Late night lock-out

I was hoping we'd escaped it here in Australia, but it seems we haven't.

Driving home from the city last night I stopped in to fill up with fuel and buy milk at the petrol station in Heathcote, one of Sydney's most southern suburbs. Once filled with fuel I headed to the store to search for the milk... the main doors were locked and had a sign directing me to the night counter... A bank like system of glass wall and steel drawers with microphone sound through which to transact. No more in-store purchases. I had to request the milk I wanted which was then passed into the small drawer in a plastic bag and out to me standing outside. Even the credit card reader was put into the drawer, wires attached, for me to swipe away then sign in the drawer... The attendant was personable at least, I think, the tones of his voice not too well transmitted through the sound system. And I left feeling cold and clinical. Of course when I got home I discovered I had the wrong milk.

We've stepped back in time and ahead all at once. I'd purchased fuel this way in the States & in France in the past, but it's a new thing here. A sign of the times I guess, and if I were an attendant I'd feel much more secure, but it's a depressing thing for me. I don't feel like I live in a dangerous world, but these changes suggest that I've been a little lucky or equally naive. I'm sure the next thing is no store at all, and an unmanned, credit card operated fuel pump... Progress can be quite an impersonal thing at times.

Not Quite Routine

I'm holding Amélie in my arms right now as she's been a little unsettled getting off to sleep tonight. Up to now she's been pretty much perfect, in fact even with this I think she still is.

It's been a busy few weeks as you've probably noted from my paucity of posts here. My routine has been irrevocably changed. At times I've felt a little less than superchilled. And of course when it rains it pours and with the arrival of the youngster everything else has been falling apart, our cars have been beeping about their faults, making weird noises and being sent off for repairs repeatedly, my iMac has crashed and is completely useless to me now (hopefully a genius at the apple store in the morning will fix that for me). But despite the spot fires that abound the youngster thrives and makes it all worthwhile.

These first weeks are brace and persist weeks, while a pattern can be established... hopefully we'll all emerge from the cloud refreshed and revitalised and you'll see more frequent posting here. Time will tell.

I'm a dad!!!

I've been a little busy of late and obviously preoccupied. Little Amélie was born on Sunday making The Frenchman & myself both dads. It's very exciting and very sleep depriving. We are co-parenting and mum & baby are both very well. Here is a quick peek at her not long after birth.

facebook me?

I'm no facebook fan. But I do love to hate it. I was invited into it years back before I knew what it was by a friend who was also the first to de-friend me on it. I'm really popular aren't I? I've not actively sought facebook friends, but gradually have accepted and declined invitations from friends, work colleagues, family and even patients. I've had friends from lives past catch up through it and reconnected with those who constantly switch email addresses. I've also had people write personal messages on my wall and had subsequent responses from people who really needn't have seen them. (Mum, a simple phone call really is fine.)

I've been poked by people I don't know, and I've poked them back at times despite standard  etiquette which would suggest it's not appropriate. I have 56 requests that I have not responded to including a 'sexy man slave request' which perhaps I should have reconsidered, 'Blood Lust' which I'm not going to touch, and a 'gift of a Fireman' which sounds quite hot but then again might be quite not. Then there are all the requests that just got deleted when The Frenchman decided it needed cleaning up. I've played so many games of scrabble with a South African friend that we know most of the 2 letter words by heart and would be hated in any normal scrabble game now. 

More recently I'm seeing updates about what people had for breakfast, how tired or energised they are feeling today, or other obscure cries for attention that I'm not sure I feel like responding to. I've decided not to take up the "What Random Object Are You?" quiz as I don't really care if I am a table (like the initiator of the quiz) or a dog food bowl or whatever the hell a random program throws at me while it steals my personal information. Perhaps I'm a brick... impersonal and unmoved? Am I going to become a fan of "Being Lazy"? I couldn't be bothered. 

I've had requests to be friends with some very cute guys who I've never seen before. When I check their sites they have 1077 very cute guys as friends. Perhaps I should be like one facebook friend who has schizophrenicised his facebook into 2 sites, one for work the other for pleasure, and find 1078 of my own trophy friends. Hmmm...

Technology is constantly evolving & changing the way we operate in this world. The challenge is to pick the advances that enrich our lives, and discard the ones that don't. Better still, take it where we want it to go and evolve it or revolutionise it. Lead on people, we have places to go, oh, and it's your turn in scrabble. 

Strange Sightings

This evening as I'm heading out from gym and about to get into my car a guy yells out to me that he loves, LOVES my car. He's with a (?) girlfriend and he's looking quite cute. He approaches and asks me more details about the car and then asks me if he can kiss it it is so beautiful (he seems quite excited), and I'm like - "sure" - wondering if he's for real, and he does, he walks up and kisses the car. HE ACTUALLY KISSES MY CAR. I think I'd actually prefer he'd kiss me, but he's just kissed a car... His girlfriend says he's so gay, and he says he would be to drive it... and they walk off, though he appears to want to stay. I'm left standing smiling widely. And not quite sure where the gay reference came from, but not minding at all. 

Stacked up in Byron Bay

When in Byron Bay we choose not to stay in Bunk Beds, however where forced to (as above for example) bunks may be entirely appropriate, even preferred.

Where we did stay this weekend had loads of space for a group of us, but not a whole lot of us, spending considerable time in the great outdoors rather than in the beach house. The weather guys got it quite wrong this weekend, and while there was rain, and good amounts of it, there was ample sunshine and beach time to be had. Though at times the two did collide, once with an additional tornado of sorts off the beach. It hung around for about 15  minutes.

low res. phone image... apologies

Initial exploration of the main beach found us with countless men not unlike those above and below (thanks to Andrew Christian's Spring Range - awesome photo-shoot guys!). Experiencing the jaw droppingly attractive is a nice way to spend the day. But the focus of the weekend was the Byron Bay Ocean Swim Classic, and the conditions were perfect. There were lifesavers, and quite a lot of them, though I'm not sure they were actually needed. We don't mind them littered about though. I even managed to meet an imported one or two from the south. I think I'm going to have to get caught in more rips in future. 

Ah and I did do well in the swim, so well in fact I went back the next day to do it all again - though in a more informal way. I got to chat with friends along the way, chase the fish, catch a wave or two and spot a stingray or three.

Oh and did I mention the food? We tested out some old and some new - the new including a place called Satiate in Bangalow, a degustation worth a taste; Pacific Dining Room which was really a step above & a whole lot of fun; and then there's the old faithful Utopia Cafe which is pretty much as the name says, though I'd like a truly utopian milkshake please next time to match the food. 

There was more, a whole lot more, but the week has begun and I've lots to do. Thanks to everyone who made the weekend as awesome as it was, even those who will never know, like the backpacker filling a water container at Wategos beach loosely wearing a sexy pair of underwear and nothing else, I swear it needs to be the new beach trend.

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