Random and Odd Things

I'm sittign here and there's a thousand things going through my head. I have 25 things here on my desk that the Frenchman wants me to sort through, there is occasional rain tinkering on the roof here that makes me look outside and I see the ocean which is steely blue and stormy right now. At times I've looked out and there have been dolphins and yesterday there was a pod so big I'm thinking 100 of them. They were just playing too - leaps into the air and the like. God I love living here.

I was walking man's best friend Norten yesterday just up the road and I hear this singing happening. This is new. I walk ahead and there is a guy wearing long pants, a button up check shirt and a backpack standing at the edge of the ocean on the cliff just singing away. It's operatic too and quite impressive, the view is obviously inspiring him and as I approach he notices me and stops singing, moving somewhat embarrassed from his position, and then passes me in the opposite direction. I see now that he's Japanese, and I have no idea how he found his way here - it's quite remote and there's no stereotypical tour bus in sight. I smile inside and out. I love this kinda stuff. 

I also need to pack. For Byron Bay. The weather forecast says showers all weekend... Which isn't ideal for a beach weekend and an ocean swim race, but I guess we'll manage somehow, and for an ocean race who cares if it's raining or not? Well, it's best if it's warm and sunny for optimal eye candy like in the photo above... now that would be nice.

Mystery Body Part - identified

Here's the body that belongs to the mystery part, which is outlined below, his (right) upper arm. A few people got very close... but no winners this time.

Do you know your body? Weekend Challenge

How well do you know the male body?

Today's challenge is to identify the body part on the left. Once someone has figured it out I'll post the full image... it's worth getting it right.  

Will you be the first to get your man?

Post your answer in the comments. 

Sunstormy Day

The alarms go off and sunlight is streaming through the window. It looks like a summer's day through my blurry morning eyes. I wake up again to the post-snooze alarm. It's still sunny and I wander to the kitchen for breakfast with the warmth of the sun on my bare skin as it floods the room. I hear some noise on the metal roof, step onto the balcony and rain is pouring down, no storming down, but I'm still in the sunshine and the view is spectacular. I think I should photograph it but I've been lazy with the camera of late. It's still stunning but the rain clouds are trying to take up more of the sky and I shoot it. The sound on the roof becomes deafening, and by the time I've finished breakfast the storm has passed. 

This is the weather of the past week and spectacular it has been. Watching the ocean with all the changes is never boring. And you know as soon as the sun comes out that the rain is near. Norten has had a lot of false alarms for his walks... Maybe he needs a Canine Raincoat. But I could happily just sit out in the storms as they pass, get saturated then dry again in the sun. Then press repeat.

The first superchilled photo from the new digs. (click to enlarge)

France: less than 3 hours from Sydney

Now I knew they spoke French in New Caledonia, but less than 3 hours from home and we might as well have been in France. The architecture, the people, the cars, even the supermarkets were straight from France. Butter, cheese, salami, yoghurt, biscuits, wine, foie gras... pretty much everything, oh and the pastries, yum! 

There were a few things that weren't particularly French, like the reefs and the tropical fish. We jumped into the natural pool - picine naturale, a short stroll along a sandy tidal river bank on The Isle of Pines, and in the middle of chasing the multicoloured fish we found ourselves surrounded by a bigger school of fish. You'll see a short video of these below which turned out to be, I think,  quite mesmerising.

I could have stayed on the island a whole lot longer. Spending most of the daylight hours on or in the water is my idea of a perfect escape, and The Isle of Pines is made for exactly that. Oh and the food, bloody expensive, but oh so fine. 

Superchilled Out

The Transparent Stimulus Package was voted in overwhelmingly by the senate poll, and I do hope you all enjoy this fine stimulus which superchilled will be sending out to all registered readers marked "Easter Bunny Package". Look out for your delivery man.

Easter is a hop step and, wait no, just a hop and step away, and we're up, up and away. Headed to a land of French speakers for the holiday plus a little more. Nouvelle-Calédonie is the destination du jour, and I think I'm just going to collapse in a heap when I get there. A relaxed and twisted wreck of me lying on the sand, morphing through the water and being drip fed French inspired, Pacific infused food. It's not a tough existence, though there's always the prospect of a LOST experience should the plane decide it needs more adventure in its life. Even then, so long as I survive the landing I'd be happy to play out the pacific life for a while. 

Life has been busy, full, work is non stop but I'm loving it, and for Easter, leaving it for a bit. I've been very good and have given away most of my Easter eggs, but still some make it through the defences. I'm not sure what the New Caledonia Easter experience is, but I'm hoping they have a lot of hot Easter Bunnies. Do Croissant's come in hot cross versions? This intrepid explorer will be seeking all of the above and more. In the meantime I wish all Superchilled readers a great Easter break or at least a spectacular weekend if you don't get holidays with it. I'll be back and hopefully more energised next week.

Wedding Speech Hell

The wedding was fantastic, stunning outdoor location, fun people, great food and a very relaxed vibe. Everything was running smoothly, right until the speeches where, in place of the groom's name, was inserted MINE. Not once but twice or three times, I can't quite remember. I felt like I was living an episode of Friends. A train crash that just wouldn't stop. My name is now John and I have no idea who that Trevor guy is, though he seems to be a little too popular and has said something about never attending a wedding ever again. 

Choose your own Stimulus Package

We've had our governments telling us all the things they're doing to keep us stimulated, but they've got it all wrong. Their stimulus packages aren't exactly, um,  stimulating. Time to rectify that with Superchilled's own Stimulus Packages. You get to choose your own personal package from the 4 below. Vote in the panel at the top right and see if your package gets voted through by the senate. 

The Transparent Package

The Dive-On-In Package

The Big Package

The Sly Package

Calculated which package gives you the greatest stimulus?

Make your choice known and vote now (top right).

The moral to the story?

Sometimes I wonder what kind of influence I have in the world. Ideally I'd like to think I can make a difference and make a great change for the better. But who am I to say that I can influence positive change? Perhaps my influence is more damaging than beneficial. Some people theorise that one can't change the world around them, that it's destined for deterioration and chaos regardless of what they do. I'm just not one of them.

We all get caught up in our own worlds and what seems right to us may be very wrong for someone else. But I think so long as we're looking for improvement, we're headed in the right direction. Sometimes we're going to get it wrong, but if we're lucky we'll stumble on something that is very right and may just make a difference. Sometimes a small positive  influence on one other person creates an avalanche of benefit in an entirely different universe to our own. Mostly we'll never know it. Similarly something wrong for one person may create a whole series of problems - and it seems we're more likely to find out about that. 

While I think some people do intentionally do things to harm others, for the most part people cause negative impacts unintentionally. At least that's the way I see it. 

The moral to today's story? I'm not quite sure, but if it helps make a small part of the world better, then I'm happy for having written it.

Stanwell Park Ocean Swim

There's a box of clocks sitting ticking on the corner of my desk. Los Angeles says 11:55 Tokyo 11:00  New York 12.50  Sydney 11.58  and London 12:00. They're all wrong, but they go on ticking. 

This morning at 8.30 a series of alarms go off on clocks that do tell the right time. The sun is shining against a partially closed blind, underneath it the light bounces off the ocean and into our faces. It's the Stanwell Park Ocean Swim today and we do our pre-race preparations in the morning of a stunning day. There is a gentle breeze as we watch the surf life savers in their inflatable dinghies zooming along the glistening ocean placing the marker buoys along the course that passes us. We head out the door and down to the beach where we're given fluoro pink swim caps, I'm asked how long it is until I'm in the next age category ( I answer VERY) and the general atmosphere is jovial. There are many distractions along the way in the form of stunning fellow competitors, so waiting for a bus to Coalcliff for the swim start is not so traumatic. Not so traumatic at all. 

I meet a few unexpected people at the race start - and a few regulars & friends. The water is beautiful and when I do a warm up swim I feel fantastic. Can't wait to get in for the race. The race itself is harder than I expect and it's a bigger mental battle than usual to get my body going as fast as I want it to. The end result isn't so bad though and I roll onto the beach the other end with sand all over me, a lot closer to the lead than I expected. The sun is still shining and The Frenchman heads up the beach smiling. He's been pleasantly distracted by a competitor racing against him. A group of us who have collected at the end laugh, a lot. We then head back to ours for a tour of our new home and brunch. 

If time could stand still, as it does in the corner of my desk, right now would be perfect. 

Swimming with the sharks...

It was a perfect start to Sunday morning. Sunny, warm and at the beach with friends. Cronulla had delivered gorgeous people and an ocean race to swim off into.

Half way around the course I swam into rough water and wind developing from the wind of a very low helicopter. I didn't recall having them that close before in any of the swims but figured it was a film crew getting in close for a better view. I was wrong.

There was a hammerhead shark literally metres away from swimmers, perhaps me? I don't know but I still swam fast - so fast it hurt, so I know I did my best and thankfully they managed to scare the shark away from shark island... and the swimmers and The Frenchman & me.

You can see the footage (updated Ed.) here at channel 7's site (http://au.yahoo.com/) for a limited time. I can't find a way to paste it directly in here, but if anyone figures out how I can, please let me know.

Anyone coming to swim with us at my home swim next week? Come on, it seems this is now an extreme sport. Will you brave the elements?

Wireless and Connected

I'm still wireless, but this time wirelessly connected. The net is back. We've ditched the land line and a new phase of life has begun. I am at a desk in our new place which is much more ergonomically sound but still in the middle of all the action. The ocean is reflecting moonlight, The Frenchman and Norten (the labrador) are both in a restful slumber in the living room suggesting life hasn't changed all that much, at least not yet.

There have been relentless reports of people being munched on by sharks here of late, so to test the theory we ventured down the road to our new local beach this evening around 7pm (near shark feeding time) and dived in to spot some sharp teeth close up, alas it was not to be, just sensationally clear water, great waves and sand sand everywhere. We did a few test race starts and finishes in preparation for our swim Sunday morning at the, wait for it, Shark Island Ocean Swim race in Cronulla. It was great, no, sensational. Lets see if we can eat up the competition tomorrow.

Wireless at home

It's been an incredibly busy few weeks. We've been painting, cleaning, packing, moving and arranging all the things you do when you change address. Being keen to keep the Internet connection running smoothly I arranged the connection weeks in advance. Despite this it seems we won't be connected for what could be some months. Even that is speculative. They haven't managed to connect a land line either. So I'm VERY unimpressed. Right now I'm using the Frenchman's iPhone to post this. Despite the Internet hiatus the new location is sensational and it feels like we're on holiday all the time. Posting here will be somewhat patchy until connection is restored. So please bare with me.

Apart from the Internet, I'm looking forward to the new fridge arriving too as we're using a powered esky at the moment which is somewhat limiting but enhances the holiday feel.

It's surprising how rapidly we're feeling at home here but we are yet to get into a routine. The keys and wallets have no place to call home yet and remembering where everything is stored can be a challenge.

That's all for now but watch this space for new developments.

Sunday's PSB Music Video

I found this Pet Shop Boys video at absoluteric's Restoring Love, and find it kinda catchy. Look out for the gay guys too, no not the PSB's themselves. 

PSB's Love Etc. 3min 30sec

Swimday Friday

The day started with a few too many early work calls, but the stress of it all dissolved when I reached the beach. Pristine ocean, glassy even, with crystal clear water reflecting the summer. Today the triathletes were in preparation for a race in Queensland so the wetsuits they were training in for Hobart were replaced with speedos and finally I was in with a chance to keep up with them. The water was warm, though they were used to the wetsuits and found it cool, and while I kept pretty close - they were still faster than me, but not all of them. There's still hope - I can make it to the front of the pack, maybe... It might take some work, but it's fun trying.

Some Day Soon

I don't post a lot of women here at Superchilled, it's true. But today is an exception, obviously. Readers from Australia will know of Natalie Bassingthwaighte through a number of media sources. More recently she has released a series of singles and just last week her new album 1000 Stars. I got to meet her at a friend's party on Saturday night and I have to say she's very sexy. She happens to be from my home town as well, which is better still, but what I like even more is her music, and while I've just downloaded the album from itunes, I'm already a fan. The single Some Day Soon (cover image above) is a great feel good track and I'm enjoying turning it up loud. Definitely worth checking out. 

Swatch This

The thing with moving is, you're not just packing to leave, you're also preparing to arrive somewhere else, and that gives you a whole lot more work to do. This weekend has been filled with activities incorporating the old, the new and various events in between, like work and birthday parties (another post on that later this week) and swimming of course. Today's focus was the new place, not too far away from where we are now, but a lot closer to the water (which is always good, sparing tsunamis). 

In keeping with the aquatic theme the colours above have been shortlisted for living spaces in the new abode. I love the names they make up for paints, not just Stone, but Stone Pillar, and not just Blue but Blue Ridge. Of course these are relatively tame examples of paint names and they at least have some semblance of the actual colour. We have been varnishing and resurfacing and measuring and fitting (or de-fitting) things, discovering doors and gates that don't close quite how they're supposed to and wearing masks and gloves to protect from toxic chemicals and wearing paints that didn't quite make it to their destination. The place is already starting to sparkle, but when the new colours arrive and the new appliances & pieces of our current furniture & art, that's when it will start to feel like home.

I'm Boxing

We're talking cardboard boxes, I'm afraid. I have a stack of them in the garage ready to be inflated and filled with everything from books to bowls, candles to canvases, it all has to go out the door onto a truck and into somewhere new. I'm going to miss living here. It has been home for more than 9 years, 9 very good years. The garden has grown around us, the colours and fittings have changed and so have we. It's a very different place to the one we stepped into all those years ago, personalised, refreshed, and now it's time for someone else to enjoy it. I'm sad yet happy all at once. The times spent with friends and family, the laughs and the tears, all a part of the fabric of our history here. That will never go, but our presence here will. The future is so incredibly bright, and busy, and I'm looking forward to it and scared by it all at once. But if you don't jump you don't know if you can fly.

Cover Up

Back in the mid 80's there was the perfect show for a young gay boy, and this TV show was called Cover Up. Its star Jon-Erik Hexum was of course the focus, and while there were loads of female models, I don't recall anyone else much in the show. He played an undercover agent disguised as a model while on assignment with the (female) photographer. I think I cried for weeks when I learned he died after a tragic accident on set, and with just one series completed. Ah, only the good die young! Whenever I hear the theme (Bonnie Tyler's Holding out for a Hero - it takes me back.)

For those of you old enough to remember it, here follows the opening credits. You'll have to edit out the 80's hair, but it still brings back fond memories...

1 min 12 sec

Does anyone have similarly memorable TV series?

North Bondi Ocean Classic

It was a picture postcard Sunday at Bondi Beach. We woke to a day they predicted to be extremely hot, with fires roaring in the far south and more sizzling heat to come, but it was a stunning day here on the coast. We headed to Bondi where we expected hoards of people and parking nightmares, but the traffic was absent and the crowds cute. The sun warm, a cool breeze and an ocean the azure of a deserted sand island.

The race began and we dived into a waveless surf. My goggles instantly fogged up, the water hellishly cold!! Just the day before it was beautiful, not warm but refreshing, today an icy 16C. I thrashed to keep warm but it was not my best race start. By half way I wasn't so cold any more and the fog had cleared revealing the ripples in the sand below, but my toes started to feel numb. I kept to my race plan and powered to the finish, but I think I lost it at the start, still a reasonable time and good fun, we'll be back next year. A well run race, always, and the eye candy certainly makes it easy to hang around for the race results.

Lunch after a race is of course a great feast and a new (to us) cafe created the perfect meal to share with friends. I could have stayed there there all day. 

Now I need to up my training a little to get a bit more competitive in the water for the upcoming races. But at the same time I have a million other things going on. Where is that 36 hr day?