Finally...

It only took me 8 months and one day, but on the 25th of June, I finally made it...

Hot Rods at the Seaview Tavern

About a month ago, they had a car show at the local pub. I happened by as some people were leaving, but I snapped a few pictures. There were some sweet cars, so here are a few...

Random Pictures Collected on the Internet...

OK, so there has been a lapse in posting for almost a month, and some of these might not seem quite as timely anymore, but I have collected a few pics here and there that I thought you might enjoy...Here goes:

Do I really need to tell you why this picture is awesome?

This photo was taken in somewhere in Queensland, after the Cyclone hit, and the tides brought salt water into a fresh water lake. Something made it glow. I do not know the science, but I do love the image.

Um, OK, this is Fergie, in a LEGO dress...complete with LEGO bracelets. A little strange, but fascinating, and LEGOs are cool, right?

Sunset over the Raj Mahal

I took these pictures tonight, while standing on the front veranda on the second floor. I was boiling water in the kitchen, and when I glanced out of the living room window, I saw this magnificent sunet. The building in the photo is the Raj Mahal, once the location of an Indian restaurant and several shops. Now, it is the home of the owner, and there is talk that it might soon be knocked down to make way for a national chain grocery store. It would be a shame. It is a wonderful structure, and it makes for great pictures...

Thanks Dada! i can see what you mean. he doesn't really look like him, but he reminds me of him. i'm going to try and get better at posting on this blog, and i'm sorry that i haven't been doing it nearly enough. here's my blue hair in case you lose the file, or i decide to dye it a different color by the time you get back. Love you Dada.

-Riley

Greg Mallek has an Australian Double

So I had been talking about this guy on TV here who reminds me of Greg Mallek. I am no longer convinced that he really does look that much like him, but there is something about him that reminds me of Greg nontheless. The guy's name is Shawn Micallef, and he is the host of a telelvision show called "Talkin' About Your Generation", or simply Your Gen. It is a gameshow of sorts, where regular comedians are paired with special guest celebrities (all of whom are Australian, and therefore unfamiliar to me). They compete in teams of two, with three teams total. Each team represents a generation group (Gen X, Gen Y and Baby Boomers). The comedians and the guests are teamed according to which generation they are actually in. The questions are themed, and often funny, and there are unusual stunts and challenges they have to do. I am reminded of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", in that there is nothing actually won (well, a trophy found at a garage sale is given to the winning team...the trophy changes every week), and the point of the show is to laugh. It is quite funny.  I saw it the very first night I was in Australia, at the hostel in Sydney. It was a Halloween special, and Shawn/Greg was dressed as a zombie. I think that is why the association with Greg is so strong...the Halloween connection.
Anyway, here are two pictures of him that I found on line. Tell me what you think...



Happy Birthday

13 years today!!! I am in shock :) I bought a cake, and took a picture of my own bad hair to honor this most auspicious of days.
I love you, Riley....

I know this looks like a jungle, but it is really just my back yard. Can you see the clothes line on the right hand side? Those giant palms are the banana trees....the ones that are currently growing bunchs of bananas, and which will be home to flying foxes as soon as the sun goes down. I wanted all of that to be a part of your birthday...Can you hear their wings flapping?

Forgive the mullet...but the 80's are coming back, right?
Happy Birthday, Ry...

Happy Valentine's Day!

OK, so this probably should not have made me laugh when I saw it, yet it did. So I decided to share. Happy Valentine's Day, and I will give a real post soon.

New Roommates

Well, I know I already sent an email with a picture of one of the new roomies, but as I was looking through all of my recent pictures, I decided a post might be in order. So here are my new roommates:

This is Jasper. He is around 10 years old, and he likes to come up stairs after his real owner has eaten dinner and settled in to watch the news in his bedroom. He (Jasper) will often come up, and go out on my deck (like in this picture). He will then lay down in the sitting room just outside my office, and wait for me to go downstairs and cook. He will follow me back up to lay at my feet while I eat and watch TV. When he realizes that I am done, and there is nothing for him, he will go down to the second floor, and sleep on the couch, something I guess he only started doing after I moved in. With one person asleep on the first floor, and the other on the third, I think Jasper likes to be right in the middle. Does that remind you of anyone?

I haven't named this guy, but he roams the house at night, running away from me whenever I get near. He cruises the wall that runs from the second to the third floor (here, he is in hiding where the wall meets the roof on the third floor), and after being here for a few days, he relocated to the bathroom at night. I scared him (and he scared me) a couple nights in a row as I went in to brush my teeth before bed. My heart stopped as he ran up and down the wall trying to find a place to hide. Although you can not tell, he is about four inches long. A little bigger that the newts. On more than one occasion I have seen baby geckos, about an inch long, on the ceiling. So maybe this "he" is really a "she." Buster II, anyone?

Haven't named him either. Hope I don't have to. I saw him one night crawling on the ceiling way above my head. The third floor has a peaked roof that is probably 15ft high at its highest point. He was way up there. The next night, I saw him in my office, about five feet from my desk, bur hidden between a beam and the wall in a space about three or four inches wide. I could not reach in there and kill him without fear of missing him and scaring him away. I left him alone, keeping one eye on him for a few hours. He never moved. So I closed my office door when I went to bed, and in the morning he was gone. I haven't seen him since. As you can see, he is mostly legs (long hairy legs), but the area he covered on the wall was about 3/4 the size of a playing card (or a yu-gi-oh card, if that is a better comparison). I am told they are called huntsman, and that they are harmless. They eat bugs, don't make webs, and do not have the tendency to hide in clothes and such. They are wood spiders, and like hiding in nooks and crannies of the house or the woodpile.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider
According to wikipedia, they are found all over the world. I keep finding them in my living space. Creepy!

In a final note, the 'Oprah in Australia' shows have begun airing here, and are on four nights in row. I watched last night (The cat is out of the bag), and I learned this much- I don't really like Oprah, but the rest of the world seems to. I find particularly annoying her "Let's get Ready to Rumble" voice that she uses several times on camera while here, speaking to a large crowd. If you see the shows, you will know exactly what I am mean.
However, to be clear, Oprah is NOT one of my new roommates.

Bats!!!

They (the bats of Woolgoolga Lake...that's what I am calling them) flew over my house last night. I got this video of it. It doesn't even come close to doing it justice. For every one  bat I got on film, a hundred more got by without my filming them. Watch the whole thing, and then imagine it going on for like 15 more minutes!. It is crazy- like something out of a Nature video...



The quality of the video is pretty grainy, but if it appears to be black, in the sky and moving, it is probably a bat. And you can hear them, too! Oh, and the occasional truck passing by out front. That happens all night long.

The Long Walk

On the day before the day before Christmas, I walked for what seemed like forever in Coff's Harbour, from the Hawaiian Sands Motel, where I had spent the previous night, to the Coff's Coast Markets on Harbour Drive. Yes, the Aussies add the "u" in words like Harbor and Color, just to confuse. Anyway, I had just embarked on my brief period of homelessness, staying in the motel the night before so as to have roof over my head, and to make seeing the newest Harry Potter film possible. On the morning in question, I was to walk to the Coff's Coast Market, a weekly open air market held on Harbour Drive, a busy street of shops and what not, to catch a ride back to Woolgoolga. I had my bright orange duffel bag (which I had to buy at the airport to reduce the weight of my overly heavy suitcase) and my lap top (which I didn't want to leave anywhere unattended) with me, each slung over one shoulder. My suitcases were stored at a friend's house in "Woopi" overnight. Anyway, I walked from point A to point B, thinking it would be a short easy walk. It turned out to be a long and arduous journey, due to the weight pulling on both shoulders, the rawness on my feet in my new flop flops, and the ever present rain that has so far defined my trip to Australia (Still no flooding though!). Things I discovered along the way: There is a Porpoise Petting Pool in Coff's, and I am totally going to go; The main beach in Coff's, called Park Beach, is never visible from the road called Ocean Parade (which I walked on for quite some time); I hate caravan parks (a long story); one should never buy a new pair of flip flops, and then walk a few miles in them to break them in. I am sure there were other lessons, but these are the main points. I did, however, also bring out the camera on occasion. Here is what I saw:

This cool little spot where the ocean meets the land. I like how it is protected and calm. However...

It does seem to cause this road to flood. I think it is a regular occurrence.

Here is the home of the Coff's Harbour Scouts. I thought you might like seeing this.

Notice that there is a group younger than Cub Scouts here called Joeys. So very Australian! Also, notice the five stars in the Scouts symbol, which are the same five stars on the Australian flag. They represent the Southern Cross, a constellation visible in the southern hemisphere. So that is your social studies lesson for today...  I hope you enjoyed this brief tour of Coff's Harbour, and we encourage you to join us next time, as we explore more of the Northern Beaches, and possibly the Sikh Temple in Woolgoolga.

Three Little Birds...

This may turn out to be sort of like one of those 'Where's Waldo' puzzles, but in this bush are three of the birds I keep talking about. The birds that are everywhere around here, though people would probably pay hundreds of dollars for them in the United States. They are bright and colorful, and when I lived over on Wharf St. (in my holiday place), I would see 15-20 of them together on the ground, pecking away at the same peice of food (usually put out by people staying the 'Caravan Park'). They really are everywhere! See if you can spot the birds in this tree, eating berries.

This is what a caravan park looks like:

Just row upon row of tents and campers (caravans) in a big open field. This one is surrounded by roads on three sides, and the beach on the fourth. It is not what I would call camping, but it is what people call camping here. From what I have seen, anyway. There are three or four of these caravan parks in Woolgoolga alone.

Oh, and the idea of selling those birds reminds me of the time an industrious 5 year old wanted to capture and breed pigeons, so he could sell them. See, like father, like son. Or in this case...like son, like father

TACOS!!!!!

Hey Dada! It's taco night tonight and even though I know you aren't that big a fan, I took it upon myself to find an e-taco that looks like you would actually eat it (just meat, cheese, and lettuce). Don't worry, no sour cream! At least I hope not. And I'm sorry I haven't been posting nearly as much as I should. I'm really going to work on checking it more often. We watched a video about polio the other day in school and there is a video contest accompanying it. The winner gets $5000 to split with their school and me and Nolan are gonna enter. other than that nothing's really happened, but rest assured, I'll keep you "posted". Ha ha. I made a funny. I love you Dada, and I'm gonna post again real soon.

Local Wildlife That Has Gotten In My House (plus a bird)

So, the adjustment to living in Australia has included the adjustment to dealing with new and differnt kinds of creepy crawly things that make their way inside when the weather gets bad outside. The weather has been bad, with more rain this "spring" than any on record, and I think December (the first official month of Summer) has also been one of the wettest on record, as well. I should add here that I was out walking the beach the other day, admiring what rain looked like out over the ocean (and it does look quite neat), when it dawned on me that I could no longer see it. That is because it had gotten too close (forest-trees...do you know that adage?). I had just turned around to go home when it start to rain. It was light at first, and I just walked along thinking I would be home soon. Well, sooner than that, it turned into a soft summer rain that can make one deceptively wet.  I thought, "This is not to bad," but before I knew it, my shirt was soaked, my shorts were wet, and my underwear was starting to stick to me, a sign that they too were getting wet. My phone, my passport, and my pack of gum all got quite wet, but the money in my pocket was water proof, so it was fine.
But I digress.
The rain has driven a number if insects and critters closely associated into my apartment, and I have killed a number of bugs I have never seen before. However, the other night, I was at the sink in the kitchen when I saw legs and the end of that lower segment of an insect's body (thorax?) on the back side of my kitchen window shade. Only it was eff-ing huge! I almost died right then. But I regained my wits, and went for the trusty shoe. I smacked the shade against the window frame, a blow that should have killed my new friend dead. Instead, it knocked him free, and he fell on my stove top, crawled wickedly fast across it, and dropped behind it before I could recover from the shock of realizing I missed. For two days, I left my kitchen light on, to keep myself from encountering this guy without proper lighting. And for two full days, he stayed behind the oven, not showing any sign of himself.  Then, on the second night of our stay together, he crawled out, and across the wall, into the living room. I watched the whole thing happen. I realized he was so big (as long as my pinkie finger, or Mom's, since our hands are about the same size) that he was having a hard time staying on the ceiling. His weight caused him to fall, and I smacked him with 'My Adidas." But not before taking this picture:

Now, that was last week. And I finally could walk through the house without feeling my skin crawl. This was the fifth "Cockie" I have seen in my house (One drown in the shower in a pool of stagnent water, two I have killed near my sink, and one I found belly up in the middle of the Kitchen floor), but it was by far the biggest, and I know how long it hung about AFTER the first time I noticed it. What is unknown, however, is how long was it inside before I saw it, a question that troubles me the most.

This morning, I awoke at 7 am to notice a giant spider on the ceiling of my bedroom. At first, I was uncertain to what it was, thinking it might even be an imbedded light fixture like the one in the living room (for reading). But then the foggy, just-woke-up vision I was suffering from cleared enough for me to realize, in a moment of heart stopping fear, that it was a spider. I watched it crawl along the crown molding (or whatever kind of molding it is), around my entire bedroom. It passed my bedroom window, and began to descend. I was up, broom in hand, and clearing a vacuum and an ironing board out of the corner before it got lost in the mess. I sprayed it with an IGA version of Raid I found under my kitchen sink (Black and Gold brand...GO Pittsburgh!), thinking it would die immediately. It didn't. Instead it moved faster than I have ever seen a spider move, and hid behind this wardrobe-like piece of furniture that sits unused in my room. It holds some blankets inside, and a few extra pillows on top. I was in a panic, thinking this beast was going to take up residence behind the furniture, and I would never know what happened o it. I even said outloud, "I am going to have to sleep on the couch from now on, because there is no way I am sleeping in here." Well, just as I was about to give up, the guy re-emerged, clearly affected by the poison, but still trying to soldier on. His legs were moving, but with out any real certainty. He fell off the wall, and sat in the floor for some time, not moving. I tried to poke him with the broom, but he started off again. I eventually weilded the shoe, again making "My Adidas" quite the murdeous brute. I hit the poor spider three times, just to make sure he was dead. But not before taking a picture:

The white mop board just to the right of our friend measures about 3 inches in width, just to give some perspective. This was the biggest spider I have ever had to personally come in contact with. I hope it was a one-time thing! I am still feeling the jittery after-effects of our morning encounter.

Ok, so the bird. It looks like a crow (and is about the same size), but it is black and white. One day, I was walking up this path between the caravan park (campground in America) and the fence marking off this property that is across the street from my place, on my way to the beach. One of these birds was on the path ahead of me, and instead of flying away, it walked up the path 10 feet in front of me, occasionally looking back to see if I was still coming. I laughed, but he was persistant about not leaving. He made it almost although way up the path, before ducking under the fence and letting me pass. I swear I saw contempt in his bird eyes as I passed him. Oh, and I think this might be the bird that has a craw that sounds almost exactly like Simone, and his nightly yowl. I hear it every night as the sun sets, and it always creeps me out in that way too familiar way. The bird looks like this:

Local Wildlife

I promised these pictures some time ago, and while their quality leaves a bit to be desired, the act of taking them more than makes up for it. Here are the 'roos, as they hung out in the center of Woolgoolga, on the very night that this space's future was being debated up the road in the public school.

And on a much less awe-inspiring note, this is a picture of the snail I found on my front steps a few weeks back. He is about the size of a gum-ball, or the tip of my thumb.I have seen several of them around. I mistakenly step on one, too. It made a gross mess right in the middle of my gated entry to my own little court yard, where I hang my laundry, and where I come and go from my apartment. I felt bad:

Finally, I walk the beach almost every day, seeking solace in the sand and the sea. Each day, I pass hundreds, maybe even thousads of little holes in the sand. Each is about as wide as a pencil, and each is surrounded by tens, hundreds, or even thousands of little sandballs, each about as big as the eraser on a pencil. They look like this:

The holes are made by tiny crabs, no bigger than a large house fly. I see them scampering about out of the corner of my eye, but only once in a while. Mostly I see their work, covering the beach for as far as you can see. In this picture, all of the darker sand is those little balls, rolled out of the holes made by these tiny crabs as they burrow in the beach:

I am often amazed at the degree of work it takes to do this, and saddened knowing that each day the tide sweeps in, and washes it all away. Such is the rhythm of life here in Woolgoolga...

The Big "O"

Oprah has finally landed in Australia, and it is really BIG news. Like the Pittsburgh Steelers in our home town, she has been the lead story on the news every night for the past week. National media was at the aiport in Sydney to greet Oprah's 300 guests who flew in days ahead of her. They have since followed them around Sydney, to Byron Bay, to Melbourne, to some sweltering hot Outback locality, and back to Sydney. She is filming two shows this coming week, to be aired in January or February in the States. And they are planning on decorating the Sydney Harbour Bridge in her honor:

That she is filming her shows at the Opera House means for a week she will be taking up the two most recognizable landmarks in Sydney, if not in all of Australia. A guy on the news tonight likened her coming here to the Beatles landing in the US in 1964. Really?

In other Oprah news, one of her protigees, the famous Australia Chef, Curtis Stone, is all over televsion here, pimping out adds for a major national grocery chain, Coles. There are little Coles-run conveninence stores in Sydney, called Coles Express (Mom will know why this is funny. Maybe she can show you while you are in Maine). This is Curtis, also famous for being a celebrity chef on The Biggest Loser, and for merely being a celebrity on The Celebrity Apprentice:

My favorite commercial featuring Curtis involves a Christmas dinnner, with his recipes being prepared by all kinds of women, who I think are supposed to be his family. Either way, all women. The men don't cook, I guess, unless it involves a "barbie." In this commercial, everyone is wearing one of these:

Yup, crowns made of tissue paper. Even Curtis. It is very strange, but very awesome. Anyway, I hope I survive Oprah, and I hope you survive Christmas.

"Mo"vember Ends

I was unaware of this, but the month of November has recently been re-named 'Mo'vember in several nations around the world, including Australia (where it originated in 1999) AND the United States (since 2007). In an attempt to raise both money for, and awareness of, men's health issues (particularly prostate cancer), men are encouraged to grow a moustache for the month of Movember. Here, people on TV, from local to national news anchors, sportscasters, and other celebrities all participate and it is a fairly big deal. On Nov. 30th, everyone shaves their face to mark the end of the event. Having arrived in Woolgoolga on Oct. 30th, and basically only being in town for the month of Mo-vember, I am just today realizing that some "Mo"-wearing men in town were only sporting the stache for the month of awareness. The owner of the coffee shop that I pop into now and again was clean shaven today, and I was surely caught off guard. I like the idea of this event, and I am thinking that people in the US should actively celebrate it. I am going to try to get a Mo-vember-positive vibe going as soon as I get back. Of course, I am always sporting a Mo, so I might have to get creative, but still. In honor of the Mo:
http://www.movember.com/
and:

and:

and finally:

Yeah, this last one is scary throw-back to days gone by. But it is the only Mo picture I've got...

Happy Mo-vember!

Where I am Staying (For Now)

So, I have been long overdue with some new pictures (and your funny picture did indeed make me laugh, Riley..."SPARTA!").  I will begin with some of the earliest pictures I took upon getting here, and work my way toward the present, using a little bit of artistic license, or course.

This is where I am living from the outside.

My door:

This is the rest of the building, a motel-like set of apartments:

My door, however, is around the back, just past that car, which is the same car that is in the foreground of the picture above:

Inside it looks like this:

My TV, from the only chair in the living room. Notice the bathroom on the right and the fridge on the left.

This is the Kitchen and the door leading outside:

And this is the bed room, the door of which opens in to the living room, directly across from the bathroom door you see in the above photograph:

Now, this is the main beach in Woolgoolga:

Where kids surf...

The ladies bask in the sun...

The men fish...

And these guys do....

whatever it is...

that these guys are doing...

And when it is all said and done, even the birds gather for a swim.

When I finally find a placeto live for real, I will post some pictures of that, just do you have some idea of where I am when I am talking to you, or writing to you, which ever it might be.

Give my love to the newts!