Ollywoo sign
March 13, 2011
A little adventure, or rather an American Sunday hike, with my friends Ricardo, Astra and Jolena in Griffith Park showed me that it isn’t just Brits that ditch their shirts at the slightest ray of sunshine.
Category: Action & Adventure
Shanks’ pony in LA
February 26, 2011
Today I used Shanks’ pony for transportation in LA.
I haven’t really gotten out much in LA on my own yet. except for a couple of kilometres radius of our place. It really is a city built for driving. Suburbs are far more massive than they appear on the map and the grid layout can be quite deceptive.
I had hitched a ride with Gin, J and friend to the Trails cafe at the bottom of Griffith Park for lunch and then decided to leave them to continue on to the Griffith Observatory while I made my way towards where I had a test drive of a car. The Google Maps app on my phone made it look really close. I should have done the directions thingy to get a proper idea.
I ended up walking for about 45 minutes to where my friends who were helping me with the test drive were having lunch. I walked through Los Feliz and then the little enclaves Thai Town and Little Armenia that are peppered along Hollywood Boulevard. The diversity in between each block was quite remarkable. One block you would have fancy shops and neat footpaths, the next it would be more derelict and dirty and so on.
I didn’t meet many other pedestrians. I wasn’t the only one using Shanks’ pony (walking on my own two legs and yes, it a very grandfatherly kind of thing to say) but there certainly weren’t crowds waiting at the lights, except out front of the metro station.
So it is doable, but just don’t underestimate the distances and time it will take you.
Raising the bar
February 10, 2011
Craigslist is like an online Trading Post. It’s where you find all sorts of stuff to buy. Today it was a bar for a bargain.
The bar was a dual purpose purchase. It would form part of props for our short film and at other times grace Ricky’s apartment.
At 7 feet long, the bar was too big to fit in the back of the wagon, so a U-Haul truck was required for the 30 mile trip to Santa Clarita to pick it up. I rode with Gin in the truck on the freeway out of the city into ranch territory. So many horse ranches with the stereotypical white wooden fences lined the road as we struggled to find the address.
After about three u-turns on the windy road (not easy in a big moving van I may add, so high-fives to Gin) we finally found out that we’d been given the wrong address. Thankfully it was only a bit further up the road.
We drove into a small complex of four big ranch houses and met Butch, a retired guy, probably in his early sixties.Not living up to his tough name, he was lean with a silver beard, twinkly eyes and lovely demeanor. Butch used to be a set constructor and built the highway you’ve seen in The Matrix. Some of his old set equipment, a dolly trolley, helped to move the heavy bar from his upstairs self-proclaimed ‘mancave’ above the garage down to the truck. It was still quite a delicate process to get it down the stairs but we managed, and Gin and I proved our mettle to Butch, who had looked surprised at Ricky for bringing some girls to help with the job.
Once loaded in the truck we made our way back into LA where the next challenge was to unload the bar and then find a park in the street. We were lucky in finding an easy park in the street not far away because they can be tough to find, especially truck-sized parks.
Then, the big test was getting the bar up two flights of stairs and into the apartment. With some think-throughs, talk-throughs and just-do-its, we got the bar and a sweat up. Although the last little bit couldn’t have been done without the help of a neighbour who lent a hand at precisely the right moment, while it was in the air and in a pocket of inertia.
But, it looks great and was worth the adventure, although I’m not sure I’ll be volunteering to move it again…
Superbowl Sunday
February 6, 2011
- Hut, two, three, four
Today was a big American sporting event, Superbowl Sunday. It’s the Aussie Rules equivalent of the Grand Final, only with the Black Eyed Peas, a zillion glow-people and 30 second appearances by Slash and Usher for half-time entertainment and where companies pay $2.5 million to run a 30 second ad reaching over 90 million people.
I guess I expected a few more team colours splashed about the city like there is on grand final day back home, but the only ones I found were an inflatable Pittsburgh Steeler outside some place on Hollywood Boulevard and a glassy at Birds wearing a Green Bay Packers shirt.
I missed half of the first quarter as I was buying a GPS at BestBuy with my new housemates Gin and J. I had expected the city to be dead, most people at home watching the game, but there were lots of people at BestBuy, and lots of nerds in the Apple computer section.
When I arrived at Birds to the booth Ricky had saved, the one with a birdcage in the corner, the score was Steelers 0 : Packers 14. The Green Bay Packers (who I was “rooting”* for because they wore green and gold uniforms) were clearly outplaying the Pittsburgh Steelers, or at least that’s what it looked like to my half-interested Australian sensibility.
The atmosphere was a-mazing. It was so happy, cheery and beery. At quarter time, one of the big-bang commercials played a snippet of Elton John’s Tiny Dancer and then the owner, a super crazy woman who is entertainment herself, went and put the song on the stereo and everyone in the bar started singing along. It also happened at the end of the game with “We Are the Champions”. I loved it.
I chatted to a couple of people, we ate a big fry up of onion rings, frickles and jalapeno cheddar poppers (half a chilli with melted cheddar in a crumbed and fried case) and we perved on a guy in a trucker hat, denim shirt and jeans. It was great fun. Oh, and the game got better, although the Green Bay Packers still managed to come up trumps.
* Going for, or supporting a team in the US is commonly referred to as “rooting” which is as hilarious to us as calling flip flops on your feet thongs is for them.
Up the creek
January 31, 2011
Yesterday I went out to Mum and Dad’s for our last family dinner before I leave (Mum’s lamb roast). While the roast was cooking, Mum, Dad and I went for a trip along the creek in the tinny.
The high river means that the creek that only ever runs when it floods and the billabong were full of water and since my parents love to explore the backwaters out we went.
What we commonly refer to as ‘the bend’, a riverside bit of native vegetation with clay tracks, red gums and a sandbar, was all underwater. As kids we used to ride our bikes through there all the time, but this year, the only form of navigable transportation is a boat.
I was fascinated by the big spiderwebs encasing trees standing out of the water. The way the late afternoon sun hit the webs and the tree bark was incredibly beautiful. It is such a different perspective gliding over terrain you know well at ground level in a boat. We had to navigate through saplings that were growing in the creek bed and fallen trees and try to pick out landmarks to figure out where we were.
It was a great way to spend a little bit of quality time with my parents, looking at old scenes through fresh eyes and a new perspective.
Love thirty
January 18, 2011
As the days tick by and my departure date to LA gets ever closer, I’m hurrying to cross off some items on my bucket list. This weekend it was the Australian Open tennis tournament.
Despite having lived in Melbourne for 7 years, I had never been to the tennis. I’d always wanted to go, but things just seemed to get in the way, not the least, work commitments. So with my current flexible work arrangements, I made the time to go and see the blue-court action.
In order to get the most from the experience, I wandered around during the day on my groundpass checking out the big screen action from a deck chair, the Swedish fan club on Show Court 2 and then got right up close to a match between a Russian and a Serb. Unfortunately I first picked a seat in the middle of a gang of adolescents with Serbian heritage. Just like any big group of teenagers (like at the cinema) they were obnoxious, loud, foul-mouthed and stinky. As the game was interesting, I moved to another stand for a better spectator environment. I have also come to the conclusion that Swedes and Serbs are the biggest tennis fanatics.
With one bucket list experience down, there are still plenty more such as:
- The Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia
- Burning Man Festival, USA
- La Tomatina Festival, Spain
- Tour of Mungo, NSW, Australia
- Pyramids and Nile cruise, Egypt
- Petra, Jordan
- Trans-Siberian Train trip, Russia
- Go to a Hollywood premiere
- Buy myself a pair of Jimmy Choos
- Timbuktu, Mali
- Tubing in Laos
- Live in New York for 6 months
- Cherry Blossom Festival, Japan
- Ciudad Perdida trek, Colombia
- Panama Canal, Panama
What is the most recent thing you’ve done from your bucket list?
Screaming good fun on the water
January 3, 2011
Growing up on the Murray River meant that we spent a lot of time doing water-based activities.
My dad was a competitive water skier in his younger years, so our holidays generally consisted of camping trips along the river for one competition or another. Summertime family gatherings would be with the speedboat down on the sandbar and all us kids in lifejackets.
So on New Years Day the skiboat was pulled out again for a few runs. We’ve had the boat my whole entire life. Its golden yellow clinker hull with black cutouts on the bonnet, yellow fuzzy seat upholstery and leather steering wheel have worn and faded with time, but still provide plenty of thrills for all the family (except my sister, who only ever gets into the action on rare occasions).
Bro #1 likes to drive the boat, so he took his friends out for a tandem ride on the ski biscuits. Then it was his turn for a ski. Though he prefers a jump start, he had to go deep water because of where we were on the river and I nearly thought he’d lose his grip coming out of the water.
Dad had a go after Bro #1 and as always made it look super easy. His slaloms cutting back and forth over the wake don’t get any clumsier with age. Though he was knackered afterwards, he’s still got it.
I’d finally warmed up to jumping in for a go on the biscuit, but as I’d had some terse words over splashes with Bro #1, I didn’t want him in the driver’s seat. It seems Dad took Bro #1’s mongrel on, grew some big horns and had a one track desire to upend me out of the biscuit.
Dad was swerving and turning, sending me flying back and forth across the wake unable to do anything except hold on…TIGHT. I got through the fear to chortle with delight that he hadn’t tipped me out yet as I was getting good at holding and balancing in all the right places, until an innocuous little skid over the wake had me tumbling out the back.
We were almost back to the start, but this was where Dad was saving up his best to send me sprawling (in front of a crowd) by doing doughnut after doughnut. Each turn I gathered more speed and pelted into bigger and bigger waves. I gripped on tight with my hands and legs, leaning my body weight forward. Miraculously I managed to hold on for the four or five circles Dad cut, getting through the choppy water and at one point flying over it, before he gave in and we went back to the shore.
I was jubilant at my awesome display of tenacity and strength but probably crowed one time too many, because they just left me floating out the back instead of pulling me in.
a little cameo 
