5 hours on the ring road. Insane.

And again this post is slightly overdue. It has been a very very busy week and so I do have some excuse. Its also been a confusing week.. I am going to use this blog post to try and put it all into some sorta perspective.S

On Monday my friend Robyn came back from her trip to Europe where she stayed with the gorgeous Sara. Sara is the best Mac person I know. And lives in London. If their are really good Mac people in Melbourne they have thus far successfully hidden from me. Expensive Mac people now... them we have. In all honesty I am one of the best Mac people in Melbourne and its not even my area of expertise (tho like a lot of techs my prefered laptop is a Macbook) but I am way cheaper per hour than Mac people generally charge.

Kathy and I were tasked to pick her up from Tullamarine which we duly did and then.... turned the cars nose north rather than south east. This came as a slight shock to Robyn. Evil snicker. Who was trapped in the back seat of her own lancer and comparing its roominess unfavourably with economy class in a 747. Certainly it was a cruel end to 20 hours in the air.

We arrived at mutual friends in the little town of Pyalong and lobbed on them for the night. One of these friends is my favorite niece the gorgeous Littlemissscribble. We had a pleasant night and then in the morning Kathy and I continued into Bendigo for a 7:00 am meeting with a networking group.

The group is a thing called BNI Business Networking International Its essentially a paid for and structured networking setup. You should look at their website for a better explanation. Its a successful attempt to structure the undoubted power of networking. Groups are everywhere. But as to this meeting being in Bendigo.. Kathy is looking at us expanding in that direction. My dad was bought up in Bendigo. I spent much of my youth there. Bendigo is a cycling town. Lake Cairn Curran where I used to sail is there. We have friends and customers in Pyalong which is more than halfway there. Its a reasonable thing to expand that way.

I personally think its just a tad early in the life of Perfect Notes. But maybe I am being too conservative. The meeting on Tuesday with an established group went well and we decided to return on Thursday. Back to Pyalong. Visit a customer. Say goodbye to Littlemissscribble et al... and off to Melbourne. Where I returned Robbyn's lancer to her and sent her on her way.
And discovered my Subie was US. Definitely not up to the trip to Bendigo. It was using more water than petrol

So Wednesday I took it off to my brother. Who runs a work shop that fixes heavy diesel's in Thomastown. Mech-hyd repairs. We pulled the radiator and Ashley (my evil brother ) bundled it and me into my Lancer and set off for radiator repair guy in Yarraville. An hour plus on the ring road to get there. Argghhhh. My Lancer has been at Ashleys for the past 2 months waiting for a new engine. With a bit of work it has condescended to run on 3.5 cylinders but I have seen Le Mans race cars that have had a gentler life than a Lancer being used by my brother apparently as a daily driver. Poor little thing. I am far from sure we want it back. Its never going to be a nice tight fun little car again I suspect. Its going to be a worn out race car. And they are not as much fun as you might think.

Anyway radiator guy took one look at the radiator and said "How long you been doing Subies Ash?" Reassuring. I could not have recognised it as a radiator from a Subie. I am told I can pick it up at 3:30... not for very much cash. Good because I don't have much cash So.. back to the workshop.. another hour and a half.. up to the bank.. and hell time to go back to Yarraville Another hour +... the ring road is a joke.. if I could carry the radiator on a pushy I could average twice this speed. And this is a freeway... back.. just me driving my clagged out lancer on a road full of loonies who are covering more distance sideways in their frequent unindicated lane changes into nearly non existent gaps than they are actually traveling forward. At an average speed of 5 kph even though a couple of bursts of inexplicable movement had me up to 80 for a few brief moments. The car adds never show this sort of gridlock. Doing this daily would turn me into a homicidal maniac in short order, no wonder many drivers are so annoyed by happy cyclists sliding through the gridlock. Thank Deity of Choice I no longer drive for a living.

Alone in the workshop putting the Subie back together in the twilght.. back to PerfectNotes HQ and then off to Pyalong again. We stayed with a customer this time.. they had dinner for us when we got there. We like Flavourful Hydroponics. Nice people with a good product and good customers too. Thanks for the tomatos guys.

And on to Bendigo in the morning. Some great people in this networking group. Hi Katrin. And an ex army bloke visiting from Singapore. Just from the people there this is a winner. But does it make economic sense? I have not figured it out yet. All comments are welcome

The old Subaru is a lovely car to do this sort of trip with. It seems like its issues are solved or at least much improved. Its like an old falcon that handles. Very nice car. Not letting Ashley get his hands on this one.

Sorted the clients issues on the way home. Had another clients new printer to sort this morning. Its a huge plotter for doing advanced and very large charts. I got a lesson in driving it from the Cannon tech and now am up to date with the very cutting edge of this technology. This afternoon I crashed and burned. Watched the UCI world champs. So few spectators. Geelong has been such a nasty unfriendly city to the world cycling championships.. it made me stay away. And they will bleat that its been a failure. Unwelcoming gits. I now hear that some plan to sue for lost income. Fools. If it had been a footy match they would have been so on board. Hopefully the courts see them as the wankers they are. Let me add that some of the shops have in fact apparently been totally on board. Them I have some sympathy for. A city tainted by bogans IMO. Not a place I would even consider relocating or chasing work in.


Anyway Michael Matthews of Oz won the under 23 race. Woohoo. Great win. What a sprint. Star.

As I mentioned Sally and I did velodrome training last Sunday. Sally's husband took some pics. And so here are a couple to finish off this post.

Me, trying hard


Sally, 9 metres high.