Mr. Tom Gets Around

So an update of sorts, After Worlds: Wasted a half-day watching the Red Bull Air Race which turned out to be boring after the first pilot didn’t crash in the course.  So our Posse busted a move to the local hot spot at the Cottlesloe Beach and after a half cheeks showing(Dani) we moved over to Freo(Fremantle) to check out the Little Creatures Brewery.  A really neat place to hang and put some jalapeno juice in your eye and see what happens.  Well I can tell you its hot and stingy, but does incredibly make you feel alive and kicking if anything.

Monday was spent car shopping, first in the personals and then we decided to head up just north of Perth.  Wanagara the Mekka of used cars.  We actually had our favorite quite quickly. A white goddess named Wanita, a 1987 Ford Falcon Deluxe Edition, with about 244,440km’s.  The bonus was the LPG(autogas).

For fear of losing a few of you I’ll chop some of this up a bit and keep it moving.

The roadtrip with Nathan(fello Worlds Volunteer) to Margariet River.  We visited a Spiral Jetty, basically a long pier 2km that just goes into the sea.  We opted not to do the underwater tower and instead challenged ourselves to some pier jumping. see photo link below

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mielleman/sets/ 

oh, so lots of wine tasting for the boyz, hopefully they learned something, while I took some hard naps by the lakes connected to the vinyards. We also learned that Caves are still pretty neat even if you have a stiff neck from doing one to many flips into waves at the beach.  Emil and I also learned that aussie Schoolies or Leaver’s are a strange mix of kids who just finished school and are out to party till the fridge is empty and has been put horizontal in the middle of the kitchen floor. One question Who is the Skipper of this ship?

A day of beach after all the Worlds parties and finals proved most relaxing.  By far the most exciting game to watch and heckal was the Masters final between the Japanese Vigi and the American Old Sag.  Old Sag pulled out infront from the start(9-4 halftime) but the Vigi’s managed to pull off a big upset coming back to a 16all tie to play the game winning point.  At this point the Japanese spectators stormed the field and took control of the pitch celebrating the victory while throwing the gaming player in the air. 

The all japanese women’s final was a battle as well but the MUD team proved too strong for the crowd favorite UNO.  A few of the players from the MUD team choosing to dress up as power rangers after the game to celebrate.

Tuesday at Worlds proved an exciting day of action packed games including some close ones in the Open and Womens divisions.  My personal favorite ladies team ,OZONE from the States, Atlanta to be exact played a tight match against the Sydney ladies of Southside.  The japanese BuzzBullets had their way with englands Clapham in the mens open division. The nailbiter of the day was the THONG vs. Mephisto game. The battle was a point on point one with Mephisto taking the half 9-8, Thong lost some ground and was down 13-11 in the second half when THONG came back to tie it at 13all. Then a 14all game to 15 call. THONG had been doing a Puppy fence on Mephisto forcing them from the endzone line back to their own endzone line, a sweet deal for any D-team.That was just to tie it. For the win, Mephisto had to play an up wind point, but THONG proved too strong on D, forcing the turn close to their own endzone line and throwing a flick-huck to two sprinting THONG boyz.  The catch was made sky-high and the game was finished.

 The day ending Red Lights vs. Sublime game was also a  close one. I was on duty on the upper fields so my handy Caddy provided the transport around the fields to get the best view. Emil joined me as his shift had ended to support the only dutchies in the tournament.  My boss Steany wanted to but a friendly bet on the game. He supported the local Perth Sublime team. We bet on a double shift for the next day, a 7-7 shift, 12 hours of water duty to be exact. Sublime took the half 9-8, but the Red Lights proved strong and tied later at 11all, slowly the time cap was reached and it was a game to 19 I believe.  Red Lights played a strong tactical game, forcing weakness over experience.  Pulling the win 19-17.

After the game Steany radioed to me telling me to enjoy the day off. I’m not one to bet, but just had a feeling the tables were turned in my direction. 

Righty today being selected to be a team-captain, I showed up late having missed the 1:07 bus to Challenger Stadium or the UWA Sports Center, aka Home of the Worlds so to speak.  I was introduced to Sneany who, together myself and a handful of others will be running the water out to the fields via GolfCaddy(supercool).  Sneany saying I’d have to be a little crazy just to put up with his stuff(shit he meant).  I told him I didn’t drink but would probablly out do him on wicked crazyness.  He liked my answer and grinned a bit.  Later on it was all laughs as I tryed running over some Player packs with the GolfCaddy in reverse instead of forward.     

So looks like Worlds will be witnessed out of the seat of a GolfCaddy as I replenish the water supplies to all 2000 players daily. 

Below my celly # in aus for those brave enough to text or call(with full knowlegde of the time zone difference with Perth) 

+ 61424339317

Having had a relaxing morning at the Rainbow Lounge Backpackers Hostel, which included veggiemite on my bread, takes gettting used too.  I hoped on Samantha (my bike) and headed into downtown Perth for some business.  Hint, important things close early in Perth, so getup earlier.  Well then just take Hay Street till you get to the Challenger Stadium was what I kept saying in my head.  This proved correct and about 45 minutes later I was looking over some amazing pitchs, were the WorldChamps will be played.

Afterwars I took a dip in the ocean, doing a bit of bushtrekking along the way, and running into a lizard stubbytail. click below

http://pl.atyp.us/pictures/aus2/thumb/IMG_0767.jpg

Buy a bike, head in a direction you think is North but is actually West.  Then cycle for a few hours till you reach a place you think you are familiar with.  Then cycle SouthEast, actually SouthWest thinking your heading home.  Repeat when necessary.  Finally get home and just forget dinner and get those 10 hours of sleep you needed anyway in.

After a whole day of aquarium visiting on friday, Malies(Fred’s sister) and I decided to give an aussie favorite, Surfing a go on saturday.  The clouds were against us but we recalled how the skys had cleared as we were shark watching and kept a postive vibe on our way to the famous Bondi Beach.  We we so excited after seeing the surf conditions that we took the 1st busstop in Bondi instead of the last.  We mustered ourway over to the LetsGo Surfing location onlly to find out that the 1 o’clock lesson was full.  We warmed up with some crazy berry teas and waited for cancellations.  Secretly deciding that if there were none, we’d just get out with rentals and let the ocean teach us how to surf it up.  As we were crossing the beach to reach the longboard section we were asked by some Japanese tourists to pose with them.  This was a bit funny and odd at the same time, never actually having caught a wave but being put on film for the family vaction slide show back home.  We noticed the lesson group streching and thought this was a bit too much.  So as planned we beat the lesson group into the surf and got our butts kicked for a good hour before we got the hang of it.  Each goofy crash and fall resulting in another learned lesson.  Our wetsuits proved valuable as the water was nippy if your activity level was below excited.  Marlies proved herself a quick learner in the surf.  We figured out the idea was to get up as quickly as possible in order to get a longer ride.  I ventured out into the larger surf but was always punished bye rushing whites and plenty of bigger waves that seemed to sneak up on me.  In all my attemps at becoming the next Kelly Slater, I managed to rack up a decent ride or two between the Flip & Flop falls and diggers.  The 2 hours sailed by at an incredible speed and we once again crossing the beach to hand in our rentals.  Splitting a massive piece of banana bread, a sort of trophy for the hard work, we ended the Bondi Beach experience with a stroll along some not to great sculpture trail exhibition.  Our favorites, two or three out of 40 were winded related and even produced some weird sounds.  

ok, folks the mothership has landed, LA was fab and Fiji was an orange sunny glow.  Sydney is action-packed but cant’ think straight at the moment so will update you all in a day or two.