It's Good, It's Blog!

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: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:12 PST

It's been a while since I got bored watching a movie, but it happened last night while watching Lemony Snicket's. What began brilliantly with the animated 'The Littlest Elf' (keep an eye out for the bear fervently hugging and petting a deer, and the elf with the shotgun!) soon faded away until a Series of Unfortunate Events just became a series of boring events.

Now the movie certainly had it's good points. It was a visually spectacular feast; the set work, costumes and overall other-wordly feel that was created was brilliant. So much so that it is quite a shame that the movie it is supporting does not return the favour in kind. It will be interesting to see how it ranks come Oscars time. For their part the actors also came through. For once, Jim Carrey didn't seem too out of place with his outrageous style of acting. I just think that somehow the final result didn't end up being the total sum of its individual parts.

The true highlight of the film was saved until the very end - the closing credits. The animation used was nothing short of fabulous, in a very Tim Burtonesque or Edward Gorey manner of fabulous. They really made the movie worthwhile in the end (pun intended).

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: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 17:12 PST

I just received my signed Turquoise & Crimson double cd, and I no longer care how long I had to wait for it. The mastered copies are excellent, and I finally got to hear Dead Angels and Bruise. I'm in my VAST place.

http://www.realvast.com/

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: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 13:01 PST

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope you had a great day however you may have celebrated.

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: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 16:56 PST

Being that time of year it was only a matter of time before I had to do something festive. What better way to celebrate than going to see a real live bell choir!

Ok, all kidding aside, I did go and see my very first bell choir late last week. To my great joy, the opening song was my favourite Christmas song, the Ukranian Bell Carol (Carol of the Bells). The choir performing are the Bells of the Sound. The concert was both impressive and enjoyable. More info about the choir can be found at http://www.bellsofthesound.org/

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: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 16:43 PST

Well, after the adventures of the night before, the view the next day was stunning. The first photo is the view from the villa. To set the scene further, I must point out that in an unfathomable action of generosity, the accommodation for the entire stay of all guests was paid for by the wedding party. Some groups were staying for up to two weeks, and why wouldn't you when each villa came complete with a housekeeper who prepared all your meals for you. This truly was the good life. Each day there was at least one organised activity but the rest of the time was free time where you could do as little or as much as was desired.

Just down the hill from the Goblin Hill villas where everyone was staying, was another villa, Lolivya, where the groom and brides families were staying. This villa was right on the waters edge of a sheltered channel and was open to all guests day and night. I spent countless hours snorkelling out the front and around the island, which is where all my underwater photos were taken. Just down channel a little further and around the corner is the Blue Lagoon, as seen in the movie of the same name. It was officially closed but you could still make your way down there to swim. It's very strange as you can be swimming about and suddenly hit a really cold patch of water, but if you keep swimming you'll move out of it into something more bearable. David Lee set a freediving world record at the lagoon. While we were there the lagoon was also the base and launching point for the Lady G'Diver scuba shop (it has since relocated into Port Antonio).

Quite a few people over for the wedding are scuba certified and between us we managed to keep Steve from Lady G'Diver pretty busy! We managed to go out for 3 dives and it was a shame there wasn't time for more. The coral is different to the Barrier Reef, and there are noticeably less fish. Large fish are very rare. Apparently the area is heavily fished, which is a shame. The highlight of the dives were the very close sighting of two 8ft+ nurse sharks! Not as close as Steve though, who swam down to prod at them to wake them up as they happened to be resting down in a gully at the time. We dove the Pinnacle, Alligator Deep and Trident Wall.

During our stay we also had a dinner at Frenchman's Cove, the beach used in the movie Cocktail. After dinner we were treated to a spectacular performance by an award winning Jamaican drum band, and an incredible limbo demonstration. The guy managed to slide his way under the bar when it was only about a foot off the ground! He then proceeded to do the same thing under a series of burning bars!

The other organised event while we were there was a trip to Somerset Falls, which took place after the wedding. Obviously I enjoyed this immensely. Part of the falls were 'hidden' and it was necessary to take a very short boat trip around the corner to see them, or as most of us ended up doing, just swim it.

The Wedding! This was nothing short of spectacular. The whole thing took place at the Trident Castle, with the bride arriving by boat to be greeted by the guests all lined up along the stairway. It was incredibly hot in the sun but luckily she was on time and we were soon into the shade. The ceremony itself took place in front of the tiny little chapel on the castle grounds. It was performed by a Jamaican minister (of course), a very cool way to get married. He turned out to be the late one to the proceedings, his car having broken down on the way. The ceremony was lovely, even with the constant crowing of a very loud and inconsiderate rooster in the background the whole time. Following the ceremony, everyone gathered around the front of the castle for drinks and nibbles until dinner was served inside. The view out to the ocean was spectacular, as was the sunset and the rising of a full moon soon after. Following dinner a very large Jamaican band started up to round out the night with lots of dancing and general merriment.

We had a very early check out on our day of departure, and I think most people slept through the 4 hr journey back to Montego Bay. We had enough time to do a bit of shopping at the airport before our flight, discovering a booth celebrating the Jamaican Bobsled Team, brought into the limelight by the movie Cool Runnings. I also managed to pick up some Jerk sauces but have yet to try my hand at making something. I'm not sure how I'm going to go about getting the big open fire going...

So that's Jamaica, a great place to visit, and very different to anywhere I've been before.

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: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 20:44 PST

Wow! I think that's where I need to start this entry. Overall I had an amazing time and hope to get back there someday.

http://alexhand.com/Jamaica/ for photos.

Seattle was at it's best on the way out. The fog was so thick and low that aircraft taking off disappeared from view in about 4 seconds. I took some burst video of it as it really was an incredible thing to watch. There were some very cool swirling mist vortexes trailing off the wings too.

First stop was an overnight transfer in Philly. Of course, I had to try Philly Cheesesteak while I was there. Having no idea what it is, I was a little surprised when my order arrived. It was still tasty but it wasn't the big slab of meat with cheese that I was expecting.

Thanks to the 3 hours time difference and the very early flight I think wake up time was around 2:30am Seattle time. Quite a rude shock to the system and the start of a very long day in transit. The flight to Jamaica was uneventful, the landing in Montego Bay somewhat spectacular as we came in low over the ocean and straight onto the runway. Oh, the glorious heat! Sun! Humidity! Needless to say, it was nice to get out to some sunny, hot weather. Port Antonio, the final destination, is a 4hr drive from Montego Bay. As soon as you leave the airport budding taxi drivers and porters immediately ask you if you need a taxi, need help. This pretty much occurs all over Jamaica, with vendors, taxi drivers. Everyone is pushing to make a sale. Luckily, a shuttle had been arranged to make the trip but there were people coming on later flight. What better way to wait then jump in the back of the mini van with the A/C on and have a cold Red Stripe beer or two! Red Stripe read well from everything I saw beforehand, and I'm happy to report that it drinks just as well too. It's a nice clean lager, much akin to the XXXX I'm used to back in Australia. The other flights arrived, and we were on our way to Port Antonio.

The next 5 hours were some of the most interesting I can recall. Our driver, Warren, a very cool and laid back Jamaican, is a big Kenny Rogers fan so we listened to that for a lot of the way. There was some reggae in there too, but the country was unexpected. One of my first Jamaican observations (and I made this while still in the carpark) was that every car, unless it looked brand new, had been involved in an accident of some sort. They were a mixture of: dented, repaired but not repainted, or just missing panels. As soon as we left the airport the reason for this became alarmingly apparent. Everyone speeds, everywhere and whenever they can. Lane markings are completely ignored. Pedestrians are there at their own risk, you don't slow down or swerve to give them a wider berth. However, it seems that anyone wandering along the side of the road is not bothered by the speeding hunks of metal roaring past them. Whenever we were walking anywhere we'd all scuttle well off the road as soon as a car was detected! This next one is the scary one; overtake regardless of whether there is oncoming traffic. I can remember the first time our little van roared out to overtake about 4 cars and there was a big truck clearly visible and heading in our direction. I think the truck braked a little, as did the front car in the convoy we were overtaking, but we made it back in with about half a second or so to spare. Everyone in the van shared a brief silent moment of terror and then it passed. I don't think anyone even blinked after the 3rd or 4th time. My favourite though, is honk for corners. This applies whether you're approaching a corner, or planning to use the reduction in speed to overtake around the corner. This way, a car travelling in the other direction knows to look out, not also try to overtake, or at least try and remain on their side of the road.

Most of the roads are in terrible condition. There are more potholes than sealed road, yet drivers manage to swerve their way through this holey maze, slamming on the brakes where necessary when a hole is simply unavoidable and then speeding off as soon as it has been passed. The ratio of completed houses, to houses that have been started but never completed is quite high. Not quite 50% but there are a lot of houses that have just never been finished and are not being lived in. Eternal construction sites. We were on the main coastal road heading East so traffic was fairly thick. We passed a lot of resorts and villas, and zoomed through numerous small towns. The few Police I saw were all clad in protective armour and when they do do something it's obviously pretty good. At one point we were delayed by a crowd of about 80 people who had gathered around a police car at a house. I was curious as to what had happened, but we managed to honk our way through the gathered masses and we were speeding off on our way again.

We came to a roaring stop just past a roadside Jerk* stand and quickly reversed back. According to Warren this was a good place to sample some jerk pork and chicken. It was everything I was hoping it would be! The pork was the best, mainly because there were no bones to wrestle with as there is with chicken. Everything is sold in 1/4 lb portions. On it's own it's very tasty, and just a little hot. However, add some spicy jerk sauce and WOOOOO! Easily one of the hottest things I've ever put in my mouth. The sort of hot that leaves your lips burning long after you finish eating. It was good!

The rest of the trip was more of the same. There was a huge cruise ship at Ochos Rios when we went passed, but nothing else really worth mentioning. We hit Port Antonio just after dusk, and there were a lot of Jamaicans out and about but not seeming to be doing much in particular. I'm guessing that was a normal night. Our generously paid-for-by-the-wedding-party accommodation (Really. How sweet is that!?), Goblin Hill Villas was about 10 minutes further on. After a quick ATM stop to allow a few people to cash up in Jamaican dollars for the week ahead (US is also accepted pretty much everywhere, but you get often get a better price paying in Jamaican.) we were off and arrived at the villas in no time. All of us were in one piece and very thankful for it!

Check back for stories about the wedding and the very stressful week spent at a villa, in the sun, near the beach...

* http://www.globalgourmet.com/destinations/jamaica/jamjerk.html

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: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 19:52 PST

I had intended to post my whole Jamaican experience in one sitting, but having started to type it up I realise it's going to end up being quite a tome. So I've changed plans and will now split it over a few posts. Hopefully, the first post will come later today.

Pictures from the trip are at http://alexhand.com/Jamaica/

PS. If anyone can help identify some of the unlabelled critters I snapped while snorkeling please leave a comment

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: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:22 PST

This will be my last update for a little over a week. It's off to Jamaica for a friend's wedding! I'm looking forward to some warmer weather, scuba diving, jerk pork, and the wedding of course. I'm hoping to get some great photos which no doubt I'll get around to posting eventually...

In other news, Return To The Forbidden Planet has seen its final curtain call. So I've now seen my first MSTT production through to it's conclusion. I had a great time and am looking forward to the next show, which I believe isn't until Spring.

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: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 23:23 PST

I've always been a great advocate of the benefits of the internet, but then I'm a huge geek so there's no real surprise there. To illustrate my point though I'd like to outline the following few points:

I'm able to keep in good contact with my family and friends back home using email, chat, VOIP, webcams and digicams. The physical gap is bridged for the most part by technology. I for one thinks it's both amazing and brilliant.

Lots of places have a website. Now when I'm telling someone about somewhere I'm going, have already visited, or perhaps have just heard about; more often than not I can provide a URL so they can see for themselves.

I'm not without JJJ over here. Thanks to streaming webcasts I can still tune into the J's. What's even better is that I can now catch the morning show, because it's actually the afternoon show over here thanks to the time difference. I was devastated to find out Adam and Wil's breakfast segment is coming to an end.

The local station I listen to here also has a webstream. Check them out at http://www.c895fm.com/. Then of course there's always the Ministry of Sound web radio.

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: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:34 PST

After the second consecutive night of driving around in thick fog it became apparent that I wasn't to see the spectacular Northern lights that were being reported in the local news. I'm patient, I can wait... gah!

PS. I must apologise for the horrid and unavoidable ad you're subject to on your way in. Apparently, it's only temporary.

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: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 13:14 PST

It turns out that I may not have to trek to Alaska to see the Aurora Borealis. There was a spectacular show on Sunday (that unfortunately I was unaware of and subsequently missed. D'oh!). We drove about last night trying to dodge the thick fog but were unable to spot any activity. It did facilitate my first Krispy Kreme visit since I've been here though, so I can't complain too much. With a little luck there may be some more activity tonight, otherwise I'm just going to have to wait until the next round. Very exciting stuff nonetheless. Some local pictures can be seen at http://www.celes-meals.com/aurora/

The show is past the halfway mark and powering along nicely. The attached photo is the set, with some of the cast in the foreground. There is usually something on after every show, with a good turnout to each event, so that's been a lot of fun. There's some very talented and funny people amongst the cast, crew, and band so there have been plenty of laughs.

I'm now the proud owner of a jacket made out of 'Seattle Suede', which apparently is washable and therefore able to withstand getting rained on. My other suede jacket was all but useless here due to the frequent rain.

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: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:16 PST

So it's my second election day in a month, let's hope this one goes to plan. It's early on in counting but it's not looking good at the moment. However, it's supposed to be a very close election so I'll just wait with baited breath and see what the final outcome is. DaveMac is having an election party at his mansion, so I'm looking forward to heading over there soon.

In other news, Halloween has been and gone with a greatly profound and disappointing silence. I was hoping for something, but didn't so much as see a single carved pumpkin. There were a couple of parties with a few very cool costumes. The girls went as The Stepford Wives, I've attached a photo so you can see just how polished their 'plastic' look was.

The first week of the show went really well. Audience numbers were better than expected for the first week, and pre-bookings for the coming shows are quite good too. Everyone is laughing in the right places and the lighting, sound and video has come together really well. To save on clutter I'll attach a show photo in my next post.

You can read a review of the show here

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: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 16:36 PST

Now that I'm beginning to settle in I can start to take notice of my new environment. In doing so I'm noticing all the little differences between Brisbane and here. What do I mean?

There are no newsagents over here. You buy your newspapers from those little 'vending' machines you always see in the movies and magazines from book stores. Everything else you get from service stations or supermarkets. It's strange not seeing them.

Look left, then right, then left again! So that's very different and I still have to consciously think about it when I'm about to cross the road.

Crossing the road... everyone over here is so polite it's nearly creepy. So I was in the middle of the block and wanted to cross the road, there was a car coming on the other side and I set off, calculating that by the time I got there the car would have had time to pass and I'd be on my way. The car pulled up and stopped to let me over, leaving me feeling quite rude. It's not the first time it's happened either, so now I'm not game to cross unless there are no cars, or it's at a set of lights.

The busses here run to schedule and the drivers don't think they're in the Indy.

Everything is soooo green.

Tanning salons everywhere. Considering you can go days without actually seeing the sun, they must do a roaring trade.

Cell phones as opposed to mobile phones, gas stations instead of petrol stations, tomato tomato...

You get the general idea.

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: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:35 PST

Happy Birthday Flip!!!

So it turns out that you can adapt to your surroundings fairly easily. I don't think it got below 12C all that often in the depths of our so called Brisbane 'winter' and yet that is about the daily maximum here... and I'm not feeling all that cold whenever I have to go out into it. I was expecting it to be a lot worse, and I'm sure it will be in the months ahead, but for the moment I'm comfortable. It does cool down at nights (duh) but during the day it's bearable. We'll see how long that opinion lasts.

The only other note for today is that if you're going to travel and take anything that requires power with you: buy the socket adapter you need before you leave! I didn't think I'd have to visit four stores before I found someone with a simple universal plug adapter

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: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 15:32 PST

I'm slowly getting things sorted out, unpacked, reconnected etc. I've included a picture I took in the lounge at Vegas. Quite bizarre I admit, but hey, it's Vegas.

I attended my first MSTT (Microsoft Theatre Troop) rehearsal last night. The latest production is Return To The Forbidden Planet. I've heard about plenty of the shows before, but this is the first one I'll be taking part in. I'll be helping out backstage, which is where I'll remain forever. I'm not the singing and dancing type...

It was actually sunny for most of yesterday, it's quite nice here when the sun is actually out and you can see blue sky. Back to overcast today though, which is hopefully all it will be as I have to wander about and do a few errands soon.

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: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 18:19 PST

So I thought I'd make use of this as a means of keeping anyone who's interested up to date, instead of trying to email everyone and telling them basically the same stuff.

In brief, I've now moved over to Seattle. I flew out on the 15th, and arrived before I took off. Ah the wonders of the international date line. I flew Qantas direct from Brisbane to LA. That was the easy part. I then had to wrestle through the US airport security to get my connecting flight. This involved standing in a queue about 300m long with 1000 odd other people to undergo a full bag search and scan. Fun stuff. Having finally made it through that and barely making my connecting flight, it was off to Vegas before catching my final transfer to Seattle. Being a big CSI fan, flying over and into Vegas was cool as I recognised a lot of the buildings. I had about an hour to waste, so I did what every tourist should do while waiting in the airport lounge... I played the slot machines in Vegas baby, yeah! I won a quick $50, a good start to any adventure and I was on my way to Seattle. For something slightly different, it wasn't raining when I arrived, but it didn't take long. I think I've seen the sun once since then. The temperature has been around 55F/13C during the day. It's 'Fall' here so there are leaves _everywhere_. Something I'm definitely not used too. There's a whole industry over here just dealing with the amount of leaves on the ground. It's quite amazing.

I've managed to unpack and adjust (for the most part) to the new timezone. My work authorization is in the pipeline so now it's just sit and wait for it to come through. That's things in a very small nutshell to date.

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