ajft

So much for going riding today! After not getting to sleep until after three a.m., the alarm woke me at six. Ankle was still sore from where I half-twisted it yesterday, completely stuffed from lack of sleep, all coupled with a serious case of really feeling down about it all. I lay back down for ten minutes, intending to call up and let Evan know I wouldn't be joining them — next thing I knew it was half an hour later and the phone was calling, wondering where I was.

Spent the morning sitting around listlessly, hoping that a thunderstorm would cool the place down, wishing I could fall back asleep.

By dinner time the weather had cooled off and I had woken up to normality, so off up the street for a bit of exercise, a change of scenery, and a bite to eat. People everywhere, many from the tennis, wandering up and down the street, peering at menus and discussing whether it was ok to eat “here or that other place.” I settled on Silvio's, but then had the challenge of choice. Normally the two of us don't even need to look a the menu, but being alone meant that I had to think and pick something else! Pizza Luciano, a good combination of flavours, a glass or two of wine, and an excellent coffee — all the while watching the comings and goings of the take-aways, the passer's by, and the traffic on the street.

The guy at the next table was having dinner with his young daughter, I've seen them around at Blue Heaven many times before. Amusing mix of half-kid, half-adult conversation, she was insisting that they sang a song together — very much the primary-school nonsense-song, but annoyingly catchy, slightly Gilbert and Sulivan-esque, and probably destined to be stuck in my head for the rest of the week!

  I went to a Japanese restaraunt,
  to buy a loaf of bread, bread, bread,
  My name is Elvis Presley,
  the girls were in the back seats,
  drinking lots of pepsi,
  Cheesecake!

Managed to nab a few more pubs this afternoon, for the photo collection alone, although with the hot weather it was very tempting to go and sample a beer in each one... The Vine, Mountain View, London and the Grand. There can't be that many left now... can there? Although I still wanted to walk on past the Grand, that new colour scheme just doesn't look good to me!

Off to a teamRC17 dinner this evening, foolishly without checking the details! I'd been walking around all day thinking “seven o'clock,” it was only when I went to leave home that I actually read my scrawled note and saw that I should have been there at six! Then I couldn't find the place, driving slowly down the Nepean highway trying to read street numbers while everyone else was trying to get where they're going as fast as possible — I'd just about given up when I spotted the enormous sign advertising the place! Not to worry, I found it, the others had only just ordered so I snuck in with time to spare. Good food, and huge servings, I think I managed to get through about two-thirds of a bowl of gnocci. A good thing I didn't order an entrée as well!

Normal day's ride to and from work today, then a magnificent evening ride later on. Lack of motorbike meant that when I got the invitation to have an evening beer and barbecue with friends, it was either norky bike or the train — and Friday evening trains aren't my favourite.

Another of Marko's fine barbecues, a good time to sit and chat as the day cools down and the cicadas sing. The selling of their house still hangs over them, the market isnt' good, and by definition, the real-estate agent is a real-estate agent. Will it sell or not? Will they move or not? Who can tell. In the meantime, we enjoy what we've got — coffee, food, companionship, and an old steam engine that Marko had found and restored!

Three days after the full moon, there are no street lights on the bike paths, there are no lane markings on the bike paths, its all just a case of trust your instincts and follow the black ribbon through the darkness — flashing bike lights are good enough to be seen by, but not good enough to see with! Along the way the other senses come into play, the temperature changes as you drop down to the cool of the creek, or climb up to the heat radiating off the concrete roads, the sounds of frogs and birds in the bushes, muted traffic and Friday night sirens, the smells from the creek, the mud, the drains... non-too pleasant, but all standing out that much more at night.

To the driver and passenger of the electrician's white van, QXC-557, just what is it that makes you want to yell abuse at people on bicycles as you pass on the road? Is it the feeling of power and invulnerability as you speed past, anonymous, except for the foot-high letters advertising your employer's company? Is it the knowledge that you can outrun the abused/intimidated cyclist, or is it some mistaken belief that if I can't retaliate at the time, that I won't be able to record your details, your company name, your phone number, your registration number, and retaliate later...

Australia, Portugal, Spain, England, New Zealand, France, Switzerland, Italy. What do they have in common? All countries that I can count as places that I've visited for long enough to spend a night in. All countries that I've cycled through on my bike! Add in Ireland, and that's my nine entries for Norman Walsh's counting countries competition.

[2008-01-23] Vietnam, China should be added since I originally wrote it, and Jersey was missed back in 2003.

...

Late evening, a warm spring evening. The sun sinks into the clouds, wood smoke in the air, a few too many glasses of wine with dinner and the cicadas start to squeal into the night...

A minor crisis in the bicycle storage facility — the new toy arrives at its new home... Half of it is my birthday present from Jo, half her birthday present from me. A brand-new second-hand Trek T-50 tandem. Three or four weeks since we first saw it, about a fortnight since we decided to buy it, but only this weekend have we finally had time to get down to Peter's shop in Brighton and pick it up — after a little nagging, mostly because they want the shop space back!

Bicycle 106-4528 BI 0677 is the most recent addition to the stable — definitely the largest, heaviest and most ungainly to carry up and down the stairs, as well as being the one least likely to fit in the car for transport to or from any ride. I guess we'll just have to ride it everywhere...

A hot day today, 39°C, windy and dusty! Probably not the best day to try and sell your house, but when its booked in advance, that's what you've got to do. Off we went at noon to lend moral support as Marko and Lesley's house is being auctioned... Lots of people around, lots of people wander through looking at the place, are they potential buyers, are they sticky-beaks, or are they just neighbours and friends like us!

Half-past twelve and the auctioneer calls it to order, there's the pro-forma legal blurb, then the desultory start to the bidding. Nobody seems interested, the auctioneer opens with a “vendor bid,” a peculiar form of legalese that they can use to get things moving — apparently still legal so long as the bid is declared as being a vendor bid. Still not much interest, one couple bids, the auctioneer makes another vendor bid, the two of them go to and fro a few times and the property is handed in under the reserve price.

Well call me naîve, but over a drink afterwards the auctioneer reveals that the bidding couple were actually his “friends” — dummy bidders in other words. Unknown to us, undeclared to the public at the auction, and unknown to our friends whose house was being sold! This is quite clearly illegal here in Victoria, but is still widely accepted as happening everywhere. According to the auctioneer only the stupid or the unlucky are caught and prosecuted. The real-estate agents just manage to confirm my opinion of their place in life, somewhere down there below computer and used-car salesmen.

Someone has decided to start trying to log the mobile-phone users and send an email direct to the top — Andre — or Police Minister Andre Haermeyer, if you want to give him his official title.

Andre has a mobile phone driver reporting page. You can find it at http://www.ratbagitinerant.com/cm/phones.html

Reg says: Dob in a drongo driver!

Just the one? As the sign says "Wipe off five". This evening's mild entertainment came from:

1. 17:40 QRD-368, Blue magna, Clayton road/Ferntree gully road intersection.
2. Red Ford Falcon, Malvern road. No, that's not a phone, driver is slugging back a UDL as he skims past my elbow. Too quick, no plates.
3. 17:55 PJV-969, White ford telstar, Malvern road
4. Silver Toyota Seca, east on Malvern road. Young girl SMSing, sun in my eyes and no plates. What caught my eye was that she was driving the up the bike lane… just like the woman who killed a guy.
5. 18:09 RHG-878, purple peugeot 306 convertible, Malvern road/Wattletree road.

The last one took the cake. There he was, sitting stopped at the intersection, indicator on to turn left, phone against the ear, GREEN TURN ARROW in front of him, mindlessly chatting. I rode up alongside on the driver's side, leant over and said very clearly “YOU CAN PUT THE PHONE DOWN NOW, THAT'S A GREEN ARROW.” “Oh, err, yes,” came the reply as the driver in the car behind leant on the horn, off he went up Wattletree road.

Three definites in half an hour, I guess that at $135 per fine that'd be $800 an hour I could be making for Andre. I should be getting a commission! I really wouldn't mind riding around on my bike for an eight hour day and raking in whatever proportion of $6400 per day that would be!

Woohoo... barbecue; No photos, too busy cookin' and eatin'. Plans were made, deadlines were set, sausages were bought, fire was lit, meat was cooked. The wedding present barbecue was assembled, fired up, and did its job.

Eleventh day of the eleventh month and I didn't notice. So much for armistice day, or for Aussies, Gough day. There seems to be a growing disquiet that Melbourne's motorists — indeed Australia's motorists — just don't give a damn about the laws regarding driving and using a mobile phone, and that the police don't give a damn about policing these laws. $135 fine and three points off your license — who cares. Endangering other road users — who cares.

The woman who killed a cyclist near Geelong while she was sending an SMS has been let off by the courts — a suspended two year sentence. Even Bicycle Victoria, famous for not doing anything that would seem to remotely offend anyone in the government or VicRoads, is calling for tougher penalties and a public “dob-in an illegal motorist” hotline.

I don't think that tougher penalties are the answer — its a knee-jerk Aussie reaction — call for tougher penalties. What's the point when the existing laws aren't being enforced? You can increase the penalty up to ludicrous extremes of having the death penalty for speeding, but if it's not enforced, nobody will obey it.

Amazingly though, no life-threatening mobile-phone wielding motorists today — only the dogs on the bike path to contend with... and one particular rabid old lady who is too important to keep to the left, is too important to keep her four dogs on leads, under control, or even on one side of the path, and is sanctimonious enough to claim that a loud voice shouting BIKE! cannot be heard because I don't have a bell on my bike... Refused to answer any queries as too why she didn't use a lead or keep left, just walked off saying over and over again “tra-la-la I can't hear you...”. Absolutely infuriating, but I shouldn't let these idiots get to me! Hopefully sometime soon their idiot dogs will run in front of a truck rather than a bike.

They wonder why Melbourne's taxi drivers have such a poor reputation — ten to nine on a Tuesday morning, taxi stopped with its hazard lights on in the left-hand lane of a main road. The driver hopped out, walked around to the rear door and pissed on the road, then zipped up and drove off! Maybe its acceptable in whatever third-world country our taxi-drivers get their licenses, but surely he could have driven to the petrol station two blocks away!

Stupid me, stupid, stupid me! There I was, riding home, happily minding my own business. I glanced at the courier van parked at the side of the road... Stupid me; I thought that for once someone had decided to stop to chat on their mobile phone. Stupid, stupid me. Panic stop as the idiot does a u-turn from a standing start, straight across three lanes of traffic and missing me by a foot — all the while still talking into his phone...

Ten minutes later, same ride home, minding my own business in the bike lane. Woosh!, idiot in a tin box misses me by inches, meandering back and forth across the lane and bike lane. Surprise surprise, there's a phone held in his hand, clamped against his ear...

Yass to Melbourne, seven hours sitting in the car, seven hours of driving down the Hume highway, seven hours of eyes glued to the speedo lest we drift over the speed limit and be pounced on by the constabulary as a lethal threat to society...

Miraculously managed to sleep in until 9am — not easy in a house containing three young neices — breakfast with Colin and Liz and catch up with people and family events. Then off in the afternoon to Canberra Hospital to visit the object of the entire weekend — sister and youngest additions, Katelyn Jane and Heidi Ann, three days old, happy, well and asleep.

I even remembered to take my film camera with me — and to actually use it! One day soon I may even have finished the film that's lain dormant since I bought the digital camera — the camera certainly made some unhealthy noises as the motor opened and shut the lense cover, probably two years' worth of grit and dust in there. Back to Bungendore afterwards, to look with envy at dad's garden and get itchy feet for a garden of our own — maybe not so big that we need to mow it, but just big enough to grow some tomatos with taste! Over the winter the massively overgrown greenhouse has been put into order, the cacti gardens are all flowering, and more and more birds are appearing in the garden...

Inspired by the CD of wedding photos that we recieved from Gabby, I've started working my way through Ritchie's rolls of film.... Time consuming... and disk consuming! Eventually I guess I'll finish...

Wyvern news: I found out that somehow I'd broken the CD reading, who knows how, it just wouldn't load the right modules. Anyway, time to upgrade the kernel from 2.4.20 to 2.4.22. Build, install, build, install, lilo, reboot... Yay, CD back again!

The nasty sneaky little magpie in the park near East Malvern station scared me half to death this morning — again. I must remember to look out for him tomorrow...

The airconditioner at work wasn't working all day — fairly typical — now that the weather has started to warm up. As a result, it was stuffy and hot and I was glad to escape to go for a ride in the evening, while it was still daylight! North road and Warrigal road through all the evening traffic, then around the bay along Beach road, chill breeze and evening sunlight, a great time to be out. I made it home a little after seven, slowly riding up Swan street and stopping to add to my collection of photos of Richmond's pubs — the Depot, the Corner, the Richmond Club, the Vaucluse, the Swan, the Central Club and the Rising Sun. Seven more down, how many more to go?

New baby number two has a name, but baby number one hasn't. I'm not sure I understand, but apparently it all makes perfect sense to my sister. So happy birthday for yesterday to Heidi and the other one!

Seems my sister Kathy couldn't wait until after we visit this weekend — I'm now an uncle again. I had a feeling she'd hatch before we could get there to see her. Five nieces, one three and a half year-old, two one year-olds and two born tonight! No names yet for the new ones.... Should make family gatherings crowded in the future.

MLP

[http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/sexp.html]

SEXP —(S-expressions)

  Today: 91.5km
  Trip: 257.0km

Final day of the ride, best weather so far! Sticking my head out of the tent at around 6:30 there was not a breath of wind, the sun was rising and the bay was as flat as a mirror. We left Rye around 10am, in bright sunshine, but with a chill still in the air.

It always amazes me how much traffic there is on the stretch of road between Sorrento and Mornington, I guess to my subconscious the road doesn't seem to go anywhere, it just ends at the heads, so where do all the cars come from? Unfortunately it seems that each time I ride along here I could also ask “where do all the idiots come from?” as there always seem to be yobs in V8s and 4WDs determined to show their masculinity by pushing cyclists off the road. Today was no exception. A blue ute, JOOST-1, made the biggest impression, sliding past in a shower of gravel around a blind bend near Mornington, his driving skills astounding all...

The good weather and Cup day holiday had also brought out every boat owner in Melbourne! It certainly seemed that way, with every beach, boat ramp and bay packed with fishing boats, pleasure boats and sail boats of all descriptions. Later on as we passed over the Patterson river the launching yard looked like complete mayhem, I've never seen it so crowded.

A cold drink at the Mornington hotel, then ten kilometres of noisy, busy road to Frankston. The swooping descent down Oliver's hill makes it all worthwhile. Then warily through Frankston, watching for opening doors, abuse, and swerving rusty bombs... Out of Frankston and on up the Chelsea before turning off onto Station street, somehow we managed to catch every set of traffic lights just as they went red. The Bridge hotel at Mordialloc was starting to fill with punters and partiers as we passed to turn off into Beach road. From here it is straight up Beach road back to the city.

Where?

Rye,

  Today: 49.25km
  Trip: 165.0km

Where?

Torquay, Rye

  Today: 67.27km
  Trip: 120.0km

Where?

Lorne, Torquay

  Today: 51.02km
  Trip: 51.0km

Where?

Apollo Bay, Wye River, Lorne