howie’s halfpipe

The hairdryer with 4 wheels, otherwise known as an electric lawn mower.

Today I borrowed an electric lawn mower from work to bring home and cut our little front lawn. I got my big long extension cord and plugged it in to the convenient front verandah powerpoint. I plugged the other end into the mower. Now before starting it up i had to work out how to start it up, there is no choke or cord to pull. THere was however a big ornage button.

I pressed the button and held in a lever and there is was an electric mower. I was pushing it along beeing very careful not to run over the power cord and set the lawn on fire rather than just giving it a nice trim.

The cord way anoying, it’s hard to go up and down the lawn without cheating death several times. Anyway I came to the conclusion that it wouldnt matter if i went over the cord ans the motor was so weak and crap that it wasnt even cutting the grass let alone a rubber cable.

It sounded like a hairdryer, it cut grass just as well as a hairdryer, and its just dumb! I might bring out the electric iron tomorrow just to see if i can flatten the lawn a bit.

I’m in Melbourne airport at the moment waiting for my Sydney flight after just getting off a flight from Launceston. Been in tassi for the last few days for a conference. I had a good time catching up with old buddies and they put me and wife up in good accommodation compared to previous trips to this conference.

It was probably the last time that Jenny and i will go to this conference and cant say there is much sadness about that. Sad about not seeing buddies as much though.

Now i have to go and do a transit poo.

What a great movie. It’s really great that a big studio movie can take a risk of making a movie with hardly any dialouge and it pays off.

I was really impressed, it had the PIXAR magic, awesome graphics, great characters with funny interactions and observations of current western culture. It explored consumerism, and mis treatment of the planet.

6 / 7

Hanging in Canberra with the bev dog, 2 church services done, all that’s left is a whole day at a school tomorrow then its back to Sydney town.

fully hectic

Today I was expecting three parcels.

The first being a new washing machine.

It arrived with two very friendly instilation men, they brought the washer into the house and screwed it into its new base which i pusjed back from westfield ina trolley yesterday! Let me take you back to yesterday for a minute. We have been wanting to get a base for our washing machine to raise it off the floor so pregnant wife and soon to be mother wife doesnt have to bend down to the floor to load and unload the washer.

We has seen bases in a shop in Armidale and figured if it’s in armidale then surely its easy to find in Sydney town. Wrong!!!! We went to a washing machine shop and bunning in search of such a base. no luck. wife drove us home ansd she had a nap while i headed off to westie in search of a base. The man in howards storage wolrd tried to sell me a shelving unit that looked like it was made out of silver chop sticks and chicken wire, I told him the washing machine would weigh several hundred kg but he said he weighed almost 100kg and he could jump uip and down on this shelf if he wanted to. The other probloem with howards storage is that the shelving unit could hardly fit a box of washing powder let alone a machine.

So I headed to bing Lee next. there in all its scratched and dented glory was a washing machine stand underneath a washing machine. After about 578 hours wandering around the store i found a staff member, i directed him to the stand and asked if i could have one. He dissapeared for a while and told me that had one out the back. He walked out the back door and then retuned about three quaters of a second later telling me the display model was the only one left. In a tmid shaky voice I asked if there would bea discount to which the man said “how much do you want taken off?” I had no idea, so i said $80 to which he replied “that is way too much” he went off and talked to some other staff member who had appeared from a secret door. He said he could give me $60 off.

So the credit card was swiped and then the man sent me off in search of a trolley, I retunred with a trolley and we lifted the heavr scratched beast into the trolley. The only problem is that this shiny woolies trolley wasnt just taking me to the car I had to push the bastard all the way home! It was heavy, the trolley seemed to think it was a good idea to only engage steering when i needed to go straight. I found myself lifting the trolley down and up gutters, across the worlds crapest footpaths and then holding on for dear life as the trolley escrted me down the hill. I made it home dripping with sweat. but we have a washing machine stand. Anyway back to today.

They had it all ready all that was left was to hook it up to the taps located under the laundry sink.

They hit a problem, the pipes where too big to fit through the hole in the side of the laundry cabinet under the sink. And part of their workcover OH & S thigy is that they can only cut holes in wood, they are not allowed to cut metal. So all we could do was look at our shiny new washing machine.

Eventually I headed out to mitre 10 to ask the folk there how to cut a hole in a laundry cabinet, they dirceted me to an el-cheapo pair of tin snips. then the pregnant check out chick gave me a discount cause i’m so good looking.

I returned home and wife and i did some tin snipping. Eventually we got the pipes in and the washing machine started.

Parcel 2 was a mount for our projector so that we can put it up on the wall. We began setting up the mount following the misleading insturctions full of mistakes and bad english. then it was all ready to go but it seems our house has no framework, the walls are what is holding the house up, no beams in sight.

So after a few hours of tapping knuckles on the wall to find wood we realised the bracket was not going to work.

Parcel 3 was the tattoos for blackstump. this parcel did not shop up. I tracked the parcel online and it arrived in sydney at 5am but must have got lost.

Now I have to go return the trolley to westfield before the neighbours write a letter to the newspaper complaining about a green trolley in our backyard.

I’ve just placed an order for 1,000 temporary tattoos to use in the TEAR cafe at stump. I hope they are a crowd pleaser.

We are having a bit of a climate change focus and will have a small survey for people to find out if they are ECO-ALERT or just another one of those ECO-JERKS.

You get a tattoo depending on which catergory you fit.

But i need your help, what are some questions you think should be in the survey, remebering the target audience is high school aged to uni age.

life is crazy at the moment. I’m not home for the next 4 weekends. next wekend is Revive then off to canberra as soon as i’m done there followed the next few weekends by Tassis, blackstump, Canberra. Plus this thursday i’ll be in wollongong. and we startr pre natal classes the night before blacksyump. Still unpacking from moving house, still need to move the turtles whcih will take almost a day. I’m looking forward to a day off in 5 weeks or so. After my 33 days ina row of work starting tomorrow.

Whinge over.

This weekend has been tops, a fun picninc yesterday to celebrate the noobs, then ikea fun and more ikea fun. today a meeting with some cool peoples and this evening some thai fun with buddies.

Today we moved house,

moving houses is dumb.

but the helpers where tops.

I think jenny and i have decided to burn, give away or sell on ebay most of our posessions, we have wayyyyyy too much stuffs.

The other day wife and I where driving home from Armidale through the horse capital of Australia, Scone.

There where signs on the side of the road with residents oppsoing a new coal mine in the area, that seemed like a good idea oppsing a new coal mine. but then there where also sings oppsing plans for a wind farm in the area.

‘wind farms will ruin the scenery’

Personally i dont think wind farms make for an ugly countryside, infact when i see wind famrs off in the distance i think how cool it is and how cool it looks.

I think they are a bit dumb not wanting a wind farm, i’m sure its not like they would put the big wind famr down the middle of the main street. It would be off on a hill out of town somewhere.

Maybe they will get some solar panels.

Today celebrates 2 years of me having a wife.

2 years of clean undies, socks and other clothing items.

2 years of meals not prepaired by me

2 years of fun adventures

on the other side of the coin, 2 years of next to no frozen meals.

I think i can handle a few more years of having a wife though.

Yesterday I was in Armidale, last night I was in Sydney and today I’m in the Blue Mountains.

I’m up here to do more video editing, burning dvd’s and importing more video and burning more dvd’s.

Work ground to a hault last time i was up here becasue we ran out of space on the computer. This time i’m equipped with a 1TB hard drive which is working nicely.

I have about 8 Hours of footage to burn to dvd’s. there is a lot of  encoding and transfering and chweing being done by the lovely mac pro.

Cityrail dogged me backwards this morning. I had to wait at strathfield for an hour and ahalf thanks to a late running mountiasn train.

I dont think there is any chance of me being home before christmas

Wife and I are in Armidale, we drove up yesterday.

Last night was the traditional show off of photos then a game of monopoly which my dad seemed to do very well in, is it just coincidental that he was also the banker?

Today seeing as Armidale is the town of excitment we will look in shops and hold my mother bak from buying too much baby stuff.

I’m hoping as we leave tomorrow my dad will say, Here you go son have my nice new LCD tv and yamaha speakers. He probably wont though, he’s getting selfish in his old age.

This morning just as wife and i where about to depart the house and head to parramatta, I couldnt find my wallet. I searched high and low, then on our way to parra we dropped by the French’s house becasue i could remember having my wallet there yesterday. No sign of it there. Jane said she would keep looking.

So today I was walletless at a farwell lunch, which was kind of handy becasue it meant jenny paid for me.

We farwelled Ben today, he is packing up and heading to Nepal for a few years with his wifie and kids. I’ll miss ben, he’s a good buddy. I gave him a manly goodbye hug with a sneaky bum grab to send him on his way.

Back to the wallet. Jenny and i just went back to the french house for more looking, being sure not to set of their vicious guard dog.

No wallet.

We drove back home and i had another look around. I found it!

It was in a backpack that I havent used for a few days, i have no idea how it got there as i had it at the frenches yesterday. I’m putting it down to divine intervention. God is a good one.

i’m getting really forgetful these days, yesterday jenny had to remind me twice do do up my fly.

If you cant think of anything offensive to say then don’t say anything at all.

I think that’s how the phrase goes, anyway that explains why I havent blogged much lately. Well actually it doesnt explain it. I havent said much lately becasue I have been busier than a one armed brick layer.

(notice the subtle tie in to the the paralympics, i’m so clever the way I weave current affairs into the background of an irrelevant post).

another reason I haven’t said much lately is that no one reads this thing anymore apart from my wife and an aggressive big bummed dwarf in Tasmania. (Hello Pete)

Bringing it back to the paralympics, I wouldn’t mind representing Australia in the shooting or one armed brick laying or dwarf tossing or something.

Until next time, peace out

what the hell did i just write, man i’m tired.

Our brand new fridge got delivered today. I look forward to putting coke in it.