Beautiful Calm Driving

30th Golf Celebrations - Randwick Coast Golf Course

COME ON, you only turn 30 once in your life right!?

So, instead of the (nice) quiet celebrations of last weekend, it was time to notch things up a little. By playing GOLF!?!

Okay, so it doesn't sound that crazy, but I figured, I'm getting older, so why not do something that fits that vein a little better... and then tweak it by loading the golf carts up with beer!

So I had the pleasure of Todd, Benny, Azz, Rog, Claire, Al, Wedge, Greg, Alan, Glen, Daniel, Conor, Spoons and of course, Lauren to head around the most part of 18holes (we started at 1, and were only on hole 5 by 3pm...). With some stunning shots hit by all, and, well, Rog managed to make one go backwards - it was amazing that we made it to the 13th/14th hole. As the sun dipped down, our gang short cut to the final hole to at least play back to the clubhouse... I could barely see my (10th) ball as it fell into the hole to make that satisfying putt sound.

We headed back to my place where Lauren had decked the place out with a childhood photo of me and some huge ass 30 balloons... the music played, the beer continued to flow, and we even had a huge profiterol cake... I was definitely 30 now; and just the old man hangover left to deal with.

Thanks everyone for making it such a memorable day for me. You are the bomb, and I love y'all.
30 year old Fon.

Fire

Another Friday night finish, this time knowing I have 3 days off. I leave 29.

I go home, feed, and return to the city with Lauren and meet Benny for a small Blues gig at the Oxford Art Factory. The highlight a Japanese Busker who played the blues; with broken Englishand slide guitar. Several beers and some interesting Aussie blues artists later , it was time to keep it sensible... It was going to be a tough, but enjoyable weekend.

I took it easy through Saturday, went to the driving range with Oren to get in some practice for an upcoming round of golf. An afternoon of tea and chatter followed before heading home for some dinner and then a Katherine Heigl movie at EastGardens movie theatre.

Sunday morning, I awoke, got dressed in light weight running gear and then hopped on a bus at 7.35am. Before I knew it, I was stood on College Street next to Hyde Park in amongst several thousand other people, dressed similarly to me. I plugged in my ipod and listened to random tunes whilst I waited for the inevitable shuffle. at about 9.15ish, we started to shuffle forwards. I ran across the electronic start line, and my tag clocked 0.01 on the computer, and I started running up William Street, the first turn of a 14km route from Sydney to Bondi Beach.

Bloc Party, Doves and Kasabian were helping me along the way... I was totally zoned in this time, and determined to make the entire 14km non-stop, including the 2km incline 'heartbreak hill'.

I made it, and past the 10km mark feeling pretty good. As I passed the 12km mark with Bondi Beach insight, I stepped up my rate, still having to skip past some of the other 84,999 people. On to Campbells Parade, I was sprinting, or something like sprinting, the slightest knock woulda sent me flying, but I held on, and managed to lock in a time of 73mins 44secs. I missed out on 10,000th place by a few hundred spots... old age definitely kicking in!

I returned back home to get showered and eat something before Lauren and I headed back out of Maroubra, and wound up in Clovelly rather than the packed out Bondi. I think I sank about 7 celebratory beers, and left, well, pretty well sozzled. I woke up at about 4am having already taken in 8hrs sleep and realised my legs were feeling about as responsive car on bricks.

A few hours of broken bad dream sleep later I awoke sober and happy. It was my birthday, an apparrant "big one". Lauren and I had the day off from work, so decided to recover from the comfort of home.

After some Breakfast, I was spoiled rotten with gifts. Some awesomely stylish cuff-links and a lensbaby for my camera (a type of the lens that allows for some trippy effects).

At this point, I was casting my mind ahead to the following weekend, and as such decided to go for another practice hit at the driving range, this time with Todd & Lauren. We blasted nearly 200 balls off the platform before retiring stress free on a

After I'd played about with my new toys, we headed out to North Sydney and got lunch at one of my favourite Thai restaurants (Stir Crazy) in Kiribilli, near Luna Park. We filled our bellies with some awesome meaty tastes and then let the food settle, before driving along the North Shore to Toronga Zoo to go visit the newest addition; my namesake (ish); Luk - an 8week old elephant.

When we initially arrived, he was asleep - though not like the snow leopards (I have yet to see a snow leopard even when zoo's report to have one, as they are always asleep). He was asleep standing up, using his trunk as a fifth leg; talented little blighter!

After checking out all the rest of the zoo had to offer, including an entertaining mating ritual courtesy of the giraffes we headed home and cooked a fresh Salmon dinner... awesome.

I return to work, 30.

Kingdom of Rust

Doves - The Metro, Sydney

If the Flaming Lips were an explosion for the eyes, the Doves were to do the same for my ears and soul. For about a decade I've been listening to their 4 albums, and have had many an emotional moment to them, driven very fast or just day dreamed of being somewhere else. In short, I love their music.

I was just a little excited to be going to see them. Lauren and I locked in our now regular spot at the Metro, optimal for sound and vision... it was time to stand back and let the band do the business.

The addition of the new album really added some greatness to a set. The band can even afford to leave out some awesome older tracks like Catch the Sun which in fairness, they are probably sick to death of playing. Jetstream and Kingdom of Rust were amongst my new faves, but Black n White town and Pounding just did it for me.


11 out of 10.

It Overtakes Me/The Stars are so Big

The Flaming Lips; The Hordern Pavillion.

A gig back at my love/hate venue... love it cos it's a decent size and there's usually a pretty decent atmostphere, hate it cos I can never get close to the stage to get the shots I want, and the security are usually pretty hot on SLR cameras.

That said, I smuggled in my 40d with my 50mm lens in my other pocket without any problems again. Once buried in the crowd I put my half drunk beer in my pocket, replacing my 50mm lens and set up, ready for the gig I'd anticipated a very long time indeed.

This band, as you may have heard put on one hell of a stage show; stunts, props, actors, lights, balloons etc etc they try it all out and just have a whole heap of fun with the crowd. The lead singer split from a giant TV wall that at the time was projecting an intimate part of the female anatomy as if being born, the rest of the band followed and before we knew it, there were 50 giant coloured balloons bouncing around, along with the front man inside a zorb, rolling about over the crowd!

Streamer and confetti cannons blasted, as kids dressed as frogs and kittens danced away at the side of the stage all the way thru the gig. They only made way breifly for a large inflatable Slug and sunshine!

The light show went on and it was undoubtedly the best small (ie. not Daft Punk at Homebush or U2 at Wembley '96) touring show I've seen in Australia, maybe even the world... fantastic and highly recommended, even if you're not so familiar with their music.

Food, Glorious Food

Lithgow, Blue Mountains Degustatio - Weekender

After an interesting week, that started with getting some dodgy virus, right around all this Swine Flu hoo ha, I got signed off work for 3days, only took 2 and was back, shakily on the Wednesday. By Friday evening, I still felt like I'd done 10days straight so was totally stoked to be packing the car at 5pm with enough chicken to feed 15people, and enough clothes to get me thru a weekend of rest and relaxation.

I picked Lauren up and set off down Paramatta Road toward the Blue Mountains.

A mere 3 hours later, and we were pulling up at Toad Hall once again, as 2 Kangeroos bounded in front of the head lights. We carted our gear from the car to front room, and then busily prepared what would be the first meal of the weekend for everyone there; a FonMacca Massala!

Toddles managed to pull out from his bag, a delicious, rich Pecan pie, home made of course.

What then followed was 44hours of fine dining, great drinks, maaaany laughs and some nice chill time...

I woke up early for some reason on the Saturday, so decide to sneak out of Toad Hall, with my camera and go for a little wander. I found myself leaving the outskirts of the property, finding that the frosty ground led me further and further down the road. I barbed fence caught my eye, before I was hopping over it in search of a cool morning panorama.

As I made my way thru the fields, a couple of Roo's skipped in front of me - ahh yes, I was definitely in an Australian Winter Wonderland!

My feet started to get wet, so I turned back, I probably only covered 1km but it felt like I'd been gone longer. As I walked back into Rog's place, a few of the guys were basking in the early morning Sun out front, from there, we ate fresh bread, muesli and then played some backyard cricket. Nice.

I gave Oren a hand making some Rice Paper Rolls which would be our mobile lunch, before the gang collectively wagoned up and drove out to the Pulpits Rock BushTrail. about 6-7km of medium grade terrain with some killer views.

So we marched, down steps, across streams, looking over sheer drops, along cliff faces and under some craggy cave like rock formations - before stopping for our lunch. A swig of Jack fueled the return journey. 12 or so sets of tired legs headed back to Lithgow for some dinner and drinks.

A chicken dinner followed by Choco Lava cake and ice cream with strawbs topped off a perfect day.

I coulda slept longer, but around 9 hours was enough to recover before being awoken by the smell of some delicious blueberry pancakes courtesy of Rog n Claire... from there, it was time to clean up, and head home back to Sydney.

Mercury

Long Weekend; Sydney

With Sydney looking for ideas to promote the city during the WORST month of the year (June - weather-wise), they enlisted the help of Brian Eno. They came up with the idea of the Festival of Lights. Eno's contribution was his projected light-art that would be beamed across the harbour on to the sails of the Opera House as well as some other surrounding buildings like the Museum of Contempory Art.

I had a dodgy compact cam shot of the Opera House, but wanted a better keep sake, so drove into the city at 10.30 on a Friday night and set about capturing something a little more magical. I wound up having about 30mins of shooting time as the lights went out at midnight, but by this point, I had captured a few decent images. My favourite of which is here!

The following day, my old mate Aaron was up from Melbourne for the weekend, and along with the usual suspects, we headed to the Royal National Park to have a stab at some Mountain Biking. I of course also took my camera and managed to get some strobed shots of the guys smashing it thru a puddle. The weather was unusually hot for my self-proclaimed worst weather month in Sydney, and the conditions were perfect for a quick swim in the ocean in Maroubra before later heading over to Todds place for a dinner and drinks evening.

The following day was Matty's birthday celebrations, we headed into Kings Cross to the Czech beer cafe where about 20 of us dined on lots of meat. And Beer. Awesome :)

This left the bonus day of the weekend to recover from the weekends fun, that evening, I went to 6 a side soccer and banged 2 goals in - and it felt good!
- Easy day with soccer at the end - 2 goals

Future Reflections

With an old friend in town to stay with us for a while, Lauren, Charlotte and I embraced the late Autumnal sunshine that would be the last warm-ish weekend before Winter.

Saturday saw us competing in my weekly beach volleyball competition, where we took on all -comers and won! before heading back to the pub for a few quiet beers. Later that evening, we headed into the city to celebrate Kiri's brithday at the Spanish Tapas restuarant, Encasa. Very tasty, and lots of Sangrias consumed by all, things got a little hazy from there, but not so much so that I couldn't remember then heading on to the karaoke bar with everyone. I belted out Under The Bridge by the Chilli Peppers, and everyone else did some awesome renditions of goodness knows what!

I very hazy & sleepy day followed! We did however manage to get ourselves back into the city to check out some artists exhibiting on the sidewalks at Luna Park. Again, blue-sky and 23 degrees was the perfect way to be doing this. We didn't attempt any rides, as, lets face it - who would with a hangover head on their shoulders?!

We took the opportunity to walk back to the city over the Harbour Bridge and then stopped for a couple of beers along with some lovely pizza at The Australian (pub). Nice weekend indeed.