JamesX

The weather today was great. The nice sunny day made it perfect to get outside and enjoy some relaxation time. There’s no better way to get away from it all than a round of mini golf. I was with Marc and his sister, Sarah. There are about four mini golf courses in my area so there’s a surprising amount of choice. I’ve been to all of them before except the one in Dingley Village so we decided to head there.

We were playing on the outside course to take full advantage of the sunshine. I managed to take an early lead - my golf skills seem to still be lingering - and by half way I was 2 under par. Marc and Sarah were about 10 over par so it was a rather convincing lead. All that changed on the second half of the course. Sarah was gradually making up ground and I dropped a few shots and we were about even on +2. Unfortunately it was the 16th and 18th holes that killed me off. I took 8 shots on each pushing my score to a whopping +16 by the end of the day. That of course left Sarah in the lead, and Marc came in second.

We also bumped into Anthony and Matt while we were there. I took the opportunity to show off my new car and Ant was rather envious. It’s a pity he was with so many other people because we could have gone for a drive, but we left that for another day.

It was a load of fun, and it’s something different to do. Next time we’ll have to tackle the indoor course.

It’s the start of September which means it’s officially Spring in Melbourne. Spring sees the football finals, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Royal Melbourne Show, Oktoberfest and the Spring Racing Carnival. Just a reminder that now’s a great time to open your TAB online betting accounts!

I’ve once again changed the background to represent this new season. Hopefully the sun can come out a little more often now instead of all these freezing cold afternoons we’ve had recently. Spring usually has the pefect weather, not too hot and not too cold. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens this year wont we.

As the final balloon fell and the final firework fired on the closing ceremony, it’s time for the Olympic Movement, or at least the Summer Olympic Movement, to shift focus to the 2008 host city, Beijing. Beijing is far superior to Greece as far as planning and forward thinking is concerned and they are already well on the way to preparing for the August 2008 deadline.

The most interesting part about it is the architectural design of the stadiums. If you do a quick search on the net, you can quickly find several sites with proposals of fantastic superstructures and technology that is beyond comprehension. I managed to find the official Beijing Urban Planning site which has detailed descriptions as well as pictures of possible venue bids for the Olympic stadium. It’s well worth a look. While being incredibly interesting, the site is also extremely slow so I warn you that you will have to be patient.

LINK:
Beijing Town Planning Commission (2008 stadium)

This year I haven’t done so well in the footy tipping scheme of things. Anyway, here’s the top 10 of this years comp.

1   Andrew Blackmore    116
2   Chris Davies        114
3   Catherine Cooper    105
4   James Panther        96
5   Tony Nguyen          94
6   Leon McDonald        90
7   Stuart Campbell      89
8   Richard Heard        80
9   Dean Tsaousis        77
10  Brenton Pollard      71

Well done Andrew! Hopefully I can do a little better next year. I’m placed in the bottom third in the Haileybury comp. :(

It’s been a restful day today. I woke up and watched some of the Olympics before forcing myself out of bed to get started on the uni assignment I have due tomorrow. In all fairness it was handed out in week three (it’s now week seven) so I can’t complain about having to do it. I’ve just been so busy doing other things. The assignment itself is really simple due to the fact that now I am into week seven of the course, I’ve learnt a lot more and know all the shortcuts.

After a couple of hours on the assignment, I found myself home alone so I decided to head out to Haileybury to help with the bump out. Thanks to Dale and James for actually turning up, it really shows who’s there because they enjoy it and who’s there to fill the requirements. That said, everything was done in around three hours which is a great achievement. I’ll be putting the Tattoo gallery up soon so everyone non-Haileybury can see what I’ve been so busy with.

I came home straight away and continued with the assignment. I’m going to have to get it all printed now so that shouldn’t take more than an hour hopefully. It’s amazing how we’re half way through the semester already. I can’t wait for the summer holidays to come although I’ll probably end up working through them like I usually do.

In other news, Ed competed in the WCG qualifiers today. Naturally he caned the opposition and came first. That makes him officially the best in Melbourne at Unreal Tournament 2004. He’ll fly to Sydney in September to compete in the national semi-finals. If he wins there, then it’s off to San Francisco to take on the world. More on that later.

This morning was the Swimming and Diving Premiership Assembly. Even though we had already been recognised at the Summer/Autumn Sports Presentation Night last Friday, it was good to have something to call your own. As usual, Adison and I had to take charge of the Powerpoint presentation. We literally whipped it up before the assembly this morning as I made a special trip to pick him up on the way to work.

The big issue was what music to play while the presentation was running. It was a debate that started yesterday afternoon when John and I were talking about possibilities. John’s suggestion was the usual Queen selection of songs, the ones that get overused at every Premiership Assembly. The discussion continued well into the night as I asked a couple of people their thoughts. Catherine came up with the idea to play the Baywatch theme and create a medley from Rubber Duckie and Splish Splash. I did voice the idea but it was not well received by John. I don’t think he liked the suggestion that Theo Doukas may come out with a strange Hasselhoff impersonation half way through the proceedings. As a last minute rush, it came down to either Queen or nothing, and obviously Queen won that battle.

That wasn’t the only controversy though, it seems Peter forgot to actually take the diving awards off his desk this morning. It managed to go unnoticed by everyone, even Mandy, which was a real shock. When it came to actually presenting the awards, it came as quite a surprise to the somewhat worried Head of Senior School that there was no diving award to hand to the coach anywhere on the table. He swiftly handed out one of the swimming certificates before walking off the stage to make a beeline for his office. Luckily Nathan’s speech went on for a couple of minutes and Peter returned in the nick of time - with the certificates!

After all the presentations and the Victory Song, it was time to head up to Barney Allen for morning tea. Two Barney Allen functions on consecutive days, I’m obviously moving up in the world. I chatted with the Year 12s from last year over a cup of coffee before heading back to my office to commence the day’s work. Although that was not before John informed Andy and myself that we were required on Thursday morning for team photos. It looks like I wont be having my lazy Thursday after all.