More NY and DC Coolness!!

Okay, so some more piccies!


Empire State Building as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge at night











Us as the Statue of Liberty











Me outside the Capitol Building, Washington DC









The insane view of the WhiteHouse from our hotel room









Me outside the WhiteHouse










Me at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial









Lisa and me ice-skating at the Rockefeller Centre









Me looking like an idiot in front of the Empire State Building









Lisa and I spruced up for Phantom of the Opera on Broadway




Millions more, but those are just a taste! We had the BEST time! Woo!

Scottie

New York, New York!

Wow! Well, that was just the most AMAZING holiday! New York city is truly fabulous, and Washington DC kicks butt as well! I thoroughly recommend that anyone who has not been plan a trip there immediately! There's so much to see and do and the vibe is really great. Those New Yorkers are such a crack-up. "You got it," they say. "No problem."

A full report is coming soon, but suffice to say I'm back in Melbourne now and struggling to focus on my work! More photos to come.... :)

Scottie

Back in Melbourne... but not for long!

Well, it never got any less busy while I was in India, so I still have a thousand photos on my hard drive that have not been sorted through! Oh well. I'm now back in Melbourne and have been working some insane hours (two weeks ago I did a 100-hour week) and so haven't had much spare time. Thankfully, it is starting to quieten down again now.

Performed tap at the Zoo last Sunday as an opening act for Daryl Braithwaite. Very cool, lots of fun, biggest crowd we've played to yet. Performing again this Sunday night there, so looking forward to that.

Have moved in with Lisa and everything is going very well there! Lovely girl. Probably one of the most romantic I've ever been out with, so snaps for her.

The exciting news is that I'm going to New York and Washington DC in just over a week! Monday 19th we fly off for New York, and will be there 7 days, with 1.5 days in DC to check that out too. Very VERY excited about it, and we have our itinerary already planned to the half-hour! Bit of a whistle-stop tour (as I can't take too much time off work), but we are confident we'll fit everything in that's on our priority list. Hopefully the weather will hold up and it won't rain too much. While we are there we are seeing Christina Aguilera and The Pussycat Dolls in concert at Madison Square Garden, plus A Chorus Line and Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. Should be fantastic! I've wanted to go to New York badly ever since 1998, so it's been a long time coming :)

No new photos to share (except for ones from India), but there'll be plenty after our New York and DC trip so look out for those.

Ciao! :)

I'm in India!

Well, I've been in India now for the last 2 weeks, and I'll be here for another month or so. Bangalore is my base city, which is in south India in a region called Karnataka. It's a real eye-opener to say the least, and the traffic is really quite a shock to someone from Sydney and Melbourne. Yes, there is a lot of it, but that's not what is so shocking... what is so surprising is how so much traffic manages to function with nobody obeying the road rules. Amazing stuff. Straight through red lights (you are often beeped if you stop at them), go straight across a main road without looking (don't worry the cars will stop and go around you).... total madness. Cows walking across the road, pedestrians, bikes... nuts! But interesting :)

I'll never complain about Melbourne traffic again!

More to come in the next few weeks... work here is very busy. But I'm enjoying it!

Oh yeah!

The end of our performance (as taken by the video camera... DVD out in the new year).

Success!

Well, we performed our butts off last night, and the show went really well! Of special note is the routine that Lisa and I wrote together, which went completely fantastically and got a wonderful response from the audience! You should have heard the cheer that went up when we did the lift! Awesome!

So Lisa and I are both very happy and excited and relieved and tired! It was well worth the hard slog, and the results will be viewable on DVD in the new year, so I'm looking forward to that :)

Yay!

Kerunch time

Well, only a few days now until the big performance, and we have honed and polished it as much as we can. Our final dress rehearsal is this evening, and we are pretty certain we'll put on a great show on the night!

Mum is flying down to see it on Saturday night, as well as:

Kelly & Darren
Darren & Rachel
Anoop
Jennifer
Michelle
Pammy
Catherine & Michelle
Cheryl & Andrew

plus of course everyone else in the audience! ooooooh, the pressure.... hehe :)

Should be a fun show though!

Busy week this week... tap tonight, tomorrow night and Thursday night, work Christmas party Friday night, Tap performance Saturday night, Robbie Williams concert Sunday night, flying up to QLD Monday morning! It will be nice to have a short holiday up on the coast where I can just relax for a bit. Unfortunately, I've had to cancel my plans to then spend a few days in Sydney before New Years as I have to work. Oh well, I'll try to get back up there some time next year.

Hope everyone is well and is gearing up for the holidays! :)

End of Year Tap Show

So for the first time there will be an end-of-year show put on by my tap school. Up until now we have been performing at Swing dancing events every couple of months, but this will be our first dedicated show with all of our tap routines on display. In addition, Lisa and I have been incredibly lucky to get approval to do our own routine, which we spent the last couple of months choreographing and rehearsing.

Yesterday we did our first performance of it, which was for our tap teachers. They absolutely loved it! So we are fired up now and know exactly when our routine is appearing in the running order.

I've got my mum flying down from the Gold Coast to see the show, and then I'm flying back up with her to start my 2 weeks holiday over Christmas. Cool!

Looks like work is sending me to Bangalore, India in January for a month, so I can train up the guys in our work office over there on the stuff I do. Will be interesting, and I'm hoping I can utilise one of the weekends to nip up to Agra and see the Taj Mahal.

Only worrying thing at this stage is the fact that Indian food in general doesn't agree with me :) I'd better start getting used to it!

Hope everyone is well!

Lisa

So I'm pleased as punch because I've met a lovely girl called Lisa at tap class, and we are now officially boyfriend and girlfriend (as of Thursday!). Things are going great and I couldn't be happier. :)

She's a graphic designer, originally from England (with a cool accent), and does a bit of ballet as well, so she's ten-times better at dancing than I am!

Left to right: Me, Lisa, Kate (one of my tap teachers), Tim (Kate's husband)

Yes!

My contract was extended for another month at the Burnley office, so I'm chuffed with that! :) Now I just have to see if I can get that 'on-site bonus' that Doug promised me to fill the coffers a bit while I'm there.

Our tap crew has been pulled out of Mayhem Cabaret this year by our teacher, due to the play being utter crap and completely silly. We will still however be performing at a swing ball coming up in a couple of weeks, as well as perhaps putting together a big show at the end of the year with all of our routines in it. Excited!

Caught up with Craig earlier this week and I swear we spent like 20 minutes talking about the future of storage technology. Ugh. That's just sad. Will I be a geek forever? :)

Having a ball!

Scottie

Random Musings

See 'Kenny'. It's an Aussie movie and it's absolutely hysterical. An instant classic. Trust me, it's really good - get into it.

'Thank you for smoking' is also excellent.

Still having fun in my project manager role. Seems that I might be extended for just one more month, so I'm happy about that in some respects, but I also wish it could be extended for longer!

Besides that, things are good! I'm having a fun time hanging out with friends and enjoying myself.

Scottie

August Updates

Hi all,

Hope everyone is well!

I've managed to snag myself a promotion (of sorts) into the project management arena, and am currently working out at the Richmond office for GE on a big project there. A great change from the slower pace at Surrey, and it's really been helpful being around a good team that I can learn heaps from. The pressure is high, but it's also very rewarding. At this point it's just a short assignment, but I'm hoping that I can do well and get my contract extended. We'll see.

Still doing tap and very much loving it! Had a great performance at the Swing birthday bash on the 12th, and there's another performance coming up in late September.

Busy with work at the moment, but am having a good time!

Take care,

Scottie

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn.

Rachel broke up with me. :(

On Monday night she told me that because she was going overseas for such a long time, she wouldn't feel comfortable making a committment to me (and have me waiting for her) unless she was certain I was the one. And she basically said that although she loved me dearly, she just wasn't sure, and so she had to end it.

Obviously I'm crushed. I was having such a wonderful time with her, and hoped that we would continue to be together while she was overseas and then make a start as a proper couple upon her return. But unfortunately, things don't always go as you had planned or hoped. I must admit that I thought we were going to be together a really long time, so the ending of our relationship after just 3 months was a bit of a shock.

Still, we maintain our incredibly close friendship, and she is just a fantastic girl who is going to have a wonderful time overseas, so it's all good. Who knows what the future will bring? Perhaps there'll be a second chance for us when she returns to Melbourne. I'm keeping my mind and heart open to the possibility, as we had such an awesome time together. No fights, just plenty of laughs and great times.

Last weekend we stayed at Balinese Retreat in the Dandenong Ranges and had the most lovely and romantic time together. I highly recommend it!

She flies off on Sunday, and I hope to see her again before then. I'm going to miss her so much. :(

Photos show Balinese Retreat (the bedroom), and some of my tap crew at Rachel's farewell: Elena, Richard and Rach.

Absence makes the heart go yonder

Okay, time for an update.

Key update at this point is that late last week Rachel found out for certain that she has been accepted into York University's exchange program! So she was absolutely stoked, and is now 100% definitely going overseas on the 16th of July for 6 months. In the meantime, I'm going to grow a beard and hopefully launch a new fragrance for men called "le odor de tracksuit pant".

Seriously though, it will be good for both of us, as I'll be able to get a lot of stuff done that I've wanted to do this year without spending 90% of my income on spoiling her. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just seems to be a pattern in my life!

Work has tailed off dramatically, so I'm typically doing a bit less than 40 hours per week at the moment. Although last week I did 55, but that was just an aberration. Tap is great, and I've actually moved up a class because the old one was a bit too easy and I wasn't progressing very much. I'm now in level 5 instead of level 4, and Rachel did level 5 with me this week but I think she's probably going to move up another level next week, as she's a bit too good!

Craig - do you remember my buddy Mad Hatta from Quake? Well that's John, and he's been living in Europe and various places for the last umpteen years, and just sent me an e-mail out of the blue to invite me to his wedding in Ireland in October! I would love to go, and am currently planning it to see if it's feasible. Would be fun because I've never been there, and hey - weddings of friends are always interesting.

That's about it at the moment. A few more things in the pipeline but as they aren't confirmed yet I'll wait until they solidify (ewww, that sounds grose).

Swingin'!

We had the annual Swing Ball on Saturday night, and Tap Patrol (that's us) were performing our famous Footloose routine. There was over 600 people in the Malvern Town Hall watching us, and it was the most exciting and well-received performance we've ever done! The screams and cheers at key moments during the routine sent chills up your spine, and the applause at the end was deafening! I'll never forget the experience :)

Hopefully, some photos of it will soon appear and I'll update with them.

Here's some snaps of me performing at Cranbourne Christian College a couple of months ago, as well as in the play we did at Gasworks. In both pictures you'll see Rachel to the left (on my right).

Rachel and I are really going gangbusters. I'm very happy! :))))

Hot Date

Rachel and I had a hot date on the weekend, staying at the Westin and seeing The Lion King at the Regent Theatre. It was absolutely awesome! We had amazing seats (front row) and the performance was outstanding!

I think it's pretty safe to say that we are together now :) I'm very happy!

UPDATE 12 MAY: We are now official! She said 'yes' last night, thus making her my first official girlfriend since October 2004! Yay!

Golden Oldie

Well, I'm 33 now! I had a lovely birthday, even though I worked during the day, as I had my usual Thursday night tap class and then most of the tappers came out to the pub afterwards to celebrate my ageing! It was really cool.

Rachel and I are practically an item, and it's just fantastic. I love spending time with her. Boy did I get lucky meeting her in that show! See? Tap dancing pays off in more ways than you can imagine! haha

The project is DEFINITELY going in this weekend. We are winding up all the work now. I am very much looking forward to taking a break once it is all over.

Hope everyone is well! :)

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to everyone!

Rachel and I are going really well. We aren't 'official' because of the reasons I've mentioned before, but we spend a lot of time together and are very cosy.

It's lovely. Closest thing I've had to a proper girlfriend in a very long time, so I'm stoked!

On a side note, it's my birthday this week! I turn 33 on Thursday!

And, the project has been delayed AGAIN. New end-date is 28 April. I wonder how long that will last?

Tap star

Performed the tap routine again today at a fair at Cranbourne Christian College. It got a great reception from the crowd and it was so much fun to do! It was also great to see some of the guys from the other tap classes that I got to know during the play.

Rachel and I are still in no-man's-land, but boy she's an excellent pianist! She's got a piano in her apartment and she played while I sang, and we both had a fabulous time. I've never known anyone who could play the piano that well.

Work is going well - we are starting to get back on track and even though we are working crazy hours it feels really productive. Finish line in sight!

Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week

What would life be without complications?

Well, it would be a hell of a lot simpler for one thing.

Rachel is going overseas in a couple of months for a 6 month semester of study + holiday to Toronto. She'll be back for Christmas. As much as we get on well, she told me on Saturday night that she really didn't want to get involved before the holiday, otherwise she'd just get too into the relationship as she has in the past and then miss me like crazy while she was gone.

Hence, it is in 'go slow' mode, with a view to seeing where we are in the new year.

Nothing wrong with how we get on -- we are well matched, enjoy each other's company, yada yada yada... just a case of problematic timing.

I sure can pick 'em.

Still, we will continue to see each other, but just with a lot less expectation of forward progression for a while.

I really should have listened to my mother and become a monk... surely that would be easier than this dating scene?

Oh well. I'm still pretty happy, so it's all good right? And our project at work just got a 2 week extension so that's taken a load off my shoulders. We should be able to get everything finished by then. New install date is now 21 April. Yippee!

The Final Curtain

Well, all four shows completed now, and we all had a fabulous time. I had a lot of friends come to see the show, and they were all really impressed with the play and our tap routine. I pretty much knew that anyway by the enormous applause we got after each tap performance every night. The audience absolutely loved it.

We went out partying on Friday night and Saturday night after the show, and had a great time dancing and mucking around at the Vineyard on Acland Street. On the Friday night I managed to get some time alone to chat with the lovely Rachel, and so I asked her out and she agreed! She gave me her phone number and we scheduled a lunch date for Sunday.

I picked her up and we had a lovely late breakfast at Cafe De Cuba in Elwood, and then we drove to Brighton and wandered along the beach for a while. I dropped her off at her place at around 4, and feeling game I decided to kiss her, which turned out to be well received -- whew! So we are going to catch up again next weekend, as both of us are really busy during the week.

So, in summary, had an amazing time, performed 4 great shows, and got the girl :) Woo!

Two shows down; two to go!

Wow, what a rush!

It sure is great to be up there in front of an audience and doing your thing! The adrenaline kicks in and it's just wild! Two shows completed now, and they both went really well. Technical hitches on both nights with the AV equipment, so I'm hoping they can fix that up for the last two shows. I've garnered a small role as the piano player in act one, and I play the bridal march as the bride walks down the aisle - cool fun! Who knew that knowing how to play the piano would come in handy?

The tap routine is bringing the house down. It really is stealing the show, and all the people I've spoken to say it is their favourite part! This is great to hear, as we really are throwing everything we've got into it. Because of this show I've made a stack of really great friends in our tap classes whom I would never really have chatted with before, so that's been an awesome side effect.

I'm having a blast, and it's been great that I've had friends and work colleagues in the audience each night to show me support. Caroline was even lovely enough to bring me a box of chocolates as a gift - very sweet!

The lovely Rachel was not there on opening night, but she was performing tonight, so I seated her at my reception table (gosh I'm sly) and we pretended we were married for the whole play. It was great, especially at the end of the show when I started dancing with another girl and she came over and thumped me with a mad look on her face - so cool! She really held her character. She's gonna come out with us after the performance tomorrow night, so I'll see if I can get her number then. What a doll.

More updates soon!

Busy Week

Work has not eased up at ALL. So I'm flat out working kerrrazy hours as well as trying to prepare for my performances. Anyway, I'm very excited that we have our final dress rehearsal tomorrow night and then start the shows on Wednesday for 4 nights!

I have friends & cow-orkers coming to every show, so there'll always be a (different) friendly face in the audience, which is great! I'm still a little concerned that a couple of the cast members don't have their lines memorised as of our rehearsal on Saturday -- worrying! They're really gonna have to buckle down to get them learnt before Wednesday. But the play is really funny, so I doubt the audience will notice.

I'm also dead keen on one of the girls in our tap crew (who is from the class above me)... her name is Rachel and she is just such an awesome dancer! Fingers crossed that she gets dizzy from all the lights and accidentally falls into my arms. Either that or I'll hit her on the head - whichever comes first.

Project Implementation date is only two and a half weeks away now, so gotta keep burning the midnight oil.

In the meantime, read this. The term 'evaluate my meat' is now firmly entrenched in my vocabulary, and shall be liberally used henceforth whenever being medically examined. What a classic.

Record

I just hit a new record - last week I did 81.75 hours! Busted my old record of 77 clean off the map! Thank goodness I get paid by the hour, or I would be an unhappy chappy.

Of course, I'm tired as all get out.

It seems that I'm performing 4 shows for the tap performance, on the 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th of May at the Gasworks (select "Mayhem Cabaret #12 Presents White Wedding). We just finished learning the routine tonight, so the rest of the time will now be spent in practising it over and over again. How exciting!

Okay, back to work :(

Quickie

No, I'm not being a lazy bum. I'm working exceedingly hard on a project at work that has a strict deadline of April 7, and we are all running a bit behind schedule. I'm working 60 to 70 hours a week, all hours of the day and night. My spare time is very limited, but I'm still doing tap on Thursday nights. I go ice skating about once a month. I am performing with our tap class in a show on the 26th March, and I'll update after that with how it all went! Very exciting!

Other than that, I'm working working working. Hopefully for not much longer. I haven't had a weekend off in over a month. Nothing to report on the girl front - I just don't have time.

Hope all are well!

Scottie

Happy New Year!

Well, it's now 2006, and we have a great year coming up!

Just quick updates - I'm still ice skating and dancing, and working hard in my job. I went out with a nice girl called Caroline for about two weeks, but we have since broken up as it wasn't working.

Still great friends with Pammy though, and I spend at least one night a week hanging out with Caroline too.

Looking forward to catching up with Craig and checking out the Australian Open next Monday and Tuesday nights!

The Update King

Oh yes, I'm the update king! First update in over a month -- go me!

So what's been going on?

Well, Pam and I have been on and off for a while. We are currently off and I think it will stay that way, but she's just a divine girl.

Met another girl recently who is lovely. Very smart, very cute, great dancer, great job -- but lives in Sydney! We get on great but I'm just not sure about our future at the moment. I don't think we have the necessary spark. We'll see.

Another one is real sweet, very pretty and is an ice skater, but I'm not sure if we're right for each other. Friends at the moment.

Conclusion? Still single and still haven't found the one for me. Disappointing but I guess these things do take time.

I'm still having fun in Melbourne and am very happy to be here. Work is flat out at the moment which is stressful but good. Also helps knowing my job is secure because of the workload.

I'm flying up to Brisbane for Christmas to catch up with mum and dad, and I'm really looking forward to the week-long break.

I have dropped my Tuesday dancing class, and I don't go skating nearly as often because I'm working so much. I'm still tapping on Thursday nights though, and it's an absolute scream. Totally fun.

Feel like I'm in a kind of limbo at the moment... strange. I'll probably feel better after the Christmas break.

Hope everyone is well. Would love to come up to Sydney to check out Craig's new pad.

Temporary Sanity

Pam is a girl I met at skating some weeks ago. 24 years old, a massage therapist, and a lovely girl. We've been getting on really well during skating ever since I met her, so we decided to do a bit of a catch up outside of the rink.

I went over to her place on Saturday afternoon, and after playing games of Yahtzee, Scattergories and watching ice skating movies, we decided to catch up in a whole new way -- we started kissing.

No, nothing more (get your mind out of the gutter!), just that, and it was great. We did the same for a couple more days.... however....

Her boyfriend had only just recently broken up with her (a couple of weeks ago). She still loves him. She still wants them to get back together. Once she told me her honest feelings I suggested going back to being just friends, which she agreed to.

So there ya go - 3 days. The fastest hook up and un-hooking in history.

Our friendship is wicked though, so it's all good. And we'll see where she is in a few months time. I'm in no rush!

Sure was a lovely weekend of temporary sanity...

Go George, Go!

He's so flexible!

Click here!

You can drag him out of places if he gets stuck with your mouse. It's quite mesmerising watching him....

Bahahaha!

This is just plain silly, but it makes me laugh.

Click here!

Note: You MUST have SOUND. And it is safe for work or anywhere.