Cake, Cats and Conferences

by Jo Spong

Well, I think you would agree that we are getting better with keeping our blog updates more regular.

Lets start with an update on our wedding organisations. As evident by the title, we recently selected our wedding cake. This was a fun task given the large proportion of samples available and absolute yum range of flavours. Despite selecting our cake flavours quite early, Al and I pretended to be unsure and thus need more convincing by further sampling :p Now I cant wait until we do the menu sampling in January...mmmm food and wine everywhere :) The bridesmaid and flower girl dresses have also been decided upon and we have made the decision to have a Whitsundays honeymoon which will soon be booked. I just have to decide whether to take 3 or 4 weeks off work, all of March 2010 off is looking likely...ah, its a hard life :) So, the plans are coming along well.

Yesterday we had the Aussie rules grand final which was fought out between St Kilda saints and Geelong Cats. Despite being a Collingwood Magpies fan and thus I shouldn't be too bothered by who wins, I was hoping to see the saints come out with the win. It wasn't to be with Geelong winning by 14 points. Al and I watched the game at a pub in Richmond, not too far from the MCG where all the action was taking place. The atmosphere was quite good, which was different from the week before when a rather large woman decided to tell a drunk collingwood fan to stop yelling at the screen because the umpires couldn't hear him. Um....not a good idea to yell at a drunk collingwood fan when they are losing. He decided to turn his attention to yelling at her!

Work wise we are both very busy. My project kicks off in one week, so its busy times ahead. Al is busy fixing contracts and the like, you know, generally taking over the world and all of that. We just booked our flights to go to Perth at the end of November where I will have another conference to present at. Should be fun and quite warm over that way at that time of year.

Other than that, all is going well. We hope you are all well!

x Jo and Al

A Gallic Lunch and a Ceremonial Triumph

by Allan McKelvie

Two blogs in a fortnight surely signifies our return to form on the blogsphere. Hurrah.

Jo and I are fresh from my Swinburne award ceremony on Thursday night, where I picked up the Oscar for most outstanding student in the Master of Technology (Information Technology). Recognition like this is a reminder that its all worthwhile. As most of you will know I live for moments like these, when my existence in the elite of this dangerous, cut-throat world is justified and the cameras are on me 24/7... Hiya!!

Jo looked amazing on my arm, wearing Lagerfeld and dripping with jewells, whilst I wore a modest but charming single breasted number from my 'are you being served' suppliers on Bridge Road. Life in the fastlane is seemingly like second nature to us and I cant wait for the next call from my agent so we can light up the mediocre.

Just to prove all the above is total nonsense (apart from Jo looking amazing), I was swiftly back down to earth on inspecting our winter-neglected herb garden today. The watering can seemed to be blocked up a little, and on closer scrutiny I noticed a shower of snails living it up inside. This was just the tip of the iceberg, pardon the snail diet pun, as on inspecting our oregano plant I found it had been inundated with more shells than brighton beach. Little slimey bastards.

So enough about my lunch... The vermin are no more. I 'took care of it' and suffice to say the only slippery liquid on our balcony from now on will be the froth from my ice cold stubbies.

The weather is picking up, I do love spring in Melbourne. As we speak the mercury is topping 25 and despite the wind it is very nice out. Its always a fairly long and tedious winter here in terms of temperature, hovering as it does around 15 for 4 months. I like it though, as it makes you value the warmth of summer.

We were up in Manly last week, where Jo was in attendance at a conference/annual meeting and as usual I managed to piggy-back along. It was quality, just a 30min ferry ride from Sydney's circular quay, with a lovely beach and plenty of bars and restaurants. There's a nice relaxed atmosphere there and I got a nice haircut from some old barber who still uses the cut-throat blades for shaving customers whether they like it or not.

Meanwhile, we are in the midst of Footy grand final season and we have a big game to watch tonight when our Magpies (Collingwood) play a make or break game against Adelaide. No beer or pies for us tonight though as we are scheduled to take part in a 4km run in the city at 9am tomorrow, so carrot juice and chicken salads all round. But hopefully we will be celebrating a 'pies win.

Contrary to this, my mates George and Andy were round on Thursday morning to watch Scotland come so close to beating the mighty Dutch. But in true jock-style we were gallant failures again. Getting up at 4am to be kicked in the baws again is tough, but try and stop us when the next time comes around. So we will be supporting the Aussies at South Africa (plus whoever is playing England - Sorry Jason...) next June.

Right well I think thats about all the news for now, Jo is up in Bendigo today looking at Bridesmaids dresses, battling through her sore throat like the wee trouper she is, and I am supposed to be doing the housework. So I will bid au revoir for noo.

Cheers

Al & Jo