McBlog

I knew we’d become domestic when we went to Bunnings for the express purpose of buying a lawn mower & some gardening gear (spade, trowel, fork, rake, etc). Despite flashbacks to my initiation into the psychedelic world of Sydney’s 1992 dance party scene and hazy recollections of nootropics, virtual reality rigs and funky/chunky graphics, the closest I got to the Lawnmower Man was that I was this guy pushing a lawnmower around the back yard.

Oh well, at least I had a stack of aviation podcasts to listen to under my tarmac worker quality hearing protection.

I’ve been willing to put up with the boring hassle of mowing the lawns, even when the spring & autumn seasons meant rain and grass growing at a rate you could watch all day without having to pretend you saw movement. Sadly, however, today took me over the edge. I’ve spent today mowing lawn, ripping out crap from flowerbeds & driveway edges and otherwise trying to make the space look acceptable. What makes it worse is that we’re moving out of here next week and all this is just to ensure that the place doesn’t look too run down/dilapidated when the contractors come through to renovate the place.

After a day of mowing, bending, ripping, carrying & dealing with pissed off insects & arachnida, I think the next gardening tool I buy will be a flame thrower. Screw this “beautiful looking garden” shit – it’s either paved or the place comes with a gardener who gets paid to make it look good while I get my weekends back.

Many years ago while I was living in Buenos Aires, I wrote a few articles for the local English language newspaper including the problems inherent in calling the Internet a “Super Highway”, a guide to safer driving in Buenos Aires and going comet chasing. I also worked on an article with a friend about mobile phones as fashion statements for Latin American mobile phone magazine.

Things went quiet for a while until I wrote a couple of articles for aviation magazines, one on the Albury Airshow in 2002 and the other on a session in a full motion 737 sim. They were both back in 2002/2003 and aside from various blog posts here or at Fly Me Friendly, I never really produced any further articles.

This all changed today when Shashank Nigam published my article on his very well read Simpliflying site. The article provides a background on the birth of Jetstar, its growth to date and how it is destined to consume more of QANTAS’ mainline routes & aircraft.

Head on over to Simpliflying and check out the article.

Thanks to Shashank for giving me the opportunity to gain further exposure to the global aviation world and helping to promote PCDU, it’s very much appreciated :)

We’re moving house again in a few weeks after only moving in here a year ago. We came here to be close to Nykolai’s new school and are only 5 minutes walk from the front gates. Sadly, the owners want to rennovate and then move in, something we weren’t aware of when we agreed to rent the place (lesson learned!)

When I was a kid, we used to move house every 3 years or so and the longest I stayed in one city was 5 years in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Then we moved to Brisbane, Australia and still wound up moving every year or two as places we rented were sold (DOH!).

I wound up staying in Brisbane for 10 years but kept shifting around even after moving out from my parents (actually, they moved out on me, but that’s another story :). Eventually I moved to Sydney and bounced from place to place there as circumstances changed.

After a few years in Sydney, I moved to Boston for work, then back to Sydney a few years later and then within 8 months was off to Buenos Aires for a couple of years, again with work. From there I wound up here in Melbourne where I’ve been living for 13 years, the longest I’ve ever stayed in one city in my life. It’s also appproaching the longest I’ve stayed in one country in my life.

The joys of having a kid and wanting to give him some stability, I guess.

Nykolai and I lived in an apartment for over 6 years and Kitt moved in with us there over 4 years ago. Now it’s time to box everything up again and move about 500m up the road to a place that’s on the other side of the school.

The house is full of boxes, things are disappearing off shelves & book cases, plans are being made, friends begged for assistance and a truck rented. With luck we’ll stay at the next place for a few years before having to move again ‘cos I for one am getting totally over this relocation thing… :)