A weekend

Since the submission on the thesis I have rediscovered something called weekends when apparently people don't work. To celebrate this discovery Aleisha and I headed out to Maitland Bay for a quiet day on the beach. The water was a little choppy so the snorkelling was not the best, but any day away from the office is a brilliant day. I managed to take a few photos before the dogey underwater housing for my camera started to fail.

It is done

The HULK has arrived

Well yesterday was a proud day for Aleisha and I as we have finally bought our first car. Owing to its obvious exceptional build quality, phenomenal power and its green colour we have decided to call it the HULK. It is a 2000 Hyundai excel with just under 85,000 km on the clock.

The official handover with Lisa and Leon (the previous owners)

The HULK in its new home

Coming Soon...

Fun with neutrons

Well I am off to neutron school this week, I can barely contain my excitement. Unfortunately as the new nuclear reactor was purchased from Argentina it has broken down and we will have to have neutron school without neutrons.

Sculpture by the Sea

The other day Aleisha and I headed out to Bondi to check out the annual Sculptures by the Sea exhibition. As usual it was pretty good, although it was also pretty busy. Still any time not spent writing my thesis is always cherished.

World Famous in Australia

A few weeks back the science based documentary program Catalyst interviewed my supervisor, Cameron Kepert, in our new lab for a program on the Hydrogen economy. They have now releases it online, so if you are interested in viewing it then check it out here.

Camel Racing

With the recent outbreak of Equine Influenza the local racing club decided to run some Camel races to try to attract the crowds. It certainly worked as the place was packed with punters, possibly a little too packed. But it was a good laugh and everyone had a good time.
If you are wondering why the photos are of such poor quality it is because I was attempting to use my Dads old Canon AT-1 35mm film camera with some some Ilford XP-2 B&W film. Digital certainly does make life easier.

Long Weekend

I know there hasn't been a blog entry for a while but to be honest we haven't been up to anything interesting of late. So to make up for our lack of physical activity the long weekend was spent snorkelling, bush walking and doing some more snorkelling. All and all a very enjoyable weekend, although compared to thesis writing cutting my toe nails is exciting.

It took the combined effort of three PhD's to read the map.
On the way to Red Rock Cave, a site of some aboriginal paintings in the Blue Mts.

A Jacky lizard, although this is open to debate.

An Eastern Bearded Dragon, very much alive. This guy had everyone fooled with his playing dead routine.

Blood Moon

I think it is a sign that the chemistry gods are not happy with my PhD progress, back to thesis writing then.

My Brother Comes to Town

As my brother had a conference in Melbourne he decided to pop into Sydney for a few days and catch up with us. After a visit to the relatives on Monday we headed out of Sydney to show Karl some of the sights. The first stop was our secret Platypus viewing location (located some where on the road to Canberra) which did not let us down, with a good number of Platypi being seen. After checking out a the local bakeries we headed to the Royal National Park via the coastal route and after a few "scenic" trips around Wollongong (I took a wrong turn) we arrived at the Royal just as the weather cleared.

Log

The thought of another trip through Wollongong was too much to handle for Karl.

"I think I can see New Zealand"

Tourist Trip to Newcastle

Aleisha, Marty and myself decided to take a trip to up to Newcastle to check out the new (and only) tourist attraction. We managed to get a great deal on a Toyota Prius hybrid rental car which made the trip a bit more interesting, but more on that in a future blog. It was quite an amazing site and I dont think it will be moved any time soon.

The Pasha Bulka

Tawny Frogmouth

Well after giving up all hope of ever spotting the elusive Tawny Frogmouth we managed to spot on roosting on the bloody Chemistry building of all places! I guess there are some benefits to coming to work on the weekend. We even managed to get some photos to prove it.

We finally have a date

I know you have all been waiting for this announcement so here it is, our wedding will be on the 9th of Feb 2008 in Sydney. The ceremony will be at the University of Sydney main quad and everyone who can be bothered coming is welcome. Since we wont be ranting on about God for hours we expect the ceremony to be nice and short. The people who bring the best gifts will then be invited to join us at a local eatery (yet to be formalised).

Seahorse Spectacular

Last Friday afternoon I gave up working on my PhD talk and headed out snorkeling with the lads. The aim was to spot some Seahorses and Iain had a good tipoff on a guaranteed location to see some. I decided to try my luck at underwater photography with a point and shoot film camera, as you can see from the images below I think I will stick to land based photography in the future.

A Leatherjacket that Paul and myself had to rescue from the shark net.

Can you spot the Seahorse?

PhD Talk

Well with my PhD talk coming up in a weeks time I have been spending far too much time in front of my computer so there isn't much of interest to blog about. The most exciting thing I have done of late is create fancy looking images for my talk abstract, hopefully this will distract people from my inability to use the engrish language.

Car Park for Rent

As some of you know we use to rent out our car space to a guy who owned the hairdressers over the road. When he initially offered $100 per month we nearly fell over in shock, who would pay so much for a bloody car space? Well he stopped using the space so it has become available again and I figured I would try and rent it out. Much to my amazement there are numerous web sites where you can list your car space for rent or for sale. Our space has just been put up so if you want a cheap space only minutes walk from the University of Sydney the check it out here.

Warrumbungle National Park

Aleisha and I decided to head away for the easter long weekend and in an attempt to escape the crowds we headed to Warrumbungle National Park. This time I got the hire car I wanted, the economical Hyundai Getz. While we may have suffered permanent spinal damage due to the "sporty" suspension it only used 6L of gas per 100 km and the gear box actually worked. Unfortunately we didnt manage to avoid the crowds but the place was still pretty nice and we got some nice walks in.

View of the famous Bread Knife

After a few failed attempts I managed to get a reasonable star trail photo using a 30 minute exposure.

The Getz, by far the smallest vehicle in the campsite.

The final countdown

Well it is official, I am on borrowed time. Three yeas of my PhD have passed me by and I am now on an extension which will last six months. Hopefully I will be able to get everything finished before the extension runs out.

Sydney Harbour Bridge Walk

Last weekend Aleisha, Marty (a collaborator from Monash university) and myself decided to join the ~200000 other people celebrating the 75th anniversary of Sydney harbour bridge by walking over it. The most enjoyable part of the event was the knowledge that thousands of motorists were unable to drive over the bridge in their useless Australian made cars for a day. Other than annoying motorists it was an excellent opportunity to do some photography of a popular land mark from an angle that you can not normally get.

Due to popular demand a photo of Aleisha and I (apparently this blog has too much ranting from me and not enough photos of Aleisha and I. Me rant, never)

Marty