30-30

 
Today Feargal left for Ireland. Here he is having one last wrestle with the dogs.
 
All bags packed and squeezed into the car.
 
 
And here he is at departures. It was a fantastic few weeks, highlights being getting lost in the hills, a polka gig and a night at the jazz with a full keg to ourselves. Today it was 20 degrees in the shade, i left a thermometer out in the sun for a bit and it hit 55 degrees, i think its gonna be about 30 degrees less when Feargal lands in 30 hours time.

Music Maestro

 
I had my first big conducting concert last night. It was only one short piece as part of a much larger gig and it was in the Perth concert hall.
 
Here I am at the balance rehearsal beforehand complete with fancy green all areas access pass and a baton you could skewer an elephant with.
 
Observe the exquisite form, the clear definition of the ictus, the absolute confidence in which the conductor takes bluffing to unprecedented new levels.
 
It was great fun, and waaaayyy easier than playing the viola.

More keg shots

Here are a few more photos from the keg night out
 
Here we are with Jon Edwards, guitar player extraordinaire.
 
18 pints later..............
 
And here we have the world record attempt at standing on 1 leg (assisted)

on the side...

 
Check out this menu from Fast Eddies, a 24 hour burger joint up the road from the gaff.

Rockin' all over the world

 
Feargal and I did a gig last saturday night, a string quartet job down by the river. Great craic was had by all. We charged our normal rates PLUS mileage from Dublin which is just under 10000kms i think, so at union rates and first class travel, I think Feargal can afford to retire on the strenght of that gig......

The mini-keg maiden voyage

 
So, we decided to test the mini-keg by taking it to the jazz cellar, that underground jazz club where you bring your own booze and food. I had to disguise it so that it didn't look like a keg so I stuck a black cloth over teh top and a bit of a dog lead as a handle.
 
Here is Feargal at the entrance. No phonebox will ever be the same after entering this one.
 
And here we are pouring the first pint down the back of the jazz club. We attracted a bit of attention from other homebrewers admiring the settup. The keg stayed chilled throughout the night, probably will be a different story when I use it at the beach and at bbq's, we'll just have to drink faster....
 
And here we are in the carpark at the end of the night, all 18 pints consumed wholeheartedly. God bless all who sail in her.

New Keg additions

 
About once a year I try to make my homebrew settup a bit better. Last year it was the addition of a second tap. Well this year it has all been aobut making the whole system more portable so you can bring the brew to parties OR just drink beer in the front room without having to walk to the back of teh house to pour a pint (i know.......). So i got myself a pair of mini kegs. They are exactly half the capacity of my original ones weighing in at 9 liters per keg.
 
Here we see the whole settup, mini gas system, spout and neoprene (thermal wetsuit yoke) sleeve to keep it chilled for a few hours
 
And here are the two kegs chilling in the fridge. It means I had to re-organise where to put all the rest of the bottles of beer, but i reckon one BBQ should take care of that.

Irish-Italian fusion

 
We took a walk down to Al Sito's last night, its a nice little Italian place near the house that changed ownership a few months back. We had a small pizza to share as a starter and we got this beauty, its a potato pizza! Nicest pizza ever!!!! Genius.
 

Christmas Parties

 
Its begun. In music class this morning, for one of the junior classes, we did half an hour of revision of the last few weeks work (dictation and stuff), a few music games, then we had a disco. I brought speakers, played music from my phone, chocolates and fizzy drinks and let them run amok in the classroom for a while. All was going as expected until I played the most multi-generational floor filler number ever written, U CANT TOUCH THIS, the MC Hammer dance, and everybody, even the girls who usually are the quiet shy ones, the all went crazy doing the MC Hammer dance. Hilarious!

Around the world and back again

 
Derrick came over last night for a few beers so we went international and got a selection of beers from around the world. Here they all are lined up in global order from left to right.
 
And here they all are post"sampling"
 
This one was the oldest of the bunch at nearly 650 years old
 
Then we did another round, this time of all ozzie beers with a pair from tasmania and new zealand thrown in too. They all tasted good except for northern Germany.

I.F.L.

There was a time when there was only one Fionn, and the world could just about cope with that, but there seems to be a growing trend of evolving manifestations of the Fionn entity all over the world. So in order to keep up with things it's important to keep an eye on who is keeping up the highest standards of Fionn-ery, so I have come up with The International Fionn League (IFL). The IFL has several categories into which the three (that we know of, there may be more...................) Fionns can compete in, categories such as:

* Body hair/total surface area ratio
* Ability to snooze for extended periods of time
* Most conspicious public bowel movement
* Ball fetching prowess
* Highest rate of CBHPS (Cowbell hits per second)
* Ability to slam a revolving door

The list goes on, but beware, they say that if you can see the Fionn, the Fionn can see you....and if you cant see the Fionn, you may only be seconds away from a painfull percussion recital.

check this guy out

Genius!

A day in the hills

 
Went to John Forrest national park yesterday for a stroll in the hills and got absolutely lost.
 
We were wandering for a while then it started bucketing down with rain, we were in shorts and t-shirts so we got soaked to the skin, we had no sense of direction and when we did find out where we were we were gone beyond the boundry of the park, we ended up in someones back garden and everything.
 
Luckily, once the rain eased off for a bit, our irish instincts kicked in and within 10 mins we found ourselved sitting in the tavern checking out the locals....
 
Then we got home and watched Casino Royale on the cinema in preparation for the new bond which is out this week over here.

Post-watch

 
Check this out, its a preying mantis hanging out on my letterbox. These guys are great, they take care of all the other flys, spiders and bugs.

More Cowbell

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, this is the video clip from that cowbell post i did last week.

Spillane....

 
This is the review from the impromptu gig i ended up doing with John Spillane a few weeks ago. Apparantly I extemporised, it must have been something I ate....
 

Mazal tov

 
Weddings, funerals, christmas parties, babys first haircut, ive played at a lot of ocasions and finally I get to play at a Bar Mitzvah . Its in a few weeks and we are mainly playing jazz but there were a few special request. Ill keep you posted...

Back to York

So we went to York for the weekend, Denis, Feargal and I. We had a great time. We went back to the motor museum again, here is a nice shot of an old caddilac
And check this out, its a bike from the 1940's, integral lights and bell and an aluminium shaft drive system. Pretty cool!

Here are the lads having a few beers in the Greenhills tavern, where we were well looked after by Sean Roche who fed us the biggest steak I have seen in australia and also the best mushy peas this side of the lee.