May 2012
7 posts
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The Hickman Crater
Last weekend I took a drive with some of my colleagues (and some in-laws) to see the Hickman Crater. In short, the Hickman Crater is a crater that was discovered by some guy named Hickman who “discovered” it whilst playing on Google Earth in 2007 - a true armchair explorer. Anyway, it’s believed to be between 10 and 100 thousand years old and is 260m wide and 30m deep....
“In response to the local authority figures, obtained under a Freedom of...”
– - More than 87,000 racist incidents recorded in schools, the BBC.
Clearly I’ve been in Australia too long, because my intial thought was “but they’re children, that’s disgusting”. Despite the slang usage in Australia, I think in this case rooting out doesn’t mean...
Shooting the Shit
This morning I was having a chat with my friend Liz as I often do whenever she actually remembers to come on Skype at 6am my time (11pm her time - apparently not past her bedtime). And when I say chat, what I mean is that I was telling her my latest selection of hilarious jokes (eg. What’s the best thing about being narcissistic? Me.). Anyhow, I suddenly realised the time and told her that...
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"Bicyclists are allowed to ignore red lights and...
As I often do, I have dedicated a few minutes of my afternoon to reading some stuff about cycling. One of these things that made me smile today was a quiz written by Bike New York listing twelve questions testing (and I write that in italics because I got 12/12 in the quiz despite having never cycled - or driven - in New York, so it wasn’t much of a test) your traffic smarts (and I write...
April 2012
9 posts
I don't care about some guy's DVD collection.
I often use IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) when reading up on films, and some time ago they made a change to the structure of their website. And when I say ‘some time ago’, I believe it was after I left my job in London (I used the site a lot for work so I’m sure I’d have noticed it at the time) but probably more than 12 months ago now. When looking at their page for a...
416 times
So as many (or probably all) of my readers will know, I signed up to a challenge to climb a little over 105,000 feet in 47 days. I’m pleased to announce that yesterday afternoon I successfully completed the challenge in just 42 days, which included 416 climbs of the hill in town (actually 417 and a half, but one time I had the satnav turned off and another time I got halfway down before...
“Wow Dan, you need to find a girl.”
– Thomas, another cyclist in town when I told him about the big ride I had last Sunday.
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The local fauna
As I’m sure all of my regular readers will know by now, I’ve signed up for a challenge where I have to climb a lot of hills so I’ve been doing hill reps in town most mornings. This means I’m usually up to watch the sun rise over the horizon, and I’m often out cycling as the sun sets too if I need to make up some elevation gain - and I find it too hot cycling when the...
March 2012
14 posts
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Point your front wheel up the hill and keep...
So I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’d signed up for a challenge to climb a massive distance on my bicycle in a 47 day period. I’m pleased to say that I’m still on course with this challenge a third of the way in, but it has been a challenge for me in every sense of the word. In the first thirteen days I climbed the equivalent of the height of Mt Everest, and I’m expecting...
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“I’m about 6” tall and skinnier than average (aren’t most...”
– - HoveActually, review of Castelli Thermoflex leg warmers on Wiggle.
I’m currently looking at buying some arm and leg warmers because it’s getting very cold in the mornings here (on Thursday, for example, it was only 16°C on my morning cycle). Reading the reviews can be very helpful...
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Red Alert
So as of about half an hour ago Newman is on Red Alert for Tropical Cyclone Lua. Red alert means that I should remain in shelter or go to shelter immediately. Unfortunately, the pubs all closed long before the red alert was issued so I haven’t been able to secure a St Patrick’s Day lock-in. I’m a little disappointed that this cyclone has ruined my plans for cycling this weekend...
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Classic Climbing Challenge
This week I have signed up (clicked a button) to a challenge on the Strava website where I log my bike rides - the A Classic Challenge from Specialized challenge. In short, a challenge to climb 105,312 feet on my bicycle (32,099 metres, or just under 160 furlongs - as pointed out by someone in the comments for the challenge when someone asked for it in real numbers) in a 47 day period - starting...
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Another niche that I had no idea existed...
Today I stumbled across a blog entitled Chicks and Bikes (the chicks in this case are girls and not - and this would have been way cooler - cute little birdies). Now show me a girl on a bicycle who can pass me and I’m very impressed, and they may even stick in my mind (my mind immediately goes to a girl clad in lycra who shot past me by Wimbledon Common about 2 years ago who I just...
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February 2012
20 posts
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Powdered Protein.
Keen observers of the widgets down the left side of my blog may have noticed that I’m cycling a lot recently. According to Strava, in fact, I burned a little over 1900 calories on my ride on Saturday morning and I have a feeling this may have been a contributing factor to my sleeping half of Saturday afternoon (along with the lack of sleep, early rides and gym trips during the week, cycling...
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What a difference a year makes.
Exactly a year ago on Friday, on the 24th February last year, I had my first interview that would eventually see me in the job that I have now. So a year ago I was a backpacker hoping to get a role in desktop support for 6 months to see me through the rest of my travels. Fast forwarding to today, I am currently the acting team lead of desktop support across a number of minesites (at least until my...
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How to Stop Binge Drinking
I’ve just read an article on the BBC entitled “10 radical solutions to binge drinking”, which I fully expected based on the title to be a farcical pipe dream that would have no hope of succeeding in the real world and that I would disagree with entirely.
Except that they’re suggesting that beer should be watered down, these actually all seem like quite reasonable points...
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“How’d you pull up on Sunday?”
– - someone who came into the office at work today.
This is an Australian phrase that roughly means “how did you feel the morning after?”. Usually when someone asks me this it’s because they saw me with a drink in my hand on Saturday night. This time it was actually one of the other...
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Change of address label
When I got my job here in Newman I didn’t anticipate staying longer than 6 months (indeed, the conditions of my visa wouldn’t allow it). As it has turned out though, I and on a new visa and have now been here for coming up to a year. Since I was only originally intending to stay 6 months, I opted to get a 1 year driving licence (as opposed to a 5 year one) - plus it was cheaper that...
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“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes...”
– - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
This is essentially the same as a thought I had the other day except a helluvalot more eloquently put.
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Cycling's cheaper in Australia
When I came to Australia I only brought one cycling top and one pair of padded shorts with me, because I didn’t anticipate doing a great deal of cycling here. Now obviously since I have a bike I’m doing much more than I’d expected, and so I’ve noticed a real need to buy some more cycling gear.
As a minimum, I intended to buy one more pair of shorts and one more top. My...
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Reading about cycling again.
You may have noticed I’m really back into cycling recently. I think that on some level perhaps I’d been suppressing these feelings when I didn’t have a bike, which is probablytrue. Anyway, today I have another cycling post. This is an extract from a list titled The Urban Biker’s Checklist that I’ve stumbled across. I don’t necessarily agree with all of them, but...
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Can I claim my winnings now then?
The headline news today (or at least, the only story that really interested me) was that Alberto Contador has been given a two year ban and has been stripped of his 2010 Tour de France title. If Andy Schleck’s now being handed the title, why can’t I claim my winnings for the bet I put on for him to win at the time?
That said, I’m pleased that the articles I’ve read and...
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A day out of Newman
Yesterday I decided I’ve been in Newman long enough so I took my work car (with prior approval, naturally) out of town to do some exploring. I arose relatively early, fuelled up on a proper breakfast (egg, bacon, sausage, beans, mushroom, tomato, hash brown, and a glass of juice - see below) and got ready to go. My electric frying pan actually claims to be a Family Banquet Frypan, but...
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Back on my own saddle
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned on here, but I’ve recently invested in a late Christmas present for myself - a 2011 Avanti Giro 4, and I’ve taken a photo of it which you can see below.
After waiting patiently for my helmet to arrive (stupid Australian helmet laws - don’t even get me started…) I’ve managed to ride it the past two days. I’m very...