Driving homw in the rain on a Friday nite...

Ok so I'm driving home the other week after finishing work at 7:30 as usual, as I hit Canterbury rd, something pulls up alongside me at the lights as I wait to turn right onto Wantirna rd. I love over and there it is, some old car, a morris minor 1000 or some old sh!tter, with a friging contraption on the roof that looked like a couple of steel roof racks fitted with a motor which had what looked like a household antennae rotating on top of it like some sort of fancy schmancy radar or antennae aerial type thingy.
Intrigued I followed them down wantirna road.
(Please note, the similarity in the bonnet in the above photos to the bonnet in the photo's on chris winn's blog showing a car flattening a 'Cyclists Single File' sign is purely coincidental. Oh sorry he's changed the photo no bonnet in that shot!)
When I did manage to get alongside, I noticed that the female front passenger had a laptop on her lap with what looked like a massive melways type map and a dot in the centre showing where they were and where they were heading. She also had a full face helmet on, and a microphone boom infront of her mouth, he eyes were glued to the screen.
The back passenger had a large LCD screen which looked to be fixed to the back of the front passenger seat, in the middle of the car was a lot of electrical equipment and what looked like some sort of huge computer/battery setup. All in an old sh!tter!
They were all mic'd up and had helmets on.
NFI what they were doing, but it made for an interesting drive home.
Some sort of car rally I suspect, but really NFI!
Then on the sunday while taking 'Super Kick' to the footy I fell in love, this is the kinda bike I want!

The Bro-In-Laws House Warming Party

Sat nite I headed over to the Bro-in-Laws new place for his house warming party.
He took ownership of this place only 4 weeks ago and after paying a hefty price for it he instantly tore it apart, quite literally and planned to spend another $30k making it into what he wanted.
1/3 of an acre.
3 Bedrooms.
New paint in and out.
Polished floorboards throughout.
New Carpet in Formal Lounge.
Most of us are happy with a lounge room that looks like this, nice new carpet and the Plasma and surround sound from his old place. Before he purchased the house had just have this nice Timber kitchen installed with Marble benchtops and stainless appliances at a cost of some $20k.
The worst feature of the house according to the Bro is this sh!tty bathroom.
I wish my bathroom was this sh!tty!
One of these walls will house the free white 32" LCD Telly that they THREW IN, with his big tell purchase.
I dunno what he's whinging about it looks great to me, the tiles look great and the grout is spotless.
Hi Me, the only bathroom renovation so far is a new tapset throughout.
Then on to 'The Boys Room', after knocking out a wall or two he re-invented this rumpus room into his own private Boys room with a Full Bar and a Pool Table. (Dunno the table size but it's fair) Note the beatiful polishing on the Mantel piece, one of his mates is a timber polisher guru.
Oh yeah and here's the bar. Two Red Gum slabs about a metre in width, only $900 + Polishing.
Note the Beer fridge, I dunno what this badboy cost but it's a huge fridge/freezer with a triple ice dispenser to make sure your never out of ice.
The finish on the benchtop is outstanding!
So his bar is equipped with a full kitchen that would put most houses to shame. The cupboards are all painted 2pac in a Blue Metallic color, very nice.
Whats a bar without a spirits dispenser thingy, Malibu, Midori, Beam, Vodka & Scotch. The bare essentials.
Oh yeah and this is the other end of the room, a 52" LCD with a full Onkyo 7.1 Surround sound system that is so loud it's unbearable. I could feel the bass still running at 1am when I was driving away down the street. Lucky he invited the neighbours.
Also you can't see it but there's a massive leather couch with secret compartments that fold up to reveal cupholders etc. Very nice. I guess the boys have to be comfortable when they come over for beers and a movie. So in the end a bit over a hundred people turned up and had a great night, apparently it went til about 5am. It was almost like an open for inspection. The only problem for me was when I was trying to put Dakota down for a sleep in the nursery and everyone kept coming in to look at the room. haha.

I was very impressed by all this, it's quite inspiring, now I wanna work for myself too like he does.
Sorry but it was too dark for pictures of the massive brick garage and new driveway.
I drank the night away having a good chat to Vortex who only live around the corner.

Thanks for reading.

A Post for the Winnster....

Most of you will know Chris Winn, a mad as MTBer with a Crazy Brutha.
Well Winny has turned on his past and taken a gig riding roadies in the U.S of A. while playing a bout of kiss chasey with a Yankee Chicka-Dee named 'Kat'.
Well here at the CoT Blog, Chris is kinda like family.
He's sorta like a love child that you never admit to if you like.
Or 'The Prodigal Son'.
His blog is always a great read following that antics of his life on the run.
See it here... Chris Winn Blogspot

Photo taken in the car from Wantirna at the Five-Ways intersect. Yes that bonnet looks might similar to the one shown on a certain blog flattening 'Cyclists ride single file' sign placed on the 1/20.

Winny is always telling me about some wreckless renegade firebug who is lighting fires on the 'Nongs' near his place, he suspects it's someone on a bike due to the location and speed that the fires are lit. He listens in to the CFA on a scanner and keeps it all in check.

So, when driving home on Thursday night, and I see the 'Nongs' teeming with smoke, I think "oooo00000OOOO....Pffft F#ck me I thought it was Winny lighting all those fires, obviously not"There was two fires going, 1 on the left looked to be around the Sassafras area and the other near his stomping ground of 1-tree hill.

Photo taken from a hill in Baysie near my house.

I never heard anything about it on the news, but it looked like a hell of a lot of smoke to just be some sort of 'burn-off'.
Anyway, with a bit of luck Windy will read this and feel a little closer to home, and probably breath a sigh of relief that he's off the hook.

Now all I need is a post relating to the 'Haunted House' and we'd be laughing and Windy would be crying with homesickness.

Take Care Windy!

Gunslez Night Out in the Big Smoke for Kyliez 30th BDay.

On Saturday night my family and I went out to celebrate my wifes 30th.
First it was dinner with about 40 of her friends and family.
Zagames was choosen for it's closeness and excellent kids playground.

Kylie and the kids blowing out candles and cutting the cake.

We were lucky enough to have Batman make and appearance.

The girls drinking up and minding my pint of Blonde.

Then it was on to the Stamford to have some more drink and dance the night away.

Geez these Sony Ericsson's Phones are a good bit of kit.

The to re-live old Jooce times the Illusion Shakers made a revist, actually about 4 revisits.

By the 4th round of Illusions the remaining girls were well on their way to a hangover.

Arrived home around 4am before changing the clocks back for the end of day light savings.
A good night out.

Ahh the big smoke..

Sometimes I duck down to Melbourne on a weekend, and it always suprises me how quick stuff is being built. There seems to be new traffic lights going in everywhere (which sucks!), the Croydon indoor pool is well underway, and Eastlink is almost firing. I certainly don’t miss the Melbourne traffic, but I do miss friends and it is always great catching up with the CoT gang and family.
Had a top MTB ride with TKA (AKA Anthony!) who is developing into a pretty good MTB’er. We checked out some trails in Mt Evelyn and Silvan, all really good stuff, with a great mix O rocks, up’s, downs, fast single track, logs, and a stinky creek in Lilydale (What are you people flushing?).
The highlight for me however, was the discovery of a 4WD track the follows the railway line from Lilydale back to Mooroolbark, like a weird time-warp road. You get some pretty cool views of the quarry pit!

Mmmmm a MTB heaven untapped?

Another top moment on the WE was a Sunday evening dusk ride out of Wodonga, warm, still and check out the sunset!

Tis a great time of year to ride!