Movember part 2

Movember is drawing to a close and I've had requests for new pictures. The Mo is looking good. I'll be keeping it later than Movember so that all my friends and family in the US can have a chance to see it. Then I'll end the ridiculousness and shave it off. I hear that one of my Chanukah presents is going to be some new shaving equipment (I want to try the Merkur Slant), and I hope to pick up some Nancy Boy shaving cream in San Francisco, which I've heard some good things about. So I should be all set to shave, which I expect to please my mom quite a bit. But that day is not yet here. The first mo picture is from the beach about a week ago, and the second is from Thanksgiving two days ago.

Glebe Street Fair

About two weeks ago I went to the Glebe Street Fair, which is a street fair in Glebe not a fair on Glebe St. It's was actually along Glebe Point Rd from Paramatta Rd to St. Johns I think (I don't think it went as far as Bridge Rd, but it was a while ago so I'm not sure). When I first got there, however, it looked like it just went on forever.

A few of us wandered a the whole length of the fair, joined at times by Jono, Pat, and others. Jono got a crazy red emperor at the same store that Christie got an interesting hooded vest and they both got some comfy silk pants. I perhaps should have gotten some of those to. It was much like the street fairs I've seen in the US with a mix of booths selling food, clothing, art, and a few random ones like carnivorous plants. Christie got some Dutch pancakes with some yucky strawberries, and we all had some BBQ pork buns.

It was pretty warm out, so in good Australian tradition I went out with lots of sunblock on. I've probably worn more sunblock here than I have the rest of my life. There was even some nice live performances, though we didn't stick around to watch them. Too bad though, those old guys were fun!

After the fair we got groceries at the shops, went home, and cooked a yummy fettucini bolognese for dinner. All in all a good day.

Sculptures By The Sea

A week ago I went to Journey's Cafe where Yas works with Brendan and Christie in the morning for scones and hot chocolate (a modified Devonshire tea). We did it again today so it might be turning into a tradition. While there last week, however, Yas and I came up with a plan to head to Bondi after she got off work and go see the Sculptures by the Sea exhibit. This is exactly what it sounds like, sculptures by the sea at Bondi beach. It ran from the very end of October through this weekend.

So after Yas got off from work we caught a series of buses down to Bondi beach, wandered around for about an hour and a half seeing all the sculptures which ran from Bondi to Tamarama and back. Then we quickly hopped on a bus back so I could get home in time for all you can eat sushi (which was fun, but definitely not my favorite way to eat sushi, I think I prefer quality over quantity).

Sculptures by the Sea was amazing. The art was interesting, though I never picked up one of the pamphlets so I mostly just interpreted it however I wanted to. The placement in the environment made it so different from an art gallery. The artists often really incorporated the location into their art. Like this picture, where some of the pools are actually filled with metal:

I wasn't wowed by this table in a cage, but I loved it's backdrop of the sea. Especially in this setting where you couldn't see any beach, boats, buildings, or anything else having to do with people. Sadly, the picture doesn't quite capture the awesomeness that I felt standing here looking out on the open sea.

There was lots of other random stuff like this watch in the beach at Tamarama bay. It reminded me that I'd love to get a new watch if I can ever find one that I like. My Skagen is not wearing as well as I might like.

And lots of other sculptures that I didn't take pictures of. I love photography, but often I like to experience an activity rather than stopping to take pictures. I then have separate times when the activity I'm really doing is photography and that's why I've gone somewhere. This was not one of those times. So no heaps of pictures for you. Though if you want to see a few more you can check out my Picasa Web album.

Flora and Fauna

I was walking home the other night and saw a crazy creature that looked like a stick climbing up a building on Pyrmont Bridge Road right at Burton St. I told Christie about it today and she said it was a stick insect, which seems like an apt name to me. Sorry the picture is a little out of focus. The bug was actively crawling up the wall and the pictures is from my not-to-awesome camera phone. When he walked--I'm just randomly assigning a gender, I have no idea, nor do I need to know, how to tell what gender they are--he swayed back and for a bit.

A little bit closer to home, we've been gardening! A few weeks ago early on a Saturday afternoon Christie and I cleared out a lot of the weeds in the garden. Then we went down to the local gardening shop (Annandale Garden Centre) on Booth street and bought a bunch of stuff. In no particular order, we got zucchini, oregano, capsicum (bell pepper), baby spinach, garlic chives, flat-leaf parsley, a plant that repels some sort of bug (maybe mossies, though it doesn't do us that much good outside), and some other stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head. Then today we went back and bought a dwarf lemon tree.

Sadly we keep doing this right after noon, which is perhaps not the best time for the plants. Christie transplanted one of the zucchini into the yellow pot the lemon tree came in, and it's looking pretty poor ever since (you might be able to tell in the picture). I'm hoping it recovers but consensus is that it's unlikely. I don't know. This is more Christie's thing than mine (I'm just good at killing plants), but I'm having fun setting up the garden and asking how it's doing every few days. Maybe the green thumb will slowly rub off on me. Ann was teaching me more about how to not kill Nick's fish this past week too.

Christie also has some basil growing from seeds in the kitchen, right next to our window. That seems to be going well and in a week or two we might move it into the garden.

Though something is eating our baby spinach. I hope it doesn't also eat the basil, because we would prefer to do all the garden plant eating. Oh and I found out today we have a pineapple plant too, though it doesn't have any actively visible fruit growing, and a strawberry plant that has yet to really produce viable fruit. Everything except for the lemon tree is in a pot right now, partially because there is a possibility of people moving in a few months and Christie would want to take the plants with her rather than leave them in the garden.

The soil underneath our pots has lots of worms and lizards and other bugs though. And we bought a compost bin that has become home to a billion bugs (it's kind of scary). I want it to make dirt already! Then we can use it in our garden. But apparently these things take time. One day, hopefully I'll see dirt come out of this pile of weed trimmings and vegetarian food scraps.

Lastly, Christie said she saw a white-something-or-another-that-i-cant-remember-the-name-of spider in our laundry room this week. This is slightly disturbing as it's one of the more poisonous spiders and if you get bitten and aren't treated the bitten area goes gangrenous and often has to be amputated. I would like to keep all my body parts. So I will try and remember to be careful when doing laundry, though I already forgot when I was doing it today. Luckily our garden doesn't have too many deadly things. No drop bears or poisonous jelly fish yet.

With that I'll leave you with a video of one of my favorite songs about Australia: Deadly Animals (Welcome to Australia)

Where to find even more pictures.

So, I'm going to endeavor to keep posting pictures with my blogs, but when I go to events like the opera house open day or Sculptures by the Sea I take quite a few pictures and I'm not going to post all of them here. Since pretty much everyone I know has a Google Account, I figured I'll upload them to Picasa Web rather than Flikr, because it'll be easier if I restrict access to something to only my friends.

So if you know me (which I suspect is everyone actually reading this, at least around the time of writing) then feel free to head over and look me up on Picasa Web. As we speak I'm uploading pictures from Sculpture by the Sea to a public album, http://picasaweb.google.com/ajperel/2009117SculpturesByTheSeaAtBondiBeach#. If I take pictures with friends and family in them, they'll be restricted to only people I know, or at the very least unlisted, and I'll work that out when it happens.

And sometime soon I'll get around to actually writing a blog post about Sculptures by the Sea. I went last Saturday and it deserves a post of its own.

Movember

It's November, or for many people including myself, Movember. A month to raise awareness about men's health, and look stupid and / or sketchy with ridiculous mo's. You can find out more on the Movember website, or even donate to the cause from my donation page.

My entire team at work is participating, and on the suggestion of my house mate Christie I've gone with a large, curling mo. It all started on November 1st, when were were clean shaven. You can see me here at the end of day one, with a little bit of stubble because I shaved in the morning

While I had been shaving once a week, this gave me a mini beard each week, which isn't acceptable for Movember. So, I've been shaving every day or two. But this first week I wanted to grow out some large patches of hair before really shaping the mo. So here you can see me mid first week, growing some giant patches of hair on my cheeks, but it's not a beard!

This past Sunday, right before going out to get groceries for Sunday dinner, I finally shaped the full mo. It took a very long time in front the mirror and it's not perfectly symmetrical, but I'm happy with it. And given that I only have a safety razor and that I didn't cut myself at all, I think I'm doing exceptionally well. I've been getting lots of reactions. Half the people immediately see it and are amazed, some people it's taken being around me for a while (up to a few hours) before they notice. But it almost always gets a comment, and quite a few laughs. After first shaping it I called out from the bathroom "I look like an idiot," which of course was a great way to get my housemates to come see it immediately. Yas, Brendan, and I all had a good laugh about it. Here are some pictures from today, right after I got home from Karate.

I'm going to keep this all of November, and since I'll be in the states at the beginning of December, I might just keep it a few extra days so some of my friends can appreciate it.