October 2005

24-Oct-2005 - Feelin' fine

Well i'm at work now. I ended up having around 2 hours sleep last night.. i went to bed at 4am, but couldnt go to sleep until sometime after 5am - then got up not long after 7am!

Funnily enough i'm feeling quite good today - energetic, and have got a lot of work done at the office. Same thing has happened before when i've had hardly any sleep. Maybe I should just have a late Sunday every week - it will improve my productivity! :-)

Ahh yes.. something i was going to mention is the strange and unusual things you see at darling harbour every now and then. Everyone knows about the car show, and the boat show.. but there are also many many other international events catering for particular groups that are on there every week. Last week I saw a particularly funny one - the "Antifungal Great Debate". Hmm.. i'm guessing its lots of doctors debating about fungus hahaha.. I should have taken a photo of the poster. I'm sure it was a riveting debate!

24-Oct-2005 - Really old website!

Its currently 4am, and I have to get up to go to work in 3 hours. I went to bed at around 1am, but couldnt sleep. Maybe it was the fact that I had a huge sleep on saturday night, and then had even more sleep sunday arvo.. maybe? and I was awake wondering what to do...

So why not... I just uploaded my really really old website for you to laugh at! Again you can get to it from the obsession page.

This weekend was interesting. On saturday hung out with Julian for the first time in a while and he and Aaron (Julians friend - who I just met) came over and we watched an episode of Lost (which was awesome by the way!). Anyway, it was a conversation on MSN the following day that made things interesting haha.. but anyways..

Hung out with ben and jules and had coffee sunday night and they came over and watched another episode of Lost afterwards - that show is getting damn interesting! They went home a while ago and now i'm sitting up thinking I should really get to bed. So off I go. Bye!

18-Oct-2005 - My old website

Well nothing much has happened this week, so I thought I would upload an old website of mine for you to laugh at :-)

You can access it from the obsession page. There are rave reviews, my resume, some old photos.. some embarrasing things amongst it all haha. And I just realised that the Prophecy party I went to a few weeks ago wasnt the only party with that name I've been at.

And in the Field of Dreams 4 rave review there is even the famous 2SER radio advert that I taped hahaha... "Field of Dreams 4, a massive modern technological natural spritual dance music festival!!!". :-) I love it!

11-Oct-2005 - raymonscott.com properly hosted

My website is now finally hosted properly. For the techies, it was previously only a domain name with forwarding pointing to my ISP's free webspace and the whole thing had domain masking.

The problem with this was that the masked page was not indexed properly by search engines, and also did not allow certain meta tags to be included. Not so much of a problem for my home page, but more of a problem for the flashing tshirt biz :-).

Also, now I have 250Mb webspace instead of 10Mb - hooray! I can do more with the website now.

The only drawback is it is now hosted by GoDaddy in the US instead of in Australia - meaning the site will be a little slower to load.

I'm changing a lot of things behind the scenes - so if you notice anything not working anymore, then let me know.

10-Oct-2005 - Bad luck comes in threes?

Got up early-ish yesterday (sunday) as well, since I didnt go out saturday night. Went to go to the fruit shop and got to my car only to discover the driver window had been smashed!

Last week my car was egged, and this week the window smashed.. and only about a month or two ago the locks were wrecked with what looks like a screwdriver. I'm having a run of bad luck with my car, and the street I park on is probably the worst place to park. I can either park outside the front of my building - under the trees, where the birds will crap all over my car. Or I can park in the next block down the road, where all the lock picking and window smashing seems to happen.

Also I saw some other car on the street with a huge tree branch on it.. must have been the winds from saturday night.

So I ended up spending the majority of my sunday waiting for Windscreens O'Brien to come and fix my window. The guy did a good job and cleaned up most of the glass inside the car, however it cost an amazing $405!!!! What a rort. $125 of that was because it was a sunday - probably should have waited until today to get it fixed, but it could have rained overnight (although it didnt).

Oh and glass is a pain in the arse to clean up.. it gets everywhere. No amount of vacuuming is going to get it all.. I will probably get glass cuts for years to come.

Glass everywhere!!

Now i've had my window smashed, my locks damaged about 4 or 5 times, my windscreen wiper ripped off, and my car egged. All in the last 3 years. I wish I had a parking spot in my building now.

I told Adam (the concierge guy in my building) and he says bad luck comes in threes.. so lets hope the lock picking, the egging and the window smashing is the end of my bad luck :-)

9-Oct-2005 - The weekend with a difference

At the moment i'm totally sick of going out. Usually every weekend I go out with Ben and Jules and co to coffee/clubbing etc.. but this weekend I was completely over it, so I decided to do some different things! :-)

Saturday.. I got up at 10:30, and for me thats really early for a saturday. Usually on a saturday I sleep in until midday :-), but I went to sleep early on friday and got off my arse early (relatively) on saturday. I had decided to go for a marathon bike ride on my fairly new mountain bike. I was going for a 30km ride from darling harbour over to ashfield, past my old high school, then over to croydon park past my old home, then onto the bike track at cooks river. From there ride along the river to tempe, and then go back to the city via princes hwy. And I took my camera with me, so here goes.. my virtual tour...

I started riding through the backstreets of glebe and finally got onto the busy street of Parramatta Rd. I used to always drive down this road when living out west, but you zoom past everything and fail to notice little things. As I was riding past Leichhardt, I rode straight past a little track leading off Parramatta rd. I had never seen this before after years of driving past it. I wondered where the hell this very green mysterious path went.

Where on earth does this path lead?

So I turned back, and took a detour down the path. It went on for longer than I expected, and went alongside a little creek. There were some bridges on the left leading to placed I never explored..

The path kept going..

I continued following it, now very curious. I have always liked exploring new places and this was right off a major rd which I had gone past many times but never noticed! On the right were some mini tunnels. I like tunnels!

 
One of the tunnels. Where does it lead?

I cant ride past a tunnel without my curiosity getting the better of me, so I had to have a look..

I needed to see what was on the other side!

Anyway, there were a couple of tunnels like these and there were some interesting houses and streets on the other side (however I took no photos - sux to be you!). Then I continued back on the main path to see where it went.. eventually I got to a road, and the river had widened..

Mysterious river in the middle of leicchardt

Eventually this strange track opened up into a big park, and it started to finally look familiar. Then I suddenly realised where I was - right near the leichhardt free tennis courts (next to iron cove).

Aha! Looks familiar now. Curiosity satisified.

Having satisfied my curiosity I decided to turn around, but as I was doing so I noticed a little bridge going across the river... hmm... where does it go? I cant help myself when i'm on my bike, and when i was in high school living at croydon park i explored so much on my bike.. everywhere there is something interesting i must investigate it! So across the bridge I went.. and it led to yet another tunnel.

Yet another tunnel

And of course I had to have a look what was on the other side. More houses. Time to go back, and continue my big ride. I rode all the way back to parramatta rd, and went up to the hume hwy at ashfield. It was time to have a little look at my old high school. When I left they had just sold off the schools football field and the schools "air shelter". They needed money, and they had no choice but to sell of land or close the school (apparently). The football field ended up becoming apartments (next to ashfield station). But what of the air shelter? Well I was about to find out..

But on the way I rode past Red Rooster and noticed this sign..

Aussie Sunday - Mon, Tues & Wed only

Is it just me or is there something not quite right about it? hahaha. Couldnt help myself but take a photo - while some guy at a bus stop across the road looked at me strangely.

Then I passed my old school.. Ashfield Boys High. The West Tigers club had bought out the air shelters and turned it into their car park. Also the old gymnasium had been turned into a brand new two storey complex. I didnt go into the grounds to get a good look for fear of being arrested on suspicion of terrorism - I did have my camera after all. Should have taken a photo but didnt. Instead I got one of the main entrance to my old school...

Ahhh good old ashfield boys. Looking the same here

It didnt take me long to ride down to croydon park where I used to live. I raced down croydon ave - what a great hill for a cyclist! Not much has changed on this street except for a couple of houses being turned into apartments and the house next door from where I lived being totally reformed into a 2 storey nice looking building. You can see my old place on the left in the next picture and the new two storey place on the right.

The tree outside is much bigger!

So I went down the end of the street to cooks river, and to Croydon Park (the park, not the suburb - this always confuses everyone).

Cooks river next to the park

So it was now time to ride along the river for about 10km until I get to Tempe. This ride is probably one of the most scenic rides in Sydney. If you have a bike, it is work checking out. It goes from Tempe to Parramatta, but the parra ride will be for another day.

Winding river and bike track

Cooks river.. memories of a dead body getting pulled out of it, and the time mercury was dumped into it causing the death of millions of fish which floated to the top and stunk the whole suburb.. and then there was the time during the 3 week heavy rainy period in the early 90's where it overflowed and flooded houses. Ahhh cooks river..

Good old cooks river. Named after the capt'n himself

Riding down it you go past lots of interesting things. But when I went past this electricity tower, I had to take a photo - just for Tim!

This photo is for you Tim! ;-)

The river goes on for ages.. past golf courses and all over the shop. Occasionally you see people walking and cycling along the track. There is a section where there is this big cliff that overlooks the river and all these houses look over the edge of the cliff. Its in the background of the next photo, but you cant make it out. Oh well if my ISP let me have more webspace I would have put a link to a higher res photo!

You cant see the cliffs in the background. Oh well.

A bit further on I took a photo which looked good at the time. However as you can see it sux and its hard to work out what is going on!

Yes. This photo sux.

A little further on there was a huge pipe which goes over the river and through the park. What it carries - who knows? But it looks cool anyway.

Cool looking pipe. Yes - pipes are cool.

It went across the river

And as I rode past it, well I thought it was so cool I had to take another photo. Why do I like this pipe? I dont know! Yes.. I am a sad case..

Oooh look.. it keeps going. What does it carry?

As I said it went across the river and straight into the cliff underneath the houses. Well why not.. one more photo for the road!

I think i'm in love

Not long after my love affair with the pipe, there is a nice little bbq park which some creeks going through it.

Creek going through park. Looks better IRL.

Lots of bridges in this little park.. fun fun fun!

I like bridges too.

There were some people playing cricket on the cricket field, and some people kicking a soccer ball and having lunch. Yumm.. i'm hungry.

An unusual little park it is

Yet another bridge - hooray!

Some old building across the river

I'm at tempe station now.. I go under the railway tracks and across princes hwy to investigate what has happened with this big field that used to be there.

Crossing the bridge to Tempe station

This big field is quite unusual. I have seen it be transformed over the years from a big grassy nothingness into a nice huge field. There used to be a wasteland on a hill above the field before, but it has been turned into a container yard and a golf driving range. Also some netball courts and bbq facilities are in the area. There is also this big tower..

The big tower

I'm not sure what the hell it is, but I assume its a water tower. Funny that its literally about 200m from the airport and its so high!

Earth to Kronos - can you hear us?

There was a new road leading up to the old hill which used to be a wasteland (which i snuck into many years ago). I went up the hell.. and found a golf driving range.

Golf on the hill

From the hill I could see some mammoth dice on top of a building. Its hard to make it out.. but they are in yellow in the middle of the photo..

Can you see the weird dice?

Then on the way back down I could see this strange large read and white building in the distance. What the hell is it? Well i'm not gonna just stand here - lets find out!

What is that building in the distance?

I got close to the building, but still no idea what the hell it is! The mystery continues.. now its time to go around it and find a sign..

Still clueless but still curious.

What the hell is it? Who would paint a building white and red like this? Its crazy! Yet somehow exciting.. I cycle around the whole building but i'm stumped. There is not one sign telling me what is inside the building. So I never found out. However there were netball courts next to it, so I'm guessing its an indoor netball complex.

Not a sign anywhere

Would have been nice to know for sure though. Across the river were some big tanks. I thought I'd take a photo so that I could get on ASIO's watchlist.

Hi ASIO, I know you're reading this.

Big pipes went across the river towards it. Hmmm.. maybe that water tower doesnt hold water after all..

Notice the bridge on the left...

Yes that bridge on the left. Many many years ago when I lived at croydon park I came here on my bike with a friend and we stopped here. On the bridge was a big truck with a radioactive sign on it. All over the bridge were men in radioactive biohazard suits, and the bridge was closed off. I kid you not. We went right up to the bridge and noone stopped us. I still have no idea what the hell was going on that day, but I reckon if I asked them they wouldnt have told me. ASIO, are you still reading?

Well it was back on track.. along the Princes Hwy and towards home.. breathing in the fumes that nutritionists dont recommend.

Smell that fresh air

Now this weblog is by far the biggest ever. I'm sure it probably beats the biggest months entire weblog. And my fingers are getting sore. But the adventure has almost finished. I stopped by Sydney Park on the way home, and took some photos..

Oooh everything is crooked in this photo

Smoke stacks behind the hill

Interesting building in the distance - lets explore!

Wouldnt mind living here. What a view!

Those smoke stacks again..

The final part of the trip was going through redfern. I discovered some free tennis courts and went through the Australian Technology Park, where I saw this weird relic..

Something to do with trains

And then I rode back to darling harbour. Well I dont know if I have expended more energy writing this web log than I did riding the 30kms, but one things for sure - my hands hurt!

That was my saturday. Got some interesting stuff to say for sunday, but lets face it - i'm gonna get RSI if i keep going. So thats my saturday adventure! Hope you had fun reading it Mr ASIO officer - now get back to fighting terrorism. Bye!!

5-Oct-2005 - Scrambled eggs anyone?

It was a long weekend with a whole lot of people in the city. The footy finals were on and after the game there were cars everywhere with people yelling out and celebrating the win.

I got home and parked my car around 3am, and the next day there was egg all over the side - doh! I reckon a car full of yobbo footy fans were driving around town throwing eggs. Spent the next night (monday night) cleaning my car with a sponge and bucket at about 11pm in the dark. Lots of fun - especially the smell of rotting egg all over me.

But on a brighter note... I went to T2 on Saturday night because they had a free raver type night on. I have been to this nightclub before, and its only small - and there have only ever been 10-20 people max in the club. But on Saturday night it was going off! The music was good, lasers etc were on and there were about 50 people (it really is a small nightclub) - most of them dancing and partying hard. It was a great night - I will have to go there again if they have another night like it - and it was free! Amazing!

I would go raving a lot more if my friends could afford it. I need to get some more raver friends!