For his birthday last month Glen held a wonderful fancy dress party. Everybody made an effort and there were some very good costumes on display. The best and most original costume was undoubtedly Tosh in his rubbish bin.
Glen, the birthday boy dressed as the Green Lantern whilst Pedro came like a ninja from Adelaide for the weekend. I was the ghost of Osama bin Laden:
To get to the party I caught 2 buses across Perth dressed up like this 🙂
On facebook, an old classmate copy-pasted a nationalistic and divisive rant based on Dorothea Mackellar’s My Country:
After stewing for a while, I came up with a response:
I love a diverse country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of fiercely fought freedom,
Of people with heart, guts and brains.
I love an inclusive society,
Of friendship, passion and free,
Our successes and achievements,
Acceptance – that is Australia’s key.
This evening, I had two spiritual experiences I must share:
1. Grilling a beef t-bone steak on the courtyard barbecue on a beautiful winter’s evening.
2. Eating a perfectly medium-rare cooked t-bone steak accompanied by boiled potatoes with Nuttelex, left over vegetables and Mum’s eggplant chilli chutney:
After previously blogging from Mersin, Turkey and Adelaide, South Australia I’m now based in Perth, Western Australia. This WordPress blog at joe.in usurps my previous Blogger-based blog which I blogged at http://users.chariot.net.au/~jktaheny/blogger/blog.htm from October 2003 to November 2004 and then at taheny.com from November 2004 to April 2010.
As Blogger will not support blogs published via FTP after 1 May, this will be the last post here for a while until I’ve modified my publishing settings.
Since my Bali trip I have participated in my first triathlon, cycled 60km from Kwinana to Joondalup in the Freeway Bike Hike and ran the 10km Bridges Fun Run.
Nissan/BRW Corporate Triathlon
On Sunday 7 March I swam 400 metres, cycled 10 kilometres and ran 4 kilometres in the 2010 Perth Nissan/BRW Corporate Triathlon. I went third after Chevron Wheatstone colleagues Craig and Dave. 400 metres is probably the longest distance I’ve swum in my life and the first time I’ve swum more than 50 metres in decades. My lack of technique showed and sidestroke was my best friend. Out of our trio I was the slowest swimmer and cyclist and fastest runner, completing the course in 1:13:34. My aim for 2011 is to finish in under 1 hour!
Freeway Bike Hike
On the morning of Sunday 21 March, after 3 hours of sleep, I rode my ancient mountain bike to the Esplanade train station in order to catch a special event train south to Kwinana. From Kwinana it was a leisurely 60 kilometre ride past the city and north to Joondalup. As with the triathlon, Chevron again kindly provided specialised clothing along with post-event food and massages. I finished the distance in 2:19:02. According to my splits, the second last 5km was by far my fastest.
10km Bridges Fun Run
The 2009 Bridges Fun Run was my first organised Perth run and in 2010 I was quite confident of beating last year’s time (51:34). ‘Bridges’ consists of a lap around the Swan River, crossing over the Narrows and the Causeway.
Unfortunately I had a headache on the morning of the 28th so, although I did beat least year’s time and unofficially ran less than 50 minutes (official gun time: 50:30), I did not reach my full potential. As this was only a warm-up run I wasn’t too disappointed. The headache turned into a cold which I didn’t recover from until Easter. I’m now ready to ramp up my training in preparation for the 2010 Perth Marathon on 20 June which, in turn, will be a warm-up for the 2010 Istanbul Marathon on 17 October 🙂
