hic.....

 
We were treated to drinks and nibbles by a friend down the road a few days ago and he produced this distinguished bounty of booze

 
This one was pretty good, but the next one, hot dang!
 
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
 
And he saved this till last. What a night!

hound time

 
I know a lot of you bloggers mainly surf in to check out what my dogs are doing. Here they are having a snooze.
 
Here is a close up of Rielly, mid wrestle, doing her best to hold onto her rope-toy
 
Whenever Rielly does something that she shouldnt, and she knows it, she sits in front of you and smiles, here is a side profile.
 
And here is another one of them snoozing. Awwwwwwwwwwww

Aussie flora

 
A picture from a walk in kings park the other day, this is a plant called a Kangaroo's Paw. It Thisfound in extreme south western corner of Western Australia and is the most robust species. It adapts well to a variety of soil and weather conditions and is used extensively by the horticultural industry to develop hybrids. More on the link...

Perthcam

 
Hi Guys. In a usual mad burst of bloggery here comes a heap of photos and tags. This one being of our new bikes, an effort to reduce our carbon footprint.

 
And for those of you who keep up with my musical career, i think this picture says it all.....

a little touch of ireland

 
Its impossible to see from this photo, but on the way to school the other day i came across this car which has a sign right under the passenger side light cluster reading "cead mile failte", a nice little touch i thought.

2 years old!

 
Friday was Finns birthday, wow time flys. Hardly seems like a year since his last birthday or even two years ago. We took him to kings park where he got to chase loads of birds (sounds like this could be his 18th birthay too....) and then we went for a meal, he was pretty tired by then as you can see in the photo. Wont be long now till he's talking and playing the viola....

cool things in perth right now.....

 
Right now, while your reading this, the two coolest things in my gaff are my toy model replica of my first real car, the good ol fiat punto AND if you are ever gonna for some reason have say a full on 6 person strong party and trombone recital in the back of said vehicle then you may as well have a bottle of this stuff, wolfblass with ya.
 

Perth-cam

 
Check this out. its in the papers here. there is a constant water problem here (not enough of it) so they organise gardening and car-washing times for people and if you water your garden on an off day you can get in real trouble.

 
Here is the latest brewnews, i am doing a few special brews for an octoberfest I am going to have complete with 3 different beers on tap, saurkraut, bratwurst, slap dancing, polkathon and a stien holding contest.

 
And here is the happiest kid in the suburb. Jack, he lives across the road, is about 5 or 6 and just got a new puppy AND got a go off his mad neighbor musicans light sabre.

Muttcam

Evenin' all

For your enjoyment, here is a few photos of my dogs in their most usual positions around the house.
 
Here they are on the bed. Quite often you'll be doing something in the house then you notice its really quiet and whaddayaknow, here are the hounds on the bed, Reilly in her usual 'panned out' look.

 
Here they are again after a walk resting on the floor in Janes folks house, they are hilarious
 
And here is a really arty photo of Fionns foot.

random snaps

 
Here is m new portable kit for my homebrew, that on the left is a mini gas canister with release trigger to top up the pressure in the keg as propellant and that on the right is the tap. All i have to do now is figure out a way to keep the beer chilled at the beach in 40 degree heat.

 
This is a new invention i came up with for one of my violin students who keeps curving her wrist, every time she does it she gets a red dot on her hand and I told her it was a dollar a dot. She owes me about 70 bucks as of last monday.
 

 
And what blog entry is complete without a post of the hounds. Here they are having a rest after a hard days work sniffing and licking things.

Gig-cam

 
Hi there bloggers and blogettes. Another week gone here again and a few odd gigs to report about, including this one, playing a Zorn piece, it worked out pretty good.
 
Here is the guideline for the solo's, essentially you just think of all the correct notes you could play then play all the other ones.

Videoblog

Ok Guys, this may or may not work, my first video post.

Remember a few weeks ago i was telling you all about an underground dixieland jazz club i came across, well check out this video. A guy in the crowd took it on his camera phone right up the front. The first minute is general waffle (still havent figured out how to edit a video) Observe as I cunningly blag my way through a dixie solo (1:36). Sound quality is terrible, but you get the idea. Amazing what a delicate combination of jazz, a violin and 2 bottles of cabernet sauvignon can do. I have another video but its more or less the same except for the bit where i finish a solo and then high-5 a guy in the front row whilst shouting "yyyeeeeeeaaaaaaaaagggghhhh" .

Classic stuff.

Back to normal

 
Pat and George left today, off to singapore for a few days then back to the emerald isle, they stayed for about 2 months and we had a great time, most of which has been blogged here , see you soon guys, the dogs already miss ya, reilly keeps checking in Pats room to see where she is.
 
Here is Neills new shop, Neill is the local homebrew guru and is my Jedi master when it comes to beer. Here is his new shop, just round the corner from his old one.
 
This is the latest attempt to populate my ant colony, look at that, a pipe right to anty HQ
 
And last but not least here is a photo from that gig i did with Schvendes . There are a few more on that site. Look at that for a nose!!!!

Turkey Glue (figure that one out....)

We got a dryer a few months back and didnt consider how much water vapour comes out of one of those things so as a result our laundry room has been like a steam room for the last few months. I have had a part on order for ages, essentially just a big hose, but its fire rated and comes with all special attachments (which i didnt use) and all that stuff so it took ages to arrive. It finally arrived two days ago so I got busy this evening installing it.
 
Here is the dryer in the laundry room/brewery, note pure fancy new shiny pipe out the back.
 
And here is the view from one of the side windows, hose protruding neatly from the gap on top of the window. (is that how you spell protruding?)
 
Here it is inside, a bit less conspicous than i had imagined (conspicious? my spelling is terrribel ;) )
 
And my favourite bit, which i used instead of all the fancy cable ties and plastic attachment yokes.......holding it all together perfectly.......DUCT TAPE. My motto is, if something cant be fixed up with duct tape, then it can not be fixed. I use this stuff ALL the time, in tribute to this guy, especially the good stuff, that cloth duct tape, how handy is that?!?!?

Just to tidy up this blogette, DUCT tape, sounds like DUCK tape, which is an alternative to Turkey Glue (see the title). Funny? you decide. Now over to you bob for sports and weather...........

More updates

Just found some more photos of the ant farm. Here it is in the early construction stages.
 
And here is the completes version. I named it Antopia, but its knows as guANTanamo bay around here (see previous post)
 

 
Here is a little dude checking out the mangle (food for non-corkonians) section. Todays menu is mainly left over apple

 
And here is a helpfull translation sheet from the instruction book which lets you know whats going on. Its all pretty cool.