roycemleev3.50

Last week Laura bought herself a motorcycle - a Honda CB250. We took it out for a ride, and she even rode it herself in a carpark for a bit. The big question - where could we go on the weekend so she could practice? Because our area is so busy, with so many tricky sections of road, I had to pillion her to somewhere a little safer. Problem then was when it was her turn to ride I had to hop off, meaning I couldn't stay with her and make sure she was OK if she wanted to go out on the road.

As luck would have it, she got an email from one of the organisers of GirlsRideOut, who said they were going to have an Eastern Suburbs training session for newbies. Even more fortunate was the location - a mere stones throw from our apartment.

We were first there and had to wait a bit before Guy, Chris and Selena showed up. Once they did they had Laura doing a series of drills - she was excellent - before some others eventually showed. We had Bianca, Tara, Steve, and Bianca's ex Kai on his dirtbike. Only Laura and Steve did the drills, the others spent most of the time talking about future sessions.

After that fun (and a big lunch) it was time to head over to Camperdown to check out Colleen's new apartment. Her tenants move in next week, so she took the opportunity to have a quick bash for her friends. The place was great - just a shame my night time photography wasn't.

I love State of Origin. I love it so much that one year I had to be at Uni to work on a group assignment, so rather than risk missing out on one of the matches through lack of equipment, I packed my (admittedly) small TV in the car and drove it in with me.

Origin though has been bitter-sweet. Queensland's glory days were in the early 80's when I was really too young to fully enjoy it. When I was old enough to understand and enjoy the games in the late 80's and early 90's, New South Wales had the ascendency and dominated most matches quite convincingly. Since the mid 90's NSW has just shaded my beloved Qld, but only just.

All those years of footy heartache have made me a bit of a recluse - I prefer to watch the game alone in the quiet of my own living room then risk public disappointment. So when John and Colleen invited us for dinner and to watch the game on their plasma, well it sounds like a no-brainer but I did have to think hard about it for a minute or 2. I decided I would overcome my fears (Qld were favourites after all), and enjoy good food, company and a chat.

Well John and Colleen had some really big news - Colleen had collected the keys to her brand-new investment apartment, John had scored this cool job, and they had both put a deposit on a scmick apartment at Jackson's landing. Their place will be huge - bigger than our former warehouse apartment in Camperdown - and with city views! Kinda made me feel small when I told them my big news about the espresso machine.....

The first half of the First Half of the game was sensational - Queensland were playing great. But as the match went on, the Blues score went up, and my mood went down. The Maroons lost, and even an episode of Blackadder afterwards really couldn't cheer me up.

Christmas came early this year for Laura and I - and we managed to pick-up quite a few pieces of high design. It started last Wednesday when I bought my fledgling business an espresso machine - a Francis Francis! X3. I had wanted the larger, more retro looking X1 model for some time, but with our apartment being small and all, felt that the narrower (and cheaper) X3 model would be a better fit.

Fast forward to Saturday, and I had managed to source this new cool Rosendahl sugar dispenser. Laura and I rode out to the shop at Artarmon to pick it up, but while we were there we also saw this Karim Rashid chess set that I'd been looking at for a while. It's not as nice as the Josef Hartwig Bauhaus one (that I'd previously been keen on and that this shop also sold), but it was a hell of a lot cheaper, and goes better with our apartment. We grabbed that as well.

But the big spending spree wasn't over just yet - after dropping our earlier shopping at home it was time to head into Paddington to look for, of all things, espresso cups and cappucino chocolate. Max Brenner's was a disappointment (and incredibly busy) so we were down to just the cups. I saw these ones when we first moved to Sydney that Laura and I really liked - so we found the shop that sold those and bought 4 of 'em. My coffee making skills aren't quite up to the standard of my equipment, but I'm working on it.

Our weekend of spend didn't end there. On Sunday Laura and I went to Mosman to look at a little Honda CB250 motorcycle that had been advertised. We liked the bike and made an offer. The owner had someone else interested and wanted to think about it (we'd offered a fair bit less than he was after). Laura called him again this morning and HE AGREED!

Laura had taken out half the cash she needed for the bike on Saturday, so just before the bike was due to arrive we headed off to find a suitable teller machine in Kings Cross. It was really a dumb idea to begin with - withdrawing a couple of grand from an ATM on any street let alone the Cross - is really chancing fate. When we got to the machine there was a girl, dressed in a bikini so I thought she might be going to the beach until I noticed her high heels, just standing there loitering. A young guy with spiky hair came from the teller machines and asked her "how much?" I presumed the rest of the question was "is the bus to Bondi" although her answer of $50 seemed just a little exhorbitant - even on a public holiday.

Without trying to draw additional attention to us, I stuffed the thick wad of notes into my wallet, tried valiantly to fold it in half, and shoved it back into my pocket. We were pretty excited when we eventually made it back home.

Once we'd dealt with purchasing her new beast, we decided we should probably take it out for a ride. After fuelling up we went to Alexandria and found a quiet carpark for Laura to practice her manouevering. She did a really good job and although she's only a beginner has good control.

So that about ends our weekend of throwing the cash around. Now its back to work to earn the money to pay for it......

This is not a sign of things to come, but in celebration of the upgrade of my site's Movable Type back-end [it's true - look in the bottom right hand corner in the footer!], I'm posting a link to - dum de dum dum - someone else's site!!!

Of late I have really started to notice how inconsiderate train commuters are. Getting on before you get off, standing 2 abreast on the escalator, not using effective deodorant, sending non-stop SMSes!!!! Jason's Rules for the NYC Subway should be required reading for all wishing to travel on the Sydney suburban network. Don't forget, because of the coriolis effect, when he says right he really means left.