Sydney 29th-30th April

Well here I am, collapsed back in my hotel room after a good day and night out with Shelly and her Aussie mates. Disappointingly Im not going to have time to enter any sort of decent blog report as I need to give Tom the laptop - and so Im not going to do one! I'll try to write up a decent one elsewhere. However, in brief, Ive managed a tour of Sydney harbour, a tour of Sydney opera house, a visit to the contemporay art museum, a stroll around 'The Rocks', a very pleasant night time stroll around Kings park and Hyde park and a rugby game with associated eating and boozing with Shelly and her mates. (Shelly is another Michelle from work who comes from Sydney and who happens to be here on holiday the same time Im working). Climate is very nice, food is very good and the beer is actually quite good.

Anyway here are some photos, my camera battery died at the opera house so I only have a few opportunistic shots of it and none of Kings park.

Christmas tree Joy

Woo hoo! We have a christmas tree and its *huge*.
Heres is the photo :-



And yes Ive not exactly been keeping the blog, er, up to date, mostly due to me working my arse off. This seems a situation thats unlikely to change so I won't even bother making vague promises to update the blog more often.

Flickr photos

A bit random but I was browsing some of the photos of folks I know with Flickr accounts and came across a couple of photos I like, so here they are :-

Catch me if you can.

This weekend was top stuff, it was in fact so cool it was 'the shit'.

Photos for the evening can be found here :-
Mine
Josh's
Shell's

For Josh and Jez's combined birthdays we would be venturing to Vegas. Some incredible genius, im not sure who, came up with the idea of all the guys going dressed as pilots and all the girls going dressed as air hostesses. Mere words and photos are not capable of expressing what an utterly, utterly, brilliant idea this turned out to be! But here we go anyway...

The night began with Keith, Gordon and I and Gill, Kate, Heidi and Shell getting ready at Castle street. Soon the guys were kitted up and looking smart, our newly donned pilots outfits compelling us to stand upright with stomachs sucked in and chests stuck out. We couldn't help but grin like maniacs as we stared out ourselves in the mirror through our oversized aviator glasses. The girls followed shortly after, giggling away in tiny shirts'n'skirts, huge heels and tarty make-up with pill box hats. Solid. Outfits ready we stutted our way to The Wash for a few pre-club beers, the genius of the night increasing with each arriving Pilot and Air Hostess.





We left for Vegas, most Pilots with a Hostess in each arm. You might want to re-read that. How cool was that? Walking down the royal mile in my Pilots outfit with a barely dressed Hostess in each arm. Woot.

Something like twenty? or so of us finally decended on Vegas. We then spent a really excellent evening drinking and dancing right into the wee hours. Even Keith and I managed after some Corona, expert tuition and good male/female ratio :)

Flatwarming

Well on Saturday we finally had our flatwarming party. The theme for the evening was black and white. We decked the flat out in a combination of white and black ballons and ribbons. This was accompanied with an array of fairly lights that we had nailed to just about any surface that would accommodate them. All in all the place looked pretty darn cool. The Gulag(tm) in the flat was filled with 24 corrona, 18 IPA, 7 bottles of red wine, 2 bottles of white and a bottle of Champagne. One of these bottles of wine was empty and its contents inside us. All in all we were ready to receive our guests.

I think the black/white theme worked out pretty well. It was simple enough that most people could easily turn up in theme (and indeed had done so) whilst allowing those of a more flamboyant air to come all dressed up. Maybe next time a red / white theme? White Stripes. Woot!

The party really started kicking off around 21:30-22:00, it probably peaked around 01:30 with a full on party in the kitchen/lounge/hall/keiths room and stairwell before tailing off sharply around 03:00 to a one and a half room party. The hardcore remnants then kept going until ~04:40 when any remaining booze had become undistinguishable from the mountains of empties.

It was brilliant! I had a great time and I suspect that mostly everyone else had one as well. The night totally flew in to such an extent I almost felt cheated, it was over already? Noooo! I particulary enjoyed that there were quite a few normally disparate groups in attendance but that everyone appeared to be mixing well and having a good old banter. Woot! Much fun. The flat certainly bodes well for future parties. I mostly forgot to use my camera but will stick up some photos once I've had a chance to review them and peruse Gills camera as well, if anyone out there has any good one let me know and I'll link to them.

p.s. find additional blog entry below tallying the beer count.

Party beer tally

During the post party clear up I was becoming increasingly awe struck by the shear quantity of booze that had been drunk at the party. For my own amusement I decided to tally the empties for an estimate as to how much had been consumed. Here are the results :-

- 1 x Plastic Bin of unaccounted empties
- 1 x Bin bag worth of empties later discovered under Keiths bed
Plus
- 28 x Bottles of Wine
- 24 x Bottles of Corrona
- 23 x Cans of Miller
- 18 x Cans of Grolsh
- 17 x Cans of Heineken
- 12 x Small generic Belgian beer
- 9 x Bottles of Stella
- 9 x Bottles of Miller
- 8 x Wild n Whippy chocolates
- 6 x Cups of Tea
- 6 x Bottles of Coors
- 6 x Mr Kiplings Exceedingly good french fancies
- 5 x Bottle of large misc czech Lager
- 4 x Bottles of Arran Sunset
- 4 x Cans of Carling
- 4 x Cans of White Lightning
- 4 x Bottles of IPA
- 3 x Huge Bottles of San Miguel
- 3 x Bottles of Becks
- 2 x Bottles of Krononburg Blanc
- 2 x Cans of Magners
- 1 x Tiny minature of Glen Goymer
- 1 x Bottle of Champagne
- 1 x Bottle of Cragganmore whiskey
- 1 x Bottle of Willis Black
- 1 x Bottle of Willis Gold
- 1 x Bottle of Cobra
- 1 x Orange and Cranberry J2O
- 1 x Can of Budweiser
- 1 x Bottle of Hobgoblin

Beer-tastic. If anyone had booze that isnt listed feel free to post a comment with tallying your unaccounted booze.

Mph for "The Road Trip"

So the headline news is that our average Mph for the whole whole trip is an amazing 29.75 Mph!! How cool is that!?!?!? This includes time eating, sleeping, cavorting. The whole thing. Woot!

We travelled a whopping 13,775 miles in 463 hours, 3693 of which were driven across America. Distances and times were measured from Edinburgh to Edinburgh. Working is below and hasn't been checked. Corrections will be filed in an industrial furnace.

Less cooly this also involved us chucking out something like 4837.31 Kg of Co2 per person. Serious environmental Karma damage. Oh well.

Miles in whole trip = (3665 + 590 + 55) + 3693 + (5442 + 330) = 13775
Hours in whole trip = 13 + (18 * 24) + 18 = 463
Mph over whole trip = 13775 / 463 = 29.75

Car Co2 per person on road trip =
3693 miles / 22 mpg = 167.86 Gallons
167.86 gallons * 8.87 kg of Co2 per gallon = 1488.92 Kg of Co2
1488.92 Kg / 3 people = 496.31 Kg of Co2 per person

Flight Co2 per person on road trip =
19.56 pounds of Co2 per gallon
1810 kg Co2 on way out
2531 kg Co2 on way back

Total = 496.31 + 1810 + 2531 = 4837.31 kg of Co2

June 25th LA -> Edinburgh

Well I can't really be bothered writing too much about our day in LA so I'm going to do a bit about the jolly fine Bradbury building (its in BladeRunner!) and then describe most of the rest of the day in chronological order using short phrases. This should be enough to remind me what I did in LA in times to come if not much fun for you guys :)

The Bradbury building was commissioned by a chap called Lewis Bradbury. He went through a variety of architects whos design's didn't match his grandiose plans. Instead, and somewhat curiously, he then hired a draftsman with no architectual training. The draftsman had apparantly been instructed to take the job whilst conversing with his dead brother, which is certainly an interesting opening line for an interview and seemed to do the trick. The building itself is inauspicious from the outside but really neat inside. It makes heavy use of glazed bricks, ornamental tiles and detailed wrought iron work that appears to be in Parisian style. It has a nice airy feel from the central courtyard and the large glass domed roof which lets in copious amounts of light. Its great! and looks nothing like it did in BladeRunner, where it was the dilapidated apartment block inhabited by Sebastian.

Heres some photos from as high up as the public can get in the building :-





Ah, and the draftsman subsequently switched to being an architect and produced nothing of note for the rest of his life. Hmmm.

And for the rest of the Day :-
Wake, Drive, Bel Air, Look, Suburbs, Breakfast pie, Chap from 'Swingers', Stupid valet parking nonsense, Ooo lovely lovely Bradbury building from Bladerunner, Downtown LA, walkity-walk, What a dump, Everyone is spanish, Crippled chap doing a job that could be replaced with an IR sensor, Cheap labour, Silly, Hollywood sign, walkity-walk, Hollywood street with the stars on it, Ah godzilla has a star - wierd, Blokes dressed as storm troopers, Chinese man theatre, Beach, Mmm beach nice, Sun, Flight soon - sadness, Flight. Right.

June 24th Santa Barbara -> Los Angeles

June 24th Santa Barbara -> Los Angeles

There were few things that could have voluntarily dragged me away from Devon's parents place. Brenna's promise of a Kappa Kappa Gamma soriety girl fuelled evening featuring a mechanical bull turned out to be one of them. After some general pottering around in Santa Barbara we cruised onto our final stretch of road :( and, with a seemingly endless array of songs about California, cast off for LA.

We arrived in LA and met up with Brenna's friends one of whom would be graciously supplying couch, bed and floor. They all looked exactly like the Californians on TV. It was a bit freaky, had all the ugly girls been culled under some secret Gattaca-esque eugenics program? Perhaps it's just that most people at UCLA come from pretty darn rich backgrounds.

We began the evening with a visit to 'In n Out', an apparantly famous fast food burger joint. I was initially sceptical but won over by the brilliant menu. The menu has 5 things on it! Burger, Cheese Burger, Double Cheese Burger, Fries, Coke. Somehow in an age of ever increasing consumer choice, fancy meals and anal nitpicking about exactly how ones sandwich should be constructed an 'optimised' menu had managed to remain! It's so easy, you basically decide whether you want cheese! Long live 'In n Out' I say.

Post burger (with cheese) we loaded up on a raft of our old friend 'Deux Eques' and Corona. We proceeded back to to the flat and begin drinking with Brenna and Co and await the arrival of the remainder of the Kappa Kappa Gamma gaggle. A few degenerative beers later we were ready to hit the town. However, it turns out getting a cab on a saturday night in LA is really, really, really hard. Multiple attempts and summon a Cab and some more beers later we decided to blow morality and pinch a Cab that had turned up looking for someone else. Hey-ho, lets hope the mechanical bull doesn't attempt to recalim some karma by throwing me through a wall.

Disgorging from our ill gotten Cab we entered 'Saddle Ranch', a bar with a mechanical bull and OC stylee crowd. A quick round of drinks later the Bull looked fun, and reckoning that any more beers would impair my ability to get on the Bull never mind stay on it I began reading the lengthy legal documentation I would have to sign to approach the Bull. The Bull itself is a human controlled mechanical beast that bucks and rolls around. Whilst on the Bull your only allowed to hold on with one hand, the other must apparantly be thrown around in a cowboy like fashion. Mounting the Bull I managed to stay on for a respectable period and longer than I expected, Keith slid off like his trousers were made of a some sort of super frictionless teflon and Josh with a vice like grip with his soon to be bruised thighs managed to stay on for the full run of the Bull. There were also numerous female attempts on the Bull which I mention only to note they're a bit rude to detail. One I will however mention was from a lassie who was quite clearly, well there's no other word for it (gulp), fucking the Bull. Bizarre. I mention it as I have never, ever, seen so many camera phones produced so quickly, a new danger of our times indeed :) Other than that the evening passed acceptably in an odd world of californian style chat with mexican liquor induced haze.

Tomorrow we bum around LA before catching flight back home.