So ive been thinking about this for a while, this isnt a big list, and there is a lot of travelling stuff on here. I am happy to add things if people have suggestions.

If you are to lazy to use this link or the link at the top right of the page then here is my list.

* Fly Around the world in Business Class
* Fly Around the world in First Class
* Sit in the Nose of a Boeing 747-400 (Completed 2007)
* Fly a Plane
* Fly a Plane Simulator
* Try to get over my fear of boats
* Shoot an Automatic Weapon (Completed 2009)
* Do something stupid and embarrasing (Completed several times)
* Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world
* See a truly breathtaking sight
* Have a Meal in a 3 Star Michelen Restaurant
* Stay a night at the Waldorf Astoria hotel
* Get a flight in a War Bird – Double points if its a B17
* Trek Kokoda
* Visit Galipoli
* Stay a night on a private island
* Try to get a photo of every airline that flies to Australia
* Fly on every airline in Australia
* Visit Every State & Territory in Australia
* Run 10km (planned for July this year)
* Get Married & Begin a family
* Cook a Meal for the people in my life who i cherish the most
* Spend a day with the people I cherish the most
* Visit all contients
* Find the joy in life
* See the Big 4 Game Animals on Safari
* Help someone in need
* Taste the most amazing thing on earth
* Visit the highest building on earth
* Take a friend on an amazingly, memorable holiday
* Buy someone a gift they will cherish forever
* Be the #1 Consultant at work

So one of my favourite shows on TV has a big presence on Twitter. Attack of the Show (AOTS) is good for those of us in the world like me, Geeks and Nerds. They do follow a lot of trends etc and they like to think they start some trends. So this month its not Parched March or anything like that. Its EpicApril! So everyone is tweeting #EpicApril. Its a good way.

So I started to think, this month is pretty Epic. I will break the 40kg loss barrier hopefully, I will also manage to get in a lot of travelling this month. I am off to Norfolk Island tommorrow (don’t worry a trip report to come) and then I am home for a few days. Will be checking out my first Roller Derby Bout (and get some photos), Will be heading to Peppers at Salt Beach for a nice few days off midweek thanks to winning an incentive. Then I am home for just one night and flying to Sydney for the usual Anzac Day pilgramage. But while I am there I will also be getting in some plane spotting, cruising sydney harbour and just having a generally good long weekend.

What more can you want really from a month! It will really be Epic April!!

so im sure your all dieing to know how everything is going. (/sarcasm). Training is doing well. The intensity is going up and up, its getting harder and harder to do things but I am getting through it. I know that I need to hunker down and keep at it.

Well in regards to the first two goals

1. Wigh 100kg
2. Run 10km

I am doing well with these two. I have lost 36kg (started at 172kg) so am now at the half way mark to this goal. But here is where it is getting hard. The weight is starting to plateau. This sounds like a fantastic effort for me but, its hard. My head is the hardest problem at the moment. I have to not think about somethings but I have to concentrate on other things. Like food. I have to think about what I eat, how much etc, but then I can’t think about the scales otherwise my head just does me over.

The 2nd goal though. Thats where I am really happy with my progress. When I first started. I could not even run at all. I couldnt even walk 2k Then I started smashing back the times. Walking further and further, 10km walk now…. pffft easy! Then i started running. 100m… buggered… 200m hell no… then I ran my first 250m, then 500m, then a full 1k. Im getting closer and closer to that 10k distance. I know its still a bit far off being July for the race but the more and more I run the better I feel 😀

The other goals though… still working on it!

So after hearing that my brother was due to make an appearence at home for a weekend I decided to dissapear south to visit my new friends Michelle & Stuart who I haven’t seen since the big North American Journey. So after a little bit of looking around and chatting with Stuart about dates managed to find some nice cheap S class tickets for pretty cheap against the red e deals and dropped some points for a bit of Business Class Indulgence (i gotta use the points somehow). I managed to book a few nights cheap at a hotel through work and it all looked good. Only later on did i find out that the weekend i was to head to Canberra would be the Weekend of Skyfire (a big fireworks spectacular).

Friday 19th March 2010

After a hard day at work and a morning at the Gym it was off work 15 mins early to make sure i get the train, meet a friend at the Station (who is heading north while im going south), and onto the Airtrain. With the last time i flew getting to use that scammed Virgin Atlantic Silver Status and making it off the Train, checked in and through security in 4 minutes, I was hoping that i could see just how much time i could save with Qantas doing a similar thing. So with the train arrived and a quick walk down to the Check In, i get up to the Priority lines for Business class and I have to wait 🙁 damn. I only had to wait 3 or 4 minutes but im already losing. After a total of 8 mins since off the train it was through to security and I was through in less than 10 minutes total. Not as good as Virgin but the distance was a little further.

Made my way up to the Business lounge where the Dragon (this time a male) was guarding the door and my quick flick of a boarding pass didn’t work, he called me back so he could inspect it. No chance of a reprint (checked in online to try and get a half decent seat) onto real card though as the desk was very busy in the J lounge. Pretty much exactly the same as how I remember the J lounge last April when I flew to Sydney, but this time, REALLY packed. Hard to find a seat but i did manage a quick connection to the net on my phone and a quick tweet. Mineral water drunk and then off to the gate just as boarding is called. Expecting to get boarded by Zones like Qantas usually does instead its a scrum.. and when i mean Scrum i really mean it. People were running from everywhere! I was about 20 or 30th to board (way down the line) and found my seat quite quickly after a very “meh” greeting by the Flight Attendants.

Qantas Airways
QF959
Brisbane to Canberra (BNE-CBR)
1905-2155
Boeing 737-400 (Rego Unknown)
Business Class – Seat 4A

Boarding: 1845 – Gate 17
Push Back: 1906
Take Off Roll: 1915 – Runway 19
Top of Descent: 2125
Touch Down: 2147 – Runway 35 – Gate 11

I hadn’t experience the Convertible Seats that Qantas use on a 737-400 in business class mode before. They were pretty comfortable but more familiar to the First Class Seat used on Delta being that you have a tray drop down rather than out of the arm rest. Not as good as the millenium seats used on the 737-800s and 767-300s as they had no footrest and not as much legroom (but still good enough!). A quick water before push back and the playing of the all to familiar Safety Video. Quickish Taxi to 19 and quick take off, turn left and up we go to cruising altitude. Seat belt sign off, ipod on, book out and out come the hot towels, such a way to relax.

Dinner was going to be an interesting experience tonight. I had tried to request the Low Fat Meal through Qantas. Doesn’t exist. Had to request the “Diabetic Meal”. I had been dreading just how bad this was going to be. But what was laid out infront of me was not to bad. Another Mineral Water (the stuff is growing on me) and I was ready to relax.

Flight felt very short after a decent meal, a nice relaxing seat and some good music to listen to.

We turned right over Sydney Airport and headed in for our descent into Canberra. We had an early arrival into Canberra, I must of been sitting on the wrong side to see any sights because I sure didn’t notice any.
Stepped off after a quick farewall to the young yet cute flight attendant (good to see some younger people rather than the normal older staff on QF domestic), downstairs to the greetings of my friends. After my bag came off right towards the end (is everyone in Canberra entitled to a Priority tag?) It was off to my hotel.

Sunday 21st March 2010

After a fantastic day exploring the city of Canberra with my friends they dropped me off Curbside to Canberra Airport (this place is a mess right now to!. So thinking I could get a nice quick check in process I figured I would be through quickly…….. WRONG!

I am standing by my theory that every single person with Qantas club must belong in Canberra as the Priority Queue was just as large as the normal Economy Queue… W T F. 15 mins in line and I finally check in for my Business Class Flight. I was instructed to go Up and to the right for the Business Lounge. Through security slowly (couldn’t find the aerosol can I had in my bag… stupid me) and up to the lounge. Stepped in expecting it to be packed…. wrong. It was nice and quiet, just the way you expect a business lounge to be.

Grabbed a spot by the PCs and got myself a mineral water from the Bar and it was time to relax. Jaunted around on the net for a while including some Flyertalk reading, some twittering and a bit of facebook. Then grabbed another mineral water (love it now) and sat back to read some of my book for a while. I had plenty of time in the lounge to relax and just chill out. This is what I love about flying in Business. Being able to actually relax before a flight so I am walking on calm and relaxed and not worrying about gate changes or where should I be or where can I sit etc.

Time kinda flew in the lounge and soon enough I saw that we were due to board in a minute or so. Rather than wait for the boarding call, I headed down. Good timing to. As I reached the bottom of the ramp they called for boarding as I was standing right next to the gate entry. Was 3rd on Board the aircraft (what timing), welcomed on board by name to.

Qantas Airways
QF962
Canberra to Brisbane (CBR-BNE)
1910-1950
Boeing 737-400 (VH-TJU)
Business Class – Seat 2A

(All times are local)
Boarding: 1850 – Gate 13
Push Back: 1919
Take Off: 1927 – Runway 35
Top of Descent: 1927
Touch Down: 19:44 – Runway 01 – Gate 16

On board with lots of people, as more and more people piled on, i got stuck into my book (Weary Dunlop’s POW Diary is really growing on me). Water or Juice on offer as usual, and enjoyed while the sun set in the window out side. Snapped a few photos, enjoying the sunset as we eventually pushed back it was a slow slow taxi (i think we were waiting on a Crash 8 to go past) to the active and a nice, quick take off. A few bumpy bits on the climb out (not much) and then we were cruising nicely north as the sunset on my side.

Drinks and meals were slow to come (But with a flight time of 80 mins i didn’t expect them to be). Rather than giving my special meal up first, they kept me till normal but this time, i went with a diet coke (didn’t ask for lemon or lime i forgot). Dinner wasn’t as good this time, but it was ok. A white roll was offered, it was put to the side as it was soggy.

Not much more to say about this one, the tv show didn’t interest me, so read my book some more, while sipped on my diet coke and a nice cup of coffee (I don’t know how they do it, but it was strong and black just the way I like it). Pretty soon we were on decent into Brisbane, coming in from the south, with approach to Runway 01 meant a slight track across the inner gold coast and the southern Suburbs with a lovely view of the city on my side. Was fantastic, just wish I hadn’t of put my camera away.
Upon landing it was a quick taxi but a long wait at the gate while they bought the mobile stairs over as I was lucky enough to end up with the only Qantas Jet capable gate without an air bridge.

Bags were quick (ish) and I was headed home.

I have been so slack lately. i havent updated in weeks. things have been good in life. I am enjoying my new team, enjoying life in general. I am adjusting to the food differences, adjusting to all the exercise.

Ive been doing some travelling and stuff lately. went south to melbourne to visit Ang, Blair, Ashina and Siarna. Then last weekend it was off to the Sunshine coast to spend it with Ross, Brendan and Suzanne (and use up a freebie in the process).

Otherwise my life is going swimmingly. The weight is falling off, ive lost 32kg in just over 3 months. I cant even believe it some times. ITs scary putting on clothes that did not fit three months ago.

i dont really have much to say tonight…but maybe i will think of something in the next couple of days. i will trip report next week on the canberra flights. (QF J on a 734)

its such a simple question. It was put to me by my nutritionist. She asked me why do I eat. What is it inside of me that makes me eat.

I have been thinking of this a lot. I have managed to change the way i eat and i am getting used to it. but the thing that sits in the back of my mind is why cant i just have that slice of pizza, or a piece of cake, or a lovely cheeseburger.

i think the biggest reason i eat, is because i love food. I love to cook food, i like to look at food (still love watching man v food). i guess also being in travel lets me keep that love of food as i get to travel and try new and different foods.

but other than that i dont know. i know that a lot of its was convienience. A lot of it was just bad judgement. i used to skip meals, eat more than i should of, eat the wrong things (golden nugget burger comes to mind). But i know that all of these things all add up.

but i guess i dont really know the real reason. i guess i need to keep thinking about it…

Well ive been using the fantastic plastic a bit lately and racking up some Frequent Flyer points by booking a whole heap of flying about for myself. In the coming months I am heading to Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Cairns. Also heading to the Sunny Coast and possibly the Gold Coast.

Who knows what else will be happening in there. It will be tough on the lifestyle choice (diet, exercise) but I will get through it. I can’t wait to visit my friends in Melbourne and Canberra and catch up with them as I haven’t seen them in soooo long. Missing them heaps!

As for life updates. Im down to 151.8kg… down roughly 20kg in 2 months. A HUGE effort… but i still don’t really see it. Work is turning around, I am back to being a consultant, trying my best to just make sales (although the first month or so will be tough!).

Hopefully everything works out!

Wow… thats all i can say… what a weekend! I had the most amazing time in Sydney. After not being able to go last year (was out of sales for 6 months so didnt qualify) it was so good to get the chance to go this year.

I will give you a bit of a run down of what happened over the last few days.

Friday
Really early wake up. Off to the airport to meet up with the guys at 6am. Man i hate early starts but this was going to be worth it. Once everyone was there we checked in and made our way through security with about 5-6 mins to spare till boarding and then it was all onboard. Pretty empty flight so it was nice and spacious on the flight. Watched some NCIS LA on my ipod (god that function is awesome, gonna have to use it more). The flight was pretty uneventful really. Remembered to Twitter to @virginblue as i got off to thank them for the flight and it was onto the Bus and on our way to the hotel once all the Melbourne guys joined us. We did a bit of a walk through Circular Quay as it was nice and sunny and not to hot (it was getting hotter though) and we had lunch at the Shangri La Hotel. After lunch it was off to Bridgeclimb. Things were looking good at this point. I was having an awesome time, meeting new people, catching up with old friends and just enjoying myself (apart from getting Chewing gum on my new Patriots jersey… dammit!). We got to Bridgeclimb and this is where the biggest dissapointment happened. After going through all the set ups and stuff, i couldnt get in. Because the suit was to small and they couldnt get the next size up in time i wasn’t allowed to climb. I was pretty dissapointed but i will manage to get over it… eventually. I ended up walking up to the bridge pylon (god those stairs almost killed me!) and decided to then walk back to the hotel. By the time i got back a few of the people who didnt climb were at the bar so i joined them.

After a few drinks and getting ready we all headed off to the Novotel for dinner and then a quick walk down to Star City. When we got down there we headed to the Lyric Theatre, where we were gonna go see Mamma Mia. Now don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the occasional musical. I like getting dressed up and going to the theatre. what i dont like is Abba. That being said, it wasn’t to bad. After the show we headed up to the roof top bar for a night cap… awesome!

Saturday.
Woops set the alarm wrong, forgot to change to Sydney time, so rushed wake up and breakfast before meeting the group and walking to Circular Quay. We hopped on the Taronga Zoo ferry and with a good view of the harbour we crossed over and got ready for our walk. We were to walk from Taronga Zoo to Balmoral Beach. A distance of 8km. Now it has been years since ive walked a distance like that. I remember hiking when i was a scout. PRetty sure we did distances like that, but it was with a 20kg pack on your back. I didn’t even walk that far in the USA. But i was determined to do it. The views were lovely, got to chat heaps with the girls from melbourne and also the owner. It was a good morning. There was one killer hill that almost broke me but i made sure i did it. After the walk we headed back to the city for a Harbour lunch cruise. What i didnt realise till we got there was that the boat was just for us. A private harbour lunch cruise onboard the “Sydney Showboat”. How cool. Nice and relaxing. We were meant to go out to Bondi after that, but everyone was kinda wanting a relax and a good drink by the pool. So hung out in the room, had a drink, watched some TV, had a good chat. It was a good relaxing arvo.

We met up around 7pm to head off to dinner. Off to Circular Quay to have dinner by the waterfront (near the cruise terminal). We had an amazing dinner and awards ceremony. Everyone was dressed up, looking hot and having a good time. We had plenty of awards to present (as everyone that went was the best of the best) and we had an enjoyable evening. After dinner it was back to the hotel to hit up the Club Lounge Bar on the 31st floor overlooking darling harbour. Wow… what an awesome view. It is gonna be so easy to sell that club now that i know how good it is up there. We had a number of drinks and got booted out some time around 1am ish and tried to hit up the Ice Bar in Circular Quay but it was closed.

Sunday (today!)
Alarm set correctly, slow wake up with time to pack, eat and pay my bill (room charging is a bad bad concept for a drunk man). Things were looking good. We headed off to the Sydney Fish Markets for the morning, grabbed a coffee, checked out some awesome looking knives (gotta love japanese knife makers) and checked out the crazy seafood offerings. We then headed to QVB (Queen Victoria Building) to where we were planning on doing some secret santa shopping. Everyone was given $100… im serious $100! to do secret santa shopping for someone else in the group. We had to use the full $100 and couldnt give cash or vouchers. So things were tough for some people. Sneakyness abounded and it was awesome! I was a bit confused. I had taken notes on what to get my person (had a melbourne staff person so it was a bit difficult as i didnt really know the person… hence good way to meet other staff).

We headed up to the top of Sydney Tower for lunch (wasnt hungry so didn’t eat) and we all had a good time handing out presents. We then had to rush to get out of the tower and to the airport in time for our flights. We barely made the flight and not to long later we were heading home… flying our way back through the sky to brisbane!