Outta here!

Till Wednesday or even Thursday. Don't worry, I'll be back. Wifey-Poo and I are taking our anniversary road trip. This time it's down to the Limestone Coast again (just click on the Naracoorte label and enjoy a road trip with us!) but we're going down to Mt Gambier and staying their for 3 nights.

In a holiday park. Right. On. The. Edge. Of. BLUE LAKE!!!!!

Gonna visit Umpherston Sinkhole too.

And drive through the Grampians!

Drive along the Great Ocean Road to The 12 Apostles.

We figure we'll take about 2500 photos apiece!

I'll also have my phone with me and I'll be uploading pics from it to my twitpic acct regularly, so make sure you check in with that OFTEN!

Here are a few random pics to keep you entertained till we hit the road! Oh, the 3D one is a definite work in progress, the boat'll be different, water will be dripping from the sea dragon, and a few other things.

So I'll say "Ta" till late next week!




Now which quitter ex-gov does this remind you of?





There is lettuce, rocket (aragula?), Sicilian olives, Kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, feta, tomato, smoked salmon, hard boiled eggs, cucumber, and maasdam cheese on it. I added fresh ground white pepper to my serve plus a drizzle of freshly pressed olive oil. It was devine!

US Visit Finalised!

Well, sorta. I'm still trying to work in a day trip down to FL during the last week I'll be in Charlotte to see me gramma. So there.

For the rest of you... Here we go!

I do apologise to all my Alaskan and Canuck friends, twitmates, acquaintances, strangers, etc who were hoping I'd be heading *slightly* farther north than just Arlington. It's a little something called money. And time. Next trip though; you betcha mates!

My point of entry into the US of A shall be The City of Angels. I do have a fairly lengthy layover at LAX so if anyone who may perchance want to meet, chat, say hi, whatever can do so. Arrival time is 0640 on Fri May 18th on a Qantas flight and I'm not scheduled to depart till 1135 the same day bound for Charlotte. Customs shouldn't take too long (fingers, toes and eyes crossed) so I'm anticipating having 1 to 2 hours to kill at the LAX domestic terminal.

But really folks, if you aren't in the area please don't make a special trip. Unless you really want to of course!

Arrival in Charlotte, NC is 1912 on May 18th. I'm staying in Charlotte from then till the morning of May 29th. I have a few things planned that I'd like to do (like an overnight trip to the backwoods of VA), but absolutely nothing is set in stone. If'n any of y'all are wanting to meet up with Yours Truly (don't swoon ladies, I'm human!) then these 11 days would be an ideal time. Just sayin'.

Next is the road trip to Arlington and DC. We (bro, 2 nieces, uncle, family friend) are heading out of Charlotte the morning of the 29th, leaving Arlington/DC on the morning of Saturday June 2. Dad's funeral is on the 30th. We have 2 full days after the services in which to take in the sights and sounds of the area --Smithsonian, here I come!

I already have one friend from way back in time from Alaska who is in DC that wants to have dinner one of those two nights (she is also more than welcome to join us on the sightseeing --in case she's reading this). But of course anyone is welcome to join in on the fun! And of course if anyone is road-tripping it in from somewhere like, oh, maybe Ohio or Iowa then I could easily spend a whole day gallivanting around DC and taking in the sights with y'all, no worries mates!

After getting back into Charlotte late on the 2nd, I am then hanging around the general vicinity until the afternoon of June 9th at which time I shall be vacating the East Coast of the US of A with my presence.

The LAX layover is only 3 and a half hours on the way out so I doubt there'll be time to see anyone.

For me Aussie mates: on the way out I'm changing planes in Brissie, but only have 1.5 hours. On the way back I'm going thru Sydney and have 3 and a half hours. So if any of you Sydney-siders have some free time on the morning of June 11th and wanna swing by the airport to say hi then that's cool, no worries.

WHEW! Ok, that's outta the way.

Next up: some more 3D work from "His daveness"! No, I'm not that conceited, this is a nickname that a very cool Canuck gave to Yours Truly. Although she capitalises it :-}

Dragons. Wouldn't everyone like one? This is a rendering in VUE10 of an .obj (plus the .mat files) of DAZ's Millennium Dragon 2 after posing it and setting the morphs. Please note that the her left hand has just missed grabbing something and the arm is pulling back whilst her right hand and arm are reaching out to grab whatever it is the left missed.

The jaws and eyes should sorta kinda speak for themselves.


Why did I render it in Vue? Because I wanted to add some cool terrain and clouds and also have access to the super-awesomely great rendering engine that Vue has. I luvs me my Vue10!

And yes, I know the mountains suck and the texturing on them isn't any better, but I was working more on the clouds, the space fighter, and the dragon.


So, like, does it work for you?

I can do much more better landscape stuff.

REALLY! I can! *screamed the insignificant dust-speck of a blogger*

Here's proof:


Yeah, cool huh? That's what I thought too :-}

To sum up: I'll be visiting the US of A. If anyone wants to meet up and shoot the breeze then no worries mates! Drop me a comment or an email or a DM on twitter and we'll work something out.

Fine then, BE that way!

And see if I care!

Harumph

Obviously my lame-assed attempt at audience participation udderly phailed.

Well, I've now got a pic that will pretty much guarantee comments! Would you like to see it? Of course you would:



Mmmmmmm, that makes me hungry mates! In fact, I may even may roo burgers today.

And no, roo pies are NOT like cow pies! But if you are wondering what that "type" of roo pie looks like... think moose nuggets! However, Aussies aren't crass enough to varnish em and sell em to tourists like Alaskans do! But you can get small purses that at one point in time housed a male roo's testicles.

Yes ladies, you CAN literally carry around the privates of a male! I'll bet Alaska's Worst Governor Ever would like one to keep Toady's junk in.


Next picture up is a sneak peek at a 3d seen (whoopsie, "scene"; darned tiepoes!) I'm working on. Keep in mind that every single bit of this picture is FAKE. The rocky desert landscape is FAKE. The crashed ship is FAKE (but have a squizz at the cockpit wreckage, it's great!). The steam plume from the engines is FAKE. The ship circling around is FAKE. The crappy looking engine tail glow (still working on that!) is FAKE. The clouds are FAKE.



Everything in the photo is FAKE! Which is exactly like the persona of The Creature From Lake Lucille, FAKE!


Oh, wait a sec mates! You probably can't make out the ultra cool detailing from that little pic.

Here's a much more bigger and much more better one!



Thoughts? Ideas? Snarky remarks?

Audience Participation Time!

This would of course mean that I'm feeling too bleedin' lazy to put up a real post and yet I pheal compelled to put something up else ya'll will think I fell of the face of the Earth (again).

That reminds me, I AM working on the rest of my 100% percent true Alien Abduction story so expect posts about that to appear sporadically and spasmodically throughout this coming century.

But for today YOU (yes YOU, not the other one but YOU) get to be creative!

YOU get to come up with either a caption, a short paragraph, or even a short story about a coupla pics that YOU are about to see. Obviously just use the comment function, no worries mates.

This first one can be tackled from many different angles. Is it an evil grin behind that mask or non at all? What is he planning? Who is he? What is he doing? And what exactly is that thing that is attached to his face?

Possibilities are endless mates! So put your tinfoil thinking caps, snort deeply from your powdery supply of scents of humor, and GIVE IT A GO MATES!





***********************************************************************

Now this second one is also an actual photo that I took. Although it was during a reconnaissance expedition of the third moon of Ceti Gamma Prime in the alien spaceship that I commandeered during my 100% TRUE Alien Abduction story and not here on Earth like the above photo was taken... Whoops! I've said too much, better take that blue pill now!

See how easy it is?

Here's the actual photo:


Oh wait, you'll definitely want to see it larger sized, and make sure you have a good squizz in all the shadowy areas for extra detailing and ideas for captions/comments/stories/etc.




Alrighty everyone! Go bang your funny bones on your collective door frames and let's see what YOU come up with!

A Little of This, A Little of That.

G'day mates! How are ya? Has this winter (or summer) been treating you nicely? Lemme know, eh?

I'm hoping that everyone is now happy again now that I'm posting regularly again --fingers, toes, eyes, legs, ankle, arms all crossed in the hope that I can keep it up!

Don't expect any rhyme nor reason from my posts, one day you may see me running around an alien spaceship, the next you may see an embarrassed koala! Why the flighty-ness? It's not that I don't have a short attention span, it's just that I get ummmmm, side-tracked (yeah, that's it!) more often than knot and then a few days go by as I try to finish up (start!) a post that was a great idea at the time and befour I know it; a month has gone by-BYE!

Well (and that's a deep subject), NO MORE! I'll post whatever darned thing comes to my mind and type whatever darned stuff spews itself through my fingertips, onto my keyboard, onto your screen, into your eyeballs, then the spewed stuff finally comes to rest in some back-corner, unused area of your memory.

I hope you don't mind.

And no, I had absolutely NO IDEA I was going to type what I have typed thus far, I just let the fingers spew forth whatever they phelt like spewing forth.

*screeeeeeeeech* Insert sound of brakes

Changing gears now.

Many of you may or may not be aware that I'm going to have to travel to the US for a coupla weeks near the end of May. The reason is quite obvious as it involves Arlington National Cemetary. I will unfortunately NOT be able to work in a visit to Alaska (seriously grumbling about that), in fact it'll be an East Coast only trip with the exception of an airport or two.

I do not plan on cutting my hair (still no gray and approaching 50!!!!). Haven't cut it since late 1998 so why ruin a good thing, eh? I am not planning on shaving my long goatee (ok, it has a couple of gray strands) which is rapidly becoming a cross betwixt a long Van Dyke type and a short Manchu type. I also have long sideburns.

And to make sure that I'm fairly noticable, I will be bringing and wearing my tie-dye shirt collection!

Ain't they purdy?



Oh, and I'll be wearing one of several pairs of crocs routinely and wearing a black, roo-skin, acubra-style Aussie hat.

And a camera around my neck at pretty much all times. Yes, I'll be the weird tourist from Oz! Anybody gotta problem wit dat?

I have been continuing to play with and learn Vue 10. Great program! Loves it, I does! Check this out mates:


Here it is much more bigger sized:


Pretty good eh? All from scratch from Yours Truly! Vue also renders much faster than Bryce, this only took 6 hours to renders and talk about realistic plants!

Next up, dave makes a lame joke.

I am about to make a joke that may be a major embarrassment to me. So much so that I may go hide my head in shame rather like this:


The joke is a visual one. It's from one of my own pictures too!

You know how some people (not naming names mind you) tend to see phallic symbols everywhere? Yes, it's true some people do, not sure why.

Well, thinking along that "type" of line... What does this next picture remind you of?


I know, I'm a bad, evil, vile person and you don't need to tell me where I'm going cus I already know the way.

Ok, joke's over.

Those of you who know me in real life know that I have a knack for resting. And sleeping. Stay tuned for next time as I tell you ALL about my embarrassing history of sleeping and resting in what *some* people might think are inappropriate places!

The Grapes of Wrath

Whoopsie! Sorry about that mates, there's a tie-poe in the title. It should be "The Grapes of Frank".

Me neighbor (lives right next door) has a nice country property over the border in VIC (but I don't hold that against him mind you) and on that property in Victoria he has quite a few acres of "stuff" growing.

The typical "stuff" that is grown frequently in Oz.

No, not that.

No no, the other thing.

Ah, yes! You figured eighted it out!

GRAPES

As in, lots n lots n LOTSA grapes.

Every year around harvest time he brings a few kilos over to share with his friends. And neighbors. Apparently I'm in both categories as it may have something to do with me removing some viruses from his son's computer that he (the dad, not the son) contracted whilst perusing "those" sites befour his son or wife had a chance to find out his surfing habits. Ahem.

Anywhos, 3 days ago (that would be Wednesday local Oz time) Frank bangs on me door with around about 7 kilos of grapes. Fresh off his vines! He picked them the day before and brought em over for me (ummm, I mean for US of course --in case Wifey-Poo is reading this). Yes, he has the proper permits and there are no fruit fly probs with his crops.

I thought I'd be kind and show you a picture of the haul of GRAPES. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture till 3 days later (couldn' take pics, wuz too busy eating grapes) so the 7 kilos or so has diminished "slightly" in mass and volume.

Butt here's a pic for you anyways and remember to get the latest software app upgrade witch allows you to ackshuallee smell and taste them! If you aren't sure if you have the upgrade then just sniff and lick your monitor (preferably when your office coworkers aren't watching!)

67 years ago...

...my dad was growin' up on da fahm down in New Joisey!



And 25 years later he was helping me grow up in Alaska!





I miss you Mom and Dad.