Rainforest Update

I finally have real internet back. Yay. OK back to the important stuff.

Got back from Binna Burra National Park on Friday night. The trip was alright, not as much fun as the Outback but still cool. One day we had to get up at ~4:30 am and another around 5:30 am so it was a little rough as I like my sleep, and the beds were like boards as well. So I was a little cranky for most of the trip but oh well.

We had a 15km (~9 miles) march on Wednesday which was not fun at all. The enjoyable part of the rainforest is to go out where there is no one, sit there for about an hour or longer and watch everything come out. Never got a chance to do that because we were always doing something. The forest is a lot different from the wet-tropical forest of Costa Rica but still very cool. Lots of birds, paddymelons (bush wallaby), snakes and spiders. The don't have any primates down here so the closest thing were ring-tailed possums. OK now the pictures. Hope you like the poisonous stuff Bradley. More like the Australia you see on TV.

Just some lichen


Big Monitor Lizard ~5 feet long

Possum, a little different than the ones at the house

Great view from camp. The Gold Coast is way in the background.

A view up to the canopy
Some fungus
Carpet Python


Funnel-web spider, very poisonous and deadly

Bush Rat

A species of lizard that lives in the funnel web spider burrow

Honeybee

Sun dew carnivorous plant

Natures knot

Huntsman spider

View from the long trek

Little frog

Lots of cool animals. There is a video of the funnel-web spider feeding that hopefully will be on YouTube soon. I'll post it when my mate gets it up.

Not much else going on. I have the week off of class but have to work on an assignment which is due on Monday but I might be able to get an extension because I was gone last week. We'll see.

Our new roommate moved in on Saturday. She's very cool and fits in well with the rest of the house. So there will be some party pics soon as we'll have to have a welcoming and going away party for both Emma and Nina.

Off to work on my GIS assessment. Hopefully another update soon.

Cheers,
B.

Words but no Pictures

I'm stuck back in the 90's as we have lost our broadband for a few days. Our roommate recently moved out and so did our swift internet. And of course the time when I need it the most, football season, I don't have it. Damn. So it might be a few weeks until the pictures will return. By then I should have some good ones of all the creatures in the rainforest. And I'll post some more of when Kristy was down here. As we discovered some great (drunken) shots from John's B-day party.
As I'm leaving for the rainforest this weekend and will be gone for a week the updates will be lacking. I'm taking a break from writing another paper due on Wednesday. Lots of fun. My relaxing break from school is going to be my field course under the canopy. Oh well.
Besides school everything is going well down here. The weather is finally getting better but we did have about a week of rain on and off so that was really good. Not much else going on but school work. Which I have to get back to now as I'm actually getting out of the city tomorrow for a little while and need to get most of my paper done today sometime. Hope everyone is doing well.

Later,
B

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA

I want to wish my Grandma a Happy 75th Birthday today. Enjoy your day and relax for a while.

Love,
Brandon

Just a few words and pictures

Hope this sums up the past two weeks. More after my paper is done.
B.

Birthday Update

Happy Birthday Papa

Happy B-day to one of my greatest contributors to my blog. This updated is just for you. I wish you could come visit down here. You'd love it. It's kind of like Florida but the just talk a little different. Have a good birthday, I miss you.

B.

One more B-Day before the end of this month. Hopefully.

Happy Birthday

Beth, Mrs. Mack, mom


Hope your enjoying you summer and relaxing like above. I'll send you a e-mail this week sometime.

Not much else for now. Had an amazing weekend just in time before the semester started. It started today so I have to start on my paper today. We'll see how my work load is and that will probably determine the number of updates here. That's all for now. More later on in the week.

Later,
B.

Birthday, Pictures and other Stuff

Happy Birthday

Marg
Enjoying the Dakar beach.

I hope you had a good summer break and are doing well with your studies. Just one more year to go.

Some good and bad news on my end. I have a research project that I might be doing on the development of turtles eggs and the roll of water, which might get published when it's completed. Hopefully, but that would still be a few years away. I'm doing some research now and will be deciding in the next few days to do it for sure. It's some very cool stuff, scientifically speaking.

The bad news is that I might not be able to come home over the summer break around Christmas. Depending on when the eggs are collected and/or incubated it may fall right when I was planning on making the trek home. I'll know for sure in a month or so when I would be able to have some time off. But as most of us science people know there isn't really any down time during experiments so we'll see.

It's good to hear from my grandfather again after his surgery. I missed his comments and e-mails while he was recovering and happy to hear he is doing very well.

Here are a few more pictures from my trip to the outback. Going to get some dinner then watch try and catch up on a few episodes of Lost before tonights episode.

This is one of the many poisonous centipedes found in the outback. He was about 6-7 inches long.

Termite mound. We didn't see to many but some areas are completely covered with them.

Natural roo jerky, anyone??

What a lot of the outback looked like in the area we were in.

A quick Disney character test.

You scored as Peter Pan, Your alter ego is Peter Pan. You are a child at heart. Anything you believe is possible, and you never want to grow up. Peter Pan 69% Goofy 56% The Beast 56% Sleeping Beauty 56% Pinocchio 50% Cinderella 38% Donald Duck 31% Snow White 31% Ariel 31% Cruella De Ville 13% Which Disney Character is your Alter Ego? created with QuizFarm.com

Later,
B.

Back from the Outback

My trip was a lot of fun and learned quite a bit as well. Very cool company, cold weather, two showers with brown water, lots of roo's, too many pictures, nice and chill, good conversation and beer.

We left about 7:30 or so Saturday night on a Greyhound bus and got to Idalia National Park around 10:30ish on Sunday morning. We stopped twice on the way up for dinner and brekkie (breakfast). Swamped by the other group that was already there we got our bags off and set up camp. There were around 30 students in all. Some sharing tents other not.

I borrowed a 3 person tent from my housemate but I barely fit in it diagonal. So it was really a Brandon person tent. I'm not sure how they can fit three in there but it would be nice and cozy. Two would be alright though. But it did the job so I can't really complain. My sleeping pad was nice and comfy and my sleeping bag was just barely warm enough. It got down to around -2C on Tuesday and I think Wednesday night. The other nights it was around 2-6C, so it was a little better. But I had enough layers on to stay warm including hat and gloves and on some days a little beer.

Tent city

This is our scientific field lab/station/homestead with a beer stocked fridge, showers and chef. All just as important as the microscopes, binoculars, mortar and pestle, bomb calorimeters and dissection tools.


A place called wave rock. Just some of the erosion found at the park. Wish we could have spent more time but the sun was going down and wanted to get a better view from higher up.



Everyone was divided up into 4 groups. Our seven included: James, Ludo, Sally, Steve, Bec, Hilary and me. John, one of our tutor/teachers is in the hat. Felt kind of bad because by the time this picture was taken we spoiled all of his jokes he had prepared.

We were kept busy all week until the last night. We had 3 different projects to complete which usually started around 8 am and went all day. One day was a little more relaxed when we went to see some wallabies.

Endangered Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby

I think there is a little joey in mum's pouch on the left.

Found this guy up there as well.

Black Headed Python. He was about 1.25 meters or around 4 feet long. We got him in a bag and took him back to the field lab for everyone to see then let him go the next day.

The first project was collecting some plants to determine their caloric content and water content for an energetics study to determine if the roo's at the park need to drink water. Second project consisted of measuring the amount of erosion and plant cover between a few different types of habitat. The third project was a survey on the population numbers of the different types of macropods (roo's, wallabies, wallaroo's ect.) from the back of a pickup and also from roo poo found on the ground.

We also did a dissection of a wallaroo one of the nights as well. Don't click on the picture if you get queezy. He didn't have a lower jaw by the time we got him. Hopefully I'll get some more pictures from other people to post that are not as bad.

Hilary with our wallaroo.

As the region receives about 1 3/4" or 450mm of rain a year there is not too much of this out there.

One of the dragon's we found. Not to big only about 15cm long.

I finally played my first cricket game. It was hard to get use to the ball bouncing on the ground before you hit is but after a few times at bat it wasn't too bad. It's cool how everyone gets into it. A lot better than baseball. Too many acronyms to remember though. Now I just have to play rugby and Aussie rules football.

During our off time we usually sat by the fire because it was usually cold even during the day, played soccer, cricket, hacky sac, ate, went hiking and just hung out.

Thankfully I packed enough clothes to last the week but my jeans were getting a little rank on the last day or so. Fortunately I had conserved a pair that was somewhat clean and thankfully everyone else was just as bad as me.

Arrived around 1:30 am on Friday night after a 14 hours bus ride with about an hour of sleep. Maybe less. But I was quite comfortable. I can't sleep on plane either so it was cool. Me and Hil watched The Princess Bride and 95% of Spaceballs on the way back, until my Ipod died on us. So it went a little faster than usual. I think everyone wanted to get home and get clean because we forgot to get phone numbers and such from everyone. Took a cab back to the house and took a nice, long (by Briz standards) 10 minute shower then crashed.

Saturday I went to the "Pig City" Festival at uni with Erin, John, Erin's Dad and some of his friends. It was mostly bands from the 70's during the civil rights movement. Great music and a lot of fun. Then we headed into the valley for some more music at one of the clubs then came back to the house.

An amazing week here down under. School starts next week and as far as I know I'm allowed to stay here. For last semester I received 2 7's and a 6, with my Outback class still to be determined, which equates to around a 3.8 GPA or so, I think. So I guess the nights with 3 hours of sleep, lots of coffee and typing my fingers off pays off in the end. I have to make sure about a few of my classes but my work load shouldn't be too bad.

When I feel like posting again I'll get some more of my 604 pictures up here for everyone. I'm going to chill the rest of this week and veg for a few days before the mayhem starts again. That's all I've got for now.

Later,
B.

A few more Birthdays to celebrate.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Mr. Mack (John) on Monday.
I hope your feeling better. Have a drink for me.


My Brother, Chris, today.
Sorry bro it's one of the few picture I could find of you. I know how much you like pictures. Miss ya

I got some good news over the past week. My grandfathers surgery went very well and he's recovering quickly. I wish I could have been there for him but it sounds like he had plenty of help. I just hope I'm in as good as shape when I'm his age.

Love you. Get well soon, Papa.

I probably won't post anything until I get back from my little Outback excursion as I'm taking a break from writing my paper. It will be nice to get out of the city and see some of this country. So next post should be next weekend sometime, maybe, if I don't get bit by a snake or kangaroo or something.

My current background.

Cool statistic and clock site.

OK, that's all I've got for now.
B.

Time Off

It's very nice to have a little time to do nothing at all. But it's short lived as I have to write another paper by next Friday as it is only 3 pages it shouldn't be too bad. I've got some links and what-not I've accumulated over the past month or so.

I think I've become a little more critical about our government being down here and seeing the perspective from the outside and how everyone views what the Bushies are doing.

Just a little perspective on the amount of money being spent over in Iraq.
What does $456 billion buy?

Now I know why it's costing so much for the military.
Navy Boats Collide At Full Speed

Last 7 years of fun in the White House.
Scandal Map

The stem cell facts according to Bush. Now that he vetoed another bill it sets the scientific progress in this field back a total of 7 years. In human years that's about 20. It's kind of like dog years.
Democratic Caucus's Senate Journal

If you like The Daily Show w/ John Stewart you'll like this link as well.
Indecision 2008 Blog



Now a little fun.
Paper Pilot: Battle of the air

More party pictures. I'll probably be putting other stuff up here as well.
BBOZ07 - Photobucket

Some great Triumph the Dog stuff.



A great site to get discounts on all kinds of stuff.
Dealhack

Keep your brain as sharp as a pin.
Lumosity



Just a little list of things I miss from back home after living here for 6 months now.

-Family

-Friends

-My dogs

-a car - but it's nice to not have one at the same time.

-Happy Hour everyday - they seem to only have it on Friday and sometimes on Thursday.

-inexpensive food - any place you go it's at least 12 dollars or so for a half way decent meal, even the Thai/Chinese/Vietnamese is expensive.

-chain restaurants - like Ruby Tuesday's, Friday's, Chilli's, any of the sort. Some place where you know the food is relatively cheap and somewhat good.

-the mountains - skiing, mtn. biking, hiking and just to look at. Especially skiing.

-carpet - I know it sounds weird but when you have hardwood floors everywhere it would be nice to have something soft every once in a while.

-nice mattress - was thinking about investing in one but it's probably not worth it.

-central heating - the houses here are set up for the hot summers and have no insulation during the winter so it sucks when it gets cold (13C or so in my room at night -55F)

-quietness - always something making noise. It's nice the past few days because it's been raining so it keeps the kids inside and the crows go hide somewhere.

-a gym - I miss working out and as they have one at uni I guess I could join but I'm already spending too much money here. Kind of sucks. I was going to start running again this week but it's been raining non-stop for the past two days so maybe tomorrow. Hopefully.

I'm sure I'll have more but that's all for now. I have to cook up something for dinner and get back to doing nothing. More in the next update.

Later,
B.

Lots of Stuff

Sorry for the delay in posting anything on here in a while. I got done with my last two papers on Monday and have been relaxing for the past few days letting my brain decompress. Three weeks straight of non-stop research and writing is not too much fun. Hopefully I did OK.

But lots of stuff has been happening in the past three weeks. Not in any particular order or sequence.

Happy Birthday to this crazy kid last Sunday.

Mckain

Happy Birthday to this fine lady last week.

Becca

Congratulation to this family as an addition is coming this December.

An amazing picture of Logan.

Last Saturday we had a Winter Wonderland party at our house. Way too much fun for two nights before my papers were due.

It was a really good time because everyone got dressed up for the "winter" here in Brisbane where it doesn't snow.

Yeah, I'm in the sleeping bag.
More here:Winter Wonderland Party

I'll post some more picture from the party this week.

Another macro.

I'll be off to the Outback for a field class in a fortnight for a week which should be really cool. I'll post some more next week.

Later,
B.

No Time

Yep, I'm still here. Just a lack of time and motivation to post anything lately. I was sick for about a week and a half a few weeks ago. The first time in about 8 years so needless to say that sucked.

Better now but too much school work. One assignment due today, a paper due Monday, another assignment Tuesday and another paper Friday. Then next Monday I have a final that I have a week to complete. The same day that's due I have another paper due. Then I'll be done for a while.

It's not fun going to bed at 3:30 am and waking up at 8 or 8:30 but I guess that's what I signed up for. Have to maintain around 90% to be able to stay here. Gotta love visa restrictions connected to academic performance.

Just a few macro pictures I took last week when it finally rained for the first time in about 3 weeks and some other stuff. Hope you like them, if not oh well.






Not too much other exciting stuff going one. Will post more in a few weeks when everything is over with. Then I can let you know if I can stay here or not.

B.