Lord of the ring

We went to Gaganis this morning. It's shopping heaven for lots of immigrants.

They sell a lot of spices and nuts for example that other shops don't stock. But also lots of overseas cooking equipment etc.

I found this marzipan called MVR. I know someone called MVR :-)

After this it was back to old boring Woolworths. Which by the way, after researching seems to be a fully Australian owned company, independent of the American Woolworths.

In the afternoon I did lots of dirty wood work in the shed. Around 18:00 we decided to hit the beach and have a bite. The bite sucked and we actually dumped our stuff and went home, where I had a shower and then we took off to Cafe de Vili's.

I've started work on a bigger test track for my model railroad. This one will allow me to test all the technical hurdles I need to take before starting the big coffee table project.

What else happened at the beach? Well, I lost my Viking ring I bought in Denmark at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde whilst on Mic's bucks trip.

I was floating in the water, a wave came and pushed me around. I felt the ring slip off and then it was gone. I looked for 15 minutes but no, not a trace. I liked the ring very much and I actually had it enlarged to fit my finger etc. Sad.

Drinks for Melvin & Nidhi

During lunch I sat under a tree at Victoria square. Quite nice.

Everything looks a little bit different this way.

After work we went out for drinks with colleagues because Melvin is going to India for three weeks to marry his girl friend Nidhi.

We went to the Griffin's head, on the balcony.

These two are Dave (left) and Melvin (right).

More colleagues (from left to right): Dale, Luke, Mark, Justin, Craig and a bit of Melvin.

Datsun (for Koen)

When Koen and Josie were here, Koen was showing clear signs of a Datsun fixation. We're talking about the car here. This morning on our way to work we were stopped right behind one and noticed it was called "Nissan Datsun". Rumours had it that today's Nissan car company used to be Datsun but that's only partly true. According to this Wikipedia article, the Datsun car (or actually Datson) Was originally manufactured by a company called DAT. In 1933, DAT was acquired by Nissan who renamed the car from Datson to Datsun.

There you go, your bit of car history du jour.

Lunch.

Looking down King William Street from Victoria Square.

Last week one of my computer screens died and today my replacement came in. They are just getting bigger and bigger.

I ate a banana at work and it looked like a flower, I thought. So I snapped it.

Walking to lawn bowls I passed the swimming pool. This was the first time I have ever seen so many cars parked here (and it's not even half full). Must have to do with the warm weather. It was only 34C today by the way, not too bad.

Bowls was fun.

The scorch

It was one of those warm nights where it didn't really cool down much. The wind is now coming from the North which means desert wind. When we left to go to work at 7:40 this morning it was 28C. Promising...

This bus blew out HUGE clouds of smoke. You just can't believe they allow that shit on the road. It's no wonder Australians are amongst the biggest polluters in the world.

I had lunch in airconditioned Cafe Fresh.

A Vili's pie (already gone), schnitzel sandwich and a Nippy's.

Outside the wind was blowing hot and hard.

Waiting for the bus in the shade today. There was no way I was going to line-up in the sun.

When I came home it was 39C in the shade on the veranda. Apparently it reached 40.4 in our garden today. There are reports of bush fires as well so it looks like summer has arrived in all it's glory...

Something else that arrived in all it's glory was my tax form for 2007. Funnily enough I requested one for both me and Nicole but I never got one. I even made a phone call for mine but they said I didn't need to fill one in. Nicole has received her tax refund about a year ago already and they send me my form NOW. Oh, and it has to be back before March. They take a YEAR to send me one but I have to send it back within 1.5 months. The nerve.

Digital Model Railroading

Luuuuuuuuuunch. Recently I keep seeing different people washing their face, hair and/or feet in this fountain. Hmmmmmm.

After work I took the tram down to a model railroad shop called Orient Express.

Ugly English trains.

Pretty non-English/American/Australian train.

I bought this set from Roco. It's a DIGITAL start set. It's all about the DIGITAL bit. I will use this to further investigate how that stuff works so that I can use it to build my coffee-train table.

I waited outside for Nicole to pick me up and was visited by a mosquito twice.

At home we heard on the news that America is trying even harder to know more about people visiting their country now. You have to fill in a form online as well now.

They are very clever because on their form they ask if you are a terrorist. And if you check 'yes', they will not allow you to enter their country. That way, the American people can feel safe and secure and sleep well at night.

Sweet dreams, America.

At home I opened the box to see what the treasure contained exactly. It holds one locomotive, four carriages, a lot of track and of course the digital equipment.

Why digital?
Digital model railroad control allows you to have multiple trains driving on your track at the same time with different speeds. Also you can let them breaks and drive off in a natural way. And also you can make the lights stay on when they are not moving. There are a lot more advantages that are too complicated to explain on this simple blog :-)

This is my first decoder equipped, digital locomotive.

Koen and Josie are nice people :-)

We went to Scoozi's in town for breakfast.

Josie looking like a supa star ;-)

And so does my little lovie.

Koen just managed to weasel half his head in to the picture.

The fairies were out and about. They always look like they're on drugs. If I were them, I know I would be.

After breakfast we went to get some poffertjes. I just had to take them there. They were DAMN good.

Koen now knows where to get the best poffertjes in the world. It's for sure that it's not in The NL!

Then it was time for farewells in front of the car rental place. Koen and Josie are driving to Sydney making various stops along the way. If you happen to see them, blow your horn!

It was a most fantastic visit and Nicole and I had a great time. I think Koen and Josie did too. It was wonderful to see Koen again and to meet Josie. Hopefully we'll meet again some day :-)

Back home I took a nap and then I watched some tennis and some women soccer. Sydney vs. Queensland.

Queensland plays in orange.

I must say that I think women's soccer games are more enjoyable than men's. They play more fair and not as rough. It reminds me of what men's soccer games from the 60's look like. Women's soccer ain't bad at all!

Late afternoon I drove myself (alone, for the second time ever :-) to the tennis courts to meet Stephen. It was a warm day and the 4th game needed six deuces to be won only to make it 4-4. It was a little bit exhausting. Our professional photographer Nicole stayed at home so there are no action shots, sorry.