LAST WEEKEND IN PA!

Hello all, for what is possibly and probly my last OS post.

Hope you all had a good Easter... mine was good too... Thanks for asking! spent it with a lady from work (Sabrina and Ben and fam) at their place out of town - very nice brunch! And then the Easter bunny came! It was a nicer way to spend an Easter overseas then what i had originally planned... at home... alone...

Then on Sunday night we went out to dinner at a brazilian restaurant called Fogo de Chao... Best meal of my life!! We each had a coaster infront of us... green side up means load me up... red side up means skip me this time... Only problem (actually it wasa good thing) was that the waiters came with giant skewers of meat every 20 seconds or so... So if you were quick enough with flipping the coaster there were piles of meat on your plate in what seams like an instant... there were 15 differnet kinds of meat being brought round... From sirloins, Filet mignon, rump and ribs and so much more... check out their menu here http://www.fogodechao.com/dining.htm and watch all the different meats scroll thru! Amazing! Thanks John for 'taking us'!


In the photo Left to right are Shiela (from DirtyFranks), your trulely, Ben (Sabrinas Husband), Debra and Doug (friends from the bar), Sabrina (from work), Rob and John (also from Franks), Dick (Moberg - boss man and drinking partner) and Sarah (Drinking partner when Dick goes to bed) and Bunny in the middle!

And thank you to Paul from uni... For getting me here in the first place and organising this non stop party... I mean "Industry Experince"... Had an unreal time (I can see how its hard to leave this place and the people here). If the fulltime workforce (away from the poolshop) is like this I dont know what you are all complaining about... I love it! Hope you all had a good time without me... I'll see you all from next week!

Jake

LITERATURE

Good morning peoples,

Just thought I'd take a photo of my library in my room... Complete with bookends!!

I've been trying to diversify my reading... so from left to right (and in the order I've read themnsince leaving home):

• Eight Lives down - British bomb disposal guy tour in Iraq
  
• Six Sacred Stones - fiction, current day, action based on ancient relics dating back beyond history
  
• Let’s Roll - Written by the wife of u guy who died on 9/11 in the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania
  
• A Knights Tale - Sir John Hawkewood - A Knight of the King of England who then defended cities in Italy in the 14th century, fiction based on historical events. Inspired to read/buy it after looking through the Art Museum
  
• Winterdance - Written by a guy who trained and raced in the Iditarod - Alaskan snow dog race - funny cause he was ignorant
  
• The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud - Current Day fiction based on the history/protectors/keepers of the Holy Shroud - the cloth that Jesus was buried in. This book got wet in my bag last time I was in NY
  
• A Walk in the Woods - 2 guys adventure trying to walk the Appalachian Trail - a 3000km trail through the mountains on up/down the east coast of America
  
• A Perfect Storm - The book the movie was based on - Swordfishermen in the Atlantic Ocean in a mother of a storm - haven’t finished it yet, halfway.
  
• The Master Sniper - A sniper in WWII who plans to change history with a single bullet... haven’t started it yet. For the plane home I think
  

Varied enough?? Just did a quick count... about 2800 pages to date... Oh my!

What else am I sposed to do without a tv/radio at home? But apparently I'm not missing out on much.

Have a good Easter every one. No holidays over here for it!

J

ME SLACK

Sorry everyone for the lack of activity of late. I had a big Saturday night out with 30 or so Aussies at an Irish pub in town. The place was absolutely packed out but we had our own sectioned off bit with 15 cases of Coopers lager, pale ale and sparkling imported just for us.

The guy who runs the Australians in Phila website, Chris, puts on parties all over town every few months... nice guy!

http://www.anzaccmidatlantic.com/index.html

we finished there at about 8 when the Coopers were dry then headed to South St. South St has kind of the Newtown/Glebe hippy feel to it but is alive as the Cross of Surfers Paradise!! All the shops are open to midnight with music and parties spilling out onto the road. We ended up at Tattooed Moms where they were serving $1 Pabst Blue Ribbons (PBR's). Traditionally a redneck drink from the south drunkded by yobbos at the Nascar, its becoming more popular elsewhere now (apparently) but it tastes like shit... actually, like a watered down light beer!

Tattooed Moms is a very cool place, the upstairs room is absolutely covered in black and red graffiti and stickers! - looks very derelict, but very cool. and there are no tables and chairs to sit at... just old dodgem cars to sit in and on, they all have a little timber plank for your drinks but there are probly 20 randomly placed in the room! so we drank there till it closed then headed for my first ever 3am cheesesteak - don’t remember tasting it but the ones I’ve had sober (pictured below) aren’t to bad... not healthy, but not to bad! In bed by 4 (I think), up at 2pm to murder the toilet then slowly walked to the museum again (the one at the top of the ‘Rocky’ steps).

Then came home still feeling like I’d been hit by a train, read a bit of book number 7 then passed out from exhaustion but still managed to sleep thru my alarm this morning.

Easter next weekend... and no public holidays over here! Not sure what’s on, but it will be my last weekend before hometime

J

Dinner

And drinks... Best beer they got over here... I like it!

NEW YORK TAKE II

Not much happening here, still working. Although I did have a rather miserable Saturday in New York. When I left my place it was overcast and damp but I had no idea that meant it torrential rain in NY! Got off the bus in Chinatown (the bus goes from Chinatown Phila to Chinatown NY for $12!) and bought a $3 umbrella – basically useless... it spent more time inside out! I was soaked thru by lunchtime when I got to a design museum near Central Park. tried to get my $10 worth in the shit Cooper-Hewitt Museum but there is only so much ‘Roccoco’ style furniture and paintings one can endure! Bloody curly shitty legs and pattern on chairs and tables... “Can you see the influence of King George Louis the 18 1/2th here on this table leg made by Pierre François de Slutski 142 days after he died?”... I didn’t care! Sorry! Had to get that out of my system.

Then walked across the road to Central Park to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir and took these pictures... it was kinda eerie how quiet it was...

Have fun without me kids

J

Looking straight across central park to the other side... kinda foggy and creepy looking!

These all look better at full screen...

A New York quackka!

WASHINGTON DC

Sorry for the lack of updating my blog... But nobody is even looking at it besides my family. It might be time to find myself some better friends (not you Tim - good friend, maybe Dave as well)!! Last weekend I was in Washington DC, the city of massive stone, block shaped buildings with columns out the front. Sabrina and her husband Ben took me down there. I did the touristy stuff on Saturday and Sunday whilst they visited friends. Saturday night we went out in a town called Adams-Morgan - partied hard before crashing in a hotel. I went to the Air and Space museum first then the Natural History Museum. I spent about 3 hours in each and hardly saw a thing! They are part of 15 museums called the Smithsonian Institute! You could spend a week in each and not read everything! They are just huge!!! Had a good weekend, planning on going back to NY this weekend now!

The Apollo 11 shuttle that went to the moon and back - Columbia

It's in a big perspex cone to protect it. And I touched a rock from the moon Buzz and his mates brought back!

This side on illustration shows the number of planes in the air over America at any one time - it varies between 5500-6000!!!

One of the two original propellers used by the Wright Brothers on the first ever human flight on Dec 17 1903.

This is for Alan and Brad... A rock!!! Ever touched one that is 2250 million years old?? Pfft!

This one is more for the ladies... Dorothy's slippers from The Wizard of Oz in 1938

C3PO and R2D2 from the 70's - these both actually had actors in them!! Behind it part of the 1942, 30 ton super computer which is less powerful then a modern day scientific calculator!

Babe Ruth...

The gloves Muhammad Ali wore when he beat the shit out of the Lean Mean Grilling Machine called George Foreman!

The Capitol - US Parliament House

Up close

Remove people, insert me.

Looking backwards (east) from Capitol Hill towards the Washington Memorial. The grass section is called 'The Mall' and has all the museums down the sides. The dome on the right is the top of the Museum of Natural Science

This thing is big!!

It's called the Washington Monument... "Looks more like a tribute to Bill Clinton!"

Made from sandstone... see how big it is?!?!

Looking north... The White House

Looking east from the Clinton Monument across the Forest Gump Pool to the Lincoln Memorial

The Reflecting Pool

The Lincoln Memorial... Nothing like living in the past hey America!

The Lincoln... Big guy!

Big white guy!

Looking west from the feet of Big Linc, across the Gump to the Clint then Parly House in the distance

Like I said... block stone buildings with columns!!

So there you have it, my two days in Washington. Cant see myself going back there this trip... I'd rather spend it in NY, at an Aussie BBQ sponsored by Coopers Beer and at an ice hockey match... That's the plan for my last 3 weekends here!

Be safe

J

SNOW

Just realised, that if you ckick on each photo it loads it up bigger. I have shrunk most of them to screen size but the early photos posted are massive files. Also if you click on the title of each post, it loads the comments underneath.

The following were taken last Friday after 4-5 inches of snow fell overnight...

The view from my room, Friday 7.15am

Walking to the station, 7.45 am

Looking back at the train station. The guy in the middle is shovelling the crossing, 8.35am (Note the big brown chimney stack just to the right of the middle)

The walk to work. The Jeep is parked on the footpath... the road is there somewhere, 8.38am (see the same chimney stack on the left, work is at the end of this road - South Maple Way, Ambler)

Work

Oi, Oi, Oi!

Main street of Ambler looking north at lunchtime

Looking South

MISC PHOTOS

Penn Uni Stadium... Seats 55000 people, i passed it on the way to the ICU ward of Penn Uni Hospital where i went on a 'field trip'. They ware playing lacrosse in the middle

http://www.pennathletics.net/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1700&ATCLID=66184

Real 3500+ year old mummy at the Academy of Natural Science i went to yesterday

Atleast he still has his chain!!

ACHMED THE DEAD TERRORIST

I love it!! Search for Jeff Dunham in Youtube if you want more!!

NEW YORK CITY

My day in New York... If your looking at a map, I basically statrted at the south (Ground Zero) and walked my way north, crossing between 5th, 6th and 7th Aves depending on what was there, until i arrived at Central Park and caught the Subway back to Downtown - China Town where i caught the bus back home (the photos are showed in the order i took them). It is a crazy place! Not as tall and overwhelming as I thought but just covering a massive area. I walked about 15km in the day but scarily, only did the south half of Manhatten Island! Then there is the north half and the other 4 boroughs which are even bigger and is still New York!! I will be back... as many times as i can!!!

Freeze! It’s the NYPD in our little electric powered Hyundai thingys!

Inner city parking – Hope you’re not in a hurry!

Ground Zero – as seen through the fences

Empire State building as seen from 5th Ave (with the NY yellow cabs in front)

The triangle building is where Broadway crosses over 5th Ave

Madison Square Park, this is really nice – it just needed snow!

Looking south from atop Empire State building

1st to 12th ‘Avenues’ run North/South, 1st to 167th Streets run East/West starting at the south and Broadway cuts diagonallyish through the middle

Statue of Liberty (with the help of some zoom)

Looking North, the 800+ acre Central park in the middle

Proof I was there!

A prize for the first to work out how I did this (not Photoshopped!!)

Millions of yellow cabs

Standing on the 86th floor ‘observation deck’ looking up

Times Square – made even more crazy with 10 000 people in a Serbian parade

Times Square again (where Broadway crosses 7th Ave)

The Naked Cowboy - Same spot, same clothes, everyday of the year regardless of the weather!

Do a Google and Google image search for the naked cowboy and see how famous he is! He is sueing Mars for $6.5million! http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/14/1202760438896.html

Seen this in movies before? It’s at the base of the Rockefeller Center - The Rockefeller Plaza

Police convoys... Sirens, horns and lights... All for show I think

Trump Tower on 5th Ave (just one of many with his name on it!)


Another ice rink in Central Park... Kinda famous too I think