Shut Up and Drive

Lithgow

I walked out of work on Friday night feeling like a free man, a freer-er man anyway. For only 3 weeks from now, I would be walking away from work safe in the knowledge that I shall not return for a whole month.

That weekend, was used as a last chance to truly relax before flying around this huge imperfect sphere we call home. Saturday afternoon, I drove out West, past the Blue Mountains to Lithgow, with Lauren, Benny & Cam, to join up with our friends staying at Rog’s holiday getaway home. Upon arrival, drinks were placed in hands and the scents of many wonderful aromas drifted past our nostrils building the anticipation of the food we were about to feast on.

The evening whiled away with many a laugh as the guys re-counted their epic day cycling the 6ft track – and on many occasion, Josh would show us his war wounds that he suffered on one “jump that turned out not to be a jump”.

Some fairly lengthy Jenga, which went on way longer than anyone would predict considering the amount of alcohol backing up every prod to the wooden bricks, pretty much dropped the curtain on the evening.

The following morning the temperatures rose to around 30degrees and the relaxation continued with some of the guys knocking out a huge fried breakfast that the 14 of us could help find ourselves again whilst eating, and watching the TV coverage of 2 other friends; completing their adventure across the Tasmin sea in a kayak.

Before I knew it, I was back on a Sydney bus with less than 15 working days to pass by…

Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?

Tarago, Southern TableLands, New South Wales

I noticed today, after a barrage of emails between 6 friends, that it is only 25days, until I once again board an airplane and travel to a distant land away from Active Directory, Blackberrys and Sydney Transport.

Today however, is a day quite different from all other working days in the past year and several spare months in that, I left the concrete jungle. After a client of mine expanded to another office in a place called Woodlawn, I was to set up their new network at this site. Cooler still was the “void” I got a tour of, a hole in the ground that’s currently taking much of Sydneys waste… and will one day produce enough methane to generate electricity! Okay, that’s probably one of the least cool things I’ve written but hey… better than lining up for a gate pass at Mascot train station.

Now it’s not often that I mix business with blogging, but it is since leaving work just after 6pm this evening that I was given a refreshing blast from the past. With my camera at hand, the sun shining into the dusk and a set of wheels giving me complete freedom; I was given a huge dose of the travel bug.

I stopped at several random spots that looked interesting enough to take pictures at. Whilst approaching a log in a field, I disturbed a hare that went bounding off into the dry bushy grass. I spotted some Gala’s (pink birds) in Tarago before taking my Holden 35kms into Goulburn, the nearest major town. I was finally, after a day without, back in an area with some mobile phone reception.

I headed back to The Loaded Dog in Tarago, a pub with some 100yr+ old history where I was to sleep for the night. At $35, I felt somewhere between two moods; a) why am I booked up in such a cheap room tonight? And b) wow, it’s just like back-packing again!

So here I am, still 25 days till I depart for India; that’s 18 days at work, with a visa still to obtain, a snowboard still to receive in the post, approximately 10-11 more gym sessions to squeeze in and a whole bunch of other stuff I really can’t wait for… 2008 is off to a flyer!

You can see these pictures and more from my little road trip at http://www.fonfara.blogspot.com/.

By The Monument

New Years Eve 2007/8

Still trying to fight off the germs in my body, I was going to do something I've not done since the Millenium NYE (due to a poorly timed bout of the flu), and stay sober as 2008 rolled in.

Lauren had gotten back from her trip to England early and so after meeting up with her after work, we got some dinner and then headed over towards Cremorne on the North Shore to join Aaron, Emily, Kate, Ryan & Katrina.

Getting a park proved time consuming and we were forced to watch the 9pm fireworks from the front seats of the car. After a long walk, we finally found the guys by the waters edge. With more food & drinks, we had the party cranking with the iPod chucking out some beats.

Much like last year, we totally missed the countdown, and before we knew it - the harbour bridge was a mass of exploding light and colour. The explosions also carried on up and down the harbour and we could see around 4 sets of syncronised fireworks. A really awesome display this year with plenty to look at including some 3-d fireworks (fireworks that exploded into a cube).

Even with me driving, we still had to endure a killer trip home as the traffic back across the bridge and through the city was generally grid-locked. An early morning McDonalds kicked my 2008 off in healthy style...

Happy New Year to you all - I wish you all the best... and hope to catch up with you all at least one time this year!

Stay Another Day

Christmas 2007

Twas two nights before Christmas, and an all weekend binge session was still in progress.

My housemates old Melbourne house mate was visiting for 24hours on his way back home from China so even after a big session with my colleagues on Friday, an even bigger session at Daft Punk on Saturday... it was time to dig deep and show Vardsy how we do it in Sydney.

An extremely random day saw us sinking beers at home in the yard, in the Palace, the CBH, and repeat visits to some of those. We thought we were winding down toward the end of the night as the Palace gardually cleared out. We all headed off home before the drunken randomness that you can only really associate with Christmas kicked off.

Back at the Lane, the music came on, the Christmas lights twinkling in the front room and back yard as we bopped away to recent iHits.

Party tricks including Jarrads "Lizard", Vardsy's "Worm" and my own "Human Jump Rope" made their way on to the make shift dance floor... Everyone was a little excited and as Aaron tried for his best slide across the floor, he stumbled and fell forward with nothing but a wine glass to break his fall.

Seconds later he had his hand under the tap washing the claret down the sink. My final recollection of this Sunday night/Monday morning was that at about 3am, Aaron & Jarrad made their way to the emergency room just around the corner from where we live to get his hand sorted out...

Then, 4 hours later, I was awake again, for the night before Christmas - or as it was this year... the last day of work before Christmas - bummer. Luckily I managed to escape reasonably early and was back home snoozing and doing anything but embracing festive cheer.

Christmas had come early for me this year - "Eve" had been Fridays work party, "Day" had been the amazing Daft Punk, and "Boxing day" had been spent in typical fashion with friends at the pub/house/beach/bar/house/emergency room.

My real Christmas however, consisted of plenty of food consumption, with my house mates... we even made a short video to celebrate the Aussie Christmas - excuse us, we may appear a little tipsy:

Boxing day I awoke and my partying had well and truly taken its toll. My hangover manifested itself as some kind of killer head cold which I then spent the remainder of the year trying to beat down. This really made those inbetween days at work enjoyable... I hope yours were more enjoyable than mine!

Back to work Thursday & Friday, I was hanging out for the weekend due to feeling unusually crook... Aarons old housemate came to stay at Bundock and so the weekend had us showing off our city as tour guides. Saturday we hit Wooloomooloo and the Botanical Gardens and Sunday we all jumped in Todds car for a quick trip to Palm Beach (set of Home & Away).

I hope your Christmas was fun, festive and maybe a little more relaxing than mine ;)

Daftendirekt

DAFT PUnK, Homebush

Throughout November & December, it has seemed very much like someone pushed the throttle to 'Full', and life has been hurtling by quicker than I can take everything in.

My original plans for Christmas were scuppered when I realised I had run out of time to send things internationally, a huge oversight on my part for which I am really sorry, for not getting a greeting card out to many of my good friends. I'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone who reads this, a very merry Christmas and an awesome new year when I hope to catch up with all of you!

With time flying so quickly, one of my most hotly anticipated events of the year came on Saturday. Daft Punk made it to Sydney at last. Considering I bought "Homework" in 1996 and their other studio albums since then, it's quite strange that I've never seen them live before. I think this is mostly due to their rare and sporadic touring patterns though.

Although the weather wasn't particularly great, the day got to several key points where emotions ran so unbelievably high... sometimes it was the music, sometimes the additives in the Jager. But concerts and days like this don't come about any where near as often as I'd like.

After the awesome Presets (final) warmup act, it was time for Daftness. They lit up the stage for 90minutes with every shade of neon light you can imagine possible as light patterns slid like silk across the huge LED pyramid on stage. It was mesmerising... at least the moments where I stood still long enough to be mesmerised.

*Now a few days have passed (this is a late edit), I can state that this was the most fun I've ever had a stadium gig. 5 days have passed and I have longed to be back at Homebush in front of the Frenchmen. If they EVER tour again; I will be there; wherever, whenever.

I made a video diary of the day that you can see below, turn up your sound and enjoy!

The Trick to Life

12 Pubs of Christmas 2007

Wow, to start my first Christmassy post with a huge cliché, time sure does fly. A year on from last years 12 pubs of Christmas pub crawl, the now annual event descended upon Sydney faster than I could fathom.

A few weeks prior, a few of the organizing committee went for a practice run of prospective pubs to be used on this years circuit. This was to avoid potential hazards such as opening hours, dress codes, heavy handed doormen and pubs that simply wouldn’t let a vast quantity of people in in one huge drunken surge.

Members of last years rabble showed up this year, with friends that had had to listen to the good time stories of T12POC2006, certain they wouldn’t miss out this year. If I’m honest… which invariably I am, they got what they were after.

The beers flowed faster than Rudolphs consumption of carrots on Christmas eve. The laughs emanated like Chris Chringle on Nitrous Oxide and short term memories dropped away in much the same way that a festive balloon might, having been attached to the ceiling by static electricity.

The rabble Started at the Rocks, working around towards Darling Harbour, then cutting across Market Street and then violently doubling back on themselves back to the spiritual end-point of T12POC – the Metropolitan Hotel above Maccas… convenience in physical form.

Stories will be recounted in years to come undoubtedly – “who kissed who?”, “who fell victim to the porcelain Gods?”, “who took a wrong turn and wound up drinking coffee instead of being at pub 9?”…

In it’s second year, the day is becoming legendary… see you there next December?

Opportunity

Soccer & Photography wrap up

The last 8-10 weeks have seen me kept invariably busy throughout the week. Monday nights were home to a 6-a-side mixed soccer tournament… Our form roller-coastered along though we finally scraped into the finals day playlist. Our final 2 games won with 1-0 victories.
Our semi final was against one of the teams we’d just beaten the day before – and so we were somewhat confident we might be able to pull of another upset… the luck was with us a while, with the ref failing to spot a ball over the line from them. It soon faded however, and before we knew it, were 3-0 down with 5mins to go.

An awesome team effort clawed us back a well deserved consolation goal and meant we could leave the field with heads held high after never failing to score in 3 meetings with a team that topped the league group.

The following evening was another finale – this time from my photography course that I’d been partaking in. The aim was to learn full manual control of my Minolta digital camera (and all other digital SLRs).

The final night was presentation night – where everyone in the class had to make a presentation of around 15 pictures that they’d taken since the course began. The tutor picked me at random to go first… you can see the full picture selection on my other blog: http://www.fonfara.blogspot.com/.

The water shot got some ooh’s and ahh’s, and I got quite a few questions right after asking which techniques I’d used to capture my images. I great feeling of accomplishment enveloped me and I can safely assume I reached my goal set at the beginning of the course.