Hockey, Helicopters and Fast Cars
Well I'm having another good week, not the best ever but certainly decent......mostly ("they mostly come out at night.......mostly").
We had our semi final for Senior A tonight (my superleague team didn't make the finals). I must admit I was a little nervous about the game, as it was an important game, but it was okay. My plan for the game had been to take the first opportunity I got to lay big hits on their best players to make them think twice about coming into our end.... it was a good PLAN. One of their best players was playing in the superleague semi final which was before our game.... he broke his ankle (a guy on the other team fell on him), so that took care of that. As for our game, we scored the first goal very early in the first period. We held them at 1-0 for a fair while but then they got one back taking the score to 1-1. After that my team picked up their game a bit and we ended up winning 6-1. I didn't lay too many hits, but didn't really need to for the most part. But that's enough about that.... except that our grand final will be next Sunday at 7:30pm at our home rink....sweet. I'll probably go to the other semi final game tomorrow to see who we'll be playing. I hope the Wildcats (number 3 team) beat the Patriots (number 2 team), as the Patriots are old bastards and we have to play non contact against them which is totally gay, plus they're fuckwits and play dirty (ie they hit us even though we can't hit them).
Thursday and Friday I was up north for work, doing a preliminary site visit for a 50km railway line they'll (iron ore company) be building. I didn't go to bed till 1am the morning I was to leave as I was preparing stuff for the trip. I woke up at 3:30 and got my shit together and got down to the airport for my 5:30am flight. I was in the Qantas Club lounge (my boss got me in) waiting for the flight and went to get some breakfast, when I saw this guy sitting in a chair look around, lift his leg, and with a massive grin on his face he did the loudest fart I have heard in a long while. It was pretty funny, and yet shocking at the same time, I was quite astounded.
Anyway, the trip was pretty good despite how tired I was the first day. I got to ride in a helicopter, we did a heap of four wheel driving and it was generally pretty cruisy. There were 7 of us all up in 2 cars. The helicopter trip was early on the first day.... we flew over the area the rail line is going to go to give us an idea of what the ground was like. It was pretty fun. Hmmmm, so much text, must be time for pictures :)
This is the helicopter coming in to land:
It banked quite steeply as you can see:
Here's me in the chopper, don't you just love my oh-so-trendy safety sunglasses:
I like this photo, I think it looks cool:
Some of the tracks we drove down weren't exactly in great condition... this is actually one of the better ones, there were a lot of times we didn't even have an actual track to drive on.
We drove down a creek for several kilometers, for lack of a better (or actual) track, it was fun, but we sometimes had to drive out of it and back in to avoid obstacles. Here's the car driving back into the creek....it's a dry creek by the way :)
This is probably the best photo I took the whole trip....our view from the small hill we sat on to eat lunch on the second day. what you can see is Mt Robinson.
Last photo I'm blogging from the trip for now....the main rail line into which the 50km rail will tie.
Now, what's this fast car business you ask? Well I've been looking to buy a new car and decided on Ford Falcon XR6, but after talking to the guy at the dealership I became pretty keen on the fast version.... the XR6 Turbo. I went in on Saturday and took said XR6 turbo for a test drive..... mmm, fun. Certainly has plenty of power, taking the car from 0 to 100km/h in just 6 seconds. I certainly enjoyed driving it, but when I went back to the dealer I wasn't really sure. He fucked off for a couple minutes, came back and offered the car to me for the weekend to test drive more completely.... how could I say no :) Here's a nice pic of it in my driveway :)
Saturday night it rained.....I turned the traction control off....this wasn't smart. Hehehe, I know what you're thinking, but no, I didn't crash it, didn't lose total control or get it fully sideways either, but I did discover just how easily the back wheels come unstuck if you put your foot down a bit... didn't even realise they were unstuck until I took my foot off the accelerator at the speed limit and the back end kicked back into line.... oops. So yeah, traction control was definitely a must in the wet, in the dry however I found even putting my foot down, in a straight line, from a standing start the wheels stayed glued to the road nicely :)
I do really like the car, but I find myself thinking that the power is rather unnecessary, as for the most part, driving normally the turbo doesn't even kick in. I take the car back tomorrow, and will probably not buy it, opting instead for the non turbo version, which looks the same but isn't quite as powerful (apparently still does 0-100km/h in 8 seconds so it's by no means slow). By doing this I'll get a car that's 2 years newer, and therefore still has 2 years of factory warranty left on it.
I'll update ya'll when I buy the car, whichever one I get :)
We had our semi final for Senior A tonight (my superleague team didn't make the finals). I must admit I was a little nervous about the game, as it was an important game, but it was okay. My plan for the game had been to take the first opportunity I got to lay big hits on their best players to make them think twice about coming into our end.... it was a good PLAN. One of their best players was playing in the superleague semi final which was before our game.... he broke his ankle (a guy on the other team fell on him), so that took care of that. As for our game, we scored the first goal very early in the first period. We held them at 1-0 for a fair while but then they got one back taking the score to 1-1. After that my team picked up their game a bit and we ended up winning 6-1. I didn't lay too many hits, but didn't really need to for the most part. But that's enough about that.... except that our grand final will be next Sunday at 7:30pm at our home rink....sweet. I'll probably go to the other semi final game tomorrow to see who we'll be playing. I hope the Wildcats (number 3 team) beat the Patriots (number 2 team), as the Patriots are old bastards and we have to play non contact against them which is totally gay, plus they're fuckwits and play dirty (ie they hit us even though we can't hit them).
Thursday and Friday I was up north for work, doing a preliminary site visit for a 50km railway line they'll (iron ore company) be building. I didn't go to bed till 1am the morning I was to leave as I was preparing stuff for the trip. I woke up at 3:30 and got my shit together and got down to the airport for my 5:30am flight. I was in the Qantas Club lounge (my boss got me in) waiting for the flight and went to get some breakfast, when I saw this guy sitting in a chair look around, lift his leg, and with a massive grin on his face he did the loudest fart I have heard in a long while. It was pretty funny, and yet shocking at the same time, I was quite astounded.
Anyway, the trip was pretty good despite how tired I was the first day. I got to ride in a helicopter, we did a heap of four wheel driving and it was generally pretty cruisy. There were 7 of us all up in 2 cars. The helicopter trip was early on the first day.... we flew over the area the rail line is going to go to give us an idea of what the ground was like. It was pretty fun. Hmmmm, so much text, must be time for pictures :)
This is the helicopter coming in to land:
It banked quite steeply as you can see:
Here's me in the chopper, don't you just love my oh-so-trendy safety sunglasses:
I like this photo, I think it looks cool:
Some of the tracks we drove down weren't exactly in great condition... this is actually one of the better ones, there were a lot of times we didn't even have an actual track to drive on.
We drove down a creek for several kilometers, for lack of a better (or actual) track, it was fun, but we sometimes had to drive out of it and back in to avoid obstacles. Here's the car driving back into the creek....it's a dry creek by the way :)
This is probably the best photo I took the whole trip....our view from the small hill we sat on to eat lunch on the second day. what you can see is Mt Robinson.
Last photo I'm blogging from the trip for now....the main rail line into which the 50km rail will tie.
Now, what's this fast car business you ask? Well I've been looking to buy a new car and decided on Ford Falcon XR6, but after talking to the guy at the dealership I became pretty keen on the fast version.... the XR6 Turbo. I went in on Saturday and took said XR6 turbo for a test drive..... mmm, fun. Certainly has plenty of power, taking the car from 0 to 100km/h in just 6 seconds. I certainly enjoyed driving it, but when I went back to the dealer I wasn't really sure. He fucked off for a couple minutes, came back and offered the car to me for the weekend to test drive more completely.... how could I say no :) Here's a nice pic of it in my driveway :)
Saturday night it rained.....I turned the traction control off....this wasn't smart. Hehehe, I know what you're thinking, but no, I didn't crash it, didn't lose total control or get it fully sideways either, but I did discover just how easily the back wheels come unstuck if you put your foot down a bit... didn't even realise they were unstuck until I took my foot off the accelerator at the speed limit and the back end kicked back into line.... oops. So yeah, traction control was definitely a must in the wet, in the dry however I found even putting my foot down, in a straight line, from a standing start the wheels stayed glued to the road nicely :)
I do really like the car, but I find myself thinking that the power is rather unnecessary, as for the most part, driving normally the turbo doesn't even kick in. I take the car back tomorrow, and will probably not buy it, opting instead for the non turbo version, which looks the same but isn't quite as powerful (apparently still does 0-100km/h in 8 seconds so it's by no means slow). By doing this I'll get a car that's 2 years newer, and therefore still has 2 years of factory warranty left on it.
I'll update ya'll when I buy the car, whichever one I get :)
posted by Valdi at 8/28/2005 10:24:00 pm
9 Comments:
Great photos from your trip! I love helicopter rides. Geologists should get them more often!
Nice looking car! I reckon you should go the non-turbo version, too. It's not like you're going to be doing any car chases in this thing.. or even drag racing for that matter!
OH yeah and good to see you won the semi! We'll be at the final..
... i was shocked when i learnt that white cars are cheaper than colour cars there. There is no such rule here :)
helen: Yep, I'm currently test driving the normally aspirated version... I miss the extra power a little but not a lot, the normal one is still fast, needs LSD though, to get a little bit more grip, even though you only really lose traction rather than control if the wheel spins.
maja: We should get them all the time.. beats walking :) Good you agree, every one does it seems, that the turbo is unnecessary, as it really is. I've got the normal one for the night... it's better in every way except the engine, as it's a newer model (revision...mkII). The one I'm looking to buy now is less than a year old, as opposed to the turbo which was almost 3 years old.
RHSP: News to me bro, I think the cheap colours in the ford are white and red, the rest are a $355 option.... and look heaps better.
I liked your helicopter pic. Those safety glasses made you look slightly MENACING. Heh.
good god.. don't buy a ford!
nice shot of Mt Robinson. i really like the train tracks.
and those safety glasses...
hot.
train tracks *too* .. i realize these are 2 diff. shots, just wanted to clarify that i liked them BOTH.
Sarah: It's not an american ford which is gay, it's an australian car which is much more attractive :) The mount robinson photo I really like, and will have to print and put on my wall :) I knew what you meant about the photos :)
corinna (if typos are enough): I am here, will update soonish :)
*knock knock
Valdi?
Post a Comment
<< Home