Living on the moon in monostereo

The National AusIMM Mining Games - Post #1

2008-07-22T02:02:00.010+08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. Being an underground geo is not conducive to free time.

I am on my first night back at work after a rather full-on break spent in Wollongong, ~80km South of Sydney in NSW.

The AusIMM Mining games are an event that brings together University students and graduates from all over Australia, to compete in mining-based events. This year it was held at the brand new, state of the art, Southern Mines Rescue Station in Wollongong. The rescue station has a simulated underground area based on that of a coal mine.

Unfortanately for us, the games were based on coal mining, not metaliferous mining (as it has in the past) so as graduate working for a GOLD company, we were a little bit screwed.

There were quite a few events:

Surveying - survey along a certain course
Mucking - shovel gravel into a cart, push it along tracks, tip it out.
RockID - identify 10 rocks
TimberSet - cut timber into lengths and erect and dismantle a support (like in old school mines)ConveyerSet - contruct and dimantle an old converyer belt set
Drilling - airleg drill two holes and make them as parallel as possible
Gravity Seperation - coal-based activity including jigging, panning and calculations
Face TieIn - choose a blasting pattern and tie in the face as if it where a real charge up situation
Safety - go through a 3D simulation model and identify hazards in an UG coal mine

The full results will be emailed out this week, but we already know we came first in the corporate division and in terms of each event, we came first in the surveying. Talking to the judges and onlookers, we have a good idea that we were in the top 3 for most events. Admittedly the gravity seperation, rockID and face tie in were our worst events.

Here are some photos...most of the photos taken were not mine, so the rest will come when the CD is posted out to me with everyone's photos. But to tide you over...

The Practice drilling

Rhino drilling

Kirk getting his groove on while we watch on

Jem, Jimbo and Ben

The club full of boys taking their dacks off for the EAGLE ROCK song...

Casey giving us a show on the CrownSt Mall Stage at 12am-ish

Dan with someone's pornstar glasses

hanging out on the last afternoon, celebrating

Myself and Casey (our team captain)

Casey, Jimbo and Myself (take #1)

Take #2

take #3

Me showing off my LACK of pool skills

Rhino playing GOOD pool

Casey also showing her GOOD pool skills!

Bree, Mike and Steph's housewarming

2008-06-25T04:42:00.005+08:00

Theme: School and Mining

ok...ideas?

Miner, teacher, schoolboy/girl, slutty miner, sports cheerleader...

........

Rock?

Needless to say i was the only ROCK there :)

A beanbag dyed and turned insideout, painted with glue and glitter to look like gold ore, stuffed with newspaper and lots of dark brown makeup rubbed all over face and limbs.

May not have looked too much like a real rock but it was the thought and effort that counts right? It was fun, anyway...especially negotiating the toilet to break the seal...but it was worked out in the end.

More of the wonderkitten

2008-06-11T14:23:00.006+08:00

Griff being silly on the couch

mmmm come here little fishies so I may taste you....

Airer antics

hanging on for dear life - look at those cute birdy feet

me and Griffin, chilling

Griffin

2008-05-25T20:52:00.003+08:00

Work randomness

2008-05-15T13:28:00.005+08:00

When you give me a camera...I will play

Griffin - the new man in the house

2008-05-14T12:52:00.008+08:00

In no particular order...

quick nightshift boredom

2008-05-04T02:13:00.002+08:00

Eye Color:: Dark Brown

Hair Color:: darkish brown

Height:: 170cm

Favorite Color:: hmmm blue

Screen Name:: Krissy/Crackpottt/Dudgo

Favorite Band::Queen

Favorite Movie::Starship Troopers

Favorite Show::Black Books

Your Car:: new Red Toyota Corolla

Your Hometown::brissy/Orange/Melb

Your Present Town:: Perth

Your Crushes First Name:: NA

Your Grade:: NA

Your Style:: Bogan :)

* . . Have You Ever . . *

Sat on your rooftop?: Nope...

Kissed someone in the rain?: No

Danced in a public place?: Yes

Smiled for no reason?: Ja

Laughed so hard you cried?: Many times

Peed your pants after age 8?: Yep (Playing BALDERDASH)

Written a song?: Yes

Sang to someone for no reason?: yes

Performed on a stage?: Yep

Talked to someone you don't know?:Yes

Gone out of your way to befriend someone?:Jaja

Made out in a theatre?: Nope

Gone roller skating since 8th grade?: With Tank :)

Been in love?: No

* . . Who was the last person to . . *
Say HI to you?: Mitch

Tell you, I love you?:Dad

Kiss you?: mmmmm

Hug you?: Mum

Tell you BYE?: Ash

Write you a note?: beanie - forgot to leave money out

Take your photo?: Mooney

Call your cell phone?: Bec Dixon

Buy you something?: Mum

Go with you to the movies?: Jiggles and Beanie

Sing to you?: mmmnot to me but beside me: Beanie at the Foo Fighters :)

Write a poem about you?: Craig

Text message you?: ANZ bank

Touch you?: Beanie

* . . What's the last . . *

Time you laughed?: 2 hours ago...Cain had a spack attack underground in the 28WS coz we were lost!

Time you cried?: Watching a movie last sunday

Movie you watched?: Becoming jane

Joke you told?: cant remember

Song you've sang?: the Kmart Song

Time you've looked at the clock?: 1:58am

Drink you've had?: Coffeeeeeeeeeee

Number you've dialed?: mandz

Book you've read?: Book Three of the WHEEL OF TIME series

Food you've eaten?: currently eating vegetarian canneloni

Flavor of gum chewed?: spearmint

Shoes you've worn?: Steel capped bumgoots

Store you've been in?: Lucknow Ugg Boot Shop in Lucknow, NSW

Thing you've said?: Something that caused me to receive a skeptical look

* . . Can You . . *

Write with both hands?:No

Whistle?:YA!

Blow a bubble?: Yep

Roll your tounge in a circle?: ja

Cross your eyes?: Yes

Touch your tounge to your nose?: No, but i do try every now and again!

Dance?:In a way...

Gleek?: i think I know what that means and No

Stay up a whole night without sleep?: Often...

Speak a different language?:Bits and pieces

Impersonate someone?: Yes

Prank call people?: A few times

Make a card pyramid?: No...

Cook anything?: Yeah...Beanie says i can cook soup...and i can make Icecream :)

* . . Finish The Line . . *
If i were a ...:pen I would dry up just listening to the redFM

I wish ...: for my own bed, a spa, and a massage right now!

So many people don't know that ...: I am an alien

I am ...: crazy

My heart is ...: red

Blue roos and black jacks - Warning - graphic photos

2008-04-14T13:25:00.008+08:00

Last stint my swing was broken up with a cultural awareness course that went for 2 days. It was extremely enlightening.

I don't consider myself a really racist person. I think everyone is a little bit racist in one form or another and I dont think i was bad at all...but while I was there, the change I felt in the way I was thinking really opened my eyes as to how racist I must have been to have noticed it.

In the course I spent my time with info overload, learning all about the aboriginal heritage and culture; WA history; issues with society and the community views and of course how it all plays a role in the workforce.

We also did a practical component...and I must say I was rather ill for the rest of the day. We went out with the local tribe and they caught, killed, roasted, carved and let us eat a roo. It tasted really nice, even though it was almost blue, but my stomach churned and I almost gagged at the smell of the blood and burning fur. They don't drain the blood of the animal (in order to obtain as much moisture as possible - since they are in the majority a desert people)…they just stick it in a pit of coals WHOLE so when they carve it up (or should I say HACK it up) the blood gushes out of the animal all over the place. Needless to say I could never kill someone and carve them up, so the world is safe :)

I'll warn you now...these pictures are somewhat graphic so if you have a weak stomach..I suggest not scrolling any further..

--look away now...

--before its too late...

Before shot

BBQ Roo tail

Stuart carving the roo

I am third from the left...Not very impressed with the smell

Hillary carving meat for both of us

Roo tail cut up

Learning the proper way of carving and who get what part of the animal...

Green legs and fishjam

2008-04-14T12:53:00.012+08:00

AKA Jundee fishing charter #1...

The cool, dark morning was filled with the sound of swirling gusty wind in the trees, blowing rubbish and debris across an almost desolate carpark. Birds had not yet risen and the smell of night still hung heavily in the air. Thus began the Jundee Fishing Charter #1.

Having been told to arrive at 6 am for a 6:30 am departure, the majority of the group was there before the people running the charter turned up at 6:30. A short chat with the guy in charge informed us that they had tried to cancel the day before but could get hold of no one. So, since we were all there, it was up to us if we wanted to cancel and get a refund of continue out, aware that it would be swelly and possibly shit fishing. Since we weren’t paying for it, the fact that there was a refund option didn’t matter too much. We made sure that it wasn’t going to be dangerous before we all agreed to just bite the bullet and do it. Half the gang knew that didn’t get sea-sickness and the other half hadn’t been on a small boat so they didn’t know if they were prone to sea-sickness…

heading out to sea

the gang on the boat, settling in for the day

Looking out to the harbour edge

With awesome huge swells and waves and very strong gusty winds, it was a rollercoaster ride out to the first spot. Thankfully our skipper took it easy on us so it took almost twice as long to get out because we were doing more up motions than forward motions. There were times I felt like I was floating in air (or like the feeling you get in a lift), and then that would be shattered when you were thrown back into your seat as the boat fell back onto the water’s choppy surface. Within 30 mins on of the boys made his way to the rear of the boat and offered his stomach contents to the rulers of the sea. This continued for a while and as he became wetter and greener we finally reached our first fishing spot. Standing on the side of the boat casting our lines, we had such a crazy swell that one moment we could basically lean out and touch the surface of the water, and the next moment it was a few metres to the water’s surface. We were drifting at around 3 knotts and thus it was difficult fishing.

At this stage a few of us were feeling a bit iffy and so we decided food was the best thing (we might be hungry?) and so a sausage roll was devoured and we were back into it. Within 10 mins of consumption, 3 more people were lined up over the side of the vessel, donating food to the critters in the depth below. We found one guy dead to the world, asleep under the table while the rest of us were fishing. I myself have never had motion sickness in my life…however, the smell of cigarette smoke, diesel fumes and bait was enough to set me off and I was hanging over the edge of the boat in a bad state, along with the others. Unlike the others whose sea-sickness was not set off by smell, mine came in waves and so I would be totally normal for about 30 mins and then sick as a dog for the next 30 until I could empty out my churning insides. There were a few troopers who managed to spend the whole trip totally unaffected and in very high spirits, consuming alcohol and actually catching fish. We had a few good catches but not many. I caught a tiny fish, about half the length of my forearm, so it had to be thrown back. Most of the time people got awesome bites and then lost them on the way up to the surface.

Hanging on

A ship a little way off

The bird that kept following us...

George asleep while we fished...

Fishing

Bright view

Dead people

Finally...A FISH..and isnt it pretty!

The weather was at least sunny by the middle of the day

Zena and the boys enjoying fishing off the front deck

Looks calm...but its not!

Although it was bad weather and not great fishing, I think that probably half of us actually enjoyed it and had lots of fun. We were all very quiet on the trip back and when we hit land people couldn’t wait to get off. I was ok on the way home in the car, but when I got home I stood in the shower for 20 mins scrubbing myself to get rid of the fish and vomit smell. For the rest of the day, whenever I closed my eyes I felt the world was moving back and forwards as if I was still on the boat. It was at this point that I felt a great sympathy for anyone who gets motion sickness or has an inner-ear problem. It was a fragile afternoon and next day…

So to make myself feel better I went out and bought myself a new TV :)
Now I am back at work and getting ready to enjoy yet another stint…but this time I have a short one because I am going to see the FOO FIGHTERS next Monday night….WOOHOO! And then later next week I go to Sydney for a mates 21st!!! Have started counting down till Monday morning when I fly out!

Not enough time in the day

2008-04-08T08:57:00.000+08:00

Unlike others (such as Maja) I don't get a long enough time period in the day to write a meaningful post...so I tend not to do one at all. BUT i do have things to say so be aware that I think i will be leaving these for on my breaks when I DO get time...If I cant swindle some time at work.

so

WATCH THIS SPACE!

Who lives in a Landcruiser ute, under the surface?

2008-03-18T00:56:00.008+08:00

ME!

Finally a post.

Am on my first night of my first nightshift stint. Its really fun (note the sarcasm) and not at all hard. Have been going really well up until about 2 minutes ago. I can feel my eyes stinging now but I am more tempted to blame the aircon.

HAve managed to score the night up on the surface, not underground, doing some data work and reading up on stuff. THis stint I have to start driving underground - we have decided its best to warn personnel and if it was possible a different coloured light on my car would be appropriate :)

I am not sure just how bad i will be and we all want to err on the side of caution. I am sure it will be fine, but I can see that when it comes to a face off with a truck on the decline I may reverse backwards into a wall or into another LV or just reverse at about 2km an hour and in a very weavey motion.

(Am currently listening to some shananagans going on over the radio...someone is tryong to imitate the annoying ringtone frog thing that pretends its on a motorbike...know what I am talking about?)

Here is where I am working, at Jundee (or FUNdee)...middle of BFNW hey :)

This is a satellite image of the mine site. Its a bit old I think.

And these are the locusts that have joined our community this summer...

The Kaiser Chiefs are keeping me awake at the mo, along with some funny pics.

Mum and dad visited a waterfall on their last holiday (cant remember its name) and this is a panorama of it.

AS you can tell I am not really in a blogging mood. Too buggered. But something will ome to me later i am sure. Keep you posted. In the meantime I will read everyone elses and leave post-its on Maja's computer while she is back at camp asleep :)

Birthday Meanings

2008-01-22T11:07:00.000+08:00

Facebook applications are usually a joke, but this was close to being right on the money.
I put in my birth date and it tells me what it means...if anything.

January 30th:
You are a perfect character to be in shakespeare's plays - dramatic, intense and outspoken. There is an aura about your personality. But not many people can understand you. Some are totally addicted to your charismatic personality. While others just wished that you spoke a little less but you need not bother about them. Go ahead... the stage is set and the world is waiting for you.

Aquarians go best with Libra, Gemini, Sagittarius and Aries.

Your greatest strength is: Your flair
Your greatest weakness is: If you think it, you say it
Your lucky color is: Scarlet red

The bold text is what I agree with...

My Speakers

2008-01-16T12:34:00.000+08:00

Thought i would put up a few pics of my speakers.

Anne and I veneered them the other night and now I am STILL waiting for my subwoofer amp module. Its been over a month and I am getting rather annoyed. All I want is to shake my house with base. Is that too much to ask? :)

The veneering was quite fun to do, but Anne and I are pretty crap at it. Actually, we're not crap...just not good. There is a difference. It's quite hard to get the veneer cut to EXACTLY the size of each side. We kept having about half a mm overlap. THEN I forgot about the rebated centre speaker woofers and did quite a messy job on the circles. A bit of sharpy touch-up did the trick :)

Anyway. Here they are:

A long awaited blog...

2008-01-11T12:26:00.000+08:00

Crikey, how old is that last post? Apologies for being so damn lazy. Yes, it was a combination of laziness and not being able to access the site at work. No excuses.
It’s been a long few months but I have had some good holiday time, doing nothing much, but still spending time with friends and family and enjoying not being at work.

I did my last stint out in the bush in November, and am now looking forward to starting with the underground crew at the Jundee Gold mine in central WA. Its going to be a hell of a challenge but one that will be well worth while. I wont be working in the same department as Maja, but at least I will have her and JJ to talk to when I am not Underground.

Mum and dad came over from Melbourne in December to visit Perth for the first time. They appeared to enjoy it and mum is counting down till she is well enough to come over again. One of the highlights was going down to Margaret River for a few days to enjoy the scenery and the wines. Mum and Dad bought a lot and also sent heaps back to Melbourne.

Symphony in the city - sunday night classical with mum & dad and mates

An unfortunate eventthat was unknown to the wearer of the pants

Lake Cave down in margaret River

I went back to Melbourne for Christmas and New Year to hang with my family because apparently it was our last family Christmas for a few years – my sister is going to Italy at the end of the year to study at the University of Gastronomical Science for 4 years or so. I went and visited my sister’s new apartment in Elwood, which is extremely small but very quaint, and enjoyed our outing to lunch at the restaurant she works at. She works at Neil Perry’s ROCKPOOL in Melbourne at Southbank. Mandy shouted me and I am glad she did because she ordered nine courses and I ended up having to almost be rolled home, I was so full. BUT I did have the BEST fish, steak and Chocolate Mousse I have EVER had. We started on Four Raw Tastes of the Sea which was four raw pieces of seafood with special toppings on them; then we moved onto the Ham and Salami Tasting Plate which contained the most mouth watering prosciutto; we had Duck Ragu with Pappardelle Noodles as a starter and found out just how amazingly yummy home-made pasta can be; we had Seared Crisp Snapper Fillet w/ Mashed Chickpeas, White Asparagus and Citrus Salad as our seafood main #1 which was the most amazing fish I have tasted in almost 23 yrs of living. The key was searing it with some kind of awesome bread on one side of the fish which kept all the wonderful juices in…mmmm; following the fish was the most amazing steak – a sirloin mashima steak that is similar to wagyu beef, but even better!!!! All this was topped off with Chocolate Mousse with Coffee Granita, Cherry Trifle, Almond, Pistachio and Apricot Nougat, Passionfruit Marshmallow, and Chocolate Truffle Mousse Slice…not to mention wine and beer to accompany the food. THAT is why I almost had to be rolled home.
I HIGHLY recommend Rockpool Bar and Grill Melbourne…you can choose between the Wine Bar or the Fine Dining Restaurant. I give it five stars! And if you go there, look for the shortish pale girl in the pastry section who makes deserts…that’s my sister!

New Years was around 41 degrees so I spent most of it running between mum and dads pool and their aircon in the house. A very quiet new years which was the way I like it. That’s not to say we didn’t do ANYTHING. My mates Bec and Tank came over for bit and we drank and talked and ate and swam etc. Nice catching up with them coz it had been almost a year since I saw either of them.

Christmas back in melbourne...my sister cooking up a storm

cooking cooking on the BBQ

Rounded up my holidays by coming home to Perth and heading down to Busselton for the Southbound Music festival. Highlights were Kings of Leon, The Beautiful Girls, Operator Please, The Go! Team, Groove Armada and Built to Spill. A few of the others were good entertainment, too, such as Lior, Spiderbait, Regurgitator, Jose Gonzales, The Waifs, and The Herd. Gotye was a big disappointment. He couldn’t get any of his gear ready on time and then you could hardly see him on stage and he was not that great live…I think he has a few things to iron out in his live performance before it would be worth paying tickets to see another gig of his. Just my opinion anyway. At the festival we camped in the festival campground with the 10,000 people and had a great time trying to find out tent at night in the sea of swags, palaces, gazebos, and drunk passed-out people. I was in my swag while my other 3 tent-mates had tents of their own. Unfortunately during the night it was apparently hard to tell if I was in my swag, and many, many times I was stepped on as random people tried to cut through our little tent gathering and walked over my swag while I was inside grunting and having the wind knocked out of me every time someone stepped on me. I was very tempted to have my swag pulled up but not zipped up and as someone went to step through I would suddenly flip the top back and roar at them and hopefully cause then to shit their dacks. It never happened though. I would always get in and then promptly fall asleep before I could execute my plan!

Our camp setup

Lior

the Beautiful Girls

The Herd

Kings of Leon

Regurgitator

Example of the fluero attrocities at the festival

Bubbles coming out of a fountain in Mandurah on the way home from Busselton

Now I am back at work and losing the will to continue on, as it is Friday and I am going to be covering my new speakers. That’s another story…when dad and mum came over dad helped me go out and blow all my money on new speakers, a receiver and a DVD HDD player. I bought AWESOME speakers from The LoudSpeakerKit guys (who are also called WAPLINGTON). I got the two front towers on special and fully made up already, but the centre speaker and sub are in kit form and I am going to veneer them in black stipple this weekend. The sound is great! My housemates first words after hearing the speakers were “O my Gosh, I am suffering from a sensory overload! I have never heard all those sounds in this movie before!”. Great reaction.
The best part about the speaker sets is that the two front towers are in HOLDEN SS UTE Green Automotive paint as they were display cases that the company was trying to get rid of because they now have now rotated in new white ones. Needles to say they look HOT in my lounge room!

The only other news is that our lease runs out in March so Anne and I are moving in together into a smaller place, hopefully closer to the airport (or just as proximal) while the boys will go their own way somewhere. Am looking forward to moving into a smaller place with less people because I was truly going a bit insane with 4 people in the house.

Unlike where Maja is now, at work, its nice and mild her in Perth with 25 degrees set for today. Am working on Anne to let me get a wading pool because we don’t have aircon…but I might be trying convince someone who will never be convinced :)

The last name DUDGEON

2007-10-18T20:28:00.000+08:00

Ok, so I was on facebook the other night and decided to see how many "DUDGEON"s are out there...coz not many people recognise the name around Aus. I came across a group called The Last Name Dudgeon and this is what it had to say:

Dudgeon is one of the oldest family names to come from the Anglo-Saxon tribes of Britain. It is derived from the baptismal name for Dod, Dod being the short form of Roger. Baptismal names began to appear as surnames relatively late in the growth of the naming tradition. This is a little surprising, given the popularity of biblical figures in the Christian countries of Europe. Nevertheless, surnames derived from baptismal names grew in popularity during the Middle Ages, and have become one of the foremost sources for surnames.One relatively recent invention that did much to standardize English spelling was the printing press. However, before its invention even the most literate people recorded their names according to sound rather than spelling. The spelling variations under which the name Dudgeon has appeared include Dodge, Doidge, Doge, Doige, Doddge, Doges, Dodges, Doidges and many more.First found in Lancashire where they held a family seat from very early times.At this time, the shores of the New World beckoned many English families that felt that the social climate in England was oppressive and lacked opportunity for change. Thousands left England at great expense in ships that were overcrowded and full of disease. A great portion of these settlers never survived the journey and even a greater number arrived sick, starving, and without a penny. The survivors, however, were often greeted with greater opportunity than they could have experienced back home. These English settlers made significant contributions to those colonies that would eventually become the United States and Canada. An examination of early immigration records and passenger ship lists revealed that people bearing the name Dudgeon arrived in North America very early: William Dodge who arrived in 1623 on the sailing ship the "Lion's Whelp." He settled in Salem Massachusetts. His brother, Richard Dodge, also settled in Salem seven years later in 1636.

Dudgeon is associated with a District Tartan: District of Musselburgh (an area near Edinburgh).

Interesting, huh.

Also, DUDGEON means: in addition to being in a foul mood, being in 'High dudgeon' also refers to a state of extreme righteous anger! And also... A more obscure meaning, it was used in 14th century england referring to the wooden handle of a blade! (see McBeth for use in text as well as in the 6th(?) Harry Potter Book). But none has stuck with more than what my friends have "made up" and that's "DUDGE-BAG" (said dooj bag). I think it means lamo yobo crazy person (in aussie terms)...but I dont take it personally :)

Freo Prison

2007-09-19T14:28:00.000+08:00

Pics from the tour in Freo Prison...sorry, not much for words right now :)

Mandy's Perth Visit

2007-09-19T14:08:00.000+08:00

My sister came and visited Perth after her 21st in Melbourne and we did a heap of touristy things. Most of them i hadnt even done before, and I have been here 7 months!

We did lunch at the Blue Duck in Cotteslow, and then a walk down Cott Beach, followed by a tour of the Freo Prison; a visit to the Swan valley for some yummy tastings; drive to Freo and lunch in Little Creatures Brewery on a soaking wet day; goldclass movies; drive around the burbs; and just chilling at home. Mandy loved it...well at least i think she did :)

When we when to Cott and the prison, Maja joined us...

The swan valley was pretty and we had lunch at the HOUGHTON WINERY where a baby Kookaburra kept stealing food...including calamari which he had trouble breaking apart.

Then in Freo we saw a stretch Humvee...most incredible stoopid

Baby Sister's 21st

2007-09-19T13:34:00.000+08:00

My little sister, Mandy (or Moomo as I like to call her), had her 21st in Melbourne in early sept. I went back to help her celebrate it, It was held at an irish pub and it was a great night where i got to see everyone again after 6 months since the last time i was in Melbourne.

Photos: Mandy and my family and me with my family; me with my mate Steve); me with my childhood mates (Bee - who had a thing about tying baloons to my dress, Allie and Jen Sads) and their mum (Ros); Mandy and her work and tafe mates; my cousin and me being wallies with the cow from Mandy's cake - which was a cow on the back of a holden ute.

Perth's Newspaper Craziness

2007-09-19T13:24:00.000+08:00

The last one (the comic) is my housemate's reaction if I have a brain fart and actually clean my room.

Hale 6

2007-09-05T12:48:00.001+08:00

Hale 6 Hockey breakup dinner

2007-09-05T12:02:00.000+08:00

Knee is slowly recovering, Got off crutches yesterday. It's stiff and sore but the more move it the better it will be. i want to be back to at least 80% by mid october so i can play summer hockey!!!

Last night the hale 6 girls decided to go to Tamarind in Mt Hawthorn for a bite to eat and to celebrate a successful and fun season. The team showed there appreciation for the hard work and dedication of our two coaches, Em and Claire, and our manager, Anne, by giving them a present each.

Lots of food and wine was consumed, and laughter filled the air. We were also the last ones to leave the place becasue they were closing. We literally stepped across the road and the remaining 4 (Myself, Danae, Anne and Keira) sank a few drinks before calling it a night.

At our last game on sunday night (which we unfortunately lost 2-0 after having dominated the game) i found out that once again I am the youngest. I thought Keira was a year younger and that Alison was around my age...but it appears I am the baby of the team, with Keira being a year OLDER and Alison being 2 years OLDER. Bloody typical :) The whole team thought i was around 25 or older. Pffffft

Finally, a post!

2007-08-31T14:59:00.000+08:00

Ok, so I finally have gotten off my arse and decided to actually blog something. I know…shock horror amazement!

Latest news: got back from 2.5 weeks in the bush and was VERY thankful to be back! Clean is nice. I love showers and real flushing toilets, too. Plus back into hockey I go.

I actually had a good stint this time. The drillers and offsiders were a nice bunch and I got along with them well, especially the relief driller and offsiders. The rig was a bit worse for wear but eventually we got through most holes, if not before, usually after around 6 hours.

Found my first gold in the field. I got to pan gold out of old palaeochannel sands from around 100m depth. Lots of fun. Panning takes time but its worth it when you get that buzz of finding a tiny 0.5 mm flake of gold floating on the water or stuck to the side of the pan. Very cool!

Weather was generally coolish…average max of around 20-22˚C during the day to a min of around 0-3˚C at night. It did get to -3˚C one night and one day when it was rainy and windy it only got to 11˚C during the day. We only lost 2 half days to rain, which was good.

Am back in civilisation now and having a ball… except a spell of bad luck has come upon me. On Saturday night I played my last hockey game of the season, and in the same game I injured my left knee. I accidentally stepped on the ball instead of hitting the ball and I hyper-extended my knee backwards. Not fun. Thankfully I did a semi-commando roll at the same time and prevented a knee reconstruction…but I have come away with a compression injury to my cartilage and significant soft tissue damage. Pain…I love pain. Now it’s daily sessions at the pool, walking and jogging in the water from one end to the other to get the joint moving with minimal impact. I am supposed to be back in the field right now…but that’s not happening. I think crutches might be a liability on a rig, not to mention I can’t even walk, let alone drive the 4 hours out to camp in a shit landcruiser trayback.

Now I am waiting to go to Melbourne next week for my sister’s 21st, but while I wait I am dilly-dallying at home and annoying anyone around me with favours coz I can’t do many things on my own.

It is really touching when so many people ask how I am doing. Usually, in Melbourne, people would just sigh deeply and gruffly ask “what the hell happened this time?” Here in Perth people are genuinely concerned and I find it nice that people actually care what happens to me. Granted, bad luck follows me around, but most of the time I can’t prevent the injuries that have happen. So thank you, to everyone that cares.

(Oh, i forgot about my car! I got my new car delivered 2 days before i busted up my knee. It's a gorgeous red buzz box and i love it!)

Money Money Money

2007-07-31T15:19:00.001+08:00

The last few days have left me with a very large whole in my hip pocket…and it will only get worse. Luckily Maja hasn’t come banging down my door demanding the money I owe her for the wine on our Albany trip…

Friday arvo I was perusing the web during lunch and came across the Apple site. While looking at what movie trailers were out I also had a quick squiz at the ipods…and decided to buy one. Just to treat myself…because I can. So I bought the 4gb Red nano. I am looking forward to being able to fit more songs in my pocket, coz the MP3 player I have now only holds ~50 songs max. The 4gb ipod holds ~1000.

On the weekend my housemate and I decided to go kitchen shopping. We both get quite a kick out of going into house and kitchen shops and buying utensils and stuff. This time we actually needed stuff coz one of our housemates has moved out and taken all her stuff with her. We bought a huge set of new pans and it set us back quite a few bucks…I also bought some new fish for my tank on the way home, too. Then today I went and blew $22,500 on a car. Yup. I bought a car. It’s red, so it goes faster It was either the red or the black, and although I really really like the black (so sexy) I decided to get red coz it’s different to my housemates’ cars and also it’s a bit safer on the road, and I am all about safety.

My fish tank

Some time in the near future I also have to buy my sister her 21st bday present. It’s all creeping up on me.

Tonight I am heading out with Maja and JJ to see the Kaiser Chiefs in Perth at Metro City. Should be a good gig…they are being supported by Wolf & Cub and Operator Please. Then on Friday Maja and I are going to see The Shins at the same venue. Sunday I fly out to Pinjin for two and a half weeks of manning the drill-rig…then I get to have my new car delivered! YAY!

We need a new housemate. A friend of Anne’s was going to move in but the rooms we have are not big enough for all her stuff. She apparently has more shoes than the three of us in the house have got if we put them all together. So now we are looking for new roomies…hopefully we get some one nice and social and tidy and with a good sense of humour. We are all about the humour. It’s already quite a crazy house, what with a Pom, a Kiwi and an Ozzie living together…another nationality may add to our craziness and set our accents haywire! Awesome! I am already laughing at the change in my own accent. Some words I say have a kiwi spin on them, only lightly, and some of them have a British spin on them…slightly. Likewise for the other two…their accents are becoming diluted over time. Our house is the best, though. I love it. Can’t imagine being anywhere else! An thankfully I have a preliminary ok to go and work underground at Jundee (at the same site as Maja and JJ) for my mine placement next year, which means I get to stay in Perth! WOOHOO! My boss is going to push it for me.

Time to go and brag to the guys in the office about my new car. Some of them are earning close to 6 figures and still have 20 yr old bombs…they are so cheap they don’t want to spend money on a car that works, but spend all their money on Huge TVs (obvious to compensate for something – and we all know what that is). Crazy men.

Ohh I almost forgot about Friday and Sunday. Friday night was supposed to be a quiet night with a few drinks at the Northbridge Hotel, especially since I was driving. I drove people to the next destination, and instead continuing on home to bed, I got roped into going into The Paddo with the others till it closed. THEN at the moment we got kicked out of the bar for closing time, Ben yelled out “Party at Yokine” and then all hell broke loose. I ended up driving 7 people (in one run) back to my house where they consumed a whole bottle of Jagermeister and a bottle of mead and half a goon sack of port. I had a shot of mead. That’s it. I tried to go to bed but when there is loud music and 7 drunk people downstairs, there is no way it’s possible. So eventually, at 4am, the last person went to bed and I hit my pillow and was out like a light, only to be woken up at 8:30am by the work weekend sched phone to take scheds from people in the field. 4.5 hours sleep was not enough. But I had a good night and I also ended up having a good Saturday watching movies and shopping for pots. Saturday night Anne and I joined two other friends to visit our mate who has a bad back and is off work. She can’t leave the house so we went to her place, had dinner, and played trivial pursuit. We all sucked and so the game lasted a loooong time.

Anne and I painted a feature wall in our dining room/kitchen on Sunday. It’s a dark redish colour. It looks hot! We put the second coat on last night. It’s taking ages to dry because it’s been raining the past week. Heavy rain…and even hail last night. Once the wall is dry and we clean up the area, it’s going to make the house look awesome…much warmer. Before it was all white and really open and cold. We all really like open plan but this red has added a little something that makes it seem much warmer…and since we have no heater, that’s definitely going make life a lot easier in the house.

Before

After

Heaters for drying

Tony with lemon face

Tony being a worm

My housemates making Tony feel better

My housemates dancing

Tony dead

Sleepy ben

Randy skulling port

Annie and her mead say "Cheese!"

Tony's eye

Module 1 - The ins and outs of QAQC and the JORC code.

2007-07-24T09:15:00.000+08:00

So, before I went down to Albany on the weekend I spent the first 3 days of last week at the Newmont Module 1 internal course. I was not originally booked on the course – it seems that everyone thought everyone else was looking after that for me…

I was sitting at my desk on Monday morning, enjoying the peace and quiet of having no one there, when the “big” boss walked past my office and did a double take, coming into my office and proceeded to give me the third degree: “what are you doing? Why are you here? Why aren’t you down in the city at the Pacific International (PI) with everyone else?”. CRIKEY! He was going down there to give one of the talks, so he escorted me down there to join everyone else (always hoping there was a spare place for me). I managed to grab my phone and notebook on the way. Then for the next 3 days I was at the course…

We covered mainly the applied geology aspect of mining and exploration, which included the ins and outs of the JORC code (Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves) as well as the US equivalent; QAQC (basically quality control of assay data collected); mining processes; ore extraction techniques; and classification of reserves and resources etc. Most of it I have never touched on before.

We spent most of our time in the conference room of the PI hotel, but on Wednesday we went and did a lab audit of the Ultra Trace labs just out of Perth. I have never seen a lab that wasn’t part of a university, and this one was crazy…

The main thing I noticed was that most of the lab was segregated into male-dominated areas and female-dominated areas. I guess women work in the safer areas. We saw a really cool robot thing that made buttons from the rock sampled and these got analysed by ICPM machines to work out the amount of each element in the samples. Rosie and I could have watched them work alllllll day.

Monday we had a social night and all went indoor go-karting. As far as I am aware I was the fastest female overall, but the guys took out the top 3 positions. On the last race, the grand final, we had an incident…Jeff decided to be nice and not run into the girls and instead he swerved and ran directly into the track wall. He managed to take out 2 brackets, crack the concrete, bust the kart, and cause himself damage with skinned/bruised shins and busted up fingers. The poor Canadian caused himself and the track quite a bit of grief. It was funny, though. No one was laughing harder than he was…for the majority of the time. The track was so busted that they had to close the centre and wait for morning to get it repaired because it was unsafe. Typical. I don’t rekon they will ever let us back there haha

Photos from the lab Audit

Albany! Land of wine, cheese, wind and rain.

2007-07-23T14:12:00.000+08:00

Just got back from Albany at 5:30pm yesterday. Gosh, what a fantastic trip! But I am really wrecked. We saw and did a shit-load of things down south. Maja and I were lucky enough to be put up with by our mate Bec and her fiancé Shane (and their two adorable dogs, Kimba and Brock).

Maja pretty much summed up our first day on her blog. The first night we went through 5 bottles of wine between 3 of us, and stayed up till about 12am talking shit and playing with the dogs. It kept raining all night and then dried up a bit, but stayed overcast for our trip on Friday back into Denmark with Bec. We went wine-tasting (or more correctly wine-drinking), cheese-tasting, and toffee-tasting. We stopped off at 2 wineries and a meadery. I have never had mead in my life, and I have to say that it is now one of my favourite drinks. It’s so nice and refreshing, and the warm spiced mead is fantastic! I bought half a case!

We ate cheese and drank wine at the other wineries, with the toffee and cheese being the only food we ate all day, except for a bag of chips between us. Before doing all the alcohol shananagans, we went and did the Tree Top Walk through the Kari trees, just outside of Walpole. At the highest point we were 40 m off the forest floor. It was awesome, being suspended on suspension bridges in the tree tops. Vern loved every minute of it, feeling right at home and swinging from the branches. He was a lucky sock monkey. It felt weird being on the bridges because they swayed and bounced when people jumped or ran on them. Bec and I had fun freaking Maja out a few times by jumping or walking crazily from side-to-side up the bridge, making it rock backwards and forwards quite substantially. Cruel, cruel.

We got home and eventually engorged ourselves on nibblies in front of the TV while Shane cooked us the best steak in creamy mushroom sauce. More wine was had and myself and Shane headed to dream land around 12-12:30am, while Maja and Bec were hardcore and kept drinking till about 3:30am. By that stage I can imagine they were pretty smashed. Bec had to go to work the next day so had to be up and at work by 9:30am, but Maja didn’t get up till around 11:30 ish. She was not feeling crash hot, but we headed to WhaleWorld (where Bec works) anyway. On the way we stopped at The Gap and Natural Bridge, two geological phenomena of the Albany Coast, and were silly enough to get out and have a look in horizontal rain and wind. What can I say…we are crazy chicks.

WhaleWorld was really great. We learnt all about the history of whaling in Albany and even got to see humpback whales in the wild, just off the deck about 200 m out into the bay. Gorgeous! It was very windy and Maja and I were almost blown away once or twice. We saw everything from real whales and a real whaling boat to photos of men cutting up whales; a dried whale penis; a 3D whale movie; and miniature 70s people talking about whaling. Plus I even got to bring out my inner child and play on the swings and a slippery dip (or slippery slide for non-queenslanders). Needless to say it was a very interesting arfternoon, especially when poor Maja had to lock herself away in the ladies’ room several times.

That night we headed out to tea at an awesome little pub that sold fantastic german beer. We met Bec’s boss and her husband and then all headed to another pub, which was much noisier and full of people dressing in skimpy clothing, trying to pick up. We left pretty quickly to go home and drink in the comfort of Bec’s house. That was a relatively early night, being in bed by around 12am.

Sunday was supposed to be Whalewatching but the weather wasn’t good for it so we took it easy, packed, went to the Albany windfarm (coz Maja’s never seen a wind farm) and then visited some friends also living in Albany. 12:30pm we headed back to Perth along the much quicker Albany highway and along the way got stuck behind EVERY slow person in WA!!! PLUS two whole dongers! I almost lost it, but managed to keep my cool. There were probably times when Maja was ready to clock me over the head with something, I am sure.

Got home by 5:30pm and got ready for my hockey game. We Drew. With the worst team ever. They shat us up the wall!!! For the record, UWA have a team in the lower grades (which we are in) and this particular team is full of princesses, and these princesses make most teams they come across fall apart, mostly out of pure anger and rage which leads to mistakes on our behalf that lead them to get crappy goals. Our goals were worthy…theirs weren’t at all. Arrrggghhh my whole team was ready to deck them all. As it was, my team took out about 6 of their players through the game, accidentally of course, including the goal keeping. Unfortunately they all got back up again…(jeez I am dark about that game). And here am I, the captain of the game, trying hard not to join everyone in full out brawls on the field!

Today is a day of little work and lots of fluffing around. Tonight I do my legs, clean my fishtank, and eat toffee with the girls. Can’t wait.

BTW, blogger refuses to make my captions turn out correctly, so I appologise for lack of context to photos.

All Day Pasta Recipe

2007-07-11T10:50:00.000+08:00

Krissy’s All-day Pasta

Ingredients:
500g Gravy Beef
500g Pork
1 Garlic Clove
¾ Bottle Tomato Paste
2 small containers Triple Concentrate Tomato Paste
1 Fresh sweet basil leaf
1 large Onion
Oregano to taste
Salt and pepper
‘Flat Tube’ Pasta for the amount of people eating

Method:
Fry Meat in large pot until dry brown (pour off fluids if necessary).
Put meat in a bowl.
Use meat pot to fry onion and crushed/chopped garlic until tender.
Add tomato pastes and meat.
Fill with water (to a few cms below rim) and add herbs, salt and pepper.
Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer with the LID OFF.
Stir occasionally to avoid sticking.
Simmer until condensed down to very viscous, gluggy sauce (mudpool consistency).
As it condenses you will have to keep turning the heat down.
Keep stirring as it condenses.
Cook pasta separately and add the sauce to the pasta, NOT pasta to the sauce.

Generally:
Start = ~9am
Finish = ~ 2pm

*NOTE: its is a good idea to have a taste test every so often, just to make sure it tastes alright…and….just coz you know you want to.

REMEMBER the sauce will STAIN anything it gets on because it is so reduced...HAPPY COOKING :)

The Beast

2007-07-11T10:43:00.000+08:00

Cleaning out my hardrive and I found a story I wrote back when I was in high school in year 9, in 1999. I read it again just now and laughed. Gotta love the imagination:

The white veil descended in the darkness around them. The pair shivered, imagining what would appear through the mist.
One minute…two minutes.
There.
Eyes.
Four Eyes.
Hamish squinted, trying to make out what lay in the shadows below them. Amy was trembling, gripping tightly onto the sleeve of Hamish’s jacket. The beast slinked into the open below them, dissolving out of the mist into the moonlight. It was enormous. Four eyes, huge legs. The size of a small horse. The muscle rippled over its body, enhanced by the moonlight.
Hamish tightly squeezed Amy’s hand and held his breath. If it came to it, he knew that they had no hope against this beast. He and Amy would have to run. If they could it would be there only chance.
The beast suddenly stopped and turned, glancing up in their direction, eyes glowing and teeth glistening. A loud roar drifted up over the cliff edge, pounding Hamish’s ears. He then realised his mistake. How could he have overlooked such a crucial detail? Not only were the creatures on this planet bigger, stronger, and more deadly, their sense of smell would certainly be heightened compared to animals on Earth. This creature had smelt them. That was how it had found them.
Amy let out a muffled squeal, clutching onto Hamish’s shoulder. If they moved higher up the slope maybe the beast would give up. Then again, it was extremely persistent. Three hours of running proved that. The beats was starring straight into his eyes. He felt as if the devil himself were peering into his soul, ready to devour it.
The beast lunged, hurling itself at the cliff face. The ledge that Hamish and Amy were huddled on was only roughly three meters above the lower outcrop. The creature backed up, crouching on its haunches. Hamish stiffened, bracing himself. The beast leapt, high into the air in a large arc, heading straight for the lip of the ledge. It made it but only just. Hanging on by the claws on its front feet, it growled and spat in the direction of its meal.
Hamish was paralysed. Fear had taken control of his body. He wanted to move, needed to move. He tried and tried but nothing would respond to his commands. He attempted to yell or scream. No sound escaped his mouth. Slowly, the creature was hauling itself up and over the cliff edge towards its prey.
Amy threw a rock at the beast’s head. The rock rebounded uselessly off the bear-like skull of the alien creature. The movement caused Hamish to break from the momentary paralysis. He leapt over to Amy, pulling her away from the edge and forcing her to take cover in a sheltered alcove. When he was convinced that she would stay there he cautiously made his way out toward the hellish beast. He mentally checked his items list on the way.
He didn’t have much: a cigarette lighter swiped from his older brother, a condom? Where had that come from? a torch, bug spray, and a gas grenade stolen from a soldier two years ago in the Middle East. His first thought was the grenade…that wouldn’t work. He and Amy were still inside the blast radius. No, Couldn’t use the grenade. Damn! On its own, the lighter wouldn’t do much damage against such a large creature. What could he use with the lighter? The condom? No, it would melt before anything could be done with it…IF he could even think of anything to do with it. So, what about the bug spray? Would it act like any other aerosol can? There was only one way he was going to find out.
Hamish grabbed his pack and wrenched out the bug spray from the side zip pocket, while simultaneously whipping out the cigarette lighter from his jacket pocket, lighting it against his leg. The creature pulled its back legs over the edge and was now standing face to face with Hamish, two meters ahead. It was now a standoff. Who would move first?
The beast crouched, readying itself for the kill. Hamish didn’t hesitate, and slammed his finger down on the nozzle of the can while thrusting the lighter into the spray stream. Amy’s eyes widened as, with a loud “whoosh”, a massive tongue of fire leapt instantly from the can. Hamish was well prepared to use this new weapon, having spent three years in the Marines as a Special Forces unit recruit. He leveled the flame at the beast’s head, causing it to shriek and leap sideways away from the flame. An acrid black smoke filled the air accompanied by the gagging smell of burning fur and flesh.
The beast leapt at Hamish from the side causing him to fall heavily onto the rocky ledge beside Amy, who was still gaping wide-eyed and gob smacked, not making a sound. Hamish felt an incredible weight come crashing down on his chest. At that moment he was staring directly into the four luminous green eyes ten centimeters from his face; hot, decaying breath hovering around his head. Sticky saliva sprayed onto his face, stinging his flesh as thought it were acid. Who knows, maybe it was?
Hamish bucked and kicked attempting to dislodge the weight, but the beast had all the leverage. Then something grabbed its attention. Hamish glanced sideways as far as we dared and saw that Amy had picked up the spray can and turned the flame toward the horse-like creature atop him. It leapt at her, but too late. She was quick, arcing the flame high under the creature’s belly as it sailed over where she crouched. It landed in a heap, writhing and screaming in agony.
Amy kept the can aimed at its body while the flame engulfed it, completely covering every inch of fur and flesh. The fireball rolled over and over, steadily getting closer to the edge.
Within seconds it was all over.
The fireball reached the cliff edge and flew out over it. It had enough velocity that it sailed out past the lower ledge and down into the darkness of the rocky chasm below. A sickening thud rent the air and then all was silent, save for the heavy breathing of Hamish and his sister.
They were alive and that was something. What on earth was that BEAST? Wait, this wasn’t Earth. It could have been anything. He sure as hell was not going down there to find out.

Phone Photos

2007-07-11T09:19:00.001+08:00

I have FINALLY taken the photos off my phone. It only took me a few months :)

A couple at the SAINT wearing the MATCHING shirts...LAMO

SEXPANTHER GIG

CORVETTE PARKED IN WEST PERTH (Owned by a guy in his 80's - WRONG)

My recent trip to Townsville & Charters Towers in QLD - WETNESS

My QLD Supervisor in his band playing in Charters Towers

Yokine Mansion Activities

2007-07-09T11:55:00.000+08:00

AARRGGGHHHH Blogger is shitting me up the wall right now! I will jsut put all the text first and then all the photos last...sorry, but putting explainations with the photos is not working out...so you can link the text paragraphs to pictures. I have faith in you...

My food poisoning has now been upgraded to a tummy bug. I have been very ill since thursday night and today is the first day I have kept down food and felt ok. I have no energy and am very tired, but that did not stop me having a very full weekend...

As per the last post, it was Anne's birthday on friday and we surprised her very early (7am) in the morning...

Friday night we took Anne out to a nepalese restaurant for her birthday. It was awesome food. Afterwards we went out to a few pubs and clubs. Anne met up with a guy and Claire and I eventually went home at around 3am. I had to be up again at 8:30am to take scheds, so I got up, took the scheds, and then went and got my hair cut and coloured. Saturday night I was so tired I just fell asleep on the couch for a while as the girls were getting ready for a 30th party. Anne suggested I read my book in her warm eletric blanket bed and so when they left I curled up in her bed and read my book...all two pages...before falling alseep. I woke up at 3am beside Anne, and promptly left when i felt violent spasm in my tummy. I took myself to my own bed with my bucket, and then got up at 7am...for no reason. Took scheds at 8:30-9:30 and then when Anne woke up I snuggled in her bed again while she pottered around the house. I fell asleep (during which time Anne took some photos) and woke up when our guests started to arrive for our sunday lunch...typical Krissy style.

Triny cooked us an amazing roast chicken sunday lunch. There were 10 of us and we (except me) ate a bucket load of food and drank litres of alocholic beverages. Anne and I were being good because we had a hockey game at 5:30pm.

There were only 3 boys and they got a little uncomfortable with some of the conversations we females had. So, eventually Pete and Moony decided to leave the table and conversation, and cleaned up the kitchen. Great for us!!!

We proceeded to lose our hockey game 4-1...and we deserved to lose...we played shokingly. Half the team was sick or injured and we just couldnt get any bloody goals! Well, we got one...thanks to a fill in :)

This week is a bye for us so we can all recover. My week will hopefully be a little less hectic, with only a dinner, a pub quiz, and farwell drinks to go to...and then footy on sunday. Sleep is top of my agenda at the moment.

This is me in Anne's bed...just a lump and a little arm exposed...

Birthdays, Meme and Sushi

2007-07-06T13:06:00.000+08:00

It's my housemate's birthday today and so before I continue, HAPPY 28th BIRTHDAY ANNIE LIEBCHEN! Hope you are having a fabo day!

Right, so. i am all alone in the office at the moment coz everyone is at lunch. Yay for me!
I am not going to have lunch. I think i may have minor food poisoning from lunch yesterday. Maja took me to lunch yesterday and we decided to have Japanese. It was one of those cool little belts that just goes round and round with the food on it. i spent most of my time watching the train, not eating :) Anyway, i am not much of a seafood person, so I stuck to Vegies, beef and chicken...and there in lies my problem, i fear. I went for a run last night with my housemates and half way through the run I was collapsed on the ground with intense stomach cramps and eventually vomiting. Happened for much of the night. And now I am still having trouble stomaching food and smelling food. i have a suspicious feeling it may just be a stomach bug, but lets just say it was the sushi, eh? oh, and for the record, i in no way am suggesting it was Maja's fault. In fact, i want to thank her again for such an awesome lunch. i loved it. It tasted so good (the first time around anyway).

I am a little tired, as one might imagine, and I think i am still operating on east coast time. Townsville is 2 hours ahead of Perth and its hard to revert back to Perth time in a hurry. Clarie and I had a heap of fun this morning surprising Annie for her bday! She has a million and one cakes already, so we bought her a cake mix and stuck candles in the top of the box. We also filled her toilet with balloons so she couldnt get in there. Then we walked into her room with the candles lit at 7am and woke her up singing an out-of-tune version of the birthday song. She was very groggy as she is quite sick, and we made her blow out the candles which ended in a major coughing fit. We were making her brekky when we heard a distressing and somewhat quiet shout from her bathroom. She couldnt find the "potty" to go peepee because it was covered in balloons. She may be 28 today, but the inner 12yearold sickie version came out this morning, the little princess. Tonight we are taking her out to dinner, with some other mates. Nepalese for dinner I think. Never had it but it sounds great. Culture week for me. First Japanese (2nd time ever) and now Nepalese.

Oh yeah, I am having trouble getting my pics into Blogger so will leave the conference pics till next time I am at home and using MY internet. Work's one sucks. PLUS I know it is being monitored, as per usual, so less time spent on here the better, I guess.

Righto, last thing. Maja has tagged me for this Meme. She can be kinda pushy sometimes, eh, can’t you Maja?! Haha. Well, mine wont be too funny coz I am too tired to think, but I will try and be honest.

Rules:

We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I am scared of the dark. Like, shit scared. Always have been. I am 22 and consider myself pathetic. I have tried and tried to get over it, but my imagination is too powerful. I know there is nothing there, but my brain says there is. Plus I have had way too many scary things happen to me in the dark. I go running at night with my housemate who likes to torment me by yelling at me suddenly, WATCHOUT! Or BOO! I almost go A over T every time. She loves it. Most people don’t know I am scared because I can hide it…most of the time. Sometime I just lose it.

2. My favourite smell is diesel or petrol. I love it. I don’t know why. But it means every time I smell it I stand there taking really deep breaths and enjoying the smell…until I realise the odour is coming from the guy sitting beside me at the bar. That can get me into awkward situations. Especially when his wife is sitting on the other side of him. But it has to be FRESH diesel or petrol. Not the sweat mix :)

3. I play with my ear lobe when I am bored, thinking, or zoning. It’s a weird habit that I never grew out of. No one has said anything to me about it yet, but their eyes say everything: “Jeez, she’s playing with her ear. That’s just weird. But she is making me look so normal, so I think I will just ignore it and keep talking to her.”

4. I am a very bubbly and talkative person, usually. But as soon as you put me in a room with people I don’t know, or a guy I like, I will clam up. My inner shyness surfaces and makes people who know me well think that I am depressed or sad or something. It’s just me taking off my ‘talking shoes’ and putting on my ‘listening shoes’. Not often, but it happens :)

5. I have a dislocated tail bone. It is twisted completely round the wrong way and when I first did it I sat on a fluero blue inflatable doughnut cushion for 2 months. I twisted it playing hockey when I did a deep lunge for a ball. Since then my arse has never been the same :) But I aint getting my arse operated on just yet – I can live with the pain a little longer, I rekon.

6. My parents were going to call me DAISY but dad put his foot down and decided he didn’t want a plant for a daughter. Plus, who wants the nickname Daisy Duck (or something worse) for the rest of their life? NOT ME.

7. When I was a kid I had the same nightmare for a year. It involved BIGFOOT ripping people to shreds and me finding them strewn about the forest. I was 8. I was troubled.

8. I have a Gossan in southeast WA, as well as part of a cave system in VIC named after me. The gossan was named after me because I yelled out “...GOSSAN!” (like a person with terrets might do) from in our work car when we were exploring a new tenement and it hadn’t been mapped before. The cave was named after me because I was leading our exploration team into that previously unmapped part of the system and I got us all both stuck and lost at the same time. Took us a while to get out of that situation (and my mate who was following still wont forgive me).

Right, not very interesting but, hey, that’s what you get for someone who is sleep-deprived and has stomach troubles (among many other troubles). Hmmm tagging people…I don’t rekon I can even THINK of 8 people to tag. I will try…lets tag Zac, Kieren, JJ (oops, maja tagged you already…), Meg….hmmm who else? Moomo, aaaaaaaannnnnndddddddddd nup…can’t think of anymore. My bad. Might tag more people later…coffee time. Coffeee coffeeee cofffeeeee

Charlies Trowsers (AKA Charters Towers)

2007-06-30T13:03:00.000+08:00

Crikey! I can't believe I haven't posted for so long, and that it's already the middle of the year...ARGGHH! What have I done all year? Work work work play work work.

At the moment I am sitting in the Exploration Office in Charters Towers (Far North QLD) trying to get the motivation to continue with my drill hole compilation. We finally have some good weather here, with a blue sky, sunny weather, and a temperature of around the high 20s. The last 2 weeks it has been very wet and very cold. I have spent all my time here (except today) in my hoodie and/or reflective work jacket. The wind chill factor was about -50 degrees celsius i rekon.

I arrived here in QLD on monday and have been in townsville for 3 days and now am in Charters doing some work with my company up here. We have a mine about an hour out of Charters that I am going to get a tour of. Unfortunately the ground is still too wet to carry out the work I was going to do out here so it will be postponed until August. Apparently to do soil gas sampling (which uses the gases produced by the soil microbes) you need warm and dry conditions because the microbes dont like to function in cold and wet conditions. A bit like humans, really. Sounds sensible to me. So, my black voodoo magic exploration technique will have to wait until a later time. This postponment means i get to go home 3 days early. Wednesday I head back to Perth (which is going to be another long and boring couple of flights) and then I am back in the office on thursday. Yay.

I am seriously hanging out to go to Albany in a few weeks. I need to escape newmont for a bit. Maja and i are road tripping it down to Albany to visit a mate and it will give me a chance to see something in WA thats south of Freo and Jandekot (which are as far south as I have ever been).

The funniest thing happened on tuesday... I was sitting having brekky at the Mercure Inn in Townsville, getting ready to go to my conference, and i noticed one of the chefs at the till. She seemed somehow familiar and I couldnt put my finger on it...who was it and where had I seen her? It finally dawned on me: It was my Aunty who I havent seen for 10 years. Can you believe it? i knew my dad's brother lived in Townsville but I havent seen them or spoken to them for 10 years, and i haven't even met one of my cousins. How crazy is that!???? So now I am getting ready to drive back to Townsville for the night to help surprise and celebrate my cousin's 16th birthday! The last time I saw him he was 6 and i was 12! Crikey! It will be great to see them all again. I know my aunty is excited but we shall see how excited everyone else is when the see a stranger walk up to the front door. No one except my aunty knows I am coming. I am a little apprehensive...and i have to drive the bloody work ute out there. It is one of the most uncomfortable cars to sit in for long periods of time! I will just have to rock out to my music and sing my lungs out in the car to take my mind of the pain :)

Photos and rundown on the conference and work up here will be posted when I get back to Perth and load all my photos. Have a smashing weekend everyone! (I did last night - smashing is the correct term)

Micro mines

2007-06-15T13:25:00.000+08:00

Bored Bored Bored

I am currently in a Micromine course, learning how to use the software in order to make 3D models and do sections and DTMs and stuff at work. Today is 100% better than yesterday but i am still falling asleep every 5 minutes and getting a really sore back.

My housemate thought that this MICROMINE course was a course on how to use little minni mining trucks and gear to make a little itty bitty mine. Yes, you read correctly... little mining trucks, like matchbox cars, digging little pits the size of a polo divet. Hilarious mental image. My housemate is a hydro consultant. No further comments needed.

Got 5 hous sleep last night coz i spent my night making a movie for my sister's presentation on tuesday at tafe. I managed to get it finished last night, but the problem now is trying to get the finished thing BACK to her in Melbourne, while i am here in Perth. And it has to be there by monday. So, i have express posted a CD with the file, but am also trying to email it or upload it to the web for her to get immediate access to it for rehearsal purposes...but nothing is working. Its only a 151 mb mpeg but it won't send in any emails and I can't get it to upload onto any sites. I am in a very pissed mood right now. SO...I may have to get on my hands and knees and beg my housemates to give me hand...apparently they KNOW stuff, whatever that means :)

Went car shoppping with JJ (Maja's JJ) on Wednesday night - that's late night car shopping - and we test drove the Astra, Corolla, and Tiida. Astra is shite. Didn't like it. Tiida is...small...and not as posh, but fairly alright (thought it hasnt had any good reviews)...but JJ and I are liking muchly the new corolla. It's like a spaceship inside. A smooth ride, too. Very confortable to drive. Only thing I am working out is money. It's $24,000 drive away, which is over my max price range, but I thinking about trying to beat people down and get a better deal. BUT there is also the option of my housemate's car that she is selling. It's a Subaru Impreza RX. Can't remember the year. It's black and has a sports pack thingy...things like a momo steering wheel etc. Very nice car...and more what I would like but new subarus are bloody expensive!

DECISIONS DECISIONS!

i just want a car. Thats all. With a spacious cargo compartment (preferably a hatch), is a manual, and that I like to drive. Meh.

oh, time to continue working.

NEED

SLEEEP

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Warming of the Yokine Mansion

2007-06-11T11:36:00.000+08:00

The house has now officially been "warmed", as of saturday night.

The girls and I invited a bunch of people round to help warm our house, finally. We started at 4pm and crashed at 3am. Almost 12 hours...almost. Had a blast. We had a Barbie, drank some beer, wine, spirits (anything, really), and ate a shitload of food. We made salads, cheesy potatoes, had some nibbles and enjoyed the cold night air. No major upsets, but the drunk tag-alongs were quite freaky. One guy was constantly falling over, and the other was constantly trying to chat up Anne and Myself. And he did a shocking job at it, too. Not to mention all I could look at was the huge zit on the side of his nose. Arrrggghhhh!

Triny (one of my housemates) and her boyfriend, Mick

Serving dinner!

Braving the cold

Maja and JJ

Tiny and Claire (another housemate - far right) hanging with some mates

Meg in the corner and Triny and Mick going for a little cuddle

Claire on a mission

A few people came that I haven't seen for aaaaages and I spent quite a while dancing with Meg late into the party, dancing to some awesome old-school and dancy-hiphop tunes.

Meg and Aidan (both from Melbourne) who I haven't seen since around November last year!

Meg hiding from the camera

We got a few good housewarming presents, too. Fish, pizza cutter, bonzai tree, electric blanket (Anne got that) to name a few. The fish are quite crazy...the 4 Angel fish hang out together, just sitting there until Maja taps the glass and they go psycho. Maja enjoyed doing that a lot :)

Fishtank

Elvis (black swordtail) and the newbie Angel Fish

Fake yellow coral and the 'quartz graveyard'

The two little orange and black striped clown loaches like to hide behind the plants in the tank until you turn away and no one is looking. Then they come out and swim all over the place. They are a little crazy. My next additions will be neon tetras (for Claire) and one or two bristle-nosed catfish, to keep the tank clean :)

To wrap it all up, yesterday we chilled on the couch watching movies after having cleaned up the very LARGE mess. Anne got creative and made one of the BEST soups I have EVER had, out of Ham Shank, winter vegies, and lentil soup stuff...it was soooooooo good! We finished the day off with our hockey game against Melville. It was freezing and we finally WON a game. Final score was 3-0. Somehow (I am still taking it in) I scored a goal off a short corner. We buggered up the corner, as per usual, and we had about 3 rebounds off the goalie's pads On the last rebound, it went way out on a very sharp angle to the right, with no one around it. I found myself with the ball, on my wrong foot, and got a fluke goal. It was hit bloody hard, so I think most people were too freaked to stop it, otherwise it would have been stopped by about 4 people standing between me and goals. So, yeah, we won and had a great time. Anne didn't have as many shots on goal this week but still played awesome and assisted a goal and set up some great plays down the field. And the fact that she doesn't stop running all game makes me look up to her all the more. One day I will be fit enough again to do that :)

Ice Ice Baby

2007-06-05T10:54:00.000+08:00

The weekend was great...

Friday night we (my housemates and I) had a stint on the couch with a few movies, and Saturday Anne and I went with my mate, Lia, to the ice skating rink. Anne and Lia were ripping up the ice, while I was mainly sitting on the ice. Anne is an ex-figure skater and Lia is an ice-hockey player. I was going fine for around 20 mins before Lia skated past me, sitting on her haunches & pretending to be a little kid and she completely freaked me out and I was down on my butt before I even realised it was her. And from then on it was me on the ice every couple of minutes, finding it very hard to get up. Lia and Anne have it on video...so crazy. So I am very sore at the moment, because of the bruising and the effort of skating. But it was haps of fun :)

Anne

Lia

Spin..weeeee

Me TYRING to skate

Not very good

Needs improvement

Huh?

Haha...remember when Krissy fell over? Haha How many times was that?

3 Chikas

After skating I took Lia to the airport and on the way home I got a new filter and some fish for my fishtank...so we now have some fishies. I got 3 sword tails to start with, just while we make sure the rocks in the water don’t kill the fish. As a geologist I put rocks in the tank that look coll in water and show geological sutff, but I always forget what they are made of and that sometimes they can be toxic to the fish...
We called the fishies "Elvis" (he is a black one with pearly spots), "Slater" (ie Kelly Slater the surfer-he is an orange fish) because he likes to ride the filter jets at the back of the tank, and "Paris" (who is white and orange), because she is the only female and will 'put out' for the boys. We are not very creative, but when we get more fish we will find better names for them.

Sunday I got invited round with Anne to her ex-housemate's place for lunch. It was so rich and decadent...deep fried camembert; thai fish cakes; lamb cutlets; stilton + costello + pear + sour cream + mayo dip; mint, basil & tomato salad; Costello, artichoke and egg pastries; and a caramelised onion, goats cheese and egg tart...ALL HOME MADE! Plus some very nice wine...
Oh yeah!! I only ate a little bit because I don't like blue cheese, but the camembert and the tart were AWESOME!!!!

And then yesterday, Anne and I did a big clean of the house. We washed up the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed, I totally cleaned my room (which looked like a bomb site and Anne was ready to lock me in there until it was clean), and I moved my bookshelves out into the spare room to give me a bit more room, and we did the washing and ironing, and cleaned our bathrooms, and I mended my buttons and pants and washed the couch covers, and THEN when Anne went to the movies I stayed home and did ALL my filing and receipt sorting, so I am now UP TO DATE with my filing and on-track for my tax return...I have quite a lot to claim...We are very proud of ourselves and keep telling each other how clean the house looks and how we love it, and how it won’t last two days...reality bites.

I am having lunch some time this week with Maja, which will be lovely, just getting out of the testosterone-infested office we call the 'Fishbowl'...Other than that the week is going to be a normal working week. Adele is over from Melbourne so I should be hopefully catching up with her at some stage. Lia left on saturday so am feeling a little flat, not having someone from Melb to hang out with...it was lovely having her here.

Nothing much else to say...not yet anyway...have to get it all straight in my head before I blurt it out. But I know I will need to soon. Stay tuned for the cracking.

Do rocks suffer deformation or do they enjoy it??

2007-05-30T15:29:00.001+08:00

I’m really bored right now and losing my concentration while gaining a headache and struggling with eyes that sting and droopy, heavy eyelids.

Just came back from the field on Monday night and I am only just alive. It wasn’t hard or stressful out there but I was in full PMS mode and so it was a strain to stay sane out there in a camp of men. 8 men and me, and then Kate came out for a few days at the end the heavy burden was lifted for a wee while. We spent the majority of the time doing reconnaissance and exploring out tenements (which are huge). I tried desperately to spend time getting my eye in on the geology and tectonics of the area, but it’s very complicated and I was very lost a lot of the time.

The one thing I can say for sure is that the scenery is beautiful out there in the SE goldfields. No words can describe it. The land is undulating and thick with Salmon Gums (a type of eucalypt tree) and Acacias. Large salt lakes appear in the east, and camel tracks cover the ground like a plague, yet you never see the animals themselves. There are some beautiful rocks, too. I collected a lot of rocks and so my bag was incredibly heavy when I came back to Perth.

You could often see me on my knees on the edge of salt lakes or large quartz veins, scooping up handfuls of quartz pieces to put in my fish tank at home. The quartz pieces are Archean to Proterozoic, which means they are anywhere from 542 million to 3 billion years old! Amazing, huh!? I have gravel in my tank but nothing compares to having billion-year-old quartz in it, especially for a geologist.

I spent my spare time around the fire at camp, freezing my ass off. The first night in the field was -5 degrees Celsius, while the second night was -3 degrees. Later in the week it warmed up to about 5 degrees because a cold front came through bringing cloud that kept the heat in at night. The cloud made for some spectacular sunsets and sunrises.

Am stuck in the office for another 3 weeks before I go up to QLD for a symposium and some more field work. I love getting out and about. Soon I have to choose where I want to do my mine stint next year so I will try and get some site visits in to help with the decision…

While I was out in the field the structural specialist who was out scouting with us (Cees Swager – he is dutch) asked me a question that really made me laugh…

“Do rocks SUFFER deformation or do they ENJOY it???”

Gday from the bush

2007-05-25T18:54:00.002+08:00

Am currently about 3.5 hrs SE of Kalgoorlie, in the middle of the bush, using satellite broadband.

Have had a few too many red wines and thought you might enjoy a nice photo from out here at Woodine yesterday.

Lazy weekend

2007-05-14T13:51:00.000+08:00

It was a nice relaxing weekend, over here in sunny Perth.

Friday night was local pub night. I went to the local pub with Maja and my housemate, Anne. It happened to be 60's night where the live band played 60's music all night and the average age of people in the pub was between 35-60yrs. We had some really nice food and enjoyed a couple of nice quiet beverages. We had decided to walk there and it was really nice to enjoy the fresh night air for a change.

Saturday night was movie night. Two of my housemates joined me for a movie marathon. We watched some funny and girly movies while sitting in our PJs and drinking redwine and port. It was great. So relaxing. And the port was DIVINE. We will be going on a road trip soon to get some more, i think. It comes from a little place about 50 km out of Perth.

Last night was our hockey game at UWA. It was delayed and we ended up freezing while we waited for the previous game to finish. We went down 1-0 to Guilford in the last 2 minutes of the game. We were very unfortunate that we lost because we were the stronger team but we just couldnt seem to convert the goals. We didn't even get a short corner...in the whole game!!! My mate Lia came to hockey again and this time she tooks pics and movies...but most of them are on her camera, not mine.

Me warming up before the game

Me (centre - facing the camera) doing ....something...during the game

Morning Madness

2007-05-10T10:17:00.000+08:00

I could not get up this morning. I pressed snooze about 5 times and ended up running 15 minutes late for the bus. I had to run to the bus as the bus pulled up and I was still about 100m from it. I got to it and the guy didn’t see me at the back of the line and closed the doors on me and drove off with me still sticking out the front door. An old lady sitting in the front of the bus cackled like an old witch while the driver (who was an older guy) tried desperately to get the door open before it crushed me.

That was a great start to the day, I must say.

It got better ON the bus. I was standing in the isle and I was trying not to bump into the lady sitting to the right of where I was standing. I was zoning out the window and I could hear this horrible snorting sound and this creepy cough-gurgle sound. I realised it was coming from this freaky guy sitting beside the innocent lady who was trying very hard to keep quite and still and not freak out. This guy had a little portable handheld radio up to his ear, and a face that reminded me of those Persian cats that appear to have run themselves face first into a brick wall at the age of 1 day old. He was snorting because he had big fat juicy boogers hanging out of his nose. It was so gross! He kept picking his nose and wiping it on his shorts, and it was while I was looking at this guy with disgust that I realised he also had a stiffy. He didn’t even look like he cared. Must be all that Viagra he took last night…the effects haven’t worn off yet. Errrgghhh makes me sick to the stomach just remembering that. That poor lady. I couldn’t do anything for her...except swap places with her, and there was absolutely NO WAY that was going to happen.

I had my flu vaccination on Tuesday and I had a reaction to it. I have a very large hard red patch around where they put the needle in. This year they said they had decided to put it in the fat on your tricep, not into you muscle, so as to cause less pain. Well, I can safely say that this is the FIRST time I have had any pain or reaction to a flu shot, and I have had a few shots in my time. It has made my arm ache and feel dead. It also made me look like I had the world’s biggest hickie on my arm!

On Sunday I went to the movies with my housemate, her mate, Tony, and my mate Lia (yes, Anne and I were kinda matchmaking without even trying). We saw spidey 3 and I have to admit, although it was an entertaining movie, I would still only give it about 2.5-3 stars out of 5. It went pretty slowly and there wasn’t too much story to it, but I did laugh through almost the entire movie. I don’t want to spoil it, but Toby Maguire was sooooo funny in the middle of the movie. Emo spidey, all the way!

Emo (bad) Spidey

"The" Haircut that caused the cinema to burst into laughter

Spidey decided on 3 of these haircuts for his dancing debut in his newest blockbuster, Spiderman 3...

Have a hockey game on Sunday night at 7pm. Why do they schedule hockey games for a Sunday night? What if I get injured? There’s no leeway between the game and work the next day. Oh well. I don’t PLAN to get injured. I am planning to have an injury-free game…a game that we win and I don’t stuff anything up.

Chef's creation

2007-05-09T16:29:00.000+08:00

Geology 101

2007-05-09T10:31:00.001+08:00

Big rocks are called mountains and little rocks are their babies!