Wedding Pictures

I will write up some stories when I get a chance. School is consuming me, way way too much. Australia has been all fun and games, and now- I guess i am getting my proverbial "eye shot out." But I do need to say that the entire Groomsmen party (plus michelle tschaenadnenneenanian and Maria) all went to McDonalds about 30 min before the wedding, then to Starbucks. Yeah, I think Brandon was a little nervous. I'll fill in the details later. OH, and the gun pictures, we went skeet shooting. *cue dueling banjos*.

Snakes, on MY plane? I dont think so....

Only a few more hours until my journey back to America begins. I’m practically on the edge of my seat to leave this island nation, filled with laid back people, beautiful wild life, amazing beaches and excellent people. What am I leaving it for? Why, because I love spending 50+ hours on an airplane! That’s why!! Quantas better have some sweet movies, or I’m throw a temper tantrum. When I flew back from Italy one time, United was playing GHOST with Patrick Swazy (or however that dirty dancing man spells his name). Who wants to watch Whoopie Goldberg on an airplane? Seriously. I’m talking about maybe some SNAKES ON A PLANE. That’d be a good movie to keep the aussie-crowd’s moral up, eh? They love snakes here man. Oh, Steve Urwins funeral is today, 200million viewers are expected to tune in. Crazy ass Australia, and… planet Earth.

Ooh! My laundry is ready! Ok, well I am leaving here at 5:50am on the 21^st, and I get to Greensboro on Friday at 12:05am. I’ll be at Elon Friday-Monday, so try to find me if ya can. Richmond people: I’ll be there Monday-Saturday, so you can also find me. Well, cheers mates! I’ll put up mega tons of pics from the wedding. Well, I say I will. That’s the only guarantee you get for now.

Here I come Brandon and Katie!

Brandon <3's Katie.

Poland, Beaches & Farts.

My lovely flat-mate from Poland, Karolina, says that she is mad at me because I never write about her on my blog. So here goes. Special K, as we call her, is a whole lot of fun and full of foul language and polish expressions that are sure to amaze even the most experienced sailor’s mouth.

For the past 2 years Karolina worked for the super luxurious #1 low airfares airline in Europe, Ryanair. I’ll try to put a picture up of her… at work. Haha, right. Crazy Europeans. OK, that should do for your shout-out, Special K. If anyone else feels neglected in my blog… be sure to let me know. I’ll post embarrassing pictures of you- or maybe tell a funny tale.

I went to Scarborough Beach here in Perth a couple of days ago. Nick and Mike were already there, suited up in their super-narly (how do you spell that in surfer terms? Not like, gnarl- like growl- right?) wetsuits ripping up some sick swells. The waves were absolutely beautiful blue-green with white foam that crawled up the shore just to our feet. The non-surfy’s just laid out and busted a beach-chill for the day. Its about time the weather is hot enough for the beach. Australia was making me nervous for a while. I though when I came here, it was going to be like 90degrees everyday, and really sunny. I never really took into consideration that we arrived in the middle of their wet/winter season. It’s a very mild cold though, and most days from about 12-4pm its in the 70’s. So, I should probably just stop complaining. I’ll write more about the amazing weather when its extra cold and rainy at Elon. SUCKAS!

I’ll be home to Richmond and Elon in one week for my brother’s wedding! I get into Greensboro Friday morning, and Im going leave Monday afternoon. So catch me while I’m there Elon’ers. Woo hoo!!

I’ll put a pic of Brandon and Katie (my soon-to-be sister-in-law). Weird! I’ve never had a sister. I hope that she bakes me cookies and stuff. Is that what sisters do? Hum. Well, I’ll be sure to fart on her, and shoot her with water guns and stuff- so she feels like we are connected on the siblings level.

More Cairnes Tails (like fish-tails, heh)

"Artists use lies to tell the truth, politicians use lies to hide the truth." - ???

OK, so a couple posts ago I promised a few more stories from Cairns, so here they come. Oh, right, well- right after my apology for the last post… I was a little… ummm… right. Sorry. Haha.

Driving on the other side of the road. Running out of things to do in the hub-town of Cairns, we decided that renting a car would be a good idea. Hum. Well, first the first thing that Nick and I were reminded of as we arrived at A-1 car rentals, was that they drive on the other side of the road. That doesn’t really seem like a big deal at first, but then you realize that you are sitting on the other side of the car, seatbelt is going the wrong way, shifter knob on the left, blinker wand on the right side of the steering wheel etc. Its all backwards. Other backwards things here include: the toilette flushing the other way, the seasons, and they say “see you” instead of “later.” So whenever someone says “see you” to me, I feel like I’m finishing their statement for them by saying “later.” Anyways, I digress….

I guess the Elon-ers in London can relate the best to the whole driving on the other side of the road thing. AND turn-abouts. Those things are crazy. At my first opportunity, I took our sleek royal blue 2003 Hyundi Elantra for a skull-busting 1080degree turn (That’s 3 full circles) around and around the round-about. Weee!! I later found out that is illegal. Whoopsies! We zig-zagged all over the mountains and through the sugar fields for the day, and ended back at Calypso safely 200 kilometres later.


Swimming with the turtle from Finding Nemo:
All suited up in top of the line snorkelling gear, I did a graceful plop off of our catamaran that took us to the Great Barrier Reef. The water was around 80degrees Fahrenheit, and absolutely crystal clear. The sunlight danced on the crests of small waves that you could see for miles. Shades of blue and green were everywhere under the water from the darker areas of coral. Honestly, Nemo’s neighbourhood looks exactly like what the reef really looks like. (Ah! Australian Microsoft word, made me spell neighb-o-r-h-o-o-d that silly brit way with a “ou”.) Mel and Maggie found a sea turtle that they followed around for the better part of the afternoon, and I searched for a sea cucumber to jack off. Haha, did anyone else see that episode of Jackass?

I had midterms this week. Thank god those are over. Advertising was quite tricky, while the Marketing exam was a bit easier. The first question asked us to describe the marketing impacts that Busta Rhymes’ song “pass the Courvoisier” had on the liquor industry. Ahhaha. Saaweet.

OK seriously

where is this post

IM BACK BABY!

I’ll start off by saying “big up” to Uncle Toby’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Granola Bars. MMmmm. Mad respect for having such a gay gay name, but being so delicious. Uncle Toby is pretty much like the leading snack food producer here in Australia.

I haven’t written anything on this here blog for so long because Curtin University doesn’t allow me to post for some reason? But I came up with a solution! Thanks to my beautiful and willing girlfriend (hi Maria) I can still post on the blog. I now just have to email her the posts. Then she applies my words from the electronic-mail to the World Wide Web via her web browser. Technical stuff, sorry- you probably don’t get it.

Last week was sick-nasty. We had off 10 days from school so, of course we planned out the most rad vacation possible. That would be to Cairns, North Western Australia. Cairns (pronounced ‘cans’) is a little port city surrounded by sugar cane, bananas and amazing jungle beaches. Most of the time was spent lazin’ on the fantastic white sand beaches, staring off into the emerald water that is as clear as a pool. Not one of those shitty YMCA pools in mid-july, but one of those nice ones that you see in the Corona commercials. Wooord.

The first 3 days in Cairns we spent about an hour North of Cape Tribulation. There we were surrounded by the most stereotypical rainforest you’ve ever seen. We had spider-monkeys, Toucan Sam, Jurassic Park plants, Huge-as-heck Crocs, and dredy locals that got drunk and swam naked in watering holes. Maybe you don’t think of rainforests with locals, but our forest had them. Me and my CREW (Mags, Dukers, Moose-Trax, Anna Tolnake, and Mike Finer-than-hell) made some sweet bon fires on the beach both nights in Cape Tribulation. These were no ordinary bon fires though, as the pictures above detail. These were aboriginal-influenced flames from spirits of our great indigenous ancestors from thousands of years ago. That, and we used hollowed out coconut to dig the hole for the fire pit. So maybe it was just more like being Tom Hanks in Cast Away, with out all the Fed-Ex packages. Whatever. Forget you. The fires were sweet. Next story.

SKY DIVING! That’s right. Sitting around the dinner table at calypso (our backpacker’s hostel) Nick, Maggie, Moose and myself decided it would be fun to sky dive …. In 12 hours. $250USD later, and my balls in my chest, I found myself 2 hours south of Cairns, and deep in a banana field with dirt roads getting ready to take off in a single engine plane with an Aussie strapped to my back telling me “don’t worry mate! I’ll explain what to do once we get in the air.” Sweet. As we approach our 14,000ft destination well above the clouds, the man securely strapped to my back tells me “all ya gotta do mate is cross yer arms an’ toss ya head back, I’ll do the hard shit, we’re next. Lets go!” At this point, Nick Duke had already gotten ripped out of the airplane and was long gone, hurling towards the great barrier reef--- which approached at 120 MPH.

**SIDE NOTE** Steve Urwin [croc hunter] has passed away, taken by the very same reef that we were diving 4 days prior to his death. flippin’ sting rays. Australia is in shambles. RIP Steve.

OK, so nick is screaming like a little girl somewhere about a mile below me. I’m trying to control my bladder (which was successful, good thing peter wasn’t flying with us). On the count of 2 the instructor throws us out of the plane and all I see is plane, ground, sun, plane, ground, sun, plane plane plane plane. Spinning in a beautiful uncontrollable tornado of excitement we finally level out to the position you think of, when you think of people skydiving. The curve of the Earth was right in front of my face. I wasn’t falling, I was flying! After 60 seconds of freefall, Aussie-man yanked the ripcord and the deafening wind came to a still on my face, and I could take in the reef, the beaches, the mountainous jungle, and the excruciating pain the harness was placing on my inner thighs and wiener area. As soon as it began, it was all over. My feet were sinking into the sand and my face was overcome by a grin that wouldn’t leave my face for 2 hours. Man, that was a really descriptive narrative. You’re welcome.

This is turning out to be pretty long. Whoops. OK, well- I will finish up some stories later on. Things you have to look forward to:
1Swimming with the turtle-dude from Finding Nemo
2Driving on the other side of the road.
3Me eating this subway cookie on my desk.

Happy Birfday Nick Duke!

Windy. As. Hell.

August 7, 2006


So, it’s the wet season now in lovely Perth. They aren’t joking either. (“They” is a mix between the aboriginals and … weathermen I guess?) I have a lot on my mind right now, so here it goes:

Why do some people put toilet paper on the spindle with the sheets on the close-to-you side, and some people put the roll on, so you have to like roll that bitch backwards to get your lovely Cottonelle?
There is nothing more amusing on the 6 Australian TV stations that we receive other than Australian Idol. Just picture in your head American Idol + Silly Accents + outrageous Asians + very little censorship. That gives you the proper formula for painfully awesome television.
McDonalds is now introducing a meat pie to the Aussie people. Meat pies are like chicken pot pies, but with just… beef. Nothing else. Just meat. Eat your heart out Adkins. But be careful of that pastry crust!!
Oh, and back to toilette paper! The little prints on there are usually like flowers, or little cute fish or hearts- am I right? Not our roll. I start every morning off with a roll put on the spindle backwards (not naming any names- Aaron the aussie, Dag the Norwegian!) and JELLY FISH AND ANCHORS intruding into the most private of private parts. Who does that? I want to speak with the toilette paper company right now. Their graphic design team needs a stern talking to. Jelly fish and anchors, come on.
I wonder how long it actually takes Nick Duke to shave?


On to more pressing matters. Jeb and I tore up the town over this past week. He departed me Saturday morning, only 3 short days after his arrival. All the pictures I am going to post for this post are from Rottnest Island, Jeb’s personal favorite hot spot. A 30 minute ferry ride gets you there from Fremantle for $46. Totally worth it. Its got cove after cove of the most beautiful rocky shores and white sand, and clear water. Mmmm, Australia.

Ok, so I started writing this like 3 hours ago, and since, I have watched some tv, had 4 cookies (thanks Maggie) and a vanilla milkshake (Maggie, again). I’m done for this post. More to come…

Dank Drank?

Well the last Saturday night before classes start got a little silly, right after I ate a bowl of fried rice. The rice has nothing to do with the silliness, but I just thought I would include it. The picture for todays post is the poem that I wrote on the white-board in our kitchen. Im not going to explain it, as I dont really know what the hell its about. I think it has to do with Nick Duke's delishious drink (drank) and my need for it at that time of the night. I was umm, well... a little silly. Click the picture to enlarge, so you can get down with my poetry.

Today we went to Sunday Session at Little Creatures, which is in Freo. Damn, we are always going to freo, arent we? Thats where those pictures of glasses on a table and stuff are. Sunday Sesch here is HUGE. Its the aussie way to just get drunk 7 days a week. You go to a coastal pub, and get hammered starting around 2:30 in the afternoon. You had better be there no later than 3, because the lines (or ques as they call it here) are hugemongo! Then everyone is out of the pubs by like 6:30 in the winter, and later in the summer... as the sun sets later in the day.

Yikes- classes start tomorrow at 10am for me. I am going to brush my teef and get to bed soon. I havnt woken up before 11am in like a week.

This Week's Pictures

Freo.

Taken by Anna Tolnake'

"Free Breakfast"

A few nights back I was giving Anna Tolner a ‘piggy-back-ride’ and threw her onto my bed. Well, apparently the force of that snapped one (of my 6) supporting pieces of wood from under my bed. Too much junk in the trunk I guess….

Holy shit me’ mate from tha’ states is getting here on Saturday! That’d be Mr. Jeb Brown from VA. Hopefully this shitty weather will go somewhere else while Jeb is in town. Otherwise, looks like we’re going to need to find lots of indoor stuff to do.

Today after yet another orientation meeting, we decided to check out a “free breakfast” we had heard about. I guess it would have been pretty cool and all… if it wasn’t ALL 40 YEAR OLD INDIANS. I’m not talking about native Americans here, I’m talking about the not-so-friendly folks that are usually on the other end of tech support. The group of like 8 of us Americans stuck out like a sore thumb whilst we dined on some sort of strange Danish and fake orange juice. But there is more. Just as I did the “scoot out your chair a little bit to see if anyone else is ready to go” thing; 6 aboriginals came trotting through the door and everyone began to clap. Oh shit. I recalled from Yanchep that you don’t want to get too close to them, or you have to dance and make a fool of yourself. So we left. Sorry for the anti-climatic ending. Alright, so my story telling is a little off today. I’ll just post pictures then.

"I feel like I'm in Asia"

July 25, 2006

Who knew that Curtin University is 80% international? Damn. You really start to get the feel for that as the campus begins to come to life again. The past two weeks here, its been pretty dead- as students have been on a 3 week ‘holiday’. I would say that conservatively, the campus is 50% Asian. I guess that makes since with us being so close to…well… Asia. Humm.

Sometimes I feel like Western Australia is really technologically advanced, but sometimes I feel like its stuck about 1990. OK, here is my justification… when was the last time you saw that Bic pen that I posted a picture of? The dual color pen, with the ‘double clicky’ action? Yeah. I know. Fuckin’ 1990. Do they even sell those in the states anymore? However, professors here send you text messages instead of emails all the time. For instance, my buddy James (ninja photographer) got a text from his advisor saying “Astronomy cancelled. Meet with me asap.” Weird as hell, right? I think its neat, but just… strange. It bridges that weird gap where like you’re not sure if your teachers are real people or not? Like when you see your teachers out in public, its always so weird.

I straightened my hair yesterday. I’ll post pictures when I get them from Maggie. Heh. I look like a Japanese rock star. So I should fit right in…

I miss my 4runner. Oh, and the title comes straight from Anna's mouth.

Internet? More like, inter-not!

Thats Aussie Rules Football
Thats me doing a badass ninja kick.

Taken by James Mickley - Kalamazoo

Thanks Curtin University for your overwhelming technology know-how, and ability to keep the internet running approximately NEVER. I am writing this post in Word, and I guess it will find its way to the internet someday when my internet returns to its rightful owner (that’s me).

We checked out some Aussie rules football today in Perth. That shit was crazy! Basically the sport a combination of the following sports in order of their relevance to aussie-ball: Football, Rugby, Soccer, Basketball, [the fights from hockey], and bob sledding. Well, maybe not bob sledding. These blokes threw the ball around at a million kilometers [miles] an hour, and aimed for 4 huge posts. I cant even begin to explain how the scoring works. The only thing I really got into were the BADASS fights. There are no ejection rules in this crazy Aussie football, so the brawls were abundant. We’re talking headbutting, punching, kicking, shoving. Oh word. It was sweet. I believe that Ted got some of it on video? I don’t know, but it was excellent.

We finally have all 6 of the room mates living in flat 41 now. Aussie Aaron arrived today, drunk as hell. “Sunday sessions” are the big thing here in WA. A Sunday session is basically getting as drunk as you can starting at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon, and up until 6:30 Sunday night. Only four sweet hours to get smashed. Don’t worry- people seem pretty good at it. Clearly Aaron is a large proponent of the Sunday Sessions. He brought a PS2 to go along with our rented TV that’s about $15USD a month. So now we don’t have to buy a DVD player. Nice.

*side note* forget my space heater. That thing sucks

Orientation week officially starts tomorrow (Monday), so it will be fun to be like a freshman all over again. Only like one activity per day- so that leaves lots of time to do nothing at all. Ahhh, yes- I <3>

Midget Wrestling

An email from my brother, Brandon 23, who lives in Chicago. Im flying back to the states for his wedding on September 30, and missing out on some rad Australian beach time. But its going to be way worth it. Anyways- heres the email. haha

"I just got back in from a bar. I missed my flight back to Chicago on July 10 and had to wait around for like 4 hours at the airport and I met this dude from Price Waterhouse Coopers who just graduated from college as well. He called me up to hit a bar with some of his friends from work last night. It was awesome. Why you ask? because there was MIDGET WRESTLING!!!!!! And they had a staple gun match.... I shit you not. These were the most hardcore midgets I have ever seen in my life. They, and I cannot stress enough that this was for real, took staple guns (like the kind Dad has in the garage) and stapled whatever money the crowd threw at them to each other's bodies! How do I know it was real? because they BLED everywhere. One guy got a $5 stapled to his tongue by the other guy! and then a $1 stapled to his forehead! These were some crazy midgets. There was a flying elbow drop from the top of the bar onto another midget standing on the ground. Mind you, the bar was probably close to 2 feet taller than the midget - long drop. The lead midget sang the Umpa Loompa song with dirty lyrics and at the end grabbed a (normal) girl he was next to and shoved his tongue down her throat, a surprise make-out if you will. It was seriously nuts. Go to http://www.halfpintbrawlers.com/ you won't regret it."

Mario Mario?

July 21, 2006

Update from last post: The devil-camel from the last post, Ja-bootie bucked off a kid from Simpson College. Hahaha. SUCKA! Oh, and my broskii Ted Magdzinski from Kalamazoo (somewhere in Michigan?) just informed me of some unfortunate news. He, too, was blessed to have a camel with diarrhea for the 2 hour trek. Oh god! What if there is a camel plague going around, a pandemic even!

Earlier in the week- all international students had the honor of going on a “Race Around Perth”. The name led me to believe that it was going to be some sort of wild 10k race or something, but nope, just a strange strange scavenger hunt that made for plenty of awkward Americans-Stick-Out-Like-Crazy moments.

The challenge was to find stuff, and take pictures of it- but you get bonus points for taking random pictures. So the pictures to us students were like the floating gold coins to Mario and his Brother Luigi.

Side Note: Did you ever realize that Mario’s name is actually Mario Mario? If he and Luigi are the Mario Bro’s then, that would make them have the same last name, therefore making Mario’s family name, and surname: Mario. Creative Japan. Way to go.

Anyways, I digress. So we took pictures of keg-stands around Perth. We started our mission behind the Tavern. The Tavern is Curtin’s on campus bar, for all the Aussie Alcoholics. The keg-stands continued on to the city, in the streets, in front of restaurants. Whatever. We wanted those fucking gold coins. Turns out that if you get enough “gold coins” the prize was merely movie passes for everyone in the group. GAY. Mario got a whole ‘nother life if he got 100 coins, and we just get whack movie passes? We didn’t even win, so I don’t know what I’m being bitter about really.

I flip for Yanchep.

Now that I’ve been in lovely Perth for a good bit, I can start posting my pictures. I didn’t want to just put up silly ones of oh say, Nick in a luggage cart, or Nate having sex with a kangaroo. Eh, what the heck I'll put those up too.

Students from Elon, Kalamazoo, Simpson (and Wes and Kaitlin) all were clearly blow away after our trip to Yanchep Camp, which is about an hour North of Perth. Or maybe that’s south to you guys in America? I don’t know.

Day One: BRRRR.

Nothing really says “Australia” like staying in a creepy and nearly dilapidated house exquisitely decorated with all of this year’s Christmas lights and streamers. Oh it gets better. After a fifteen minute battle to get my bent key into lucky room #8, I discovered that it, too, had perhaps been decorated by a color blind person from 1900. Sea foam green, turquoise and red really warmed the place right up. Actually, no, no it didn’t. Nothing could warm up the 2 degree Celsius mornings at Good ol’ Yanchep. You know what might have helped? A HEATER…ANYWHERE. ANYWHERE AT ALL!

Day Two: Aboriginal acid trip

We all gave surfing a shot the first morning, thanks to the mates over at surfschool.com. It went pretty well I guess, seeing as most of us have never even given it a shot before. That day turned…well, weird as hell right around 2pm. That would be when we first met our akward axe maker, Rafeki (I cant recall his real name). He demonstrated how to make a lovely bag out of kangaroo hide, or even how to turn shit + tree sap into glue! Also we got to see first hand some one play the digery do. Essentially a digery do is a big hollow tree branch about a 4 feet long that you make fart noises into, and you get this neat outer space noise. I’m telling you: Australia is like in the future, man.

I wouldn’t really say the day took off until we went over to the Aboriginal dance/music/story telling section of Yanchep. Lucky for my group we got Simba (again, no idea on real name) the awkward dancing stoner from god knows where. He made some bad jokes and wore a loin cloth. That’s all I really care to reminisce about him. Oh, and he was a local at the pub in the prestigious Yanchep Inn.

Day Three: OUCH.

OUCH. Two hours on a camel with chronic diarrhea and an attitude problem was not exactly my idea of a good time. I don’t think camel rides were really anyone’s idea of a good time come to think of it.

Luckily the MVP’s of the day, Ms. Anna Tolner and Ms. Maggie McHarris took on the challenge like champs. All of the camels were tied together like in a prison chain gang, but camels. Shelly (from Kalamazo) and I were on Seeka -- the aforementioned camel from hell with irritable bowel syndrome – but at least we weren’t behind him, like our MVP’s. Not only did they suffer the rank smell of camel butt for tow hours, but Anna was constantly being violated by Michael and Maggie’s Camel: Jabootie. Incase your wondering that’s pronounced just like it looks: JA-BOOTY.

I think that’s enough adventures from the week for this post. I’ll make sure to write about having fun with kangaroo’s soon. Later yallz!

And so it starts!

*I know the date is off, sorry dudes*

July 12, 2006

And so it begins. Well…it’s the end of traveling finally- which means that it is the beginning of kickassness. After a rousing coach trip for right around 30 hours, I am finally in Perth at last. Mr. Nick Duke and myself have checked into our lovely room at the Quality Room Comfort. I have taken a shower, and Im ready to face the outback...clean. I guess this whole thing is going to get crazy pretty soon? Time for dinner, or breakfast- or whatever time my body may think it is.