Photography

It has been a very long time since I have last gotten arty with a camera.

During High School I was heavily involved in photography as a hobby. The school had a fully equipped dark room with about 10 enlargers and everything you could possibly imagine.
Nobody had shown an interest in photography for about 5 years so when I put myself forward the art department was ecstatic.
They bought be any book they thought might be useful to further my skills and knowledge, and any supplies I needed would be promptly bought and stocked.

Black & White was my forte. There is so much you can say with just Black&White because it forces you to look at the details, and not be bogged down by the colour detail.

Anyways I have decided to upgrade my camera for the trip we are planning at the end of the year. I dont personally own a digital camera at present, and Dad's camera is on its last legs having been dropped down a flight of stairs a year ago.
So I am saving up and aiming for a Canon EOS 400D. A beautiful machine that takes some awe-inspiring shots. So I've been looking at information on Digital SLR cameras for the past few days (I've been out of action having my wisdom teeth removed) and I've discovered that I am not the only one that enjoys photography as a hobby. Monica actually admitted the other day that she enjoys photography as well! So last night we decided to head into the city with her Digital Camera (and my Dad's Pentax K1000, old school film camera) and start snapping.

We came up with some really nice shots, pictured below.
Click on the collage to be redirected to the online album containing the final prints from the other evening.

Sound's like a case of the Mondays!

Good Morning!
Yesterday was a great Monday.
It was the first day of my new position at work and that was very exciting.
First thing I had an appointment to view the apartment at Haberfield that Monica. I decided to give a good impression so I donned my best suit. The place was perfect. It was identical to the last place except backwards. Everything was layed out the same just a mirror image. It was in great condition. I took about 30 photos and drew a sketch of the floor plan.

After emailling all these off to Monica I headed off to work. It was pouring rain and I didn’t want to be late so I decided to drive in.
Traffic was pretty terrible but still bearable. I got about 10 minutes away from work when I realised I’d left my magnetic door pass at home so I had to turn around and drive home to get it.

Finally I was back on the way in. I arrived in enough time to be on time to work but not on time to park at the Cathedral and walk across the city. So I had to park in the parking station next door.

Being 11:25AM meant the parking station was packed. I drove around every level three times until I finally found a spot hidden away in the corner. Walked in at 11:45 on the dot to begin.

The day was pretty good, I started writing two different software packages, one for call coaching and another for scriptwriting.

In the end it was our best ever day on the campaign; we met target for the first time ever.

Work finished at 8 and I headed home, had a great dinner with Mum Dad and Andrea and just veged in front of the TV until I went to bed.

Was a great day with a good amount of variety.


Sincerely,


Cam

A Visit to Newcastle and a Brief Description of Motive

I absolutely adore the sound of heavy rain hitting a tin roof.
I am sitting in the back part of my house listening to the rain. To augment the beautiful pitter-patter I am also playing Claire de Lune by Debussy. The two engage me on a level sometimes otherwise unachievable.
Today’s events were nowhere near as hectic as yesterday.
I woke at roughly 8.15AM to the sound of my alarm and got dressed quickly and hit the road for Newcastle. I arrived roughly 10AM to spend time with Monica. She was staying at Cherie’s (her older sister who has just bought her first home in Cardiff, just outside Newcastle), and was headed home to Wauchope later today.
We sat in Cherie’s garden and just talked. We don’t talk all that often without doing other things, like shopping or seeing a movie or going for a walk etc, but today was nice. It was great to just lie under a tree and talk, caring about nothing else.
Eventually it was time for Monica and her Mother to head home to Wauchope so I too hit the road and headed back to Sydney. I arrived home about 3:30PM and just watched TV. I’m still exhausted for no reason so I’ve done very little this evening.

The lack of events from today leave me with time to discuss the purpose for this blog.
A few evenings ago a ‘family meeting’ was called. These are usually called for a chance of the old ‘flank attack’ from the parents, usually in regards to something I have or haven’t done, or sometimes my sister Andrea in a similar situation.
To my surprise however Mum and Dad wished to discuss their plans for a European Holiday at the end of the year, leaving boxing day (Dec26) and going away for about a month. They both agreed they would love for me to join them, but only if I was able to afford my own airfare. They want to fly into London, spend a little time in England then move to continental Europe, travelling through France, Holland, Spain, Italy. I can’t wait. They said they were happy to pay for accommodation, though assistance there would also be helpful. When I thought about it later I realized I also wanted to see Germany Austria Switzerland and Prague, so I think I’ll stay on for another two weeks when they leave, travelling back up from Italy.
When I told Mum and Dad of this they decided they would like to offer me a tour for those two weeks as my 21st present. I haven’t accepted that offer yet as I want to look around and see what my options are.

Anyway I guess I’m writing all this here because I miss my writing, and I really enjoy it when I am doing it. When I go away I want to keep an online journal of my travels if not daily at least every 2 or 3 days, whenever I can get to an internet café and write a few words and upload a few pictures.
So I’m training myself to get into the habit of putting away a bit of time for it every day, and I also want to document the year. Document what I get up to, how it affects me and how I am going with my planning for the trip, also how I am going with the saving. I’ll keep you posted as I save more and more.
I have begun the preliminary stages of planning for the trip, using Frommer’s Europe from US$60 a Day as my guide. Things are looking pretty nice so far, but more on this later.

Within the next week or two I hope to speak to a few travel agents and get some quotes on custom trip packages.

Although its only ten to 9 I think I’ll hit the hay. I’m absolutely buggered for no real reason.


Signed,

Cam

First Post

I am so very tired. Possibly not the best of moods to begin my journal of events leading up to what I hope turns out to be one of the greatest few weeks of my adolescent life, but its what I've been handed so I'll just have to make the most of it.

Today my brother Evan (aged 29) moved into his first house with his girlfriend, Holly. Being the faithful younger brother I of course offered as much help as I could possibly muster. This meant a 7AM Start at Grandma’s house, as they had stored all their collective furniture in her garage. Grandma lives roughly 40minutes away in good traffic. 6AM on a Saturday morning is definitely good traffic.
I arrived roughly quarter to seven to find Evan and Holly waiting out the front in their car. Once inside Grandma greeted us with the full spread. This meant a vast array of Tea, Coffee, Toast of all shapes and sizes, jams of every variety – a veritable cornucopia. Not long after 7, Holly’s brother Ben arrived with a truck. Now there are trucks and there are TRUCKS. This was an example of the latter. The type of oversized thing you see carrying roughly $100,000 worth of ‘coca-cola’. By 8.00 everything was loaded onto the truck and into my car and Evan’s, and we were off. We bid Grandma farewell and headed off down the freeway. Grandma lives in Sylvania, while Evan has just bought his first home in Enmore. So a long trip up the Princes Highway and eventually we arrived at his house.

Between the four of us we managed to get all of Evan and Holly’s possessions stored away in two of the three bedrooms within 25 minutes. This of course lead to the undeniable and unavoidable thirst quencher, ‘Tooheys Extra Dry’. Being 9.05AM meant we were only able to justify this ‘champagne breakfast’ with “its midday somewhere in the world”. Not long after this we said farewell to Ben and he headed off to work for the day. Within five minutes of his departure George (one of Evan’s oldest and most loyal friends) arrived with Evan’s BBQ and a few other things, including Oscar, an Oscar fish about a foot long. Then it was of course time for another breakfast so off we headed to the local YEEROS vendor for some nutritious breakfast food (not). From here I decided it was time for me to give the help a bit of a break to go and see my lovely girl, Monica. She was down for one day only this week to try and find an apartment to move into this year while she studies BArts/BLaw at NotreDame University. For those of you who are familiar with Sydney’s geography, the trip from Enmore to Leichardt is nothing more than at most a 10minute drive. They are practically neighbouring suburbs. Today at 12:15PM this was not to be. It took me almost 50Minutes to take this short trip and upon arrival I found Monica and her mother had already finished inspecting in Leichardt and had moved on to Haberfield. So eventually I caught up to them and we were able to continue the search for an apartment together. Having driven from Port Macquarie, Monica and her Mum had missed the open house of most of the properties they wanted to see. The one we arrived at in Haberfield was an example of this.
Undeterred Gabby (Monica’s mother) and I decided the best way to continue would be to give someone else a buzz in their apartment and ask them would it be ok to have a look around their unit, assuming it was of a similar layout to the one we were hoping to see originally. Surprisingly enough, he agreed and in we went. It was beautiful. Massive rooms, beautiful layout – it was perfect. We jumped back in our cars and headed for the Real Estate Agent. We then tried to fill out an application for the apartment. At first the Estate Agent wouldn’t let us apply ‘sight unseen’. Bashfully we explained how kind one of the other tenants had been and so we were allowed to proceed with our application.

35mintues later and about 300words of complete sob story ‘im just a simple country girl in the big scary city wanting to study law and im so very quiet’ we were done. Back to Evan’s for me!

Evan decided the only way he would be able to move into this new house was if he began the onerous task of sanding the floors. So naturally the first day they arrive there Evan’s off to Kennards Hire and picks up a belt sander (a large floor sander pictured below). The sandpaper to go on the machine is $6 a sheet. This fact only becomes important when we try and start sanding only to have the machine destroy the sheet of paper and shoot it out to land at our feet. So we destroyed 5 sheets of paper in total today and managed to actually sand with one.

A few hours later it was getting dark so the sanding stopped and there was nothing left for me to help with so I headed home and Evan and Holly went off to bed.

So here to great beginnings in serious Blog Writing! Of course always good for a laugh you might want to check out http://thinkingthinkers.blogspot.com/ I would recommend starting from the very bottom of the page and scrolling up one post at a time as the most recent post goes to the top.

Sincerely,

Cam





















"What do you mean there's no grass in here?"





















"I can't look!"




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