Leeds

I've been in Leeds for almost two weeks now and I have to say that I quite like it. It's very busy, which can be frustrating as I am out in the sticks a bit, but it's quite a fun little (3/4 of a million people or something similar) city. Here's a few photos to give you an idea:

Above is the town hall, I'm not sure exactly how old it is but, like many of the buildings around here, it may well have been built before Captain Cook was in nappies. I had a quick squiz inside and it's really nice but there was some function going on so I didn't hang around to get a photo.
Apparently there's about 100,000 of us students in Leeds, and our presence is certainly felt.
One thing I've found since arriving in the UK, but especially after my time in London, I have realised that in Australia we, believe it or not, perhaps customer service (and the general good nature of people) for granted. People are rarely willing to offer any assistance and when they do, like if it's their job or something and they're forced too, they aren't particularly helpful. Leeds doesn't seem so bad, though when I saw this sign I did wonder... Just because I'm on the other side of the world doesn't mean that the thursday night pilgrimage has to stop...
The above and below (on the next post as blogger is still playing games with me) photos were taken on one of the few typical english days (as far as weather goes) that I've had since I've been here, though I was still in shorts and a T shirt. They're both taken just down the road from where I'm living and in the background to the right of the photo below is the buildings that make up Boddington Hall where I'm living.

The United Kingdom of Ash

Can you believe it, they actually let me in! Two Fridays ago I touched down at Heathrow airport and had a couple of days to spend in London before heading north to Leeds. Perhaps I wasn't quite operating at my peak performance with my body telling me it was 0200 h but all the clocks around me saying that it's 1600 h but after jumping on the tube from the airport it wasn't all that obvious where I was; London or Melbourne. The trains looked the same, as did many of the houses in the outer suburbs, the sun was shining and it was nice and warm. However the giveaway, the moment that I new I must not be in Melbourne, was when two blokes jumped on the train with cans of Fosters. Can't say I've seen many people drinking Fosters anywhere back home.

It was recommended to me that whilst in London I buy a ticket for a 'jump on, jump off' open top double decker bus tour. I went with The Big Bus Company and would also highly recommend doing one of these tours. It's a great way to do all the touristy things in London, and it's easy so you can do it even if your body is telling you that you should be asleep. The above photo is me on the tour with Big Ben behind me.

One thing about London is that everything is small and all crammed in together; they have washing machines in their kitchens and in the place where I stayed a few nights in Leeds the toilet and shower were one in the same. These little Smart Cars are everywhere. A bloody good idea for somewhere like this. They are all crazy drivers too, it doesn't matter if their driving a Smart Car like this or a double decker bus, they still drive like their driving a sports car and are above any road laws.

The United Kingdom of Ash (continued)

Blogger was playing up so I'll have to finish the rest of the previous post here.
The tour takes you around to all the sites and whilst I didn't have a whole heap of time up my sleeve (I'd spent the morning trying to fix phone problems I was having) I got to see most things. I did manage to stop at the natural history museum as well as the science museum, and with it being such a clear day I thought I had best make the most of it and go on the London Eye (above) even if it did mean that I spent more time in line for a ticket then actually on it.
You can see Big Ben (apparently technically only the name of the clocks bell) from pretty much anywhere in the middle of London so I have a whole bunch of photos of the big guy from several different angles, however this is probably one of the better ones and was taken whilst I was on the London Eye.

That's all for London for the moment but stay tuned for some posts on Leeds. I've only been in Leeds for 5 odd days, but it seems really good so I'll put up some photos from around here soon.

Cowra picnic races '06

My apologies for taking so long with this post, but here it is. A few weeks ago were the Cowra picnic races and with Pinko being a Cowra ex-pat, the troops were rounded up for the event. Unfortunately the camera got stuck on a setting that no one ever new it had, so most of the photos are a bit blurry. We got to Pinko's place on a Thursday night and, after all being repeatedly beaten by his old man in darts, went inside for tea... and a home brew or 24...

The next day we all got up and donned our Friday's best ready for the big day. Pinko lives on a vineyard and it seemed a rather appropriate place to begin. The red bowtie was a very spur of the moment thing but worked brilliantly! In a 'special' kind of way...

With Pinko catching up with just about everyone in Cowra, he was sometimes hard to get a hold of. This is a photo I managed to get of him between reunions.

In the time it took to loose our eskies and regain them again a fair percentage of our tent had migrated into town. However Louis, Pinko and myself did our best to encourage people to visit our tent on there way through.


Eventually though it was time to follow the masses into town so after stashing the eskies in a super-secret hiding spot, we began to groove on in.

After a great night, two black eyes, a lost pair of sunnies and an incident with a barbed wire fence, it was time for the long walk home. As this was our first time to Cowra for many of us, Pinko decided to show us the scenic route, which we were only informed of well into the hike. Needless to say, by the time we got we were well and truely ready for a feed. (The corrosponding image doesn't appear to want to work at the moment but i'll try and post it again later.)

So thanks Pinko for putting us onto a good thing, and a big thanks to your folks for putting up with us. Look out for us next year Cowra!

Leeds, prepare yourself

I've, FINALLY, got my official acceptance to University of Leeds for next semester. Why I'm choosing to swap a nice and warm Ausie summer for a miserable UK winter I'm still not sure, but it will be different to have a white christmas at least. Waiting on this confirmation has meant a lot of organising stuff without really knowing what was happening but now it's happening. A bit scary really.
Now that I have been accepted I can begin my work experience that I've organised. As of next week I'm working in defence with Navy Platform Systems for nine (or so) weeks.

On the move

Last weekend Erin and I decided that we were going to do some walking. But before we could do this we had to make sure we were properly equipped. This meant several trips to most of the outdoor stores in Canberra, and ended with several bargains, and us having to right gear (that looked good too). We were perhaps too ambitious in our plans and didn't get to go for a walk in Namadgi, but instead just went for a walk up Mt Ainslie. The photo left is us at the top; we managed to fend off the roos but not night fall.

The picture above is from two weekends ago, just before the house party. Straight after exams Erin and I headed down to Beechy to visit the folks and give Erin a look at Beechworth. We only were able to stay a couple of days but it was good. Dargo (my dog in the pic) was pleased to see us as she was spoiled more then she probably has been for a while.

That'll do donkey...

I've been meaning to publish this post for a while but have kept forgetting, so here it is now. The photo is one my cousin Cristy sent me of hers and Leon's daughter, Sam, getting into riding early (like mother like daughter) on a stuffed donkey that I got them while I was living with them. It's probably a couple of months old now so no doubt Sam is even bigger now and has probably progressed to riding Keb, their dog.

Monc party #... 5?

Saturday just gone was time for the fifth (can anyone confirm or correct this?) Moncrieff st party. Once again the punch came out, as did many of our friends.

With Dobs about to start exams Kate was relieved of driving duty and was able to let her hair down, or tie it back... Meanwhile Erin and Trace (both honorary house members) made the most of the night.

However with Trace, plus some encouragement from Erin, opting to drink the punch straight from the eski as opposed to the usual method of using a cup, her early retirement from the night was inevitable.

I think the less said about this photo with Pinko and Zac the dog the better.

Once again the nemo hat made an appearance. How could it have been a bad night!!!

Old man Jier

This year the queen shared her birthday with Jier's 21st. It was held at the sports bar at ADFA and was a great opportunity to catch up with my ADFA mates. My night was kept quite small as I was being served mid-strength Jim Beam's against my will. I feel so violated...


Early in the night Basu met a girl called Suzi. Unfortunately for Bas, after getting to know her a bit better he decided that she was too fake.


As the night drew to a close, the lights came on and the rain came down. We were all very cold, wet and unimpressed by the excessive taxi line. Still don't know who the random is at the back...


Basu did find another girl to dance with later in the night, and not made of plastic (though there were some of them out at moose too). Unfortunately though for Bas she apparently was out of bounds for another week. Needless to say Basu was somewhat shocked and upset. When the 'friend' was confronted the next day about this 'out of bounds rule' she was as confused as he was.

What engineers do

Recently I was shocked and appalled when someone (don't worry Damien you will remain nameless) suggested that mechanical engineers work in labs with test tubes. To clarify this I'm posting a picture of our last major project; a remote control car that my manufacturing group and I designed and built. Basically we were given a box of car parts (like the front and rear assemblies, receiver, steering servo etc) and were told to build a chassis that was light, had quick and easy battery removal, strong, could easily be manufactured on mass scale, and obviously went well. Our design, as can be seen from the picture, used a piece of aluminium box section that was machined using a CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) machine.