Well it is finally official I didnt wanna say anything till I had gotten approval from work as I was expecting to go back and forth with them a lot to work out all this leave, but it was suprisingly easy!

I am going back to the USA. Well more correctly North America this time as I will be visiting Canada. I intend on going back to visit a few places I went to last time and see them a little more and also to a few new places that I have wanted to go for a while. A little bit more time seeing friends etc which will be good.

here is the rough plan so far

September 9th 2009 – Final Day at work
September 10th 2009 – Pack, last minute stuff etc
September 11th 2009 – Fly to USA, arrive same day, thank you date line 😀 Arrive LA – Overnight LA Airport Hotel (yet to decide which one).
September 12th 2009 – LAX Airport Spotting – Late Afternoon/ Red eye to DC
September 13th & 14th 2009 – Washington DC
September 15th – Morning Amtrak Acela (9am ithink the train is) to New York City – Rest of day exploring NYC
September 16th & 17th New York City
September 18th to October 12th – Contiki Grand Northern Tour – New York City to Anaheim – http://contiki.com.au/tours/11-grand-northern
October 13th & 14th – Spend time with Friends in Anaheim. Unsure of what doing at this point… will update when spoken to friends
October 15th – Fly to Seattle
October 16th-18th – Seattle (lots of aircraft related stuff)
October 19th – Seattle to Edmenton
October 20th to 25th – Edmenton
October 26th – Edmenton to Vancouver
October 27th & 28th – Vancouver
October 29th – Vancouver to Hawaii
October 30th & 31st – Hawaii
November 1st – Hawaii – Home
November 3rd – Arrive home ( ithink this will be a rough date home)
November 4th – Hello Jetlag
November 5th – Back to work :(heh

All of it is based around the Contiki tour which will be a good experience to finish off the USA. I wont have much left to do but when and if I want to I can finish off the missing pieces. I have had such a good time in the USA in the past I can’t wait to go back.. it will be awesome.

anyway i have a house to finish cleaning… will post later in the week with more stuff.

I freaking hate tonsilitis. I always get it just before a big weekend of drinking or something im really looking forward to.

It usually rears its ugly head around my birthday but this year decided to wait until just before my 10 year high school reunion to taunt me!

So now I am again alcohol free for a while, till this is all said and gone. It sucks, it really does.

Work is good. Looking at a massive payout this month and possibly another HUGE one next month. I may just make #1 consultant this way!

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Well, for a while there my site was offline. Well it seems that on the day of my birthday, my website registration expires, and I forgot… again! So i think this time my site was offline for like 2 weeks. hehe

But its back up and running and all is good! Bit of an update as to how my birthday went this year as people do know that in the past my birthdays have been really crap, with very bad luck. This year, pretty damn good. This year my birthday was on the Tuesday and spent the weekend before it down the coast. Spent the Sunday night at Burleigh (of which i havent actually touched up the photos yet, maybe today… maybe) just relaxing and chilling out on my own. On the monday morning i met up with Yena after she returned from Splendour in the Grass and we just chilled out for the day around the GC. That night after we checked into our Suite at the Hyatt Sanctuary Cove (yes i had a Suite and it was not any suite but the Manor Suite… their Top room!) we had Dinner at Versace thanks to my parents and a 2 for 1 offer for all Travel Industry staff 😀 Came back to work on tuesday to the team not making such a huge deal and it was a good day! The funniest thing though was when I got home i found out that my weird birthday cake request was fulfilled.

Before i had left on the Sunday i made a joke to dad telling him i wanted a Giant Vanilla Slice as a birthday cake with “Happy Birthday Mal” written on it. I didn’t think anywhere would actually do it… But they did! Photos in the links below!

Also during this gap had the last of Holidays for Sale w00t w00t! its finally over for this season so can take a break 😀 On more work topics, We won the Wholesaler Challenge again! This time I lead the team (got out of it last time) and we made our way to just scraping in for the win, it was REALLY close. So close I thought we had lost! But we won!! It was awesome 😀 I wish I had more photos at this stage but when i get the offical ones from them (when they bring me the trophy) ill throw a heap more online!

Did some plane spotting yesterday, really think i should get an airband scanner, almost missed out on a C17 coming in, thanks to Beau for keeping me informed as I was about to leave. I have been wondering what I should get for my birthday, all things points to yes on that level! On the plane spotting front it seems Amberley is having an airshow soon, that should be an awesome day! Can’t wait!

Anyway I am off to meet up with Jeremy and Yena for breakfast at Alibi room. I do believe Yena has challenged me to finish a truckers this time. I will eat it… I will!!!

Birthday Weekend
Wholesale Challenge 2008

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Epic… Its a word I use quite often, frankly to much really. But it has been a good week to use the word epic. I saw Dark Knight on Wednesday night, and that my friends is a movie that deserves the word. But what was also Epic was the race last week on Top Gear. Wait im using it to much again…

Anyway back to Dark Knight. Such a brilliant movie. Now I was not expecting much going in. I mean look at Batman Returns or Spiderman 2 or any other Sequel to a big movie. Usually pretty lame. But this was great. The acting was brilliant, the suspense was continuous, many a time during the movie was I thinking, wow what an ending, for it to continue… fantastic!

I have to admit with all the media attention coming up to the release about Heath Ledger this and Heath Ledger that, he did well. His take on the Joker was pretty good to me. His laugh reminded me so much of Jack Nicholson BUT his potrayal was nothing like it. It was like the comics, dark, sinister and very very evil. Loved IT!

anyway some big weekends coming up, Not long till my birthday (like 10 days i think) but I have a weekend down the coast first which should give me some enjoyment for what is usually one of the crappiest days of the year for me (i never have a good birthday). Also have the Ekka a short while away and I still wanna know how my photos went!

anyway Game is starting. Might throw some funny pics up here tomoz after tommorrow nights stupidity 😀

I can understand why the mexicans down south (reffering to the victorians) head north during winter. Cairns was AWESOME! 27 degrees during the day, the warmth was bliss. Got to laze about in the sun, on the beach (well i didnt, the others did, i just stood around taking photos). But it was so good! I loved it. Driving the tarago wasn’t to bad!

Took max with me so he got a lot of photos taken. Check out the photos section and you will see some good ones.

But tonight I have found my weakness. Its cheap DVD’s. I seriously have a problem. I just saw all the dvds I own, and its WAY to many. I have half filled my 1 metre high dvd rack, i now have the back half to go. BTW the front probably holds about 80-100 dvds cases. I just bought the following tonight for $204

Season 1,2,3,4 Macgyver
Season 1 The Unit
Season 1 Entourage
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Recruit
28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
The Simpsons Movie
Remember the Titans

Pretty good bargain considering the Macgyver Seasons are 6 dvds each. The only thing i wanted was The Unit season 2 and then i would focus on Entourage later. Not a bad haul really. Now to worry about working some more to recover those costs!

Dear god its cold. I am sitting here at 9:30 at night almost shivering its so damn cold. Tonight as I sat on the station almost a frozen solid block I thought back to the last time it was this cold, and its been a while.

Last year it was not that cold, but I have a feeling this year will be. Its only early july and we still have that bitter cold of the Ekka to come. How damn cold every year the ekka is. You sit at night in the stands wanting to just die from the cold, hanging onto a warm coffee or guzzling down a dagwood dog to stay warm, but you dont care because thats how it should be.

Well at the moment, I want the ekka to be here cause it feels that cold at the moment. The westerlies were up tonight, and it was bitterly cold. It might have been mother nature telling me something. Me I thought it was karma for something. The one day i wear a long sleeve shirt, and think to myself, I wont need the big jacket today ill just wear the vest.

IDIOT!!!! It was so so cold. But i guess you have realised that since this whole post you have read has been one big whinge about the cold.

But HELLO CAIRNS! 25 degree warmth during the day. O I CANT WAIT!

i have been such a slacker again lately for not posting anything, but it has been a busy couple of weeks and my mind has been elsewhere. Confusion abounds inside my head and i need to make it stop 🙁 I really wish i could.

Some big things have happened lately. My two friends Brendan and Suzanne got Engaged (finally) and my other friends Blair and Nat got engaged as well (kinda saw this one coming to). To make things even better, Brendan asked me to be his best man and I was honoured to accept such a special duty. I also went to Armin Van buuren as per the below post, it was such a good night, I had so much fun and just relaxed into the music (no drugs involved thank you very much).

Just got back from my Victoria Famil as well with work, which although was short, was a fantastic time. So relaxed and chilled out that I ended up spending a little to much $$$ on some lovely fortified wine (Fergusons Shiraz Forte & De Bortoli Black Noble) plus this excellent hand made chess set from Poland. It looks so good and my project years ago of making a chess set kinda failed (not even sure what happened to that one).

In more good news, Miss Aimee the lovely lady from Adelaide ventures up here next weekend and I finally get to lay my eyes on her (hopefully! if she doesnt pike on me). I have just recently put a photo of her up on my desk at work and the rumours started instantly. Its funny screwing with peoples heads. Yena is worse for it, I have a framed photo of her on my desk (a joke from christmas) and pretty soon that photo may change to someone else. We shall see. Will be funny.

anyway i have to get ready for work, its photo day *sigh*, kill me now.

I know I use the word Epic a little to much in my life (epic fail comes to mind) but last night. That was epic. I had waited 2 years to get to see Armin Van Buuren and it was unbelievable. Such a good night, I am absolutely shattered right now, my legs are aching, my feet are a touch sore, But I just don’t care. I am a bit dissapointed I missed one song which I was really looking forward to (Big Sky) but hey you get that. Needed some chill out time in the 4 hour set that he had. I danced my heart out and it was such a good night.

I had forgotten all my worries and just went back in and enjoyed the music. It was awesome++