luckycanuck | Entries tagged with car

I came up to Sydney on Thursday, and had a couple of days with my parents before taking them to the airport on Saturday morning. Mum and I went shopping and she suggested that for Christmas I bring the girls to the Sydney Koala Park when they come out to visit in July. Done. I was going to struggle to come up with anything. We also had a chat about depression, which she got to see up close on Friday night as we had dinner with the guy who looks after the administrative aspect of the Collaroy Castle and his girlfriend. Me at dinner with four people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s instead of at the gym where I had planned to be. With all the frustration and alienation I was pretty shut down and fatigued all night, and almost struggled for breath like I did at work last winter at one point. When we got home she asked if I was ok, and I said "this is what depression is like." I don't think she understood until then, and I suspect she probably still doesn't. She's trying though.

On Saturday I took Minou back to her place on my way to Canberra and stopped in to visit Dora in her post Mr Burns phase. Back in Canberra at the party I was there to attend, Nerva Chu helped me shave my head. I know I normally have very short hair, but on Saturday night I shaved it all off in solidarity with JAQ who has lost all her hair during chemotherapy.

( Click for lots of pics )

Tomorrow I head back to Canberra so I can lead a training session at Parliament, and on the way I plan to stop to pick up a 20kg weight vest and to visit Minou again.

( Click for investing news that may not be of interest to everyone )
I have decided I won't be going to Sydney this weekend. It would have meant driving up and back in one day, and six hours in a car plus rugby (and the prospect of injuries) and then going to a party Saturday evening was just going to be too much to pack in. Additionally, yesterday there was smoke coming from my exhaust. It wasn't there this morning, but I didn't feel comfortable going all the way up to Sydney and back like that. Perhaps I should have it looked at.

I hope the Convicts do well and I will be wearing my Convicts gear tomorrow in support. If we win we are into the Grand Final. Not bad for a team in their first year in the competition who joined a few weeks into the season. It has at least given us plenty of opportunities to get

Ok. First off I'm getting this out of the way. I'm not sure why I find this so amusing. I guess I'm just a bit of a Judeophile.

YW: Max pullups in 3 minutes then 40-30-20-10 24kg kettlebell swings and hand release pushups. 73 pullups and 8:53 so a whole workout in well under 15 minutes.

TW: 25-20-15-10-5 chest contractions and pushups. 5 sets of arm smashers with 10-8-6-4-2 sandbag getups at the top of each set. Finally, 15 minutes of core. Then a walk home from work which means I'll be walking to work tomorrow.

I've been trying to get things sorted before my trip on Thursday. I should be fine. My car had an inspection so I can renew the rego. They always find something wrong it seems. I'm not sure my car was unsafe because some light was leaking from the brake light compartment into the reversing light compartment, and I'm not sure there was anything wrong with the windshield wipers, but at least now it's sorted. I've had this car for four years now, which means it's been four years since my near fatal crash. I hardly ever think about it anymore.

Tomorrow I have to finish up everything work related. That shouldn't be too hard. I am also going to try to work up my CV a bit so I can send it off to the new NSW Government. I suspect they may have already filled a lot of roles and I'm not sure what the conditions would be like, but I think it is worth investigating.

There is an election on in Canada right now and it will still be going on when I'm there so I will probably do a bit of voluntary work on that. A friend of mine mentioned to me that there was always going to be chances for me back in Canada so I would like to keep that as an option (though it would take a lot to get me to move back again.)

Christmas Eve at the office means a flurry of corro that needs to be done before we close the office. Things were thrown at me that had nothing to do with me. If I could take letter writing out of my job description, a lot of my work angst would be gone. We will be closing up early today though. Hooray!

I took my car in to have my drivers side rear tire looked at. It had been losing air at an unreasonable rate and I found out why, a little metal splinter had punctured it in a place where it couldn't be repaired. It turns out that my spare also had a puncture, so I would up getting two new tires. It cost me over $300 but at least I was able to find out that the right rear wheel (which has had leaks before) is fine. It turns out it's just a coincidence that it is the only one that ever goes flat. I feared there might be a problem with the wheel itself. At any rate, now I am good to go up to Sydney tomorrow.

While I was waiting for my tire problem to be fixed, I walked over to the gym and did a nice easy row to pass the time. I wound up doing a total of just over 210km which put me at just over 7km per day over the length of the challenge. I will be returning to normal workouts again after Christmas, and I already started to get back into it by doing some pullups and kettlebell swings and bench presses. (I did my bodyweight, for 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1). A nice change of pace from all that rowing.
( Photo of rowing fun from last night. )
Speaking of bodyweight, I am now 86kg, which is a full 4kg less than a month ago.

Tonight I will be going to church as I always do, and I will also be having dinner with

bakerypenguin and family.

Last night I saw a rather amusing program on ABC2. It was a British sketch comedy Christmas Special (the Brits are world leaders at this) featuring a guy called Peter Serafinowicz, whom I had never heard of before.

Enjoy.

The Mactini, the smallest computer ever produced.

Paul McCartney celebrates Christmas.

The couple who never argues. Really.

Christmas just wouldn't be complicated without Complico.

Say goodbye to dirt with new Kitchen Gun.

Agenda, featuring French Al Pacino.

I had lots of meetings today, including a rally with the guy who will almost certainly be the next Senator from Florida.

I also got photos of various political types with Australian political gear I brought.

The University of Central Florida College Democrats with a Nationals sticker.

The Republican candidate for Florida Agriculture Commissioner actually wearing a Nationals cap I brought. I assured him that we weren't a communist party.

After a full day of meetings a group of us had dinner with a local couple, which meant getting behind the wheel of a 1965 Mustang.

Awesome!

Tomorrow I'm off to another rally featuring the former Governor and the current candidate for Governor, and then a University football game.

I'm wearing my Canada ice hockey top as an homage to my home and native land / terre de nos aieux.

I actually prefer The Maple Leaf Forever to O Canada. It's less vague and more self assured.
( Cut for Patriotic Singing )

My car was in for a service today. It's been very reliable and smooth recently. It generally gives me very little trouble, and the same can be said about my mechanics. Many people think are mechanics are a crooked bunch, but I think mine are pretty good. I've never thought they were taking me for a ride, and they've advised me that work didn't need to be done when others thought it did.

The Tough Bloke challenge is in Sydney this weekend, but it is fully booked so I will have to wait until next year. The Mud Run, however, is in December. A 12km run through mud and obstacles? Oh yes. I will be in it!

TW: 10 dumbbell shoulder press and 10 marine pushups - 5 rounds, 10 wall ball presses and 10 handstand pushups - 10 rounds, 50 clean and press, 50 15kg weighted pushups.

Then 30 minutes in the sauna and a long shower ending with cold water at full strength. Then feeling high.

Bad timing. My first game with the Convicts is this weekend. We are playing Maccabi, the all Jewish team in our final trial match. (Clearly they aren't especially orthodox or they wouldn't be playing on Shabbat.) I chose not to have a big workout yesterday, though I did a total of 500 pushups whilst watching Family Guy last night.

Unfortunately, the national wife carrying championship is on the same day and I can't do both. If only they were on different weekends I could have done both, and just maybe I could have become a national champion of wife carrying in Australia just as I was in Canada in 2002. One day I must go to Finland to compete in the world championships.

No matter. My car is currently being serviced and I've finally gotten the code to unlock the radio so I won't be stuck singing to myself all the way to Sydney.

A major buyer has increased its stake in Chemgenex, which is reassuring for me and makes me think I should hold onto it. Clearly people with more resources and expertise than I've got believe their drug will be approved and have put a fair chunk of money on it.

I did some looking around and the cost of the leukemia treatment they are aiming to offer in America is expected to be around $30,000 per year. I don't have any problem with them making money through treating the sick. I know that if they do so it will preserve lives, it will be good news for me, and it will stand to give me a bit of financial security. It is a reminder, however, that I could be facing the same kind of costs if I was hit by similar circumstances. That probably explains why I invest in the first place.

... it would be great if I could get through writing a post or reading my friend's entries without being involuntarily redirected to a site promising internet security (irony much?) or a site advertising a Chinese sex museum (yes, really.)

And if recent trends are maintained, the first comment on this post will be from a blonde woman hawking designer shoes and handbags. Because I am a person who spends big on such items.

I seem to be the target of a lot of spam recently. I amd getting around half a dozen spam messages at work everyday, all of which seem to be coming from within the building. Many of them are from myself. Either someone has hacked into the Parliament House e-mail system, or I am, in fact, a blonde Russian woman on the hunt for an Australian husband. Wow. I never would have guessed.

TW: 200 leg presses, 100 leg openers, 100 calf presses. A pretty quiet day after all the Crossfit I've been doing recently. Some of it is tricky to do in terms of equipment, and they really seem to like pullups.

There was a classic car meeting at the school down the street today. I took some snaps for dad.

That's a 1909 Renault. It had no windscreen, and no dials on the dash. Back in those days I guess you had to use your own judgement on how fast you were going and how much petrol you had in the tank. It's 101 years old this year, and looking much better maintained than most 101 year old people. Still, I think I'll stick to newer cars that don't have wooden wheels and a plaque that says it is "Approved for use in Great Britain and the Colonies."

My uncle in Sweden has a 1926 Ford which needs to be started with a crank, and around the time I left Canada dad got a 1971 MG convertible as his impractical car. For the record, a convertible is impractical in a country that gets snow around six months out of the year.

Tuesday I spent heaps to have a small piece of metal implanted in my gums. Today I spent less of a heap to get my car serviced. I've never had a flash car, but it's sensible and reliable (except for the time last month when it stalled in the heat.) When I picked it up this afternoon though I could feel the difference. No rumbly noise from the muffler. I noticed it steered more easily. (I hadn't noticed a problem but I noticed when it improved.)

So it's been a big spending week. Luckily today my investments went up after dropping for a couple of weeks. On paper at least. I've still got my eyes open for new opportunities.

Oh, and I took a bus in Canberra for the first time ever this morning to get to work after dropping off the car. This is a very car centric city.

It's after 11:00pm and I've just arrived home.

I was up early in the morning to pick up dad from the airport. We are in the same country again for the first time since last December. Terry, my sister's father in law has also come out to Australia for the first time. With four sets of hands we will surely get a lot done around the Collaroy Castle.

Dad and I took Terry for a drive around the northern beaches, all the way up to Palm Beach before stopping at the Newport Arms for lunch and a discussion on some of the perilously unstable shoes being worn by some of the women in attendance. Apparently there was some kind of big horse race today. The Melbourne Something. I saw it but didn't really pay attention.

Shortly after the race I packed up the car and headed off. Dad and Terry (and possibly Uncle Robert) are going to visit Canberra at some point whilst they are here, but for now a visit of about six hours will have to suffice.

I'm the one on the right. The good looking one.

There was heaps of traffic on the way home. There were breakdowns on the eastern distributor, and in the M5 tunnel. The pace was slow and frustrating but people seemed to be taking it all well.

And then I joined the ranks of the broken down. My car is nothing flash, but I have it serviced regularly and it has been dependable for me. Still, when it gets hot (and it hit 39 degrees today) sometimes the engine cuts out. Dad, who knows more about this than I do, reckoned it was vapour lock (i.e. the petrol turning from liquid to gas before it gets to the engine thus interrupting the fuel flow.) It has happened before, but only on very hot days.

Whatever the cause, I was on the M5 in heavy traffic and I couldn't move. As luck would have it, I was just in front of a breakdown bay but couldn't move. I could have pushed the car, but I needed someone to sit in the drivers seat and steer, and nobody was stopping. I flicked on my hazard lights and the drivers behind me drove around. Most just went about their business, but one passeger in a taxi (perhaps returning home in a drunken and belligerent state from the races) threw something out of the window and hit my car.

Shortly thereafter a truckie stopped and told me to steer whilst he pushed me back towards the breakdown bay. Everyone stopped as I was pushed out of traffic (although I nearly collided with a car that was tring to pull out from behind me.) I could have done without his swearing and assurances that I was a "f*cking idiot" but at least he stopped to help get me out of the worst position I could have possibly been in.

Then it was just waiting for things to cool down enough to let the fuel move again. Every couple of minutes I tried again but there was no luck to be had. I rang the NRMA and they promised to have someone there within 90 minutes, so I waited and rang friends so I would have someone to talk to as I roasted on the side of the highway. I spoke briefly to bakerypenguin and minxyminou and Dad in the hopes of calming my nerves and venting my frustration.

And only about 50 minutes after my first breakdown, I managed to get the car started again. Yes, I hit vapour lock for six (eventually.)

I popped by to visit Minxyminou as we had arranged, but the coffee hour had passed to I was promoted to steak. I wonder if it was a way of calming me down so there weren't any cases of road rage. Because I am very erratic and violent you know.

This was supposed to be a day off. So why am I so tired?

Tomorrow off to work again, but only a three day week.