Personal

Last Saturday was a pretty weird day, in that everything I had planned didn’t work out. The original plan was to: - go see Fiona Apple at Sunfest in West Palm beach. - drop in at a friend’s birthday party in Plantation. - have dinner at Thai Orchid in Coral Gables. - see Mimimal play at I/O lounge in downtown Miami. That plan was pretty damn ambitious, since it involved traversing three counties in one day. I like the ambitious plans though, so I was all for giving it a shot. Unfortunately, as the day wore on, I realised that I just wouldn’t be able to get to see Fiona Apple. I had to drive to Sunfest the next day anyway to shoot photos for another of Hilary’s concerts. I couldn’t be bothered. I also wanted to spend more time at the birthday party so I cancelled my dinner and told the people I’d meet up with them at the Minimal gig. No real drama. ...

And I’m bloody exhausted. I had accumulated about 2 hours of sleep when I arrived in Miami last night - I just can’t sleep upright. Period. Sleeping pills (which I tried this time around) made me feel very tired but then I couldn’t fall asleep. I watched some cool movies on the way over though - “House of flying daggers”, “Capote”, “Good luck and good night”, and my favourite of the flight, “Enron: The smartest guys in the room”. ...

Monday started off like any other Monday. Check e-mails received over the weekend, catch up with other people to see what they got up to, think about what had to be done for the week. There was one thing in the back of my mind though: the flight to Australia. Now don’t get me wrong, I was sooooo looking forward to going back to Australia and meeting up with everyone I possibly can, but it’s that damn flight that I was worried about. If you read this mess of words often enough you’d know I got bitten by a red-back spider a couple of days before flying back to the US. The bite got completely mis-diagnosed, I thought I was ok to fly, but in the end I wasn’t. It’s the only time I really thought I was going to die, and I say that in all seriousness. Since then I’ve had dizzy spells and numbness like I had on the plane, but nowhere near the severity. They’ve pretty much gone *now*, but I was still scared of getting on the plane, whilst going through my Monday morning thought process. ...

It’s currently past 5am in the morning. I didn’t head out tonight, but I am at a mate’s place (some dodgy Nicaraguan) working out some music stuff. At this stage I have had a few beers - Sam Adams and Presidente. I am loving my new laptop. I know someone reading this laughed when I said that I *needed* to buy a laptop. Well, I probably could have done my music course back in Australia by borrowing people’s computers here and there, but that would be so damn inconvenient. Plus, now that I have a laptop, I am becoming a true geek. If I really want I could be one of those geeks who sits at Starbucks all day and surfs the net with their ultra-expensive T-Mobile access plan. There are two bad things about that - first, paying for the wifi access when many other coffee places have free wifi. The other one, oh so much more important, is that I still think that Starbucks’ coffee sucks. Their frappuccino is the only thing decent there and if I drank them all day I’d probably turn out to be a pretty fat bastard, for some reason. ...

Alberto Beryl Chris Debby Ernesto Florence Gordon Helene Isaac Joyce Kirk Leslie Michael Nadine Oscar Patty Rafael Sandy Tony Valerie William I’m going to be getting familiar with some of these names, I think. I should start a pool or something as to how many, and which hurricane/s is/are going to hit the east coast of Florida. I will bet on three hurricanes: Ernesto, Gordon and Patty. I think if a hurricane is getting close and dangerous this year I’ll head up to Canada - and probably have a snowstorm hit. Ah well, the powder will be good for snowboarding then I guess. ...

Today I attended a motivational business seminar as part of a team building activity for work. In a nutshell it was one of the weirdest experiences I’ve had while over in the US. The end result is that I’m not really any more motivated than when I got up this morning but I did learn a few interesting things. The speakers that I saw today included Steve Forbes, General Colin Powell and Zig Ziglar, apparently the #1 motivator in the US. There were other speakers I didn’t get to see including Rudolph Giuliani, Don Shula and Jerry Lewis. I wasn’t feeling too well (6 days straight of going out finally got to me) so my friend and I left early. ...

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Ft Lauderdale pub scene and the general laid back feeling that you get in most of the places. However, if I start from Wednesday night I was at the Hotel Victor for a Hilary McRae gig. Thursday night I was at The Road for another Hilary gig. Today I had a lunch meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Coconut Grove for a breast cancer walk I’m participating in with friends. ...

V for Vendetta. Just go see it. I can’t remember the last time I’ve wanted so bad to go and see a movie again. If I can get to see another session tomorrow night I will. It genuinely had me shaking in a couple of scenes due to the just how powerful they were. What an amazing film. The things that surprised me the most though? There were teenagers afterwards debating if what V planned could be classified as a terrorist act. It actually got people talking. I actually caught myself thinking that maybe there was some hope still… sometimes I feel that isn’t the case. Sometimes I think I just need to chill out. ...

It’s always cool to see famous people out and about. I had great difficulty getting a picture of this guy, coz the damn bouncers kept on getting in the way… P.S. You do know who it is, right?

Sorry Sandra Sully… Melissa Theuriau - bonjour! http://www.ryoni.com/news/123/ARTICLE/1099/2005-01-07.html