A little story about Singapore

Originally Posted with images on Deus Bali Blog...

Two days ago if you had of asked me about today (Saturday) your would have found out I was pretty bummed about it. Circumstances arose mid week resulting on the need to make a milk run to Singapore. Heading up first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Saturday, supposedly a day spent doing stuff with family and friends. Not sitting in planes for five hours and wandering around the land of the skyscraper for another 9.

Then yesterday it changed while checking FB, I had some down time... and I found out that TR Bikes in Block 7 Jalan Batu Singapore, in case you were wondering their address, were having their "March oh March" a Fixed Geared bicycle event. Now that was bound to be something to do. With a starting time of 2pm I could see that it would slip in perfectly after that business I had to do and before that plane I had to catch. While leaving me time to see if I could find a certain Beyblade for my son.

Friday night late I was busy FBing Bumbumbum Ariffin, lets just call him Bum from now on so I don't get RSI, he's the guy that seemed to be at the centre of event things, doing it on behalf of the three owners of TR Bikes; Henry, I remember him as the bald dude. Lynten, hhmm I met him for about 3 minutes as I was leaving last time in town, so lets call him the long haired dude and Chris, the one on crutches... Crutch dude sounded a little derogatory. Oops I said it. Bugger!

Bum happened to be in Bali about two weeks ago but fate dealt us a hand that didn't allow our paths to cross. When I told him I was coming he seemed genuinely surprised, although pleased, that I was making the journey. Perhaps he just though I was crazy, has to be one of the two.

Three o clock Saturday rolled around and life found me in the back of a cab in the nether region of ECP with one of the more elusive and oft talked about Beyblades on my boys wish list in my possession, I took this as a good omen. Which was something I needed right then as TR Bikes was proving hard to find for the uninitiated, which perfectly described me and my faithful sidekick, "taxi man". Omen number two came when I spotted a young hipster on a fixie whipping through traffic speed checking moments before he might possibly become one with a car fender several vehicles up. With words dripping in cliche I told Taxi Man to "follow that bike!" and not for the first time today a big smile crossed my dial and as I reclined back into the generously upholster diesel Merc which was Taxi Mans ride.

Located under one of the old government housing blocks this unassuming shop, it’s a double actually, is sandwiched between a Chinese herbal medicine shop and a 7eleven. The later proved invaluable when beer o clock rolled round. The former probably has its uses but that will have to wait until another visit.

Right here I have to stop the narrative (?) and spend a sec and describe this kampung. Picture an area that is delineated by three 80 meter long 5 story high housing blocks. They form the sides of a triangular with access to the inside only at the points and you have it. The shops sit under the buildings and a paved road ran around the inside with a little park and tiered pond amphitheater type arrangement in the middle. It was all very pretty. But that's not what I saw when I arrived. I saw the crew already hard at it.

The high jump event was well under way when I dropped my bags, greeted a couple of guys, grabbed my camera and started clicking away. Now I am no Red so I have to take a different approach to this photography business, I was going to work the percentages. In my pea brain I figured that if I shot 400 photos, at least 6 would (I hoped!) make it past the sensor and be suitable for your viewing. With hunteresque skill I nuzzled my way to the front of the throng of 100 hipsters from around Singapore, Malaysia and, as I was happy to find out later, some crew from Bandung. The bar was set about 40cm and the round I missed had brought the number of competitors to two. Problem was neither of them made it any higher. Bum had the perfect tie breaker. Chance in the form of a quick round of paper, scissors, rock. Lovely bit of improvisation I thought.

Winners named noted and we were onto the longest skid. Up until this point I had thought our kids were pretty damn good at this. Had to reevaluate that idea when this event was taken out by a skinny kid on an old converted ten speed who left rubber on the tiles for a good 80 meters! 20 meters more than second place. Mighty job!

The crowd were getting restless and the owners had set up another round of Sapporo beers at the table that permanently resides in front of there shop by the time Bum had the first group of guys on the line ready to ride the sprint. Now there are two things here. Remember my description of of the place? A triangle right, well they have corners that are more than 90 degrees and that other salient fact is a fixie can not lay over that low as the peddle will hit the ground while in the bend. I set myself up at the start only to miss a three bike pile up round one, on bend one, in lap two. That wasn't going to happen again and I moved to sit myself on the Kerb on the second straight looking back to that first corner. Riders not making the bend can't brake, they don't have any brakes, so they either end up crashing sideways, straight into one of the big green hedges or as one guy did it, in the shops. The crowd ate it up. Three rounds later and a final of the heat winners we found out who was the fastest on the day.

Like a well oiled crank we moved to the sunken amphitheater for the track stand comp. At least thirty riders started out. 3 minutes later at least two thirds of them were still in contention, Bum raised the stakes. One arm. This did wonders to cull the pack by 50% almost immediately but there were some real stayers, pun intended, in Sing. No hands came the cry! Another ten dropped off but 6 persisted. By now, these guys had been balancing on two thin tires for about 7 or 8 minutes. The degree of difficulty got a rocket when Bum told them to take their shirts off. Amongst the hilarity this request generated in the crowd who watched now blind, no hand track standers crashing to the ground it did have the desired result and left us with one bare chested winner. There was much rejoice.

Moving into the final event of the day, the No Foot Down, kind of like our Sumo but with a pond in the middle, the atmosphere in this strange cultural courtyard in what would have been one of the more dodgy areas of Singapore in it's day was effervescent. Laughter poured freely forth and not just from the fixed afficiandos but from the upper balconies where some of the older occupants had come out of their houses to see what these kids were up to and got swept up the wash. Others had taken places on the park benches and amongst us in the amphitheater. It must have taken a good fifteen minutes but finally a winner was delivered down and I saw my chance to duck into the 7Eleven for some light refreshments. Not that I need to justify my actions I do want to say for the record that it was close to 5 pm.

It must have taken at least thirty minutes to give out the winners prizes. There was frames, wheel and crank sets for the first, second and thirds in each event. And a mammoth raffle with 18 prizes. It really showed me the generosity of the owners of TR Bikes. It's all well and good to sell the crew bikes, it's business but they were cultivating a lifestyle and putting something back. Good joss guys! Looking at my phone I saw I had nearly over stayed my welcome. After a couple of goodbyes and congratulating Bum on a well run, not to mention, very fun, awesome afternoon I moseyed out of this cultural cul de sac to go looking for a car to whisk me back to the airport and home. I'm on the plane now. The smile hasn't left me. Thanks for the great arvo.

Ano

Just when you thought it was a goon night...

Tonight we had a lovely evening at Metis. Fantastic food, great deserts, fantastic cocktails and expensive wine, well hey this is Bali, not their fault. As I said a great night.

We had just said goodnight to our friends and were making our way back to the motorbike when I noticed my helmet wasn't there.

I made some noise to rustle up some Sampat, thats local for security guys, and we all had a search of the area. Not a biggie, a helmet like the one I lost costs around fifty bucks. I wasn't going to make too big of a deal about it. That is until this guy, not in security outfit but with radio makes his way over to me, he glares at mr and speaks, well it was more like a snarl. Words spill out in which he tells me it's my fault. I should have locked the helmet away, I should have made sure it wasn't able to be stolen. In seconds it went from hero night to zero night. This guy really pissed me off! Have you been to Metis? This is a compound where you are screened at entering, this is one of Bali's best restaurants, right now there are 8 security standing around me. This guy was aggressive, his people skills sucked, he was right up there in my face. I was livid.

I demanded to see the manager. We stormed back to the restaurant I was shown to some guy still in uniform. I started to explain what had happened. A bule, a foreigner, approached rapidly, I was loud. I was upset. Not good for a restaurant to have someone like that in the entrance. What to do with a scene in the entrance of the restaurant? Take it outside. They were in damage control, the polite Frenchman asked the specifics while urging me to move towards the door. I met him halfway by lowering my tone. My beef wasn't about the loss of the helmet, it was about being treated as guilty by their, what seemed to me "head" of security. Funnily enough the Frenchman lowered his gaze, looked about and then he conceded that he had no control over them, that they needed to use externals to look after their security and there was no recompense, but what stuck me as odd, they were not allowed to comment on performance! Now what is that all about? I wanted an apology from this arrogant dude and the manager, well he couldn't deliver it to me. Money for replacement, from the restaurants point of view that was no problem. I should have said that the helmet was worth more. But that's not me.

I was unable to get my ounce of flesh. I took what little was on offer, I took the money, finally, after multiple refusals as I knew I had hit a stump. They gave me, what I now can sit and work out to be 5% of our bill. Not even worthy of a voucher is it?

Both the manager and I could not bring this prick to pay so we both sought the low road. Sometimes in Bali there is no justice. My only Hope is that karma will prevail and strike.

In respect to this I tell you friends just do not leave your helmet on your bike at Metis for the moment.

Rules and regs...

I have a friend and his daughter coming to stay and I have to go away. Now like all good homes I have a couple of idiosyncracies that people should know about so I wrote him a list. I thought it worthy of a blog post...

My home - The quirks and works.
Where to begin? Safety I suppose is a very good place. Power is the dodgiest thing here so lets forge into that. It’s 240 volts, though this isn’t always the case and can fluctuate a lot. If you have sensitive items, don’t use them without a power conditioner. They are expensive so no spares, I only have them for my appliances. Laptop power supplies are not super sensitive. In fact they are a great power conditioner and regardless of the input voltage should only deliver 12 volts to the computer. Having said that, I issue no guarantee or warranty. You stay and play on your own cogency.
My landlord, guru, smiley fella and otherwise all round tight bottom, reference to spending not sexuality, in his infinite wisdom and frugality, decided he only needed to run two wires throughout the house, not three thereby immediately saving 30% on his wiring bill. At this point I should probably qualify this as just my speculation but after 3 years, you could say I have a feel for it. So metal objects, like the cases to computers, my aluminium laptop, the aluminium keyboard, hard drives and even the case of my iPhone, when plugged into the mains tend to deliver a small buzz, which although not entirely unpleasant, are a little disheartening. Best to avoid these by not grounding yourself. Mats and chairs are good!
Should there be a black out, we haven’t had one in a while, you will find tea candles under the sink, left hand side and there is a rechargeable torch on charge in the lounge room. I tend to just go out if the power drops out early evening. Don’t forget if the power is off here it is probably out across the whole suburb. So you cant go local. If the neighbours are still lit up then it might be just a breaker. Check them in the kitchen. If that is all good go out the kitchen door, left and left again towards the laundry area, just after the water heater is the Mains. There is a breaker in there for the entire supply. I find Echo beach is good,!
I leave a couple of lights on downstairs at night, usually just the one set, switch is the right one of the set of three beside the lounge door. I also leave the lights on to the Garage and the outside wall. The switch for this is located outside the kitchen on the right when you head to the garage.
Lastly on the power, there isn’t enough of it! The island doesn’t have enough and neither do I. My poorly allocation of only 4400 watts isn’t enough to even run the George Foreman Grill & BBQ so don’t think you can run 3 aircons, lights, TV’s and have a hot shower at the same time, because you cant! Two aircons only at any given time or otherwise the kitchen will pop.
My computers are off. You have to understand that these are how I make my living and I have to protect that, so when I am not here they are off and password protected. Sorry about that!
The Internet is on and the wireless, anomac is the name of the network, is easy enough to get onto. Famous last words. I do not offer tech support while out of Indonesia, and while in the country you will be billed at RP250,000 per ten minute block. The password is (do you think I would put that here???) case sensitive. And before you ask, it’s a zero not an O. While it isn’t as fast as Oz it is a very reasonable connection and unlimited downloads. Knock yourself out. Up on Jalan Kerobokan is Global Extreme. About 1.3km from here. They have a very good connection as well as computers that you can hire, if you didn’t bring your own.
The lounge Audio Visual System has a number of offerings. DVD, Wii and on the DVD player in the lounge is a little box hooked up to a red hard drive. It is a media player and storage. The smallest remote operates it. It’s got some old movies, surfing movies, TV series etc.. some real gems here. The big silver remote operates the amp. For DVD set to DVD/VCR, for Media Player and Wii it should be on TV/Sat setting. I am referring to the line of buttons just under the LCD screen on that silver remote. The volume control is the only other thing you need to worry about on this one. Watch out it can go very loud! The black remote runs the TV. The main button on this is the little one above the Green MENU one called SOURCE. This switches from the three different input devices I have hooked up. Do not use this volume control; I have it set to zero. Don’t fiddle! DVD, well it’s a bloody DVD player. If you cannot use this then you are all out of luck.
We have about 1000 DVD’s floating around. Please use them carefully but put them back where you found then so that my kids and I can have the pleasure to lose them another day.
Chucky and Sputnik are my kids. Especially while my boys are not here in Bali. Pat them all you like, they love it and will fight each other for your affection. Do not lay a heavy hand on them!! Just as you do not hit a child you do not hit my dogs. I definitely do not like that. They bark. I just tell them to shut up. Live with it. It’s part of having dogs. So it is part and parcel of staying here. That said I want them to bark and more should someone come over the wall at night. There are plenty of thieves in Bali and lets not become victims. Sputnik is allowed out into the street during the day. Chucky is not, he would end up as kebabs in twenty minutes. Made will take Chucky for a walk each day. You can too. On a leash please. Both the dogs are very affectionate, they do like to jump up on people, even little people, forewarned is forearmed. Be aware of it and it will not be an issue.
Lastly look after Komang and Made and they will look after you. They are our Balinese family. They have been with us for nearly 4 years. They love to have a chat. They both laugh very freely. They will want to know where you have been and where you are going. You’re on holidays; slow down, take the time to tell them. It is not being nosey it is the way that Balinese are. They are trying to know your place in the universe. It is very sweet. Perhaps you ask them where they have been, where they are going and how their spouses and children are. Scratch the surface and be very surprised by what you find.
Have an ace time here. Yeah the chooks are loud as are my dogs, the neighbours are inquisitive and the next door neighbours are building. But all in all it is a great place. A place I feel at ease 24/7. I hope you do too.

The lengths some go to to advertise a product.

Ok I get it. I understand that these guys would want to drink something after what they do, but what they do is pretty out there. To launch V Isokinetic Colenso BBDO, Auckland created an extreme urban sport called Pomparkour. Pomparkour has elements of Parkour, Free Running, Pompier, and ‘Hakenleitersteigen’, a European event started by fireman who climb building faces with ladders at speed. Those that practice Pomparkour (Loonies) use a ladder specially designed and constructed with a large hook at one end. This allows them to grip rails, windows and ledges as they traverse and scale high buildings through the city. Thank god I have the cheat sheets, because there is nowhere in the ad that you see this. It's mad. Love it. You guys rock!

Don't try this at home kid

This is an amazing video of what is fast becoming a lost art. These guys are true craftsmen.
Inspirational. You guys rock!!

UP THERE from Jon on Vimeo.
I wrote this documentary along with my friends Malcolm and Christine, as part of The Ritual Project sponsored by Stella Artois (more at uptherefilm.com). So proud to help these painters tell their story.



Concept: Mother NY; Production Co: Mekanism; Director/DP/Editor: Malcolm Murray; Music by The Album Leaf; Painters: Colossal Media/Sky High Murals/Bob Middleton; Presented by Stella Artois

Semantics...

"You feel today sir?" I look around accepting the proffered towel. The words bounce around in my heat dazed head. Who said them? Where did they come from? What do they mean?

I blink to try and arrange my thoughts, I hope this action at least buys me some time. The lights are on but nobody is at home just yet, the aircon in the foyer assaults me like a tsunami would if i stood before it along the shore. Without moving a hair on my head it's bashing the last bit of life out of me. The same life force that got me back here.

I have been on remote the past half an hour. My mind had shut down, overheated. My body was left out along the pavement somewhere. Somehow, something took control and through the maze of wrong side driving, bizarre traffic rules and the furnace that is day time in Siem Reap I got back to my hotel, my oasis.

I had been perched on the back of a small motorbike, my knees were up around my ears, thank goodness they can still go that far. This cool damp towel feels good on the back on my neck. What was it the girl had said? It didn't sound right, or did it. I rubbed the cool damp towel along the length of one arm and back down the other.

"Yes" It crocked out. Immediately I hated the way that sounded. Was it a question she asked or a statement? I wasn't sure. I rubbed my neck again with the towel using it to bide more time while life seeped back in through the cracks. I was aware of the staff looking at me there in the hotels entrance. The door men, the concierge, the receptionist, the two musicians across the expanse of the foyer who played music by rote and let their eyes dance around the foyer for amusement and especially the girl with the silver tray full of the cool damp towel. I didn't care, nothing mattered anymore I was back and I was just wallowing in the cool hotel foyer.

"Yes" I repeated, though this time with timbre and direction, "I feel everything today, thanks for asking"  I hand back the towel. I glance around the expanse of the foyer, I look at the girl with the silver tray of hand towels, I smile and move deeper into the hotel.

Cambodia is outside and I, for the moment, am safe in here.

Adding fuel to the fire.

So I am sitting here working away when the phone rings. Jakarta number I can tell by the 021 prefix. Low and behold it is a friendly person from AirAsia. After some pleasantries where, lets call her Anita, establishes my credentials I am informed that someone in KL has used my credit card details to book a ticket on tomorrows flight from KL to China twenty minutes ago. Was it me? Why are I laughing she asked. I gathered my composure and told her a funny thing happened in front of me at home, what else could I say?

I told her that I had not booked any flights today, although I had tried several times yesterday though. If she only knew!

She told me I had to ring the call centre and tell them that I hadn't purchased the ticket. I love the fact that I was talking to a woman in AirAisia and then I had to ring AirAsia. So I did. Then the girl I was speaking to, again that incredibly bad telephone line because they are trying to use Internet telephony in a country that has incredibly bad internet services. Argh! The irony really came home when the call centre girl put me on hold to talk to the Accounts girl, couldn't they have done this without me? I had already told the Accounts girl it wasn't me who booked anything. The call centre girl told me I should cancel my credit card because someone had all my details. I thanked her for that pertinent info and signed off.

Now is it me or is it slightly suspicious that the only time I have used my credit card in the past week was yesterday when I was trying to book a ticket on AirAsia and then today it's used to buy a ticket on their site. I want to know how come this other person was actually able to book, given my wasted hours yesterday. Lucky bugger.

The sad thing here is that my credit card is cancelled and I am now not able to book the tickets to Perth for my mom's birthday unless I get someone else to whack it on their credit card. Not happy!!

Just in finishing I rang my bank in Australia to cancel my card and I was put through to their call centre, in the Philippines, I surmise from the girls accent. Internet telephony, though reasonable quality. She told me that was the only transaction that they had used my card for... go figure.

Here are a couple of images I thought I should share...

Peace.

Knock, knock? Oh that's my head against the wall!

http://picasaweb.google.com/anomac/AirAsia02?pli=1#Good Afternoon,
I do not seem to be having much luck with your website. It use to be fantastic, never had an issue but this time, whew. Just wont work. Let me say here first that I have been a fan. Flown with you guys many times; to Siem Reap, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, KL, and a couple of weeks ago Perth. All good. You get what you pay for. I like it. The booking process has been mostly painless but then you go and unveil this "New & Improved" (your words,) website. Between you and me. I think that the site could have done with some Beta testing on the Mac platform.
FYI. I am using Mac OS 10.5.8 Firefox 3.5.8 and also Safari 4.0.4. As you can see, all up to date!

On the 27th Feb at around 4pm local time I tried to book a flight from Bali to Perth return for myself and my two kids. I went through all the different fields, chose meals, purchased the expensive seats in the front, Go insurance? Yeah why not. The works! It takes awhile getting all the info together and at last I entered in all my credit card details and hit submit... The processing image comes up. I am told not to hit the back button. I have e-purchased enough to know what to do. I sit and wait... ERROR!

Not what I was expecting, but no worries I can deal with that, it happens. The biggie here is that the error message told me NOT to rebook as I might end up with two bookings. eg two charges on my credit card. It told me to go to Check N Change. Which I did. However once the page finished loading I couldn't for the life of me navigate to check my booking. Seems that the buttons didn't load. I looked at the HTML Source and the code is there it's just not showing. I tried the same URL in Safari. Wouldn't load in there either. After some looking at this code and trial and error I found the link to the Booking Status Enquiry page clicked it and... that page doesn't load it's graphics either. So I am trying to see if I have been charged already and i have no way of doing it...

I fill out a contact form just like this one, enter in the Case No. as I have done here, all my other details and wrote a succinct run of events so as to help the programmers isolate the issues hit submit and went back to my life thinking that someone would get back to me Monday with an idea of what is going on.

Monday morning and I really do need to book these tickets. My two sons and I have to attend my moms 90th Birthday. This is the biggie. The whole family, I am one of 7 kids and we all have our own children, are all flying to Perth for it. I can not afford to miss it.

So even though i haven't heard from your company I bite the bullet and book online again today. I enter my details, I enter my two sons details, I choose seats, food, insurance and then all my credit card details again. I hit send and... ERROR. 12:40pm.

Hmm ok, I will ring customer service in Indonesia. I ring and its a real bad line. I have to go outside onto the upstairs balcony but I realize it's not with me. It is the internet telephony. We take ten minutes to go through my name by Phonetic Alphabet and my credit card number and we find there has been no charges against it today. Great. Or so I thought.Would I mind trying the internet booking again, sure I said.

We hang up and I go through the motions again. First the details of the 3 flying, the passport numbers, the expiry dates, the food, the seats, the insurance and then the credit card details. I hit submit, you know where this is going don't you? ERROR, 12:59pm.

I phone again and if I thought the first line was bad this one is a doozy. She keeps telling me she cant understand me. I put on a headset as i am using a mobile. Again we go through the phonetic alphabet that is my name. Again we go through the 16 digits of my credit card and again she confirms that no charge has been made against it. Would I care to try again to book it online? I am a sucker for punishment and say sure.

So off I go. I input the names, the passport numbers, the food requests, the seat requests, which are slowly diminishing as the ones I have chosen the last two times are no longer available!! I enter the credit card details, hover above the submit button and actually cross my fingers before depressing it. A dialogue box tells me it might take a minute or two and to not hit the back button. I remain well away from the keyboard as I have all day. I wait and pray... ERROR 1:20pm.

I phone for a third time and get a double header. My first male for the day and a reasonably good line. I explain to Alex, it doesn't sound all that Indonesian but that is how he identified himself when I asked. I explained all that had happened. He checked the card and no there was no recent activity. He offered to do the booking over the phone so we went through all the details verbally. Now I thought this was a long winded process online, but on the phone, this took ages. We get to the end and he says the price. It is over US$300 more than the online. He tells me that he can only do the Standard price not the discounted price. I had been suffering under the delusion that the price was the price with AirAsia. Apparently that is not the case. I ask him what I should do in this conundrum. He told me to book again after 3pm. That the problem would be fixed by then. I assumed that i am not the only one who is effected this way so thought fine I can do that.

At 4pm this afternoon I tried once more. Yes I gave it that extra hour. Sometimes that is the all important hour. Details entered thrice, food, insurance and the seating chosen, the seats that I had been reserving in my previous bookings had reappeared as being vacant again, I was buoyed by this information. I entered the rest of my details for me and my credit card. Once again crossed my fingers and hit submit.

I really shouldn't be so trusting should I. That's right I got ERROR once again, 4:06pm.

So now I am here filling out this contact email again. The Case Number above is the most recent one. I hope that someone will actually contact me. You know, actually let me know that the problem is being looked into.

I tried to see how I might book online using my smart phone. I clicked on The How To Book button on your front page. The link that opened was "Oops! The Page has taken flight" So when I say I am not having much luck with your website you can see it is an understatement.

I have posted the screen shots of the errors, the Manage My Booking page without navigation buttons and the Booking Status Enquiry page on Picasa Web Albums for you to view. Here is the URL

FYI I have also added this to my blog as a post. I thought some people out there might want to read it as well.

Please let me know.

Touchy feely. With the sound thrown in free.

I have been interested in this band out of Bandung for a while. I have brought a couple of their albums, oops I think I meant to say all (read both) of them! They are easy to find up here in the jungle. If I had to say who they remind me of it's a bit of a toughy. Lovely haunting girls vocals, sort of a Bjork (Had to throw that in given the band name) meets New order type of keyboard with a Durutti column production and most of lyrics in Bahasa Indonesia. When listening to vocals that you don't understand they become another layer of instrumental. Risa's voice is quite angelic. As I said interesting stuff.

Sad to hear that the two girls, Dina keyboards and Risa vocals, that started the band have ended it, artist differences apparently. Risa has left and taken a lot of the magic that is Homogenic with her. I do understand when two people want to grow in difference directions, We grow apart. Still doesn't mean we have to like it.

Thought I would post a link to a video of theirs as they don't get a huge amount of western exposure and I thing they rock.

Lets see what they come back as... Oh 1207 views now. Lets see how much traffic I can send their way.

One mans left overs is another mans jewels...

SLAB from CIRCULATE on Vimeo.

Just spotted this chunk of "left over" footage on Drift. As they said and I quote

"That’s why I was particularly stoked to get an update from Matt this week with a couple of “leftover” (yeah right!) clips in it. In the first one, two of the best, most stylish Aussie rippers (by our humble assessment) out there, Josh Kerr and Asher Pacey, find shelter at a below sea-level slab. You can tell these guys really only feel at home with a nice thick roof over their heads. Good music+tube time=us chomping at the bit to see this one."

I agree. I will be checking out Way of the Ocean as soon as I can.

Laugh.... I almost wet myself.

I missed the Golden Globes but I just caught this video or Ricky Gervais in his opening. And I pissed myself, not literally, though almost. He has great comedic timing.
His material is exceptional and he is not above some self deprecation. Actually they are the best bits!

Now I wish I had of watched the lot. Thank god for the internet

Love ya work.

Peace

What's in a name?

I have been playing around with a Beta version of an image based web group called the Cargo Collective. It's a whole lot of designers, photographers, artists and other visually interested people. Good fun. Clean too mum!
Well the free ride is over, we can't expect them to do this for love forever, and it has migrated from Beta to the pay version. I have been enjoying making images that have nothing to do with events, logos and such forth, so took the lovely discount offered to us Beta users and have subscribed for a year.

Had this URL, 4to6foot.com parked for the past 6 months or so. Bit of an impulse buy. So I thought I should use it for my art, images, visual ramblings and the fact i love surfing images, old mags, movies and what have yous. Why did I buy it I hear you ask, well if you didn't you will. I brought it when working on the interior of a friends surf store here in Bali. He needed a new name for the retail end of his business and I thought it was a great name and just grabbed it when I was on Godaddy seeing what was and wasn't available. He wasn't totally chuffed with it as he liked the name but wanted to go for all numerals, 426foot wasn't available and so he ended up going with 526foot.com He is not as slack as me and has the whole site up. Check it out.

So mine is now alive. And the beast needs to be fed. I will add to it daily, weekly or monthly. You will have to follow it to know. If you have been liking what has spilled from my mouth onto these virtual pages over the past 4 years, then let it be known that I still tend to write a few words, probably too many, about life's little inspirations and irritations.

Hope you like my visuals.

Peace!

Long time to string a few words together

I think I will hang my Blogger hat up for a while. Nothing to report here. My musings go unnoticed and are washed up in the the plethora of would be triers I think it high time I go back to what I know. So if there are any of you that stumble upon these precocious musings and that they in themselves amuse you then perhaps you would look at some of my digital art.

I have started a visual blog and am trying to add something to it everyday. Don't expect the diatribes that I have here. I am spending my time in other places. Art, Photos and hopefully a sense of humour.
http://cargocollective.com/bluesky

See you there.

Peace

Ano.

PS I may have to come back from time to time to drop some verbal bomb, so watch this space!

Not an important post but a blast from the past.

It's been a week or two of rediscovery for me. Most importantly my kids got back from 6 weeks in Germany with their mum. Other items came in dribs and drabs. An old friend from school on Facebook here then another one there. Became a bit of a flood there for a moment three sisters, Jo, Chris and Michelle, then Karine, Jess and I see Michael there who I will have to catch up with, Edmund who worked for Concept Com and has now moved over to my friends company, Radius. Well he contacted me after about a two years so good to chat to him and hopefully we will get to work together again soon and then I happened upon this.

Like a lot of things from our youth that laid the foundation stones of who we are, how we act and when we laugh. The lesson once taught had been discarded and I had all but lost this skit in the back of my mind. So what joy it was to stumble upon this relic while researching old rugby images for a project next April, I like to get in early.

Hope You laugh, I did.

Enjoy


Peace!

Back to Work

Well the two week holiday to Thailand is over unfortunately. Far too quick! I have a couple of little stories that I am working on from my travel, just to let you know, and I will post them here, sorry about breaking the chronological order, but get over it already!

More pressing is a question I have for you all. Why is it that when you have a holiday, yeah yeah I hear you all saying but you live in Bali, your whole life's a holiday, for the records, it ain't so! Anyway, when you go away for a holiday then things happen. In my case after a couple of months of only dribs and drabs in the work department I go away and two good size, one is big, jobs confirm meaning that upon my return I not only have something to do, I have a heap of it! Murphy is often attributed to this type of phenomenon.
This week I jumped into it. The first few nights burnt the midnight oil getting the first one out the door (Part One of it) only for another to land in my lap. Of course this one was a rush rush as well. Such is my holiday guys. I was up until 2.30 this morning setting a scene up so that it would render while I was asleep. Of course unattended it ran awry and the results were less than satisfactory. It is now under control and I have sent the last files out.

I look at my inbox and the mass of stuff that has gone unchecked for the last week. I sift through it and a couple of gems appear. A friend of ours' Kris-Z, Gab's originally but I have known him for 20 years now so a friend of mine as well has a new album coming out. That is him on the cover, no not the black dude. They are called Brixton Boogie. A fusion of Funk, R&B, and pop. In the words of the immoral Molley Meldrum, Do yourself a favour and check them out. You can listen to them through their Myspace Page, Click Here!

So that is all I have time for now. May you all have a great weekend, think of me as I have to work on the job I pushed sideways this week to get the rush one out.

Peace.

A matter of taste

From Blogger Pictures

The other night we convened for what is fast becoming one of the
fixtures on the underground Bali social scene, a movie night. Subject matter is always around surfing and the night draws out an eclectic bunch or long boarders, fish riders, single fin aficionados and generally below the radar technicians of the fine sport of surfing.

It was after the movies and when some of the Europeans had bid their leave that someone around the table noticed that none of us were inked. Not a tattoo between the ten or so left sitting around the table. A glance around the table has us all pitted in the age group from 38-46. Sorry Dave & Made, I know you two are the exceptions.

To understand why this is really peculiar you have to look at our social ties. Well there are none. Sure we are all in Bali but that is what has drawn is together here in the now not during those formative years where the application of tattoos is done during the weekend night rituals fueled by a proportionate mix of alcohol and youthful abandon.

Today I sit on a plane flying from Bali to Bangkok and it isn't the case. A small gecko is climbing up in behind the ear of the girl next to me, a lass ahead has her hair parted into pig tails giving vent for a dragonfly on her upper spine, the guys arm in front of her sports tribal markings that do not correspond to the colour of his skin and would upset any self respecting anthropologist. What is with head and
neck tatts on women? Three that I can see. The third, a buxom blond further down the front has a bow tie at the back of her neck, is that tribal? I don't think so! Her man has flames streaming from his left wrist up his arm, which, when mingled with his freckles, kind of creeps across his whole body in little spot fies. Another twenty something couple is branded, he with his full arm in colours so bright that the ink still looks wet and I worry about brushing up next to him and smudging it. She has a little flower popping out where her harem pants do not quite meet her t'shirt. The lone lower looks lost on this side of the line. I wonder briefly about it's root system and smile.

They all have something in common as well. They are all under thirty five. Perhaps younger but I have been known to be wrong. Why is it these younger generations feel compelled to feel the needle? Really I want to know.

Landed - Bangkok is hot and steamy! I know, I'm not telling you something
you don't already know.

Lots of computer work this week...

Well I have been bolted to the computer finishing some renders, playing with the vids from the new camera and making a play list for Paul's 40th at Mano Beachside Cafe this coming Sat night. Ando, as he is otherwise known, is up here for a number of celebrations, one of them his own 40th. The other major one is Pip Leary's wedding to Bruce Lee. Ok That name is no joke but people I heard he is an amazingly genuine and nice guy and I for one wish her and him of course, all the luck in the world to making it in this new partnership. If I have time I might even gatecrash the wedding and party. We shall see. It's on the beach, how hard is it to just wander in...

Can you imagine the conversation it would be like this...
Ano! What are you doing here?
Oh I was just wandering along the beach Pip, gosh you look lovely in that white gown.
Ano how come you are in white linen slacks, ironed shirt, combed hair and goatee and have that lovely Mandarin Tea aftershave from Shanghai Tang on?
You never know who or what you might run into out along the beach Pip...

Yeah right!

So that is my lot. Here is the new video I put together of Maxi and I surfing. Little longer but a whole lot more interesting. Later


peace

The state of play

Well partners there is a new toy on the block and I thought that you all will need to see it. Actually thinking about this, you don't get to see it, it's a camera, I am not going to film it! It's a GoPro Surf camera. Click on the link if you want to see the camera.

All starts with a big plastic patch stuck on the nose of my board with bulletproof 3M tape. Love your work 3M. Anyway, that provides a mount onto which the camera is either able to be faced forward in the direction one is going or back at the rider. Which in this case, would be me, your pilot! A friend called it this morning 'My Coach' because in his view it made me slow down my movements and turns making me surf better. Mind you it also made me prance about a bit more. I call it showing off in front of the camera myself. Bound to happen on day one. Geez, I think you will always see a bit of it. But between, you me and a lamp post, that is not a bad thing if at the end of the day I surf better.

So with no further a due, here is a wave I got this morning. It is a single wave, the ride out at Canggu is long, it's great as it gives you time to think, to turn. I could have gone for another 10-20 seconds if I didn't act as a kook and move to much weight back. Oops slight giveaway there, sorry! Oh well you get that.

Let me know what you think as I am keen to publish some more videos if you all like them. Bugger it I might just publish them regardless.

Now sit back and enjoy the show...


Peace.

Up, up and away

My week is broken into two very distinct sections, actually there are three but I will keep it simple for the sake of the blog. Don't want you readers glazing over while I set the parameters of my little story now do we?

I have the a "without kids" section which is from Sunday arvo to wed arvo. and the "with kids" part that takes the rest. So today, being Friday is a with kids. My surfing is curtailed as I have to do kid run in the morning and afternoon. Editors Note:Please do not get me wrong, I want to. When I say have to, I do not say that I am doing it under pressure, duress or threat of bodily harm. If that were the case, and given where I live, I could quite easily hire a driver or maid to look after the delivery and pick up of my charges. No sir-ey Bob!

So anyway where were we, yes. The surfing part of the weekend therefore doesn't include Thursday or Friday mornings unless I go for a late one. Now I have been very lucky or karma has been smiling on me but up until late I hadn't missed too many of the swells that came through. But that all changed in April. Waves after waves would come through and each would arrive when I was unavailable due to local commitments or when I was out of the country. Why is that?

Today I missed out on surfing. The school drop off, heavy traffic and we arrived laste to school as well. Do not do that of a rule! Also had some errands to run. Gabi needed the car, she had a big drop off for her company, Bali Baby. Check it out it is going great guns! After that I had to go to Andrews to drop off a photo of me and some details, he is off overseas today for a couple of weeks of fun in Bangkok and Vietnam. Half his luck i say. Emily was there buying a painting. This great print of Andrew's nephew with a facemask and snorkle and a paragraph of text lifted from a 70's surf book. Very nice piece. Emily has a blog and that can be seen in my NEW IMROVED links section. She is here from New York and will fly home in a week when her 4 months runs out.

Then it was home to redo a floorplan for a shop. A couple of phone calls. An email or twenty, some work on the shop 3D, that I had to hold off on as I am downloading images from my camera I took of the existing shop yesterday at present so I can use them in the 3D. Gives me a chance to write some dribble here. Soon to pick up the kids.

Just emptied the iPhone as well. So here is a little cross section of images I have taken of late. Again using the great slideshow feature.


Tomorrow, Saturday, we will be back to the beach at dawn. Starters are Maxi and I at present, may be a couple of other candidates have been known to arrive late. Andre, one of Max's friends is a bit of a fixture.

So until then I have to go. Lots to do and never enough time.

Someone more famous said to me yesterday that to get one thing done a day in Bali is and achievement.

Given the above I have done well.

Peace

When it rains, I get wet

This past week has been one of mixed blessings. Computer trouble, big surf, small surf and movie nights. Maybe that depends on whether I can get the disk to burn. It's 5.30 and we kick off in an hour. The burn meter is still only half way across the bar, argh! My afternoon has been spent burning DVD's fast but wrong format on main computer with spiffy new motherboard, switch to laptop and Ano gets the right format but incredibly slow. Why is that?

On Saturday afternoon I took Maxi and his friend Andre on a white knuckle ride to Medewi. I should post some photos, I will but for now go to my Facebook page and look there as they are on the laptop and that is not going to do anything else at present other than finish burning that DVD. I have added the photos in a slideshow ~ Thanks David for showing me that one!


We had a great time there. The ride up took an hour and forty. Which is about standard. You zig zag in and out of this line of trucks and buses on roads that twist and turn through hills and dales. It really doesn't compare to driving in the real world. It's more like those Daytona machines in the amusement arcades that you race your friends on. Speaking of which, Maxi and I had a big session on some Japanese Hi-tech ones on our recent roadtrip through Java. It was in Jogjakarta and we were waiting for the movie to start. But that is a whole other post and a long one at that.

We arrived at 5 ish booked into the room, unpacked grabbed the boards from the roof and made it out into the water. The waves were around 4' but the wind had gotten to it. I sat out the back and the boys sat further inside. We spend the next hour and forty out there. Nice balance to the drive up.

Showers, simple meal at the warung on the beach and half an hour of throwing rocks, the boys not me, at other rocks because they sparked. Funny that! I tired of that and made my way to bed at 8.30 ish. I was asleep before they came in some 30 minutes later, according to them.

Why is is kids do not understand how to either whisper properly, they speak at the same volume as normal just change the tone, nor can they move around quietly without bumping into things which just happen to make the most noise out of all the furniture in the room. It's a skill. Just not sure what for. I was good at that I am sure! So at 5.15 ish they started their cacophony and wandered out into the morning. They returned some 15 minutes later and I inquired what the surf was like. They told me it's too dark to see the waves and proceeded to get ready to go surfing. Ha

So we were in the water at dawn and the funny thing was someone had beaten us out. We surfed until just before 9. Or as I like to put it just before my shoulder seized up. I had a knot the size of a footy under the right shoulder blade made from the drive and exacerbated by the paddling. I was ripe. We went in.

We breakfast not at the warung where we ate dinner but the little kiosk there in the front. It was a little different for Maxi, a lover of all things sweet. He ate mie (noodles) Well done that son of mine. Check out the funky old dude in the slideshow photos. The old girl is even funnier pinching the lads, slapping them lightly and jovially and generally running about creating mayhem. In my humble opinion it would have to be one of the best beaches, for the vibe, in all of Bali. Perhaps Indonesia. Big call I know. Love it though!

It is somewhere in here that the boys went back out for second surf but not before arming me at the little cafe with the camera and a second coffee. They are the shots you see of them. I am conspicuously absent from the shots because boys would never think of sitting out for a session so as to take photos of dad. Heaven forbid!

Andre's mum, Sabine, had tuned us to this guy who sells seafood along the foreshore. Morino or something his name is. Well we found him and orgaqnised for 2 kilos of crabs to be cook at that warung, the bigger one. Not the little one with funky old dude and grand ma!

But before we could partake we had to clear out of the room as it was a twelve check out. I made the two of them shower. Even though I knew full well that they would get a late session after the crab. Sometimes you just have to use soap! And no boys, salt water is not the same as fresh!

This big plate with 7 big blue swimmers was brought out. As kids we would measure a crab with a coke can across the top of its shell to know whether it was size or not. These were all well over size. Plates of nasi putih ( white rice) were placed in front of each of us and a dark red sauce in a bowl was added to the table. I gave the boys there first lesson in how to take a crab shell apart. Gave myself a couple of nasty cuts in the process. Furtive glances from other tables indicated that we were not only the centre of attention but also a certain amount of envy. 30 minutes later we headed out for the third and final session in the surf leaving only a pile of crunched shell in our wake. One great idea they had was to use a big flat river stone, which makes up the entire Medewi Beach, and lay a claw on it bringing another smaller river stone down to crack the thick shell of the crabs. Clever simple and easy to maintain. I will be getting a set of stones for home.

The afternoon session was once again corrupted by the wind and compounded by our aching bodies. There is only so much surfing one can do. But there are ways to save some labour. For instance we would paddle out into the lineup from the keyhole on the point going deep outside. Wait for one of the biggies to come rolling through, catching that for 100-150 metres or so. There you could just paddle to the side and catch another wave a further 100 metres and finally a little wave right to in front of the the boats that sit above the high tide line along the beach. There you stumble out and walk back around to the point to do it all again. Beats the hell out of paddling let me tell you.

We called it a day. we showered, packed the boards high on the roof of the car. I drank the first Coke (without alcohol) I have drunk in ten years as I figured I needed the rush to get me home in one piece. Belted up and entered the chaotic stream of vehicles heading back to Denpasar.

The trip was great the drive crap. Next time we go for two nights to make it worth it me thinks.

Peace.