Petrol Update

Unleaded: 116.9c / L
Exchange Rate: 0.6696 USD
Crude: 59.38 USD (88.70 AUD) / Barrel

Diversification

Well, this blog hasn't been updated for a couple of days, mainly due to a certain lack of inspiration. After having a chat to one of my close friends, I decided to diversify this blog. I was told to consider blogging as an art form, and to discuss topics that I am passionate about. This blog will continue to exist of course, but it will be here mainly for my rants. I will soon start blogs on a few areas that I'm really passionate about (or at least I think I will be passionate about). These are the areas:

• Football
  
• Travel
  
• Motoring
  
• Taekwondo / Martial Arts
  
• Salsa / Dance
  
• Cycling / Hiking / Camping
  
• Photography
  
• Gadgets / Computers
  
• Events / Entertainment / Reviews

They will be updated a lot less frequently, but at least they will have a dedicated topic, although I'm not too sure where a review of a camera lens would fall into - Photography, Gadgets, or Reviews?

Petrol Update

Unleaded: 121.9c / L
Exchange Rate: 0.6954 USD
Crude: 70.53 USD (101 .42 AUD) / Barrel

MS Sydney to the Gong Ride Part 2

I got up this morning at 5 am, after not having a very good night's rest. Picked up everything prepared from the previous night, and headed off. I was running a little late for my train, so decided to ride to Strathfield station instead as a warm up. Jumped on the train, got off at Redfern to change, but was still going to be late, so rode down to the start at Sydney Park, St Peters.

After fumbling around a bit, taking team photos, and not eating breakfast, I hit the road eventually around 7.30 am - 40 minutes behind schedule. Along the way, much liquid was consumed. My breakfast came in the form of a triple Time Out bar and a blueberry muffin. Other food consumption on the way included a banana, half an orange, and and packet of GU carbohydrate gel.

Having never ridden this distance before, I tried to stay quite fresh at the beginning, and up to Loftus Oval, it was all pretty easy riding. No major problems with hills either. Up to waterfall, the ride becomes more interesting, with some up and downs along the highway. At waterfall, we were herded together to go down hill in packs in order to improve safety. However, what goes down must come up. As I hit the Royal National Park, the hills starts to take a toll on me as I started to push a bit harder. Eventually arriving at Stanwell Tops look out, I was pretty well spent. A lot of people here started to push their bikes up. I just dug in deep.

The rest of the the journey was just a hard slog. The scenery was magnificent, and included the must-used-in-car-advertising-bridge: the Sea Cliff Bridge. The hill on the other side of the bridge however, was not very kind. More people were pushing their bikes up the hill by now. There were also a couple of accidents that I was aware off, and plenty of bikes on the side of the road with an array of mechanical problems and punctures. Luckily, my bike held up to the end.

After 5 hours and a half, I finally made it to the destination. Much liquid was then consumed, muscles sore and tired. Lunch was had at a local fish and chip shop, and after a power nap, we headed home. Thanks to Greg who drove down just to support and give my bike a lift back to Sydney. Much appreciated!

So here are my final stats: 

Top Speed: 52.8km/h

Time: 5 hours 28 minutes

Average Speed: 15.8 km/h

MS Sydney to the Gong Ride

Tomorrow, I will participate in my first ever MS Sydney to the Gong ride. The ride goes from St. Peters to Wollongong, via Brighton Le Sands, the Royal National Park, and the Sea Cliff Bridge, totaling 90 km. Personally, I hope to finish in 5-6 hours. The event is held to help raise money and awareness for MS - Multiple Sclerosis - an autoimmune disease affecting the central nervous system.

Preparation for any endurance event is of utmost importance, and this is no different. Equipment must be checked and rechecked, supplies readied. For this event, the most important equipment will be the bike. It has been serviced a couple of days ago, and all gears and brakes are checked. The tyre pressures are also checked, as are the pedals and the shoes. Aside from the bike, there are the clothing, helmut, gloves, shoes, camelpak for hydration and some light energy snacks for along the way.

But perhaps the most important thing is human preparation, both mentally and physically. I have no idea how I will go as I have never ridden this far before. Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to train up for this event, unlike for the Oxfam Trailwalker, but hopefully I will finish tomorrow.

Health Checks

Today we had a health expo at work. The work is carried out by this company called HealthWorks. I had several things checked out, including vision and skin cancer screenings. Luckily, nothing of concern came up. I did learn that it is possible to get melanoma on the sole of the foot and in the eye. 

Other tests I went through included body composition and heart health. I had an interesting discussion with one of the health professionals about what is classified as fast food. Turns out I considered everything that's not a sit down meal at a restaurant to be fast food, but they only considered the more traditional meaning of chain stores. My blood pressure was uncharacteristically high today, perhaps due to the recent tragedy in the news.

I thought it was a bit unsophisticated for the body composition check that they just used a Bio-Electric Impedance scale for everything. But, I did get some good results, so I can't really complain. I mean, to have a Basal Metabolic Age of 18 years is great. They also gave a figure for % body fat, bone mass, and body water percentage.

Weekly Petrol Update

Unleaded: 135.9c / L
Exchange Rate: 0.6362 USD
Crude: 65.00 USD (102.17 AUD) / Barrel

Indoor soccer

So I played my last game of Indoor Soccer at Tempe. It wasn't a particularly good game by my team, but we managed a respectable score of 4-7. The season has been a long one, and I joined the team a few weeks after the start.

The team was originally pulled together by one of my friends - Eric. The level of competition is very high, and way beyond what the team was capable of. So, that plus the fact that for some reason, for this competition, you did not pay upfront, meant that everyone on the team pulled out after week 3.

So, captain Eric, with all that he can muster, started calling through all his friends. His girlfriend eventually contacted me and that's how I joined the team. All the other team in the competition have uniforms. We just rocked up in whatever colour we wanted to wear. We're the rainbow team. In the number of games I've played, we have gone through at least 15 different players over the season, and this is for a game where there are only 5 on court at any one time.

All the games I played were in good spirit, and despite losing almost all games, I had a lot of fun. I have learnt a lot through this competition, and I have no doubt my skills have improved. I am now looking forward to another season to play somewhere, but I am finding hard to find competitions that are still open and accessible, maybe I'm just not looking in the right places, but it sure is a lot harder than finding outdoor games. Hopefully I will find a competition at a good level and gather a team to participate before the start of the next out door season.

Catch of the Day or something

There are plenty of online stores out there, so how would one go about attracting business? Recently I discovered a website that has an interesting concept. The website is called Catch of the Day. This is an Australian website with a difference - they sell one major discount item per day. This way, they keep their inventory costs low, while providing an incentive for visitors to return. They don't always have new stock though, and sometime they recycle old stock that didn't sell as well. The more popular items - like LCD monitors and portable hard drives - sell like hot cakes, and are usually gone by mid-afternoon. They update their listing each day at noon, so it pays to check each lunch time.

I recently bought a set of Philips stereo bluetooth headphone and a pair of Doro cordless phones from them. Payment was done via PayPal, so it is fairly secure. The items were delivered about a week after placing the order. The thing is, some of their prices are just amazing. I ended up paying less than half of the cheapest alternative for the cordless phones. I don't even know how they can source their stuff so cheaply.

Tomorrow, they will have a birthday sale, and some of the items posted on the site are real bargains. For example, they're selling the popular Nintendo Wii for just $199, and 4GB Ipod Nano for $99. That's huge! So, if you're in the hunt for some bargains, I really recommend this site! Happy Fishing...

Sculpture by the Sea

Until the 2nd of November, the coast line from Bondi to Tamarama will be littered with colours and shapes, forming the one of the largest outdoor sculpture displays in the world. Best of all, it's free. I went to Sculpture by the Sea today, even though the weather could have been more kind. A few of my favourite this year included the anatomically correct farm animals, and the huge needle pulling thread on the hill. There were a few more abstract ones that also caught my attention, and the butterfly-globe was also very striking. Here are some of photos from the day trip, definitely worth a visit!