Via bje, via the less than impressed Frank Ch. Eigler, some nice sentiments from the city of Toronto:

“If only”

.. sit around and wait ’til some local entrepreneur does the job for you:

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… to a little house on the prarie, where we’ll sing you some country rock ballads and comb your hair.

Be there or be spared!

Spent the weekend down the coast climbing. The weather was awesome and it was an all ’round grouse weekend.

After a slightly slow start, we headed down to Nowra, Hospital Rocks particularly, for some beginner climbing madness.

In the end there were about 20 people at the cliff, and about half of them were beginners of various shades. From never-climbed-before through never-climbed-outdoors to not-quite-leading, or thereabouts.

We set a few top ropes, an 11, a 15, something like that. Although all the climbs were harder than their grades as far as I’m concerned. I lead a 13 (?) which was nice and easy, a good way to get started.

We climbed ’til just before dark in beautiful sunshine, there was even talk of swimming, although nothing ever came of it.

Dinner was at Phil’s excellent Pizza joint, with Pizzas delivered free of charge to the pub next door – not bad at all. Eventually we headed to the Animal Park and setup camp, sitting around drinking Port until midnight or later for some.

360º view at Point Perp.

Another glorious day on Sunday, sun shining. We all drove to Point Perp for some wheat-from-the-chaff, men-from-the-boys, girls-from-the-ladies (gotta be P.C) climbing. I wasn’t as terrified as on previous occasions, although we were on the Bayside, which I don’t find nearly as terrifying.

Some more top roping was had, as well as a few leads by various souls. Most of the beginner crowd got up Elspeth and Urban Spaceman, with no troubles – a pretty solid bunch really.

After lunch Jose led Urban Spaceman (13 ?) which I was a little jealous of, but I wasn’t feeling 100% and procrastinated too long. I’ll do it next time.

And so ends another awesome trip to Nowra and surrounds, I’ll be back.

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Thanks to a little inspiration, I managed to get out of bed that little bit earlier this morning – such that I could oil my chain before riding to work.

Boy does it make a difference. At least I think it does. I imagine part of the effect is purely mental, ie. I can’t hear my chain squeaking like a Galah – so it seems like the bike is moving with less effort. Still placebo or otherwise it made the ride that tad easier.

I rode over the the ANU for some climbing this evening, and then popped over to Llewellyn Hall for a Science Festival Forum.

The topic was “Cats, Cars & Catchments” or thereabouts, basically a discussion about Canberra and it’s environmental future(s).

It was a pretty interesting hour or so, although it wasn’t a debate, rather just a series of observations from the assembled five experts.

There was lots of talk about water, Paul Perkins being one of the panel members (formerly CEO of ACTEW). He stated that with a 25% reduction in water usage, which they feel is feasible, Canberra could be home to 500,000 people – from the perspective of water supply at least.

One of the issues that concerns me, as someone who might live in Canberra for a long time, is the physical structure of the city. I think Canberran’s preference for cars as a mode of transport is to a large degree explained by the phyiscally dispersed nature of the city. It’s going to be very hard to address, but we may have to when petrol hits $10/litre.

No one really addressed the topic to any great degree, there was just one passing comment that if we over urbanise the inner city it won’t be a very nice place to live. Possibly true. Although if we keep burning petrol like we are there might be a whole lot of places that aren’t nice to live.

Food for thought anyway.

Got a slightly bizarre “distress” call from Kirsten on Friday night. She was in a bit of a bind you see, she had TOO MUCH PIE, and needed someone to eat it. Being chivalrous I obliged, and Tom and I headed over to Cook to help her out.

She made awesome Beef & Guinness pies, a recipe I will have to learn.

Saturday morning I got up stupidly early and drove out to Gibraltar Peak for a spot of climbing. It was supposed to be a big beginner trip, but due to a few pikings (some due to a certain explosion) there were only ten of us in the end.

The view from the top.

We set up a few top ropes, one on Skippy Slab (15) and one on Goony Waltz (17). I’ve led Goony Waltz before, but I was glad to top rope it, although I didn’t have any trouble it was a bit harder than I remember.

After lunch we set a top rope on Tri-State (21). I climbed it first and loved it. Ben, Tim and Andrew climbed it too.

After a bit of lazing around I led the second pitch of Juveniles and Geriatrics (15) just for the hell of it, Tim seconded.

All in all a great day, beautiful winter weather and great climbing.

For dinner I headed out to Caffe Della Piazza with Catherine, Kirsten and Tom. I had a Risotto with Balmain bugs in it, it was super nice.

Managed one pint at the Wig & Pen afterwards, but was fading fast. Managed to ride home with Tom in the cold though.

Quiet day today, read a few blogs, walked to the shops and then strolled around the ‘burbs for a bit. Made veggie soup for dinner, came out well. Bacon, ginger, carrots, potato, sweet potato, and green beans. Yum.

A few photos …

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Cleaned up the house a bit more on Saturday, in anticipation of showing it to people for Finn’s room. Turns out he’s going to leave in eight weeks, so we’ll put the new house mate search on hold for a few weeks.

Made pumpkin/tomato/carrot soup – which turned out pretty well. Tried to make tomato/spinach/capsicum/stuff soup, but that turned out more like chutney. Still edible though.

Spent Sunday hiking around Namadgi with Tom. We didn’t walk far in the end, left a bit late and were a bit lazy.

We headed up Shannahan’s Mountain, just to check it out. Nice view from the top, and we got there in 15 minutes, so it’s one to remember for a quick stroll.

Walked around the Mt Clear campground for a few Ks. It seems the National Parks people have gone mental and think they’re running a sheep station, at least that’s the only explanation I can think of for the freakin’ huge dam they’ve dug. Since when can you dig dams in a National Park?

Ran, literally, up to Boboyan Trig just before sunset – 18 minutes from car park to summit. Not bad for a 2 hour trail. Good view from there too.

Stopped past the lookout on the road for sunset, but it wasn’t real specy – not enough clouds.

Couldn’t resist heading to the Tradies for a nice bloody steak, and then to Trinity for a few ales to end the day.

Took a few pics of the walk …

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Being less hungover than usual on Sunday, I took the opportunity to ride up Mt Majura.

I rode up it once before, in March or April – I forget. That time I went up the south western side, on the dirt trails, and spent most of the “ride” walking my bike because it’s so step.

Not a bad old day.

This time I headed north up the highway, then along Majura road and finally up the bitumen road which goes up the back of Mt Majura. Then I rode down the crazy-steep dirt tracks.

For the doubters, a pic from the very top.

It’s still pretty steep even on the bitumen. First gear for most of the climb for me.

Vital statistics were:

Ahem. Pretty piss-weak really, especially if you’ve been watching Le Tour as I have.

As a comparison (ha!), some interesting historical stats on the Tour here. Here’s a graph of average speed over time:

As you can see, on the most recent Tour Lance Armstrong averaged 41.654 Km/h over the 3,608 Km length of the Tour. That’s graph’s not quite the whole story, for some of those years the total distance was much longer, but still an impressive trend.

It’s sort of sad to see Armstrong retire, he certainly doesn’t seem like he’s starting to fade. If anything he was more dominant in this Tour than previous ones. On the other hand next year’s Tour will be the most exciting in years, because there’s no clear favourite.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest …

Spent the weekend scrubbing fridges, well two, and moving furniture. Sarah and Nick have got a gorgeous little place in town and funnily enough she wanted all her furniture back! It’s actually left the lounge looking better, it was a tad crowded before.

Gilby brought his dad’s (?) trailer, which he towed with the newly purchased (from Sarah) Big Red Beamer, ’tis a nice piece of machinery, pity it chugs so much oil or I’d love one.

Wednesday night Jess was in town, back from Vanuatu, and we headed to see Sarah Blasko at ANU. I missed most of 78 Saab which was a pity, I haven’t seen them for years.

Ms Blasko put on a top show, I didn’t really know many of her songs, but she’s got some really good ones. I particularly liked a few she did with just an acoustic guitar.

In other music news I’ve been consumed the last few days by “Frances the Mute” from The Mars Volta.

It’s a bit prog-jazz-funk-rock I guess, a bit of a breath of fresh air after the last few years’ selection of minimalist rock, Grinspoon it ain’t. I never really got into At the Drive-In, which was the precursor to The Mars Volta, but I’ll have to look them up now.

I’ll certainly be grabbing a copy sometime of the MV’s first album, De-Loused in the Comatorium.

I’m also loving Ani DiFranco’s latest, Knuckle Down, it’s one of her best I think, although it’s not like she’s ever done a bad album, so it’s probably just enough to say it’s an Ani DiFranco album – buy it.

There’s been some concern expressed that perhaps a paper clip isn’t engineered to quite the right tolerances for use in a car.

Although it did the trick, the only stress on it is what comes from your arm via the gear stick, I have replaced the paper clip with an aircraft-grade Titanium split pin. For a total cost of $3. And I had to by 20, so if you need one let me know.