Day 314: Ahhhh

It's Friday again and this time there's cold beers in the fridge. It isn't always the case but on nights like tonight when there are beers in the fridge I feel compelled to make the most of it. I like beer. I like it a lot. Now I'm going to drink this one. Ahhhh the simple pleasures, they just add that little bit of something special to life don't they?

Day 313: A New Perspective

It's Thursday again so we're back at the pool for Henry's swimming lessons, only this time I've got the waterproof camera I bought on the way to Philip Island last weekend because I forgot to bring my 'real' camera.

I decided to have a bit of a play with it after the lesson and I took a few under water photos of Henry... unfortunately they were pretty much henry from the shoulders down because he doesn't like putting his head under the water just yet. They were interesting though, I liked how from under the water, the surface reflects what's underneath it like a mirror. I didn't use one of those though, I chose this one instead.

Henry likes to play on the steps into the big pool, he wades in until he can't touch the bottom and them climbs along the edge for a bit before making his way back the way he came. He also likes to swing on the hand rail where it meets the water. Henry's turning into a bit of a water rat... just like his sister. It must be in the genes.

Day 312: Damp Brolly

The sky wept today

It made my brolly quite damp

My hair remained dry

Day 311: Heading Home

For reasons too long to explain, Andy dropped Pete and I with the trailer at Pete's sister's place to bring their dad's car back to Canberra. Along with this we also picked up Bron's bike that she rode in the Ride to Conquer Cancer in October. It was quite an effort to fit all the stuff we had from the ute into the car but with a few adjustments and some minor repositioning of things we made it all fit. It was convenient that Pete's dad's car had a tow bar.

The drive home was pretty uneventful with the exception of getting a call from Andy who was a good half hour ahead of asking us whether we'd drop some fuel to him if he ran out. He'd hoped to pull in to a small town on the highway to refuel but found the servo there was no longer in business. As it turned out he managed to limp the ute in to the next town. Apparently the guy at the servo asked Andy what was wrong with his ute when he pulled in because it was chugging and spluttering up to the fuel pump. Andy called to let us know he'd made it so we could stop looking for the old white ute on the side of the road. The whole sequence of events was a welcome distraction from the boring highway.

Day 310: How Good Is This?

This morning was great, it was another glorious day at Phillip Island and my photo for the day is of the bike all set up ready for the day ahead. The morning sun was shining in through the back door of the garage and my coffee was still hot in my travel cup on the tail of the bike, what more could I ask for?

I was looking forward to getting out on track and putting everything I learned yesterday to practice, unfortunately as soon as I got out there I promptly forgot everything and just tried to ride really really fast. The funny thing is, when you try to ride really really fast you end up going slower than when you just work on being smooth.

Once I had the first session out of my system I was able to focus on my lessons from yesterday, I worked on keeping my vision wide and taking each corner using the three step method I learned. This helped to improve my lines and in turn my corner speed.

It's amazing how having a process to follow makes it feel like there's more time for you to prepare yourself and the bike for the next corner even though you're actually arriving there much quicker than you were previously. I'm not sure that this will actually make sense to anyone who hasn't been through the this kind of tuition but it seemed to work for me.

In any case, Andy, Pete and I all had another great day on the track. We all felt quick and we all came away unscathed, what a great way to spend a few days away with mates.

Day 309: End Of The Day

I had a big day at Philip Island today. It was a full day of California Superbike School with a heap of sessions on track and an equivalent number of session s in the class room. The weather was perfect, clear skies, sunshine and not too much wind.

The class room sessions are packed in between the on track time with barely 10 minutes for a debrief with the instructor before needing to be in class, this doesn't leave any time for putting bikes up on stands, fitting tyre warmers and plugging them in. I was a little worried about the effect his would have on my new rear tyre and also about how the first couple of laps would feel while the tyres were working their way up to the right temperature and pressure levels. It was ok, the tyres only felt mushy for the first half a lap or so and the wear seemed to be ok, certainly better than it was before I had the suspension sorted by Laurie.

Because it was so busy I really didn't have a chance to take any photos on my new camera, so tonight after a few beers with Pete & Andy and while getting organised for dinner I took this one. It's the view from the house we've rented, the sunset was pretty spectacular and the new camera has done a decent job to capture it. The best thing about today was knowing I'd be back on the track again first thing tomorrow morning.

Day 308: Forgotten Camera

Today got off to a good start, Pete & Andy came to collect me at around 7am and I had some coffees in travel cups organised so we were ready to go. We loaded my gear into Andy's ute, hooked the trailer up  and hit the road.

It was roughly 45 minutes into the trip that I realised what I'd left behind. The bloody camera. Despite my best efforts to convince the guys that we should stop, unload Pete's bike and let me ride it back to retrieve the camera and I'd catch them at Nimmitabel where we could load Pete's bike back into the trailer, we decided it wasn't really worth it.

Speaking of Nimmitabel, I've been trying to get one of their famous pasties (their pies are great too) but every time I've missed out. On more than one occasion I've missed the last pastie by one customer and once the last customer was Andy. This time I was adamant that I'd get one so I jumped out of the ute when we arrived and rushed to the bakery before Pete & Andy could gazump me. On my way to the bakery I saw a guy walking out with one and thought I'd be in luck... unfortunately that wasn't the case. I'd missed the last pastie by one customer again. One of these days I'll get one...

Our next stop was for lunch at Bairnsdale where I tracked down the local Dick Smith to buy a cheap little camera to get me through the next few days without my real camera. What I ended up with was the one pictured: a FujiFilm XP thingamajig that's waterproof. I didn't really go in looking for a waterproof camera but I figured that since I was buying another camera I might as well add something to my existing photographic capability. Time will tell if it's any good.