howie’s halfpipe

Zig Zag railway adventure, one of many adventures throughout the year.

The engagement engagement

My Nan turned 90

another trip to uluru, number 4 for me and 2 for jenny

The pelicans at the entrance got a visit from me and jenny

howie and sam go to sydenham

3801 steam train day to newcastle

I became a daddy (of turtles)

those greeks came to town

there was a wedding followed by a honeymoon

scupltures by the sea.

there was much more in oh six, trips to armidale, old bar, coffs harbour, rockhampton. More adventures, but i’m bored of reflecting so thats all you get for this post.

Howie is going to Observatory Hill to celebrate New Years Eve.

You may think he’s crazy “but howie its gonna be all wet”

Never fear for howie’s gazebo is here!

This baby is 3m x 3m so we can fit quite a few people under it, and it fold away heaps eazy, not poles to insert or anything!

dont let the rain dampen your spirits, come in and celebrate.

come on.

please.

The goal, see 52 films in a calendar year.
The result, A giant FAIL!
Only 13 films for 2006, ouch!

The Family Stone
Good Night and Good Luck
The Producers
Munich
Syriana
Jarhead
The Aristocrats
Inside Man
Cars
Click
Boytown
Casino Royale
Happy Feet

what a glorious day to go to westfield

the sunday night fireworks looks like it will be a very wet night.

could be time to start thinking of an alternative…. shame i love the NYE fireworks.

should we just be brave and sit in the rain or should we be wimps and move indoors somewhere?

Today Jenny, mum and Dad and myself all went down to the Armidale belgrave cinema to watch Happy Feet.

It was a good movie, and cool that it was made by animal logic an animation company in sydney.

It made me laugh, it was sad overall quite good, althoyugh there where a few flat spots and some gaps in the story.

4 / 7

I dont think snapping saddams neck is the best option.

the poms have been officially smashed!

one test to go to complete the white wash.

Symonds your a champ!

We are sittting back in macccas in Armidale at the moment after driving up here yesterday.

Good old Armidale, as usual its good to see my family again, especially my Nan. Its hard for me to see my Nan gettting so old and not so with it in the head. I miss the Nan i remember.

Tomorrow we are gonna go see ‘happy feet’ at the local cinema, i’m excited for 2 reasons, one becasue it looks like a bit of a fun film, and two because i havent seen many films at all this year so its another notch in the very unimpreesive belt.

Boxing Day shopping in Armidale went off today, there was crap all! In past years it has beeen better but this year it was crap. Not much stock in the shops and less shops becasue of lots of redevelopments.

Armidale shopping = crap

and that my friends is that

Remote controlled forklift
‘Area Warden’ orange vest
6 No Smoking stickers
Aloe Vera tissues
monies
24 x 250ml coke cans (the little baby cans)
Desktop ping pong set
Pillow protector (to avoid dribble stains)
Jeffery smart mug
Scripture gum
Coke drink bottle with stress ball
6 apple juice poppas
2 tins of choc wafer sticks
toblerone
12 pack cherry ripes
12 pack crunchcies
pack of salted cashews
chocolate monies
3 jars boiled lollies
Hot wheels radar gun
Little turtle gem stone
Model wooden steam train

Shared presents for me and the wife

Choc mint ice magic
50m of road work orange safety fencing
Esky
lots of golden rough chocolates
stuffs from the TEAR gift catalogue
monies
Electoral commission results from victoria book
Ikea voucher

Fellow Humans
We are gathered here today to celebrate Christmas, a day of coming together with loved ones, not so loved ones and other ring-ins that seem to latch on during festive seasons.
If you are reading my Christmas message, it is probably a good sign that you are either extremely lonely or you are sick of sitting at the table with old uncle frank being rude to you while he downs another bottle of beer. You may be reading this thinking that I too am suffering from lonlieness or an obnoxious uncle but that’s not true. With the wonders of technology I was able to write this Christmas message yesterday and have it automatically appear on your screen today.
If Christmas isn’t your thing then I suggest you don’t get married. Remember when you where young and Christmas normally consisted of 2 events, one being with your mums family and one with your dads family, both ensured you received a good stash of presents, sometimes they where long and a little dull but there was only 2 eventys to get in the way of you playing with your new toys.
Well when you get married the number of Christmas do’s you attend doubles, but for some reason if you are married everyone seems to have received a memo that marriage = no presents. So you get double the amount of uncle frank incidents and zero gifts! And on top of that you have to start hosting these Christmas events, in the past when you just attended them you could nick off for a nap or a walk or something if it was dull or a fight was flaring up, but when you’re the host, you have to sit through it all.
Christmas + Marriage = Dull
One of the plusses of being married though is that it reduces the number of presents you need to purchase, because you can just say “hey wife can you put my name on that card too”.
I need to clarify that the above paragraphs are purely created for blogging effect, in reality I actually enjoyed the family Christmas yesterday with a bunch of the inlaws and we have another one tomorrow which should be a good afternoon too, and Christmas isn’t just about presents It is really about the Birth of Jesus, the man who was born lived and died so that we could be free and have eternal life.
That being said presents are still nice.
If you are reading this and thinking “oh I should have got howie a Christmas present”, Let me tell you its not too late, My present receiving dock is open 365 days a year, just don’t expect a present in return, my outgoing present department is on annual leave until 14th September 2018.
I hope you enjoy your Christmas day this year, hope you get good presents, if for some reason you find yourself in possession of some really crap presents there are two options.

A) throw them over the balcony, then go down cover them in petrol, set fire to them, spread the ashes over the rose garden, come back inside and sit down with the rest of the family, then when aunty marg says “do you like your present” tell her you thought it was really hot!

B) Throw a tantrum, complain about the utter crapness of your present ensuring that the person who gave it to you is in the room, they will feel really guilty and open their wallet and give you $50, except the money then go out side with the present and use option A)

And that my friends is how to play Christmas.

Have a good one.

Howie

I got a remote control forklift! its so cool it even comes with a pallete and orange cones.

I want to move to melbourne just so John So can be my mayor, he has to be one of the coolest guys ever!

Sitting here watching Crowded House ‘Farewell to the World’ concert on the steps of the Opera house.

Its pretty crazy that it was 10 years ago, it doesnt feel like 10 years since they broke up. Oh how much i love the house. Neil finn is a genious!

I’f i’m ever rich and famous i want neill to come play at my birthday party.

What is the difference between the Christmas alphabet and the regular alphabet.

the prize for this riddle is 50 cents

today is the last day in the office, we dont reopen until the 15th Jan.

anyway my desk is a pig sty, there is crap everywhere, i ‘m just pretty much picking up piles of papers and dropping them into the recycling bin, amoungst the thigs i discovered is my passport, last time i used that baby was in feburary when i got an ID card from the RTA. not bad its been buried on my desk without me knowinf for almost a year, good thing i didnt go overseas this year!

Sydney is deep into water restrictions and has been for some time now. If you are a busines taht requires the use of excess water you must apply for a permit and display a big orange permit sticker on your business. I think this is fare enough.

Driving past the fire station today i saw that they had the big permit sticker on their door. It made me chuckle thinking that a fire station had to go through an apllication process and justyfy why they needed to use water.

Company: Fire station with big fire trucks

Type of business condiucted: puttung out fires, rescuing cats from trees

Reason for using excess water: to help put out fires, stop sydney from burning down

It seems strange to me that a fire station would have to apply for a permit.

find out more at stevebevis.com

I guess you can only be no. 1 in the world for a short amount of time.

I have been bumped from the number one spot as the worlds ugliest man from google images byy this guy.

I rememberred what it was I wanted to tell you all about something that happened in Rocky.

We where having a gumboot toss with a difference, replacing the gumboot with a 1kg red snapper.

It was going well, i was standing off to the side taking photos, then there i  was looking through the viewfinder on my camera, i had just taken a photo of the fish leaving a girls hand, the next think i know i’m hunched over with a strong pain in my bits.

It got smacked fare and square in the package by a 1kg fish!

It amused everyone else for quite some time, took me a little longer to see the funny side of it, It wasnt like i was standing in the line of fire, i was off to the side.

I later decided to stand behind the thrower to protect the jewels.