushing with testing force, then disappearing to get a screwdriver, poking around with that for a while, applying more force with the screwdriver, levering, stabbing, progressively becoming further frustrated and finally just when I thought he was going to revert to his primordial state and begin hitting the pram with the screwdriver á la the beating of the apes in Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey, he popped some little catch and the source of his frustration finally capitulated and relented to his demands.

Our criteria were relatively basic. Because we live in an apartment we had to have something that is failry compact, but because we ( read I ) plan to have a couple of littlies then we really need something that will carry a toddler and newborn. This is especially important when one parent is out and about by themselves, but not the side by side models due to the fact that these things are just plain bad manners in public, what with taking up the whole footpath and the like.
We really hoped for a 4 wheeler as we have heard many complaints about the lack of stability of 3 wheelers. After checking out a few and reading reviews I found one that I think will be just fine. Only problem is, the thing isn't expected to be released for about a month or two after the bub's supposed to be born.
We'll see in time I guess.
I did find a curious Italian model though which appealed to me with it's linked 4 wheel steering. Seemed like a really good prospect until I roadtested one and found that it will not reverse in a straight line but with the slightest of rearward movement wants to take off in every direction but straight back. The other problem was that I mistook the linked steering system for something that might actually aid maneuverability. By my reckoning, a fully laden road train would have a smaller turning circle.

Our first 10 week scan was probably the turning point for me as this was the first time I saw the baby actually moving around and it's little heart beating. ( good to see it has as sense of rhythm )
On the second, 20 week scan I was actually able to see some of the bub's face and and we also heard the heartbeat. This had an uncanny resemblance to Rolf Harris' wobble board. ( a bit disturbing really as it started a train of thoughts in my head as to the real identity of the baby's father )
But all the signs are good so far, which has been a bit of a relief for me as I was a little concerned that all those DVD's of digital and 6.3 kilos of film x-rays I received in hospital might have played havoc with my swimmers.

We have talked a little about names. Snorky seems to think we should get a short list of male and female names together and choose from them, where as I am more keen to see what the baby looks like and how it behaves and then make a decision based on that. I think we will strike some sort of happy middle ground where we make a short list and then given a few days, make a final choice.

So this interesting part in our lives rolls on and I can only imagine what the next four and half months are going to bring, let alone the post birth era.
Here are two images for my first assignment this semester. Works in progress / test shots, and taken with Snorky's old camera as mine is still in the repair shop.

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IF IT LOOKS LIKE A DUCK AND QUACKS LIKE A DUCK......or more Norfolk Ramblings.....

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:49:00 +0000

It would appear that my previous post has pinged up on the Norfolk Island bad publicity radar.
Like all people, including idiots, I am entitled to my own opinions, which I generally feel are well informed, and I expect to be corrected or informed otherwise if my knowledge has holes in it. I welcome all debate /discussion and embrace the freedom of speech that the internet offers. The email link on my profile is proof of that. I can be identified by the many photos and references and am willing to divulge my full name and details if someone was to request them by personal email and had a damn good reason to do so.
Becj55's profile seems to contain absolutely nothing to identify him or her and the anonymous comment is even worse in it's concealment of identity. So if these people ( or same person ) can't be contacted by normal means then I'm sure they will get my reply as it pings up again.
I received the following comments:
Becj55 said...: You are kidding me right? Norfolk Island is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and if anyone decides not to go to Norfolk because of your comments well that's nothing but a damn right shame. I am 31 and have been to Norfolk 3 times now. What a fantastic place to get away from the ratrace of the mainland. It's great not having to answer a mobile phone every few seconds and can just relax on the beach. As for nothing to do... what about a massage or ride a horse along the sand or play a round of golf, go fishing, go on a progressive dinner, visit the gallery, do some shopping (well that's to name a few things anyhow.) Nothing to do? You've got to be joking. I have no idea what brochures or websites you were looking at but everytime I have been it has been great. I really don't understand what it is you were expecting! I have met some of the friendliest people in the world and them keeping their traditions for hundreds of years is a credit to them. Maybe if you had have stopped winging for 5 minutes and spent more time doing what your supposed to do on your honeymoon you may have enjoyed your time more.

Becj55 - For starters, you clearly do not know how to relax. Your comment about not having to constantly answer your mobile phone shows that you have not worked out how to turn it off. I don't need to fly anywhere in order to relax. We were merely after a short honeymoon in the Pacific and chose Norfolk as it sounded interesting. I never said that you couldn't relax on the island, in fact that's part of the reason we went there and indeed we did do a lot of relaxing, but as written it wasn't always by choice.

We did indeed visit a gallery or 3. Well, we tried. One was closed with no signs saying what the opening hours are. The museum was closed when it was advertised by signage as being open.

Golf, not particularly into it myself and my pregnant wife certainly wasn't up for any prolonged physical exertion due mainly to still getting over a cold, which you would have realised if you'd actually read the post properly, and she was still experiencing morning sickness. As for horse riding, refer to previous reason and, well you work that one out genius. FYI horse riding is one of those "do not do" things on the pregnancy list.

Shopping? I can go shopping for nearly all those products available right here in Melbourne. Why would I want to spend my time doing something I can do at home?
We did indeed go on a progressive dinner and that wasn't too bad. But it did not make up for all the unsuccessful attempts at organising our own tours or visiting places of interest.
For the most part, the locals were friendly enough. I never said that they weren't.

There are many other negative things that occurred on the island which I haven't mentioned in the previous post, but seeing as you seem to think that I need to validate my opinion further I will do that just for you. Please read on.

Anonymous said...: Oh Zuba,
what a shame you have let your preconceived attitude ruin your holiday. Had you gone with an open mind you might just have allowed yourself to enjoy Norfolk. Locally made goods abound, obviously you didnt look far. there are some truly beautiful items, art etc available.
I guess living in a city you dont have the ability to appreciate life in the slow lane. FYI Mobile phones were introduced in 2006,not 1997. & holding a referendum for a roundabout shows democracy is alive & well. How many times have you moaned about things your local Govt has done, & wished you had a say? Well on Norfolk everyone can have their say. You wont find a more caring community anywhere, & the pity is that you missed the point completely. Fancy going on about Pitcairn, whats that got to do with it ? its 3000 miles away for goodness sake. Sure the people are proud of their heritage, thats how it should be. People go to Australia & show an interest in Aboriginal history, thats what people do when they visit somewhere new.
Its not like Australia is perfect, or crime-free, especially Melbourne !!!
As it happens Norfolk is the biggest Return destination in the southern hemisphere, they cant all be idiots. I know people who return there for holidays 15, 17, 22 times. it is incredible. people form a bond with this beautiful place.
It is safe, friendly, relaxed & picturesque. Bet you have to lock your place up like Fort Knox just to go into the back garden (if you even have one) On Norfolk folks can go out all day & leave the keys in their car & the house unlocked.
Yep Zuba, you missed the point.
& as they say on Norfolk "Sorry fer et" ... meaning 'sorry for it, or "we're sorry for you" !

Locally made goods: The pottery was ok, as was the screen printer who offered fabric and paper prints as well as various articles of clothing etc. ( we purchased some items from here as gift ) The gallery at the cyclerama had some wonderful pieces but they weren't all locally made. We also bought some locally grown coffee to give out as gifts.

It is true that I live in a city. I did however spend 18 years of my life living in a semi rural place and regulalry travel into the countyside. I enjoy bushwalking and camping, as well touring by car and pre semitrailer crash, by motorbike. I also enjoy fishing and photography which are both very "slow lane" pastimes. So your comment about my not being able to appreciate life in the slow lane is completely unfounded.

You say I stated that mobile phones were introduced in 1997. Not sure where you got that from. I actually wrote "last year". I was wrong in stating that as I actually meant to say a year ago. That is what a local told me. I guess having written the post in January and not December I must been stuck in the slow lane. For that I apologise and thank you for incorrectly bringing it to my attention.

As for needing a roundabout referendum and that showing that democracy works, well it's just seems a little absurd. If you have a referendum about something so trivial then you really have too much time on your hands. I wonder how long the debate was about the speed hump in the middle of it and which way it should be aligned. If I really want to get things done by local government I would start a petition or run for election myself.

You ask what Pitcairn has to do with it yeah? Considering the local population refer to it relentlessly, that all the "true locals" can trace their lineage directly to it, souvenirs are sold with Bounty motifs, there are staged plays about the mutiny and all the guide books and brochures state it as a major point of interest I'd say that it has a lot to do with it. "Being proud of heritage" Interesting. Let's refer back to my previous post in which that period between the mutiny on the bounty and the resettlement on Norfolk was abounds with dastardly deeds. These are the foundations on which the current population was built upon. I'm not saying that the current population is anything like that, but that is a part of the "heritage" and while you might find it ok to exploit the Bounty/ Pitcairn connection for profit you have to accept the rest of the story and acknowledge it, and therefore wear it. No place in the world is without skeletons in the closet, but you can't stand up and say that Pitcairn has nothing to do with Norfolk when it doesn't suit you. We visited somewhere new, showed an interest and learnt something new about Norfuk and Pitkern Ailen. If that doesn't sit well with you then tough.

Crime free Australia: Considering the non aboriginal population was made up of convicts and their overseers, much the same as the original Norfuk Ailen settlers, we could never be crime free. It's in our 'heritage', our original sins. Come to think of it Pitcairn was settled by mutineers who abducted unsuspecting Tahitians. Hmmm, it would appear we are all guilty in one way or another. Yes, one is able to leave cars with keys in the ignition parked on the street, but it would be rather difficult to avoid the authorities on a 8x6km island after having stolen one. I do indeed have to lock my doors when I leave my abode. That is what people do. That is why we have locks and keys and security devices yeah? There are plenty of ratbags out there who will take advantage of lack of security. That is also why we have a police department and judicial system.

In short, I only wrote about our experience in an honest manner and even left out other unsavoury experiences as I didn't want to harp on about how crap things were, but I feel you leave me no choice but to bring some more of these to light in order to underline our distaste.
That was our experience and we can only thank the local tourism infrastructure and operators for making it happen.

Fish: We went to an eatery which specialised in things oceanic. The fish served to my wife resembled a sponge that had been left in a bowl of cooking oil to soak up every last drop. I kid you not, you could have squeezed it and watched as the oil poured out of it. On another occasion we went to a higher end eatery and were served with the most delicious beef and lamb. Thinking that these people could actually cook, we returned to try some of their fish and pork. The fish was hard, dry, rubbery and resembled a cheap piece of slip on footwear in texture. The pork was tough as nails and resembled an old leather boot in texture according to my wife.

One particular lunch my wife was tucking in to a warm beef salad. She had only got a couple mouthfuls in when she realised that the salad component was about to walk off the plate all on its Pat Malone. There were aphids all through it.

The Italian eatery served her a ravioli dish in which the ravioli was not cooked through.

The leagues club would not serve lunch as we were a few minutes early.

(I must say that Dino's restaurant was the only place we went for dinner that actually had fantastic service, great food and a gorgeous setting. Highly recommend that one.)

The winery owner's attempts at humour came off as derogatory and arrogant quips about the city and country we live in. He seemed to think that he knew all that there was to know about wine and that the silly city slickers had no idea at all. Pardon me for questioning the warm and humid tropical like climate's suitability for growing good wine fruit.

The scenic flight's were off as the Cessna was due for it's 100 hour service and no one was able to tell us when that would happen.

Two kinds of fruit are available. Bananas and papaya. I understand that this a seasonal thing, but surely someone must be able to grow other kinds of fruit. Hell, if the climate is supposedly good enough for grapes then other fruit varieties must be a walk in the park.

Seafood. I was hoping that being an island in the Pacific I could sample some of the fine oceanic offerings. I was disappointed to find the prawns came from Queensland and the oysters from New Zealand. I can buy these at home anytime I feel the need.

Shopping. How many stores do you really need selling assorted trashy bric a brac like little statues of Spaniels, Chinese manufactured trinkets and novelties. If I needed Italian goods I could buy them here. If I wanted jewellery I could buy it here. If I desired Swiss products I could buy them here. A point and shoot 35mm film camera, now they're really popular.

Anyway, some friends have arrived and I have wasted enough time on this reply.
I hope this clears up any questions as to the validity of my opinion.

.

THE HONEYMOONERS.....

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:28:00 +0000

Norfolk Island.

What a queer little place that little 8 x 6km pimple in the Pacific Ocean is.
I thought that the subtropical Australian territory would have some of the things we tend to associate with the Pacific like: pretty scenery, nice weather, friendly locals, tasty fruits of land and sea and a chance to relax after the hectic months leading up the wedding and end of school.

In some respects it was exactly that. With a low to mid twenties temperature and humidity levels not too oppressive and pretty scenery, it definitely lent itself to some serious R & R.
What did let it down was the appalling lack of decent food and generally poor service.
Tour operators who don't call you for days to confirm bookings.
Museums doors firmly locked at advertised opening hours.
Accommodation operators who double book your cottage and force you to find alternative accommodation for part of your stay.
Tourism Awards Gold Medal winning restaurateurs who serve deep fried duck spring rolls which are fridge cold inside, even after being told expressly that all food served must be cooked thoroughly due to my wife being pregnant. Not to mention the wine served in glasses which I assume were cleaned with skanky tea towels and smelled like they had been used by a brick layer to dry his armpits after a day on the job.

We tried to find some quality locally made products to buy as souvenirs for ourselves and friends but there was a distinct lack of any such thing. Most merchants were selling things that you could buy in any half decent sized city in the world, their only draw card being that it was duty free, which of course does not mean profit free. I thought I might be able to get a replacement digital camera body as I had dropped mine prior to leaving Melbourne and stuffed it. The lens wouldn't focus and the body was playing up. I took it with me anyway with a different lens and it worked for a few days before finally fizzling out into an unusable mass of formerly expensive metal, silicone and electronic components. But alas, I could not find the equivalent model. All I can say is thank goodness for travel insurance, which incidentally we will also be claiming cancellation expenses on due to my dear wife catching a cold and not being able to fly out on the nominated date. Instead our 10 day stay was cut to 7 and in all honesty I don't think we could have stayed there much longer.

The place was very backward in many ways. They only got mobile phones last year, TV in 1987, they have one roundabout in the main town area. They had to hold a referendum to decide whether to build it or not for crying out loud! And if that wasn't enough they put a bloody speed hump in the middle of it!

The whole island appears to earn it's main income from tourism and that consists mainly of retirees who are infatuated with the Mutiny on the Bounty story and Norfolk Island's link to this historical event by way of Pitcairn Island's population being resettled there in 1856, not long after the Norfolk Island penal colony was abandoned. All you hear from the locals is how they are 7th or 8th generation descendants of the 7 or so families that were resettled and the silver haired brigade just lap it up.
One interesting throwback is the local language which is a mix of ye olde worlde maritime English with a sprinkling of Tahitian. It almost sounds like a very thick Irish accent, but with some clearly unrecognisable words thrown in every now and again.
Like "Watawey yorlei?" (the local greeting) which translated would mean something to the effect of "In what way are all ye?" So from a linguistic point of view it is the only place you can hear English spoken in a way that resembles closely how it would have been spoken 200 years ago.

People seem to have some sort of infatuation with the Mutiny saga and all that's come from it.
As far as I can tell it all started when the mutineers took the Bounty, kidnapped some Tahitian men and women, found Pitcairn Island, burnt the ship and proceeded to kill and inbreed with each other. In 1856 the population was resettled on Norfolk and some of the settlers went back to that godforsaken rock in the middle of nowhere, Pitcairn, where they proceeded to inbreed and rape each other and each other's children for the next 150 years under the guise of living like good little Seventh Day Adventists, culminating in the sex offence trials.
It beats me how all this real life Lord of the Flies shit can possibly seem appealing to people, but apparently it does.

Our last night's dinner was had at another supposedly good restaurant where seated at the table next to us was the only genuine Pitcairn Islander on Norfolk. It turned out his father Steve Christian and brother Randy were charged, convicted and sentenced at the trials. This particular chap was also looking at having charges laid against him, but one by one the victims withdrew their testimonies due to family pressures coming from Pitcairn.
I was reading a book about the trials Pitcairn Paradise Lost written by a journalist who covered them, but I hadn't got to that part yet.
The islander was very friendly and exuded a natural charm. As far as I can gather, this is how Pitcairn Islanders buttered people up through the ages and managed to maintain that facade of Pacific Island Pious Paradise.

My opinion , for all it's worth, is that Pitcairn islanders have proven that they are unable to lead normal lives as either westerners or Pacific islanders. Their behaviour and consistent abuse of power and trust amongst themselves, their gross indecency and sexual depravity and their general modus operandi is very much the same as has been seen in weird religious cults and sects. One interesting thing is that none of the men offended when ever they were overseas, only in their community, which proves that they knew it was wrong,
The population should really be once again resettled on Norfolk Island where they can happily interact with their descendants and at least have an eye kept on them.
It would save a lot of money trying to prop up this pathetic remnant of the past and at the same time hopefully save future generations the misery and horror of what the present and previous ones have had to go through.
Having said all that, there was a minute portion of islanders who were not involved in the crimes, but not doing anything about them is almost as bad as having performed the acts themselves.

FYI, for people who have been living in the Pacific for over 200 years, the Norfolk restaurants have no idea how to cook fish.

The general feel is that the Norfolk islanders know where their bread and butter is coming from and appear to do the bare minimum required to separate the tourists from their money. The preferred method is to put everyone on collective tours. We found that trying to go it alone is not very fruitful and as a result we spent a lot time at the beach, swimming, reading, lying around. Very relaxing, but even though we were after some relaxation we expected it to be by choice not force, as there really wasn't much else to do.

Anyway, here are some photos:

The view from our cottage.

The bay where we spent a lot of time.

More time at the bay.

Surgeon's cottage

Inside the cottage.

Kingston Pier

More Kingston Pier

And now for some Kingston Pier boats:

Photography..........

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:35:00 +0000

Honeymoon is over, and that is another story for another day. In short, all I can say is Norfolk Island is interesting. If you're 67 years of age. But that will be for another post.

Meanwhile, here is my end of semester folio as submitted for my photography course.
We shot in RAW format and there is no processing apart from converting the images from RAW to JPEG format, as we were meant to be learning about image design and camera technical skills.
Enjoy and stay tuned for the honeymoon saga .

Landscape

People

Architecture

Documentary

Still Life

Conceptual 1 (reflections)

Conceptual 2 (blur)

So there you have it.
Proof conclusive that I had actually been doing stuff apart from writing about it.
Oh, and my results were 5 High Distinctions and 1 Distinction.

.

MR & MRS......

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:07:00 +0000

Officially married and all!!!!!
The wedding day has come and gone. It's been a week, but we are still savouring the moment.
I was a little afraid that it would all just fly past. Wake up, get dressed, wed, reception, home & sleepy bo bos. That was not the case and we were both able to really soak up the atmosphere and the enjoy ourselves.
As my father was not able to make it I wanted to set up a video call on the interwebs to Patagonia. The connection dropped out a couple of times but my trusty IT officer and ring bearer Gino was on the case and got it back up rather promptly. I was so relieved to find this out from my dad a couple days after the ceremony as we'd left the video camera at the apartment meaning we have no video footage of the event, apart from about 21 seconds a mate had recorded at the reception.
No biggie really as the main point of it was to have something for my father in case the link didn't work.

The ceremony went pretty smoothly and having Fr. Bob there really made it a lot less tense. He is the kind of priest who is more about the intent and honesty of the occasion rather than pomp and ceremony, which suited us just fine. His attempts to pronounce my name correctly were highly amusing to all as was his quip about the marriage certificate serial number on the back of the document: "Anywhere you go in the world, just ring this number and it will protect you from the terrorists."
I was a lot less nervous than I expected to be and the actual moment of our wedding just felt right somehow.
I knew this was the place I had to be right now in my life.
Very much like how I knew that something didn't feel right that day when I chose to ignore my intuition and go for that motorbike ride in March 2006.

As we stepped out of the church as Mr & Mrs K one last straggling guest arrived and asked if he was late. "Nah mate, you've only missed the whole thing."
He got lost and ended up in a nearby suburb, which is quite a feat considering he lives in Melbourne.

Time for some photos outside the church, many congratulations and then it was off to get some nice photos done by a couple of my fellow photography students, both of whom are very talented girls. Earlier that week the weather was looking like it might be rather inclement so I took the precaution of contacting the people running the car ferry service to Tasmania to see if we could do the shoot on the pier, given it has a roof. They said it was ok and I should just talk to the security people on the day to be let in. That was fine except that they didn't mention that it was not their security who would be passing judgement on the day, but the Port Authority. This high vis. vest wearing fascist said there was no way we were getting the wedding cars on the pier. We could go, but the cars stay. A phonecall to his superior yielded no results and we gave up on the idea and chose to do some carless shots on a nearby pier, which worked out quite nicely in the end.
Melanie, the bridesmaid did an excpetional job of looking after the bride, her dress and due to the high winds a partially self destructing veil, whilst managing to restrain her own outfit from going fully Marilyn Monroe on her in the blustery conditions, and managing to avoid sinking her heels in between the boards on the pier........mostly.

Then it was off to a little nearby bar / café for some well earned drinks and some more photos.

The reception!!!
Good time was had by all here and my favourite and most nerve wracking moment was when I serenaded my luverly with an old Sinatra number "I've Got You Under My Skin."
A couple of weeks prior, I sent out some CD's with the track on them and a letter of instruction outlining what I wanted to happen on the day. So without any rehearsal, I had Astrid ( from my very first band ) on guitar, her husband along with my mum and sis, some mates from the conservatorium days on kazoos and Brenton on the millet broom to provide some swingin' rhythm.
I started off with guitar, vocals and some finger clicking, proceeded to forget the line in the next verse ( something about the affair never going so well, which was really the only line in the song that didn't really apply to us anyway ). When it came time for the brass / woodwind solo section I pulled the luverly bride up for a short dance as the remaining musos pulled out the kazoos and ripped into the solo. Topped it off with the last verse and a kiss.
I think this is the 21 seconds of footage that was recorded on the phone camera. Might see about getting this up on Flickr.

About 21:30 the morning sickenss kicked in and the bride joined the fraternity of millions who have a spit at weddings. Being an experienced spewer now, she knows when it's coming on and has time to get to the WC.
From there it was a case of trying to bring the Black Cab booking forward and we ended up leaving about the 22:30 mark.

We really did enjoy the day and were so glad to have our friends and loved ones who were able to attend, over for the occasion. Especially those who came from interstate and on such short notice. Some people I hadn't seen in years in fact, but such is the strength of our relationships that it felt like we never moved apart, physically or emotionally.

Wednesday the 10th Dec to the 20th we will be on our honeymoon on rockin' Norfolk Island!!! for some serious r&r.
Then it's Christmas and New Year's.
After that we might have some time and energy to start planning for the bub that is due at the end of June.

Until we get some images back for the photographers, here are some shots from the Flickr account my little sister set up for us.
Many thanks go out to mum, sis, Bec, Amanda, Gino & Melissa, and all those who helped organise, decorate, entertain on the day.

In case of lack of posting between now and then, all the best for the Christmas period and hope you all have a cracker of a New Year!

.

ONE LAST NIGHT...........

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 11:15:00 +0000

This being my last night as a single man I felt compelled to write something about it.
Our wedding plans have come to fruition and with some much needed help tomorrow at 3:30 I will be officially ending my single status and beginning a new life as a an expectant husband.
Sounds kind of weird when I put it like that, but that is the sum of it.

Had my bucks night last night and it didn't really turn out the way it was planned. We were going to race go karts and then hit the booze at various inner northern Melbourne locales, but due to some rather inclement weather the karting place cancelled on us, even though we thought they rain had stopped and were still keen to race. So instead we went on a boozy bender at the aforementioned locales, the last of which was a pretty dodgy place called the Croxton Park Hotel. This classy establishement runs over 28's singles nights every Friday and it was about 2 in the morning when we set foot in the place. Over 28's night sounds like it would attract some desperate people and by the time we arrived, there were only the really desperate ones that hadn't picked up but were still optimistically cutting the rug with some delusional expectation that by prolonging the agony they will end up in someones arms or loins that night.
By this point I'd had more than my fair share of beer, a goat pie + salad and some late night kebab whose contents I can't remember but which my stomach and arse kept reminding me of for the rest of Saturday.
Pissy dancing with the remaining 4 mates of my bucks crew took on a whole new face. I think we injected a bit of life into the stale dance floor and I can vaguely remember deliberately trying to dance with some of the blokes who were attempting to get a foot in with the girls but who clearly had no chance and were probably wondering why this pissed dude is trying to hit on them.
After a while we couldn't stand it any longer and just had to leave the seedy joint.

Today I have nursed a thumper of a hangover, met up with the best man, his wife an 6 month old bub, had a luverly meal on Lygon Street and now am about to sleep one last night as a single man.

Tomorrow is the start of a whole new chapter......

2 WEEKS AND COUNTING........

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:09:00 +0000

What a fully hectic couple of weeks it's been.
The first week was spent basically mentally running around flapping.
The decision to bring the wedding forward seemed a lot easier to come to at the time, but after a while the reality seeped in and the truly daunting goal ahead looked further than I ever expected.
The big things were organised initially, like the venue, church, cars, photographer, etc. Snormaiden already had her dress so that was sorted, but so many things still needed doing.
Her morning sickness doesn't help either. Poor missy is spending a lot of the time gagging and the likes. I hate being sick, but can't even remotely imagine what it must be like day in day out.
I tried to tell her to look on the bright side, that it's a good abs workout, but I don't think she saw it my way.

The invites: we'd bought all the paper and necessary materials to make them but time was against us, so we opted for nicely made email invites instead. Originally the plan was to have deep red textured card with a piece of khadi paper on the front on which I was going to paint two storks / cranes using black and red ink. Inside was going to have a different transluscent white paper with all the writing. The whole lot was going to be slipped into black envelopes and sealed with a wax seal. Fortunately my sister, Bec and Snorky put together a really nice electronic invite.
These three also managed to put together a good play list for the reception. I originally contacted a Maori guitarist / singer I knew from Tasmania, but that fell through.
I'm still debating whether to have instruments at the wedding so we can have a jam, we'll see.

Mum has been fantastic in helping out, especially with the decoration of the reception venue. She has come up with some very simple yet effective ideas that will help personalise the room for us.

The suits!! Still hadn't sorted that out, so it as off to the suit hirer. Managed to pick out a couple of nice black numbers with textured black pin stripes, should do the trick. Need to get a good shirt too, probably do that when the best man arrives from interstate.

As it turns out my father will not be able to make as he is working at a mine in Patagonia. They had a day last week where the container sized portable office he was in was pushed a foot, later some more and after he evacuated, the whole thing was rolled and landed windows & door face down. The average wind speed for that day was 187km/h with the maximum at 250km/h, mind you the wind gauge only went to 250 km/h. He reckons in reality it was probably more like 270ish. Anyway, I digress. I think we'll be able to do an internet camera link up at the church so he can watch it live.

I managed to get two major end of semester projects handed in on time and still have my folio to hand in which I think is due in the Tuesday before the wedding.

Today we both got our footwear organised. Snorky finally found a pair of simple elegant cream closed toe medium heel numbers that she was pleased with. I on the other hand had great issues trying to find a pair of boots I liked and yesterday sent off a last ditch desperate email explaining my dilemma to RM Williams to see if they could help me with a custom made boot. To my eyebrow raising surprise they said they could manufacture the exact boot I was after and have it delivered overnight from interstate 4 days before the wedding. Pretty good considering that's less than 2 weeks away and their normal time for custom boots is around 6 weeks.

We have been leaning heavily on friends and relatives in terms of assistance and they have all been most supportive. It's good to know we have people we can count on. If any of you are reading this, we'll probably have to lean some more before this show is over!

Here's hoping the next two weeks ease up a little so we have some breathing room to actually enjoy the build up.

And here are a couple of shots from the Melbourne Cup "Run To The Hills" Camping Extravaganza:

WEDDING, PARTIES, ANYTHING........

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:23:00 +0000

31 October 2008

Things have been rather busy lately. What with the semester coming to an end and end of term assignments due, as well as all the usual stuff that goes on.
You'd think that by now I would have built up an immunity to surprises, but as it turns out that's just not the case.
A week ago I was merrily doing the washing up when out of the bathroom comes Snorkmaiden. In her hand was something that resembles one of those little flat plastic stirring sticks you get with your instant coffee at late night petrol stations.

"I'm pregnant."

"Ok, let me just finish up the washing babe."

As it turned out she had bought one of those pregnancy test kits from the chemist and used up both test strips. Result: 2 positive tests.
Now, I wasn't totally in denial but I was hoping that maybe there was some weird biological thing going on that caused an overproduction of whatever chemical or hormone that sets off the test strips.
So, it was off to the doctor on the weekend for a blood test which should prove conclusively what we both suspected.
The doctor on duty was a strange cat I had seen before when I had the staples removed from my last operation. He looked like a cross between Tattoo from Fantasy Island and some sort of bad guy from a 60's or 70's James Bond film.
In his white old school doctor's outfit, which to me looked like a leisure / safari suit, he appeared like he'd been time transported to a time that was not his own.
After taking a blood sample he gave some encouraging words in his heavy Indian accent and we were sent off to await the results which we would receive the following Tuesday.

Tuesday 0830 hrs.
D day.
Test result: +
4-5 weeks pregnant.

Now, the wedding was planned for March 2009 and we had some things to think about.
Snorky didn't fancy the idea of having her wedding dress altered so much that it would require the cannibalisation of another outfit to make it fit.
At this point we had to make a decision.
Do we postpone the wedding until after the baby is born or do we move it forward?
We opted for the latter.

So many things to do, so many calls to make.
After calling our respective managers to tell them we would not be in for the rest of the day we started on the potentially impossible task of organising a wedding with one month to go.
As the financial advisor and the jeweller who crafted the engagement ring were very close to each other we paid them both a visit. The financial plan had to be altered to accommodate the baby that was coming a year ahead of schedule and the wedding bands had to be made up.
After that it was off to the church to see Fr. Bob McGuire. He was able to fit us in for the 30th November and considering it is a civil requirement to lodge an intention to marry at least 1 month before the date we made it with just a couple of days to spare. The reception venue couldn't give us the room we had booked and put a $1000 deposit on, but were able to accommodate us in another one. Considering the time of year and all the Christmas functions going on it was incredible that we managed to get in at all.
The wedding car people also made both the cars we booked available and despite the wedding now being on a weekend not a weekday, kept the same discounted rate.
After that it was off to check some suits for me and then to see the wedding dress people to see if they can still supply the dress on time and carry out final fitting / alterations.
That evening I spoke to the photographer who is one of my fellow students and she was also able to do the deed on the said day.

So, bar some smaller doable details the majority of the wedding was planned out and set in concrete in one day.
That day there were texts sent out alerting of the change of date and we were genuinely surprised as to the number of people who have committed to attending, especially with such short notice and with many coming from interstate.

I'm off for the annual Melbourne Cup Camping Extravaganza for four days in the alpine region of Victoria to camp by the
Howqua River.
Then back to work, school and wedding planning.

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ALL ABOUT KNOWING YER ARSE FROM YER ELBOW......

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:54:00 +0000

I saw my pelvis surgeon last week, just for a routine review. I popped into radiology, once again got irradiated in the nether regions and made my way to his surgery. Max is a gun surgeon with a very straight up almost manic manner of discussing things medical, but combined with a subtle yet dry sense of humour. Upon walking into the surgery he immediately had to ask why my left arm was in a sling.

"You know how you said I should ride a bike to strengthen up my legs?"
"Yes."
"Well, I did. And I fell off and broke my elbow."
"OK, go back and get it x-rayed and come back."

So off I went back to radiology, and this time got my elbow irradiated. I walked back to Max's surgery, once again clutching a bag of films and presented them to him. He confirmed that there was indeed a fracture there and that I should remove the sling immediately and start moving the elbow in order to keep the joint mobile. Since then I have been pushing it out straight, squeezing it closed and rotating the forearm. I still can't get it straight or fully closed and I'm hoping that the pain is worth it in these exercises, but I'm really hoping I'll regain full mobility.

I might sound like I'm whinging a bit, and that may be the case, but I'm more annoyed than anything else. Annoyed at myself for doing it in the first place and annoyed at the fact that I can't use it for anything. Max instructed me not to drive for 4 weeks from the fracture date and not to use it for any lifting or straining. That sort of rules out its use in any meaningful manner. It hasn't stopped me shooting though and last weekend I spent a couple of days at the farm belonging to Snorkmaiden's folks where amongst other things I witnessed my first mulesing at a neighbouring merino farm.
This does not look like a very pleasant thing to go through if you're a sheep and it certainly put my sore elbow into perspective. I'd rather have a sore elbow than have the skin around my arse cut away.
Got photos too but unless someone specifically asks I will refrain from posting them for now.

Speaking of photos, I entered a pic in a competition at Brunswick Street Gallery and although I didn't win, I did make the short list and received and invitation to exhibit my photographs either late this year or next year.

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HELLO BENT FOR FRACTURE........

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:19:00 +0000

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy, tiring, inspirational and painful.

Work has relocated to a nearby airport where the wind always seems to blow and always from the same direction, which leaves me scratching my head when it comes to the decision made by the architects and / or directors to put all the entrances on the windward side of the building. Ignorance cannot be used as an excuse as we already have a department there ( I worked there for a year) and the people based there are always talking about "how windy it is today."
There are many other screw ups like putting locks on all the internal doors which all open with the same key, workshop ventilation that creates positive pressure instead of negative which would extract fumes much more effectively, etc.
It is a much improved workplace compared to our other one but through lack of consultation with the employees and lack of common sense, has not realised the full potential it offered.

School has been gradually ramping up in the amount of workload required and the information offered which then has to be converted into practical skills. This has been made even more challenging as I have been crook as a dog for the last 3 weeks. What started as a head cold, got better then turned into a chest infection of some sort. I'd find myself having to leave class due to coughing fits, half blind, eyes watering, coughing so hard the I would nearly throw up.
A week ago I spent the weekend shooting on location 1.5 hours out of Melbourne at a school workshop. Sometimes we would be out in the middle of the bush and all you could hear echoing was my coughing fits. I didn't realise how physically demanding this workshop was until I felt my legs burn with lactic acid on the Monday. I really got reinspired at that workshop and it has changed the way I look, see and shoot.
I received an email from an organic tea manufacturer I shot at the workshop and she wants to use the photos on her new website, which would be pretty cool.

Saturday we had an all day class to edit the photos from the workshop. As I'd been crook the little yellow bike has been idle and seeing as I was finally feeling better I decided to ride the 10km into class. About 5 minutes into the trip home I had a car stop in front of me. I already had my right foot unclipped, but started falling to the left. I tried to unclip the left one but wasn't quick enough and found myself going down like a felled tree. First thing of course, the arm went out to try to cushion the fall but I jarred my elbow in the process. I picked myself up only to see one of the Melbourne tourist carriages drawn by two massive clydesdales bearing down on me. I got the bike upright, remounted, abused the taxi driver for blocking the road and continued on home. The elbow was feeling a bit secondhand but I got home, showered and made my way to Gino's house to meet Bones before we all headed off to the Judas Priest concert. There's something amusing about a 60 year old riding onto the stage on a harley, with a leather Village People cap, singing Hell Bent For Leather! With much alcohol I made it through the night only to wake up with a very, very sore elbow and only about 15 degrees of movement. Nurse Snorkmaiden insisted we go and have it checked out and after 2.5 hours at the emergency department in St Vincents Hospital I walked out with the news that I had fractured my elbow, not badly enough to warrant a cast, but enough to put it into a sling and out of action for some time. That was the only limb I didn't brake in the motorcycle crash!
Result? Off work for over a week and back to typing the blog singlehandedly again.
poo

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OF BIKES AND BIRDS............

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 09:44:00 +0000

When I bought my loverly new bike I must have ticked the box that said "Would you like to receive extra dramas at no extra cost?"
After receiving the call last week with an offer of a new bike I told the dude at the shop that I will come in on Saturday and discuss the issue with him.
Two days later I get a phone call from the same dude telling me that for whatever reason they managed to get the shifter cable back into my bike frame.
Amazing what you can achieve when you have a crack at it.
So that Friday ( a week ago ) I drove to the bike shop after work and picked up the yellow two wheeled equivalent of a melodramatic diva.
That weekend I picked up Snorkmaiden's cold and didn't really get a chance to take the bike for a test ride.

Monday night we're having dinner when an almighty bang disrupted our meal. For all intents and purposes I honestly thought someone had thrown a concrete block at our door.
My second thought was that it was the schizophrenic man who lives across from us as he has been known to slam doors in the middle of the night.
It wasn't until the next morning when I found my bike with a flat rear tyre that it dawned on me.
The inner tube had exploded popping the tyre off the rim.
90 pounds per square inch makes a lot of bang let me tell you.
Wednesday I dropped the dysfunctional machine off at the bike shop to get a new tube fitted as it was obviously defective.

Today I took it for the first real proper run, a 42 km round trip to the bay and back with Snorkmaiden on Ruby, her redilicious road bike.
The bike went well. Nothing went wrong with it. It did everything exactly like it was supposed to.
About 300m from our destination I discovered that my bike possessed some form of telepathic communication ability with our fine feathered avian friends.
Coming into a roundabout I noticed some seagulls taking to the air and one particular one catching an updraft in a sweeping arc, it's flight path about to intersect my line.
It was all too late when I noticed that this bird was wearing goggles, leather helmet and a scarf flapping in the breeze.
Last thing I remember was hearing "Bombs away!" and seeing something getting closer and closer, it's shape indistinguishable and then splat.
Right in the middle of the handlebar was a fat baby chuck green and liquid white seagull shit, well most of it anyway.
The rest had ricocheted onto my left knee.
I was pretty lucky really, had I been a fraction of a second quicker I would have been munching on bird turd.
Thankfully the trip home was a lot less dramatic, although it did take it out of me. A couple of times my legs went to jelly and I was forced to get right down to the lowest gear on one hill.
Can't wait to see what the next outing will bring.....

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CAKES AND BIKES..........

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:13:00 +0000

As promised, a couple of shots from the engagement party oooh, about a month ago now.

Note the original bubble gum machine engagement ring.

Since then, I have started my photography course. It's good to get back into that environment where I am surrounded by other people with similar passions / interests who feel strongly enough to pursue them at a tertiary level. In the last few weeks I have learnt new things which I am trying to employ in my photography. All in all it seems like I chose a good institution to study at, that being the Photographic Studies College, which has been operating for 36 years now and is one of the better educational centres in the country.

The bicycle saga continues:
After spending some time one Saturday in a bike shop I had test ridden about 4 styles of bikes and finally settled on one which I thought would best suit my needs and would be the easiest to live with.
I placed and order and spent the next few days giddy as a schoolboy with anticipation of taking delivery of my newest toy. I was looking forward to starting riding to work and for recreational purposes. I was confident I'd made the right choice in bike style that I could look forward to months and years of content panting atop the two wheeled contraption.
First thing that happened was that I received a phone call which informed me that the frame in my size was not available in yellow as ordered but only black. Upon enquiring as to the availability of a yellow frame I was informed I would be facing a wait until February. Boo for that I say. So, reluctantly I settled for a black one.
The next day I was told that the box containing my bike had arrived and surprisingly contained a yellow bike. I thought I got lucky.

On the Wednesday I hurried to the shop after work and picked up the new bike.
There it was all gleaming and new, she was an absolute picture!
I rode it home and on the way noticed that that top gear felt a bit clunky, almost like it wanted to jump out.
Along with the bike I'd ordered a bunch of accessories to tailor it to my wants. I figured the gear issue was just a matter of cable adjustment when I get the other bits fitted on the following Saturday.
On top of that one side of the axle moved forward and the the chain came off. Later we worked out that it was when the bike was detached from the wind trainer in the shop that one side of the axle loosened.

That Saturday I left the bike at the shop for a while, caught a movie, picked up the bike and rode home.
Top gear issue was now rectified, but I had a funny clunking in 7th and 8th of the 9 gears.
Not being bothered to turn around I figured I'll return the next Saturday to have it adjusted.

A week later I returned and asked to have the gears looked at again. I took off for a hot chocolate and returned to the bike shop. I was told the gears were adjusted and I went for a short ride around the block to check for myself. Indeed the 7th & 8th gears were now smoother but 4th, 5th & 6th were now clunky. On return I insisted the mechanic take it for a spin and my suspicions were confirmed when he walked back in with a rather concerned / confused look on his face. I once again left the shop and a short time later received a call. Apparently there was a little brass piece missing from the selector cable mount and it would require an inspection by the distributor. And so another week would have to go by before I could come back to the shop. I was given a loan bike and returned a week later.

Last Saturday I rode back to the shop and was presented with a completely new gear hub, cable and shifter. All good except that the old cable was neatly run through the frame from crank to head stem and the new one was tied with black cable ties along the frame. The beautiful clean lines of the yellow machine now resembled a rather unsightly wasp like creature. I pointed out my dissatisfaction with the repairs and asked that the cable be run through the frame again.
Today I received a call which explained that the reason for my having a new hub / cable/ shifter assembly fitted was that the cable cannot be detached and refitted. I was then told a new bike would be offered, but like the Ford Model T it could be any colour as long as it's black as there are definitely no more small frame yellow ones left now. Or I could go for the 8 speed model instead of the 9 speed one.

A week earlier I had a longer head stem fitted as the bike felt cramped. I'm beginning to think I was fitted to too small a frame to start with.
So the decision now is do I go for a small black frame, go up to a mid frame in yellow or opt for a yellow small framed 8 speed?
This Saturday I'm off to the bike shop again. That will take me up to one month since getting embroiled in this two wheeled debacle.
Who knows what that will bring.

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NOSE JOBS AND BIKE JOBS......

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:18:00 +0000

So, the fiance is going well. Her nose is healing nicely and she doesn't look like a cocaine addict anymore.
A couple of weeks ago her nose had to have some routine post op. attention. Being still quite sore from the surgery I urged her to take an Endone ( morphine ) pill, as prescribed by the surgeon, if not for the possible pain then just to calm her down a bit. What the good doctor had in mind was to clean up her nose and remove the silicone splints holding it all in place. These are pieces of silicone about the size of flattened out dinner spoon. They are rolled up, inserted into each nostril and stitched into place. From experience I know that having anything post op. fiddled with can be painful which is why I urged her to take the pill. She however refused it and when the moment came found the whole experience rather painful and displayed the usual signs of someone who has gone into shock. The doctor sprayed some sort of cocaine up her nose, then cut the stitches and removed the splints, afterwards giving the nasal cavity a good sucking out with his miniature Hoover.
She just called to say that today's vacuuming was not as traumatic, good to hear.

Last weekend we had our engagement party. A fantastic time was had by all with eight people making their way from interstate to help us celebrate. There were photos, but due to my lack of interwebs access I'm unable to post them at the moment, hopefully later.
Highlights were: the cake made by my beloved's friend featuring Moomin kneeling and offering the original $1 plastic ring to Snorkmaiden, my drunken 'speech' ( using the term loosely as any kind of preperation was replaced by a short but heartfelt verbalisation of 'love you all, thanks for coming' ), the gorgeously prepared room at the pub that sells bad beer ( just quietly, they have some beer that tastes ok now, but I don't want to confuse anyone ) with candles everywhere providing majority of the lighting, the delicious platters prepared by the new Kiwi chef, the catching up with folk not seen for a long time. There were many other great things that happened that night, but I can't remember them. Too drunk.
Thanks to all who came and for the gifts, despite our instructions not to bring any.

I have been toying with the idea of riding the pushbike to work. I figured that if I have to spend time driving to work and going to the gym, I might as well commute on a bicycle and save myself the gym visits and some money.
Don't like the gym. It smells of dude sweat and the blokes tend to watch themselves in the mirrors as they touch their own chests / nipples, when they're not staring at the girls or hopping onto machines within their vicinty, and touching their own chests / nipples.
You get the picture....
I wanted a new bike that was more appropriate for that kind of riding and as I it turned out I ended up needing one instead of wanting one.
In the last week, I have been researching some bike shops / bikes in Melbourne and came across one shop which is running a blog about one of their workers who was cleaned up whilst riding and is now paralysed.
Tuesday, one of the blokes at work had his wife come in all shaken up after a cyclist ran into her and tried to get into the back seat, via the rear window.
Wednesday I saw footage of a road rage incident from the U.S.A. where a cyclist was run into by a driver and then left to cling onto the bonnet whilst the driver proceeded to keep driving to teach him a lesson.
Last night I got home to find that some junky had pilfered my push bike, the one I bought ages ago and ridden a couple of times. I found it wasn't right for me as the mountain style gearing was too slow, the seat hurt my metal reinforced arse and the bike was generally just crap.
I plan to go looking at bicycles this weekend, but am having second thoughts due to this weeks bicycle related incidents.
Maybe someone is trying to tell me something.........

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BACK IN HOSPITAL, SORT OF......

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:08:00 +0000

My girly has been the subject of some poking and prodding at the hands of a surgeon recently.
Last Friday she underwent nasal surgery to correct a deviated septum, which was causing her breathing difficulties, particularly at night.
The poor girl had never undergone any surgery before, especially one involving general anaesthetic and as such was peaking out a little. Well, a lot actually. Any more and she would have been positively flapping.
Being a veteran of many surgical procedures I tried to instil in her a sense of confidence in the doctor's skills and alleviate her sense of dread, with some success I think.
As she was having the surgery through private insurance the location was in a well to do part of town at a clinic mainly used for tits and arse jobs I'd imagine. They must be doing alright as even the receptionist was driving a Lexus.
Mind you, you'd think with all that dough they could have hired a better interior designer. There were more shades of cream than on a dairy farm and the faux antique lime washed furniture produced an initial feel more akin to stepping into a funeral parlour. Not the impression you want to give in a medical centre I reckon.
We were ushered into a little waiting / change room which I imagined started life as a broom closet.
It was an interesting experience from my point of view as I had not really had to see anyone prep for surgery before, except myself of course.
The old familiar objects started to come into play, like the standard hospital arseless gown, the hair net, the little batch of pills offered to calm the patient, etc.
The anaesthetist introduced himself and explained the procedure and risks in regards to his part of the operation. He could have chosen his words better I reckon as his parting comment was “When you wake up you'll be in much better place.”
I had to enquire if he meant “A better room yeah?”
Eventually she was called in and I had to go and occupy myself for the next 3-4 hours.

A couple blocks down the road was a shopping strip where very well to do people, mostly fashionable dressed women with time and money to blow, parked their European marques and proceeded to blow their money on everything from overpriced antiques to overpriced baked goods , actually overpriced everything really.
I did poke about an pick up a 1958 recording of Sarah Vaughan live at the London House for a reasonable price, some canary yellow roses for my beloved, fresh lasagne and pasta for mushy dinners ( a must when convalescing, particularly from facial surgery ), a book on sight and how people see things, and some chocolate, one for myself and on one for the patient.
I'd brought the camera with me, just in case, but alas the most interesting thing I saw was a very well to do middle aged man park his European marque and disembark with daughter in tow. She in a private girls' school uniform and he in an outfit that made me suspect that his profession was interior designer to private tits and arse clinics. What kind of man wears a hot pink polo shirt? What kind of man wears a hot pink polo shirt tucked in? What kind of man wears a hot pink polo shirt, tucked in and with the collar up?

After returning to the waiting room I waited some time before hearing a request on the intercom for another nurse to help in transferring my girly to her room.
I was not prepared for the sight I encountered when I entered the room.
The poor thing was lying there with an oxygen mask on, bloody dressings around her nose and an ice pack covering her upper face with some sort of elastic fishnet holding it in place.
She was clearly drugged up to the eyeballs and still in quite some pain.
I have a pretty cast iron stomach at the best of times and have seen plenty of gross things in hospital, but for some reason seeing my beloved lying there in that state, unable to see, her hand squeezing mine so tightly because of the pain, gave me a queasy feeling.
She commented that all that stuff the anaesthetist said about not feeling any pain was a load of bull as she felt like she'd been smacked in the face with a cricket bat.
I knew what he said was a load of bull too, but I wasn't about to tell her that pre surgery.
Thankfully the nurses were doing their job and administering the correct painkillers and eventually she was even more drugged up, but in a bit less pain.
Thank goodness for sister morphine and intravenous liguid Panandol.
I put the roses in a vase and placed her favourite stuffed childhood beetle in her grasp.
After describing to her what the room looked like I spent a bit of time reading the book I'd just purchased, ironic considering its subject and my girl's temporary blindness.
Eventually the oxygen mask and the ice pack were removed and she was finally able to see.
As the night wore on I went home to an empty apartment, with the knowledge that she will be spending the night in the only sleeping position allowed for what was to be days to come, sitting up at a 45 degree angle. That brought back memories for me when I was bed bound and the only choice of position was between lying flat and sitting up at the same angle as her.

This experience gave me a little insight into how my own relatives and friends must have felt when the first saw me in hospital after the big bang and how dedicated my mother was in looking after me and making sure I was as comfortable as humanly possible in the circumstances.
I can never thank enough for that and can only hope for their sakes I am never needed to reciprocate the actions.

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THE SHOW ROLLS ON........

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:58:00 +0000

My online neglect continues.
It doesn't look like I will be getting interwebs until August. In the mean time I will have to post sporadically as I go along.
The “House of the Dusty Chicken” is no more. Out of the four housemates, two are moving in with their partners, the other long term original housemate does not wish to take on the responsibility of running the share house and neither does the newest.
Which one am I? I'm one of the ones moving in with the partner. Fiance to be exact.
The big bang had forcibly and convincingly punched home the message of not taking things for granted and not procrastinating.
The last traffic collision when one of my customers rear ended me had underlined that message with a big fat red marker.
An so it was about a month ago that I decided to jump in the deep end and ask Snorkmaiden to marry me.
There are a few steps involved in something like this.
I would have liked to have performed the ritual complete with bling ring, but I couldn't wait, so :

Step 1: After dropping off Snorky at the 'place that sells bad beer' ( where we met 2 days before the big bang ) I took off to the local supermarket to find the nearest bubble gum machine. Having found one that I believed would suit my needs I popped in the $1 coin and turned the handle with anticipation. What came out of the little plastic container disgorged by the machine was something far beyond my expectations, and let's face it they weren't exactly high. I was so unimpressed that I fished for another $1 coin to feed the ever obligingly hungry machine and was rewarded with another little plastic package. Its contents were slightly more to my liking and I pocketed the offering with glee as I hurried to the car with thoughts running through my head as to how I was going to pop the question.

Step 2: On the way back to the pub I thought I would do well to observe the correct protocol expected by the future bride's parents and ask for her hand in marriage ( even better, everything else that's attached to it ), especially considering they live on a farm and own numerous firearms, including shotguns.
With excitement and nervousness I dialled the number and attempted to formulate some kind of coherent request, one whose structure I could hang on to as a psychological crutch as lay myself emotionally prostrate and subject my ego to whatever result may come of it.
Busy signal.......
I tried numerous times to get through with the same result. Someone was unknowingly sabotaging my attempts to complete step 2.
Dismayed, I thought I would have to leave it for another time / day.
As I slunk back into the pub I found Snorky on the phone. And with whom should she be gaily conversing with? Her mummy dearest.
Later in the evening, under the pretext of going for a toilet break, I once again dialled the farm. This time success was mine! I managed to get a hold of the woman who had brought my beloved into this world all those years ago. I was indeed given permission to marry her daughter and I didn't have to plead and grovel like a puppy in front it's master when there are cold meat sandwiches about. In fact her mum was delighted at the prospect of my joining the family. Step 2 complete.

Step 3: Armed with the $1 ring, made of some sort of gold coloured soft alloy and adorned with a plastic jewel green star in a claw setting which had actually cost me $2, and verbal permission from the hopefully future ma in law I waited till the moment was right. Due to the pub being our local and therefore many of our mates popping in and out willy nilly, I almost gave up on the entire procedure, however just as we were alone and about to leave I stole a quick glance in the direction of the open fire place to find it empty. I ushered Snorky over next to the crackling fire ,
Radiating its heat and bathing her in a warm glow it combusted away with a seeming solemnity befitting a witness to such an occasion. I hadn't really thought through how I was going to pop the question, so I just spoke from the heart and told her that she was the best thing ever to have happened to me and that I would love to spend the rest of my life with her and that I would be the happiest man alive of she felt the same way and agreed to marry me. It pretty much came out like that too. To my delight she said yes and I slipped the $2, formerly $1 ring her on her finger.

And that is how it happened folks.
In time we had a 'proper' ring custom made by a fantastic jeweller. We have also been able to find and secure a venue for the reception, a church, a priest and she has even bought a dress, the first one in the first shop she had found. Very unwomanly if you ask me.
I figured that for the reception we'll have some ipod selections playing in between performances on guitar, bass, piano and vox by myself and associated musical friends and relatives.
Should be sweeeeet.

Due to my moving into Snorky's 2 bedroom apartment I have had to perform a major decrappifying operation and get rid of a lot of stuff I'd accumulated over the years. Needed doing eh.

In between decrappifying and moving stuff, I' d been looking at photography courses and have found one that suits my needs. It is a tertiary advanced diploma which will take me 4 years to complete part time, but will hopefully enable me to change career paths. Should be starting that in July / August.

Somehow with all that going on I managed to get away for the long weekend one week ago. Bones and I took off into the alpine high country for some 'brokeback mountain' action before the roads are closed off for the winter. Just kidding, no brokeback action here, maybe a few broken cars along the way, but that is about it.
It would seem half the 4X4 population of Victoria had the same thought. Keeping it short, we got up and down some nasty and gnarly tracks which had even the most seasoned off roaders scratching their heads and wondering just how the hell 'the little Subaru the could' managed to get in and out of these areas which are considered solely the holy domain of trail bikes and serious 4X4 vehicles with recovery gear, winches and the like. One driver was positively in shock when he stopped us due to his mate having broken down further up one track. After asking him if I can get around the stricken vehicle I was met with a blank glazed over stare and eventually a reply of “I don't know, it's just that I haven't seen anything like this before.” ( referring to my kind of car in that kind of place. )

Anyway, got plenty to do fer now. Hopefully the move should be over in a couple of weeks and I can then concentrate on my new studies.
Ciao fer now.

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ALL'S NOT QUIET ON THE FRONT.......

noreply@blogger.com (ZUBA) — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:19:00 +0000

Been a little while since the last post, mainly due to lack of internet access.
Long and short of it is that I am now back at work full time and that has been quite tiring.
I haven't been doing much in the way of physio as I was waiting for clearance from my rehab doctor to return to that side of things, now that I have clearance and joined a gym I'm waiting for my physio to write me up a program.
Sheesh, a lot of waiting in this game.
I did however go for a bicycle ride last weekend which was quite bizarre.
Not the first time I've ridden one since the crash, but the first time I'd ridden one in the daylight and on the road.
My body was still in a motorcycling mindset as I found myself tucking in my elbows...... so I could see in the rear veiw mirror........ even when I don't have any.
Little things like that reminded me of how much motorcycling was a part of my life, not to mention the feeling of getting some speed up on two wheels.
I think it's the first time I have truly missed riding.

On the good side my court case has been finally settled, but not with out an ironic incident.
Wednesday afternoon I headed out from work to meet the Queens Counsel and my lawyer for the conference with the Traffic Accident Authority lawyers, which would hopefully settle my compensation case.
About a kilometre down the road I came to a roundabout and stopped at the zebra crossing to let a female pedestrian cross the road.
Next thing I know I'm being pushed towards the shocked woman by a Mazda 3 driven by one of my customers.
She didn't see me stopped and ploughed straight into the back of my car.
The tow bar on the back seems to have distributed the force on my car but punched the nose in on hers to the point that she had trouble getting out of the car as the guards were pushed right up against the doors and the number plate was all but torn in two.
Steam coming from her radiator meant she wasn't going anywhere except the back of a tow truck.
The force was powerful enough that my seat back had bent backwards and now I feel like I'm in a banana lounge everytime I get in the car.
A sore right hip and right side of the neck neck were the main injuries to myself and the driver had sore knees.
One other thing was that I had a returned numbness in my right arm, which all led me to believe that my previous injury was aggrevated.
Realising this, a big "Oh no!!!!" rang through my mind as I had to work damn hard last time to make my bicep functional.
Thankfully a couple of days later I'm feeling a lot better, the neck is still a little sore, but nothing a weekend away with Snorkmaiden won't fix.
On the setllement front, my lawyers performed fantastically and the compensation payout was more than I had imagined.
I do remember that when they told me about the initial offer there was no smile or sense of gratification, just a numbness and a wish that if I could swap the money for my previous body I would jump at the chance.
Anyway, that part is over and I plan to put some of that settlement towards a photography course and some more photography gear.

In the last few weeks I have made useful contact with vaious artists, photographers and curators.
Even my QC gave me a contact of an art photographer he has posed for! Handy that.
In the near future I hope to contact her for advice and then gather some photos to show to curators and discuss an exhibition, or at least the next steps, directions, etc.
Things roll on.

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