No luck at Adaminaby

Yesterday we went to the races at Adaminaby (about half an hour south of Cooma).

Adaminaby has one of those once-a-year racetracks that you sometimes think are really a pub with a racetrack attached. Adaminaby Cup day is a major fundraising day for the local community, so you expect slightly inflated prices, but Karyn and Penny were very happy with the price of Champagne. Being the designated driver, I just stuck to water all day. But we had a really good time despite not coming away with a win.


We got there early, and despite filling the boot with chairs, folding tables and the like, we decided to sit in the stand, just in front of the bookies. It made it easy to see the prices.


We had a few wins, and even more losses, but of course were slightly in the red by the end of the day.

Diamond Jay was in the last race, unfortunately. "Unfortunately" because the clouds were getting blacker and blacker as the day progressed, with showers increasing. I'm still getting the feel of my new camera, so I wasn't quite sure how far to go with adjusting the settings for the decreasing amount of light. I kept the speed at 1/1600 sec and increased the ISO 800, and hope that there would be enough light for a decent photo. There was, but only just. You might think that the colours are screwed up, but because of the drought, the grass was actually bleached white. Because of the light drizzle, this then turned an orangey colour that you can see below.

Here's Diamond Jay crossing the line in about 6th place. Just after the start, I heard the racecaller saying how DJ was doing it hard riding 3 horses wide, and I remembered that we had an apprentice on board to get a 3kg weight reduction. The downside of a lot of apprentices is that some of them have a lot to learn, and this guy seemed to run 3 wide for the whole race, which meant that we ran about 2,000m instead of 1,750m. The jockey came back and said that the horse was just too slow, but then how many jockeys would blame themselves. So given the circumstances, maybe 6th wasn't too bad. We'll just make sure we don't get that apprentice again.

Here was one of the "colourful" racegoers.



The funny thing is that you can have a really great day at country races. There's no need to get dressed up (if you're a guy). I like to wear my bright Hawaiian shirts. And everyone is just there to have a good time. What more could you ask for than a nice warm day, a few winners, and a steak sandwich in one hand? Apart from a beer in the other hand, of course.

You just have to be prepared to buy lots of raffle tickets for one fundraiser or another. The organisers are smart enough to have their cute children walking around all day asking you to buy them. I'm often glad not to win the prizes though - I kept thinking "what if I won that huge quilt?"

It's hot outside

It's days like today that I'm glad we installed air conditioning. It's 38 degrees C (that's 100 farenheit) outside and 25 degrees inside.

There appears to be a heatwave right across Australia at the moment and we seem to be getting the worst of it. Fortunately Canberra is a dry place so that evaporative cooling works a treat. And only a few cents a day to run.

I've been in the pool twice already, because every time I go outside I get hot and then I see that lovely, icy cold, blue swimming pool shimmering in the sun. I reckon I should just pretend I'm in Hawaii and wear my swimming gear all day and fall in the water occasionally. If I ask nicely I'm sure Karyn will bring me out a glass of cold champagne.



It just occurred to me that I should drop the temperature of the spa. Who wants to get into a 40 degree spa in Summer? It's been a week or so since I used it, and this hot snap has just hit us - I expect it to continue like this for the next 5 months or so.

I keep forgetting that it's still only Spring.

The dogs seem to be enjoying the heat. Here is Coco lying in the hot sun.

I'm getting tired of not working now. I seem to spend a large slice of every day applying for new contracts. It's actually easier just going to work each day. I've re-written my CV several times now with different perspectives for different types of job. I had an interview yesterday that seemed to go OK, but you never know what the opposition is like.

The contract job market is about to start slowing down for Christmas soon. I hope I've found something by then or I may have to get a job doing babysitting or ironing. Unfortunately Karyn keeps finding me things to do around the house.

Oh well, back to the next job application.

Oh no! The thermometer has just gone up to 26 degrees.

Maybe just one more swim first ...

Finally - my photos from Hawaii

I finally got my photos from Hawaii organised and loaded into Flickr.

You can see them here --> http://www.flickr.com/photos/apeyton/collections/72157622744234342/

Enjoy.

Another Win

On Melbourne Cup Day we drove down to Bega. Our horse was running there, and it's always a good excuse for an outing.

The only downside is the 3 hour drive to get there.

The upside is:



and

Surprise Visitor

This was not the sort of visitor that I expected to be lurking at the front of my house this afternoon.

Hawaii - First few days

After a year of anticipation, we finally got to Hawaii. It was just as good as we remembered from 25 years ago.

We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which we still reckon is the best place to stay in Honolulu. Here is the view from our room.



I wish I was there now. Outside it's only 10 degrees and raining.

The Hilton is about a 15 minute walk to downtown Waikiki and an equal distance the other way to the Ala Moana shopping centre. So you get the benefit of being away from the main drag in a more peaceful area without also being too far away from the excitement.

Waikiki is a very busy place, with a lot of hotels crowding one another for a piece of beachfront. The beach was surprisingly small, with only about 30' from the buildings to the water. In fact, while I was standing there taking a photo one day, a big wave came in and swamped some people sunbaking on what they thought was safe territory.

You can see from the picture above where the sand is wet - to the left of the girl. She was lying on a towel and got hit by a wave. I read in the paper that locals are concerned about the loss of sand.

We didn't do anything in particular for the first few days, just enjoyed being away from work, and explored the Waikiki area and got our bearings. And drank lots of cocktails. I'm not a big drinker, but it just seems to be the thing to do there.

Hawaii trip approaches

Only 5 sleeps to go before our trip to Hawaii.

I’ve just got a new camera for the occasion, a Canon 450D with a set of 18-55 and 55-250 image-stabilised lenses. This camera is quite different from by previous 38-380 Kodak digital camera as there’s a lot more to worry about in the settings department.

And now I have to decide which lens to keep on as default – the short or the long range one. Murphy’s Law says that whenever I have the short-range one on, I’ll need the telephoto one on. Mark reckons that when travelling in Thailand recently, he just kept the short-range one on.

I went to the botanic gardens this weekend to try out some high-contrast photography. A few months ago I went to a rainforest (with my previous camera) and I was disappointed at the quality of the photos that I took – in the rainforest it is dark green with the occasional splash of intense sunlight – sometimes reflecting brightly off leaves. The Kodak camera didn’t handle low light-level situations well. Most of my photos ended up being either too dark, or overexposed where there were patches of sunlight. So yesterday I took myself off to the rainforest area of the botanic gardens to try again.

I guess that it was a learning experience, without much to show for it. While the camera handled the environment better, I still wasn’t able to capture that dark rainforest look with a million shades of green all around. For Father’s Day today Matt gave me a polarising filter that I think might help with the reflected light off the leaves. Surprisingly, the best ones were taken when I used the flash. And the ones where I got the camera settings right were the ones with the worst compositions. Anyway, as I said, a learning experience. After we get back from Hawaii, I’ll try again with my new polarising filter.

I hope to be able to take a lot of shots in Hawaii. I’m taking a large USB drive to copy them on to. Karyn’s taking her netbook for me to use to upload and store the photos. I don’t know what the hotel charges for internet access – certainly up in Sydney it was too expensive for casual browsing. It’s probably costed for business people who can just add it to their accommodation bill.

Today was Father’s Day, so Karyn and I went to the Bella Vista restaurant on the lake at Belconnen where Matt works. He was working there today because of Father’s Day. As usual the food was terrific. Karyn had lasagne, and I had a prawn and calamari entree and a pasta dish with strips of veal, mushrooms, chilli, olives, and other yummy ingredients. We washed it down with a lovely bottle of sparkling shiraz. Karyn finished off her meal with a dessert made from champagne blended with lemon liqueur, cream, and lemon sorbet. With 3kg left to lose on my diet, I gave dessert a miss.