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Its a bit early to be talking like its a New Years resolution but today was the beginning of a new step down my life.

Im fast approaching 30, i live at home still (sad i know) and im still single. Its about time i started to do something about all of this. Tommorrow i start down a new path. Tommorrow i have my first personal training session. I am working towards some goals:

I wanna Weigh 100kg
I wanna have some decent arm strength
I want to be able to do a 10km run (this is my big goal)
I want to do kokoda (in 2011 at the moment for me)

So tommorrow morning at 630am I am going to try and and get all of this negativity out of my life, and keep things going. To work towards my new goals. Im also considering seeing a counsellor. I have had some rough times in my life lately. With massive meltdowns in the last few months before i went away. If I am going to get myself physically healthy, i should probably get myself mentally healthy to. It may help!

So tommorrow is a new beginning… one step forward in my life

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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!

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Well… what has been happening since i got back. Everything was going smoothly after arriving back home after all the flying around. Life was cruising along. I was trying to rehab myself a little after 6-7 weeks of drinking every day (hah.. sif that will ever happen again). I was enjoying myself, spending a bit of the leftover travel money. Bought myself a new phone, some new clothes (ready for all stars and the xmas party). Bought some jerseys and some stuff from thinkgeek (books, duct tape stuff, a new tie) and then bought two new monitors for the computer.

So with mary getting a face lift i thought everything was gonna be sweet. not even 2 days after the facelift, Mary decides to have a breakdown on me. Primary Hard drive corrupts. This would normally be ok cause i dont normally store anything else on the primary. Cept when i bought mary i had a TB drive as the primary and stupidly partitioned the photos onto the same drive. OMG i am stupid.

Panic sets In. i try to back up the photos one night and let it back up over night (i have 44gig of photos on this machine, its all my photos for the last 5 years). I wake up the next morning and its frozen in the middle of a boot sequence. So thinking that my photos didnt get backed up in time i panic even more. The computer wont boot, it just keeps blue screening and rebooting. I am in full on panic mode as now i can’t even get access to my photos or my emails. Thankfully i have my laptop (Frenchie… thanks for the name michelle) so I was still able to keep in touch with the world (i am such an internet addict) and check up on possible causes/fixes. I leave it till wednesday on my day off. I try everything to get it working again. Fresh installs, repair install. Nothing is working the drive is screwed. So Off I go to spend more $$ to pretty much turn Mary into a fully brand new machine. New hard drives, New OS, picked up a USB hard drive caddy as well so i could isolate the corrupted drive while trying to recover data.

Managed to get her working after spending all day working on it. First thing i find. My photos. Backed up on the secondary drive. all of the photos to. I was just happy as! So that was hurdle #1 over. I instantly backed them up again to my external Hard drive so i have a double back up (something I will be doing quite often i think). So then yesterday, Geoff drops off some software for me to try and I have to use a round about way to recover it, but the effort was worth it. I managed to recover my emails from the old hard drive. Hurdle #2 is fixed! What a relief. I wasn’t able to recover any of my work files I had on this machine or anything else that was in my documents etc (never came up on the recovered data) but the emails were more important to me really.

I guess all in all, that its fine. Now I just need to get it all fixed up and running and my life will be back in check. O and the new phone i bought. They ran out of the colours i wanted. I think im gonna get stuck with pink 🙁

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Man what a trip. The trip has been the trip of a life time for me. My first intentional business class trip. Relaxing in business is like nothing you can imagine. Its so good to be up front, not crushed between dozens of people begging for air. To be able to relax back and get some rest and actually arrive off a flight feeling good makes all the difference.

I met so many new people, made so many new friends, and did some things i never thought i would do. Everyone keeps asking me what was my favourite place, or what was my highlight. I just can’t choose one. I did so much that there was heaps of highlights and so many places mean so much to me.

I travelled on 4 different airlines, 4 Countries (if you count the trip to cairns which i am), 26 US States, 2 Canadian Provinces and about 4200 photos all up. This trip is epic and now that I am home i can rest (although i just spent 5 days in cairns doing just that, a holiday to get over a holiday).

Now its back to reality, back to work and back to the morning commute… *sigh*

Current Location: Home 🙁

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Monday 26th October

After the rough landing in Tokyo I was glad to be on solid ground. I found my way between terminals (had to wait a little bit) and headed for the QP (Qantas Club). The Qantas club looked pretty good, just how I expected it. Was good to see VB in the fridge (good little touch of home). Really didn’t want to drink anything after that flight. Was pretty Jittery and it was getting to me. I jumped online and started writing the trip report for the HNL-NRT leg and I was all over the place. I managed to get myself a shower and try and calm myself down but looking out the window at the weather did not help. Eventually I just had to suck it up and get on that plane. We boarded late as the plane we were meant to have went to Kansai instead.

Tokyo Narita to Brisbane (NRT-BNE)
Qantas/JAL/Jalways – QF390/JL761/JO761
Boeing 767-300 – JA620J
2115-0715
Business Class – Seat 2G

Boarding: 2135
Push Back: 2155
Take Off Roll: 2215 – Runway 34L
Top of Decent: 0705
Touch Down: 0735 – Runway 01

Was at the front of the boarding queue so was about 3rd onboard (stuck behind old slow people). No pre departure drinks (must be a JAL thing) but everyone was seated quick enough. We pushed back and taxiied out. It was a bit all over the place as the wind was pretty heavy. I was able to watch the take off from the nose camera (which has to be the coolest thing on board). The take off was not as bad as I expected. We were up out of the crap pretty quickly. We had the drinks service once in the air and I didn’t feel like drinking so just had a sprite (what a waste of the possibility of good booze). Started watching transformers 2 while dinner was being served (food was really good, way better than delta) and by the end of the movie my eyes were closing. I think i may have dozed off for about an hour or so. By the time i came to we were about 4 hours out, and this is where we hit the turbulence. It was a bit rough (not as bad as the landing into tokyo) but you could see that we were flying through a thunderstorm with the lightning striking in the distance.

After it calmed down I started watching “Bucket List” and before you knew it the breakfast (snack) service was coming out. Pretty soon we were skirting down the Queensland coast and starting descent into brisbane. The flight attendants kept saying we would get turbulence coming in but it was very light. Pretty soon we were flying over brisbane and I was able to watch the landmarks go past on the Nose Camera. Touching down had never felt so good, to be home in my own town (even if only for 2 days).

We landed on 01 which meant a nice long taxi to the International Terminal and the gate. By the time we pulled up to the gate, people looked antsy to get off. We pulled up to a gate right next to duty free and right in front of immigration. Managed to pick up my duty free without to much hassle since I managed to lose the collection receipt (somehow). Used the express lane cards to get through Immigration quickly but when I collected my bag (which thankfully made it through Tokyo much to my doubt) and tried to use the express lane for Quarantine and Customs, they wouldn’t let me. O well i will keep the express cards for next time ;). Since i was declaring the Candle Nut Lei i was given in Hawaii I had to go through all the lines and then I find out because its Candle Nut it will cost me $30 to get it fumigated, so i told them to dump it, I couldn’t be bothered paying that for something worth $7 and for something that was given to me (the quarantine guys are probably wearing it right now).

Soon enough I was out through the doors and in the waiting arms of my loving parents who came to pick me up! Gotta love a warm welcome. It was good to be home!

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Sunday October 26th 2009

A decent wake up this morning for a pick up at a decent hour. The shuttle was a touch late which was ok in the end as I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Check in was a bit of a riot as there was people everywhere and as I approached the Priority line, their computer went down so she sent me to the main line. Problem!! I have to interline my bags. So i found a supervisor and he put me to the front of the line.

Checked in and it was off through the Loss of Dignity line again. Belt off, shoes off, watch off, laptop out. Getting used to it, thankfully the 2nd last time I have to do this on the trip. Through security, and its off to find the lounge, took ages to find it as their was not much signage and it was tiny. Very very small. While in their one guy was fully going off at the ladies in the club saying how shit it was etc etc. I didn’t really have much time before I had to go to the gate. And they do things wierdly in Hawaii. They board you into a big gated room, then shut the gates, then let you on the plane. Wierd.

Honolulu to Tokyo Narita (HNL-NRT)
Northwest/Delta – NW323
Airbus A330-300 – N818NW
1235-1650
Business Elite – Seat 2A

Boarding: 1200
Push Back: 1230
Take Off Roll: 1300 – Runway 8R – Reef Runway
Top of Decent: 1545
Touch Down: 1700

We boarded through Door 1L and it turned out this was the only door open, so it was gonna be a free for all for everyone getting on and blocking the aisles in J class as they passed through. I originally had a seat mate but after a little while he moved over to an empty seat.

We taxied out to the Reef Runway and we had a long taxi with a big line up behind us as well. Passed the Golf course which runs through the airport and also saw the Hickham parking bays but they were on the other side of the plane 🙁

As we took off we made a right turn heading west with a good view of Waikiki. Seatbelt sign stayed on for quite some time (most of the flight actually). I had to have the Japanese meal due to my allergy and that meant that i had to eat eel. So i really only ate the rice. It was a bit of a dissapointment. So instead, I reclined the seat (when i could) and watched a movie.

Several movies later, we were on our descent into Tokyo. It was a long descent with almost 45 mins in a holding pattern due to weather on the ground. It was also one of the worst decents I have been in. We were all over the place getting thrown around. I was not feeling so happy by the end of it. My stomach was fine but the jitteryness was up pretty high.

After getting off the plane, I managed to find my way across the airport and hopped on the shuttle to terminal 2.

Current Location: Qantas Club Narita Airport

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Hawaii has been an amazing experience. I have loved every minute of it. To give you a bit of a run down of what happened here goes.

Wednesday. Arrived around lunch time into the hotel, I was stuffed. I had eaten and drank myself all the way over here. It was great. I was really to tired to do much. No laundry at the hotel so I was really worried. However the guys at the front desk advised me that it was not even a block away for a big laundromat. Awesome. So that took up a little while. After that i got back into the aircon, watched some tv, surfed the net and read my book. Around 6pm i headed downstairs to the bar next door for some food and another Mai Tai. Gotta love it! I passed out around 8pm. after like 18 hours awake.

Thursday:

Woke up early (dammit) and walked down to Mac 247 for some breakfast. It was only a short walk away thankfully and this was one of the places that was showed on Man Vs Food. I got in and checked out the menu. Not as cheap as i had expected but the Mac Daddy Pancakes (which was the challenge item) were pretty cheap at $15. So i gave it a go. A few minutes later out they came. Damn they were huge. About the size of a manhole and there was 3 of them.

I made it 2/3 through one pancake but even that was shamefull. I had tried it and thats what counts. I was pretty impressed with the place. I walked back to the hotel and got myself ready for the pick up for the USS Arizona memorial. It was a short ride out to the memorial and we had to wait about an hour but this time was used by going through the museum. When it was our time for the tour, it started off with about a 30 minute movie followed by a 10-12 minute ride over to the memorial by boat. The boats were run by the US Navy as the memorial is on an active navy base.

The memorial is surreal. You are meant to be extremely quiet and respectful and it was a very solemn kind of place. You only had roughly 10 or so minutes on the memorial before a boat was back to pick you up. Once back it was quickly through the gift shop and back on the bus for the tour the Punchbowl War Cemetery and then through downtown Honolulu. Once back it was off to explore for a little bit (afer grabbing a Puka Dog). That night I walked over to try and get into Duke’s Canoe Club but it was PACKED! Bugger that. Back to the Big Kahuna for a drink and a burger. Quiet one again tonight as it was gonna be a really early morning.

Friday:

7am pick up for my tour (the days just keep getting earlier) and it was off on my Lost/Movie Location Hummer tour. It was great! I was sitting up front Shot Gun in H2 as we went all over the Eastern edge of the island to check out the movie sites. Took heaps of photos and lots of fun photos with props to recreate movie locations. Loved it! Once I was back i dropped the camera off and went off to try to get into Duke’s for lunch. Thankfully one whole bar was empty so after a few beers and a sandwhich, I was done.

I managed to do a touch of scouting out shopping spots for the gift shopping i needed to do and then headed back to the hotel to get myself ready for the luau. I think i over dressed a little as most people were wearing thongs and shorts. Dammit! The pick up for the Luau was early. But I didn’t mind. I was looking forward to getting into some Mai Tais! There was a few very stunning looking girls on the bus (two of them i swear were jailbait!) and when we got to the Luau there was even more once the Hula girls were around.

The luau was great. got to watch the sun set, cocktails in hand while I enjoyed it all. Such a good time! I met some really nice people, filled myself with good food (poi tastes like ass) and watched plenty of hula dancing and other polynesian dances. It was a good night and after lugging home my photo, cocktail glass, mug and leis it was all good.

Saturday:
Today was meant to be my bludge day. got up late, skipped breakfast, walked down and checked out the US Army Museum of Hawaii and enjoyed it. The museum was great. It was housed in an old Coastal Battery and was still in places in original condition because they couldnt destroy the place, the wrecking balls just bounced off.

I had been really wanting to try some authentic Hawaiian local food. what the locals eat. I attempted this the first night trying a “loco moco” which is a Hamburger Patty (or in my case pulled pork) on top of 2 scoops of rice, covered in brown gravy and topped with 2 fried eggs. I had heard of a place called the Rainbow Drive Inn. It was apparently what all the locals raved about and they were right. took me a bus to get out there but it was worth it. I had the Mix Plate Lunch which was a piece of BBQ Beef (teriayki beef), piece of boneless chicken, piece of Mahi Mahi (fish) with Tartare Sauce, 2 scoops of rice and a scoop of Macaroni Salad. Omg… Awesome. Thats all i can say!!

In the afternoon i caught up with Cat & Falon and we had a drink in the Aircon and then after that I did some shopping. It was great. I bought all the gifts i needed to buy for REALLY cheap. So awesome. Then last night I was a bit tired after a big day of relaxing so watched a few movies, found another good place to eat straight across from my hotel. Tried the Spam Musubi which is like Spam Sushi. It was pretty good, I didn’t mind it.

All in all, a good quick stop over on my way home. I wish i could stay longer, but I know I will be coming back.

Anyway time to get moving, about time for my flight to Tokyo to board. Its a long way home from here for me. On to Tokyo then 5 hours on the ground and then off to Brisbane. Should be home in about 24 hours 🙁 Next update will be in Tokyo.

Current Location: Delta Sky Club Honolulu Airport
States Visited: 26

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Aloha my friends. I am in the land of romance and palm trees (and im alone 🙁 ). Hawaii is pretty cool. I am enjoying it a lot. I have seen the USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbour (no carrier in town unfortunately) and the Punchbowl Cemetery. Ive also been out in a Hummer scouting out the Lost and Movie sites here in Hawaii. Ive also been out by the ocean celebrating at a traditional hawaiian luau.

Its so good over here. I love it so much I don’t wanna leave tommorrow. At the moment i am just giving you guys a quick update. I will prolly blog more from the airport tommorrow.

Current Location: Aqua Waikiki Wave
States Visited: 26

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Wednesday October 21st

I am really starting to hate early mornings. A 545am pick up this morning and i thought it would be a private transfer… nope. had to share a van with someone. Which was wierd cause the price was the same as what a private should of been. It was a quick ride to SeaTac and I was dropped off near the Delta check in and within moments i was checked in and headed towards the Dignity loss area. I had planned ahead though. I was wearing shoes that did not have laces.

Security was pretty painful today. I beeped. So off came the belt to and the watch, next thing you know they will ask me to remove my pants. Once i finally cleared TSA i went looking for my gate. What i had forgotten was that SeaTac has two Satellites the “North” and “South” So hear I am walking towards the A gates thinking im going in the wrong direction till i see a sign pointing towards the Train and the “S” gates. I was like wtf. Then it dawned on me. I need to get a train. So I jumped onboard and headed off to my gates. First time that I have had to get a train inside the airport to get to my gate.

So once I am at the S gates ive got about 90 mins till boarding so rather than do much as I am really tired, i just find the nearest seat, plonk my butt down and relax. I managed to keep reading my book which was good and pretty soon they gave the boarding warning.

Seattle to Honolulu (SEA-HNL)
Northwest/Delta – NW219
Boeing 757-300
0815-1115
First Class – Seat 4A/3A

Boarding: 0735 – Gate S8
Push Back: 0815
Take Off Roll: 0830 – Runway 16L
Top of Descent: 1055
Touch Down: 1120 – Runway 8L

This was my first time in Delta’s domestic first class. We boarded the 757 into the 2nd door so i got to be all elite and turn left at the end of the walkway.. not right. I had been originally sitting in seat 4A and was just getting settled when a flight attendant asked me to move to 3A so a couple could sit together. I didn’t mind as it was still a window and it was going to be full anyway so might as well.

Once I moved over i was offered a drink. Orange Juice or Mai Tai. Hello MAI TAI’s! This would be the first of many for this flight. My seat mate for the flight turned out to be a Deadheading pilot. For some reason he was dead heading out to hawaii rather than flying the aircraft out. We had a little chat about my traveling and it was pretty good.

Once boarding was finished the doors were shut and we pushed back quickly. Not much of a taxi and soon enough we were off the ground, out of the seattle rain and up above the clouds. We had the seatbelt sign on for quite some time (as it would turn out it would barely come off during the flight). Soon enough the drinks cart was rolled out first (hello 2nd Mai Tai). I had read plenty of complaints on flyertalk about First Class meal service and how poor it was becoming. When breakfast service started, I was pretty impressed. I was given a choice between a hot or cold breakfast. I was hungry so hot it was. I was given a cheese omlette with two sausage looking thingys and some potato wedges. O and a bagel. I am going to miss bagels (but thats for another time). I couldn’t complain about that. Add in some coffee and you have yourself a decent breakfast.

The movie for the flight began and thankfully they use only single prong headphone sockets so I just plugged in my own headphones and started listening to the movie. The movie was called Imagine this. I had not heard of it before, turned out to be an Eddie Murphy movie.

The flight was pretty uneventful. Watched a movie, finished my book off and had 3 more mai tais (and a 2nd cup of coffee). As we decended into Honolulu I could see the islands off on my side of the aircraft. What i missed out on was the view of Waikiki on the other side of the aircraft. However what i missed out on I more than made up for as we flew in over Hickam AFB’s strips. For me this was better as sitting their on the ramp were two F-22 Raptors. I was ecstatic and I snapped quite a number of pictures of all the aircraft on the ramp.

We landed nice and softly and taxied off to our gate. I forgot to read the rego off the door as I hopped off the aircraft so that was a bit of a bummer but then as I was walking down the long walkways at the airport I realised there was no glass. All of the walkways are fully open. How awesome!!! Gonna enjoy that part of spotting on the way out 😀

After the long walk to the baggage claim I saw someone holding a sign with my name. I knew I had a pre booked and paid for transfer to my hotel, but didn’t know it was meet and greet. Then I saw it. The purple lei… o no!! It was a little embarrasing that I was travelling on my own and with a guy putting a lei around my neck. I grabbed my bag off the carosel (eventually) and then it was off to the hotel.