Skiing 05

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, the time for the annual ski trip to Falls Creek has come and gone, so I thought I'd better get around to posting an update. This year's trip was pretty good, with a few variations on the regular themes, enough to keep things interesting. The crew this year was as follows: Myself, George, Sharon and Adrian Hillier with their kids Zach, Cassie and Jade, Chris and Danielle Cawood with their kids Tamara and Nathalia, Chris and Tamara Stillwell with their kids Colin and Cayley (and pet rat Angelina), John and Jo Novak with their infant son Nicholas, Phillip and Liz with their son Nathan, and Warwick and Jackie. So that's 14 Adults, 9 kids, and one rat.

One of the variations on this trip was that we had the majority of our groceries and alcohol delivered up to our lodge for us by the supermarket in Mt Beauty. This meant that we didn't have to lug a whole lot of boxes of food and drink up through the oversnow and seriously reduced the amount of gear we had to carry up and back. Another variation was that George and I caught the bus up the mountain from Mt Beauty, along with the Cawoods and Novaks. This is something the Cawoods have done in the past because they haven't had a car themselves (they live in Perth, and fly in to stay at Chris' parent's place in Albury and get a lift down to Mt Beauty). We did the sums and it turned out to be cheaper for the two of us to buy bus tickets and park in their undercover parking, than it was to pay for a week's resort parking and chain hire, not to mention the fact that we didn't have to fit chains and trudge through the snow to the car. The only slight drawback was waiting half an hour longer for the bus on the way back home, and that was really because we booked our oversnow early enough to allow for delays. Also, this year, due to the large number of people, we had actually spilled over into a second lodge, which also gave George, me and the Cawoods a place to escape when it all got a bit too busy at the main lodge :)

The skiing itself was very good, Sunday we arrived during a clear sunny day, with lots of snow on the ground and blue skies overhead. Monday was our first day of actual skiing and despite the heavy falling snow, high winds, occasional sleet, and near total whiteout near the top of the mountains, the snow was pretty good and we got a decent morning's skiing in before deciding to go back to the lodge and give in to sanity :)
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were all bright clear days, blue skies and sun, excellent skiing all over the mountain, and to be honest, some of the best days I have had in the mountains. I was very happy with the snow, extremely happy with my gear (especially the new ski pants that were warm and dry in the blizzardyness and still cool enough on the sunny days. I skied my favourite runs at the Summit, powering down the steeps like a absolute champion. At least until my thighs were burning and my knees were calling me all sorts of bad names, when it was then time to return to the lodge (a short ski away) for much needed refreshments :)

Tuesday night was the first part of the extreme sports (apart form skiing itself) that we would get to witness this year, where some motocross riders were putting on a show of jumps and tricks in the snow outside our lodge. This was the second year they'd had this event and it was till a lot of fun to watch, especially the big finale which was one guy doing a backflip followed by fireworks, which seemed to be going off just outside our lodge, needless to say we are very happy with our choice of accommodation :)

Friday it rained and I did not ski, instead we sat in the lodge and watched DVDs, played games with the kids, and watched the rain try to wash away all of our beautiful snow.

Saturday was lightly overcast, but mainly clear, a bit cold, which meant the snow was excellent, and it was another day of great skiing.

Saturday evening saw the Big Air competition on the summit slopes about 300m in front of our lodge, with a large number of skiers and snowboarders going over a 55 foot kicker jump to compete for prizes such as Biggest Air, Best Trick, Best Costume, Best Old School trick, etc. I went out and stood in the snow for a few hours to get some good shots, and was chatting to the kids next to me and generally having a good time freezing to death in the snow at night :)

Sunday was the day to come home, and just as well since it started to rain again and was not the most pleasant of days to be in the mountains, so we left :)

as requested

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

As requested by Peta and Joe, here is the 'breast shot'.

Peta was going on the prowl later, so stopped by Yak for a few drinks first. I was helping her to determine the effectiveness of her top in attracting men. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Sunday

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Sunday was filled with a great variety of activity and emotions.
The day started (at 12pm) with a BBQ around George's place. Some old friends of ours were in town from Perth for a while and took the opportunity to arrange a big get-together of all the old gang from the late 80's :)
As it turns out, most of them have been spending their time having children :) lots and lots of happy children. It's quite funny, because you don't really think about it, until you're in one room and realise that 1-3 kids per couple, and 5 or so couples, ends up being a lot of kids :)
Can anyone ever truly say that kids aren't cute? I guess it's a survival trait or something :)
The whole thing was excellent, and I was able to spend a lot of time catching up with people and seeing what everyone's up to. The food was sensational, thanks to George's three skewer spit, so it was spit roasted lamb and chicken and home-made dips :)

Sunday evening I went to see a movie at Fed Square with Kate. It was part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, and it was a film called Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire and is a documentary about the UN General who lead the peacekeeping force into Rwanda and was there at the time of the Genocide portrayed in the movie Hotel Rwanda.
It was quite an open portrayal of an extremely disturbing incident in history, where human beings performed inhuman acts to one another, and Dallaire was tasked with doing something about it without being given any of the things like authority and manpower that he needed. Dallaire himself is quite a likable person, and you can't help feeling his frustration and horror at what was happening around him and his inability to do anything real about it. It eventually led to his breakdown and he is still not completely recovered, but it was heartening to see the reception he received in Rwanda, where the people there were clearly aware of how much he was actually able to do, despite him personally discounting them compared to what he felt he was required to do. Kate and I had seen Hotel Rwanda and so we were very interested to see something more factual. Hotel Rwanda itself was a very good film, and did give you a sense of the atrocity that was going on, but at the end of the day it was a fictional piece, based on reality, whereas this film was a documentary of Dallaire's return to the country on the 10th anniversary of the genocide.
Needless to say it wasn't a "fun" movie, but it was very moving, and made me get a little angry at myself for not really paying enough attention to what was going on at the time. I guess this sort of thing happens a lot, but that doesn't make it right.
Anyway, I think it's an important movie, and it helped to improve the characterisation of Dallaire after Nick Nolte's version of him in Hotel Rwanda, although that wasn't too far from the truth, it didn't do the man justice I think.

flickr-meet

flickr-meet
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Saturday was the day of the first Melbourne Flickrmeet at Fed Square. This was a great event, with a really good bunch of flickrnauts showing up and chatting away, talking about cameras and photography and flickr, but also talking a lot about Melbourne and every other possible topic under the sun. There were a few cries of "Geeek!" (mainly from ziz) but all in all they're a pretty cool bunch of people. I think that I would be happy to have any of them in my circle of friends even if we didn't all have the photography/flickr thing in common. Those in attendance were Donina, Oz Lomo, WenDee, make.money.fast, The Cardinal (aka Joe), F o u t u g r a p h e, ziz, barbfi, Eyecatcher, lonely radio and s2art

I had a great time meeting everyone, I think we need to do it again. next week :)

YAF @ YAK

clare and peta
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Friday saw some traditional drinking shenanigans :) It started out with a few drinks with Clare and Peta at Yak. I hadn't seen Peta in a while so it was good to catch up a little. The girls were heading down to De Biers afterwards, as they were very keen to get some gentlemanly companionship and De Biers has never disappointed them before. Come to think of it, I think I recall Kate and Kerry doing the same thing back in April, specifically targeting De Biers for this :) After Yak I headed out to The London in Richmond for John's birthday drinks, managing to get extremely drunk by 11pm and catching a taxi home with Joe. :)

midweek malarkey

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Did you realise that I seem to start most of my blog entries with "Last weekend" and follow with "haven't seen them in a while"? It's almost as though I only exist on the weekends, and that I never catch up with anyone. My week tends to be filled with work and discussion of work and stuff around work and spending time with people from work, near work. It has been my intention from the beginning to not discuss work to any great extent, hopefully not at all, within this blog. So that's a large part of my week already taken away from blogspace, and the rest is mainly weekends and drinking. This week for example, I actually spent some time on Monday night with Joe going to see the Spirit of Tasmania and did a big shoot of the boat, beach and port.

bollywood ball

bollywood
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Saturday night was the night of the annual KPMG Ball which is usually filled with pomp and pageantry, and this years was no exception. My date to the ball was Leah, who wanted to go along and wasn't a social club member, so wasn't interested in paying $150 for a ticket when members and their dates only pay $85.
The theme for the ball this yeah was "Bollywood" so the room was decorated like a Bollywood musical and almost all of the entertainment was Indian themed, including some traditional style dancers, some modern dance numbers, some traditional music and one snake charmer/dancer that was quite interesting.

I have been to the ball seven times over the last nine years, and it's generally a lot of fun, although like anything, it depends on who you hang out with :) This ball was probably the second best one I'd been to, and I had a significant amount of fun and managed to catch up and have a dance with some people I hadn't seen in a while. I had a great time dancing and chatting and laughing it up with everyone.

The one part of the entertainment that wasn't really Bollywood themed was the dance music. The DJ played a bit of Indian styled dance and then when the 80's cover band came on it kinda blew that out of the water, so it went straight to western dance music after the first 80's set. :) The band was the same as last year, and a really good 80's band for a dance gig, playing all the old favourites like Jessie's Girl and Mickey :) The DJ was pretty good too, playing mainly mainstream dance, but not any of the super super cheesy numbers that some clubs play, so it was deemed 'acceptable' by me :)

Everyone seemed to be having a good time and I finally ran out of steam at about 1am and headed home. It's always a long queue for a cab at Crown, so I usually walk up to flinders st station to get one. It's always a fun experience walking around the city in a tuxedo, for some reason everyone looks at you funny :)

late shift week

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Last week was fairly low key, having been on late shift all week, which usually makes me a bit slow around midday and cranky all week, at work anyway. One benefit is that come 8pm, I'm wide awake and ready to go, with enough energy to be out and about for a few hours easily. This has of course lead me to do a couple of night photo runs, walking around the city looking for shots and generally just wandering about. I finally managed to get some shots of the flames at Crown Casino that I'm happy with, and generally just made a nuisance of myself around town, looking like a tourist and taking photos of things that normal people don't take photos of. :)

A lot of time was spent in the rest of the week doing some html coding for the Flicky Awards for Excellence in Photography on Flickr (of course)

Friday night started out fairly normal, with the usual plans to only have a few drinks, not have too large an evening, etc. It began with meeting Joe and Steph down at Yak for a few drinks after I finished at 8pm. It was good to catch up with the both of them, as Joe has been on convalescent leave after his ear operation two weeks ago, and I don't see Steph as much as I used to, since she used to be my flatmate :) We had a few drinks and a bit of the usual chat and laughter, although the crowd at Yak was quite loud, and managed to get all caught up. Then it was off to Pheonix to see Kate and as it turns out to partially rescue her from an ex who was making eyes at her, another guy flirting with her, and a girl who was after the ex making a point of ignoring her :) So we breezed in and they left and we all had a bit of a laugh about it :)