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By Peter, on July 4th, 2010
What a lot of water!!! Hurricane Alex was very weak by the time it made it in to us here in Monterrey however, there was still plenty of water left to drop. Monterrey city had 619 mm (24.4 in) of rain while not too far away in Estanzuela they managed to survive through 1, 819.5 mm (32.26 in) of rain in just under 48 hours! The river was flowing at over 2,500 m3 per second and taking a lot with it as it went including our favorite Go Kart track which used to be on the dry river bed that hasn’t seen rain in 20 years.
Anyway, what happened to all the water? Just as the sun was starting to dry things out the main water supply for Monterrey was cut. By today most people had used up their tank water and bought the shops dry including the really over priced supa dupa brand waters that most people would never normally buy.
Although strange to see that wasn’t the real shock. That came on the way home. Along our street there is a pretty big hill, well OK it is massive. Anyway there were dozens and dozens of people filling up containers to take home, washing their cars and washing themselves.
Here is just one of the lines at one of the more accessable waterfalls.
This whole family made the trek up from a lower lying neighborhood to wash their hair.
Loads more Hurricane Alex photos here including before and during photos. Tomorrow I’ll go and get some after photos.
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By Peter, on July 1st, 2010
Here are some photos from this morning with Hurricane Alex still 6 hours away.
This used to be a great Go Kart track. The Marquee for the PIT has almost gone.
The speed of the water is amazing. Here it is about 2.5 – 3m deep and still the swell pushes up off the bottom.
PIT marquee almost completely gone now. 
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By Peter, on May 21st, 2010
So we had a week to kill after finishing a difficult 7 month project and ended up in Cancun. Being low season there were great deals on boats to hire and hotels were as I like them, comphy and cheap! We couldn’t get the Cat that we wanted which would have let us sail up and down the coast as we pleased but Allen Mason from Cancun Catamarans was good enough to scout us out another great deal with Luxury Motor Yachts Cancun who put us on a 45′ Sea Ray motor yacht with two crew and all you can eat and drink for three days and three nights.
Being a motor yacht and our super deal we couldn’t ask them to sail too far away from the lagoon. As it happens the weather was against us for most of the time with storms and or rain every afternoon into the evening. As you can see from the photos it was still a very cool time which I recommend to anyone. We also made it out to Isla Mujeres where Dylan had a quick dip in the ocean with a shark.
Of course what first trip to Cancun doesn’t have the obligitory day trip to Chichen Itza. Allen also set this one up for us a little cheaper than the fast talking Mexican guy with a heavy American accent in the lobby of our hotel. Unfortunately our hotel was last on the pick up list so I was squashed in the back seat of the otherwise comphy bus between two huge guys for the full 2.5 hour journey. The way back wasn’t much better!
All in all a great week without busin’ the budget. Well ok, we did go a bit over the original plan but a good time was had by all.
As usual, more photos here.
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By Peter, on January 31st, 2010
Just getting ready for our tour of the NASA
 Preom - Preom. . . . Mission control to James Speight.
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By Peter, on May 18th, 2008
Well today was the day. While our jobs in Cost Rica hung in the balance Ian and I decided to dip our feet a little deeper into the water and try out white water rafting instead of pondering our future. What better place to do this than the Pacuare River in Costa Rica? Here is our story. . .
The scene was set beautifully with a two hour drive through some of Costa Rica’s perfect landscape of rolling volcanic hills. We set off from our hotel in Escazu, San Jose at 6am on the dot. Of course quite a bit earlier than we were used to however, the breakfast stop just near Bueno Vista at about 8am was a picture perfect place to wake up and smell the super fresh air.
 Scoffing down eggs, fresh fruit and Pinto Gallo (some local dish consisting of mushy rice, meat and beans) which they assured us was a normal local breakfast, we spent most of our time marveling at our next one day trip, the volcano Turrialba.
About 30mins after breakfast we arrived at our launch point into the river Pacuare. Suited up in our geeky but all important safety gear we listened intensely to our guide, Ali from Cost Rica Expeditions who was explaining the commands that would help us to Continue reading Costa Rica, River Pacuare, White Water Rafting
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By Peter, on May 1st, 2008
When I was in high school (Deakin High in Canberra) I made a few trips to Jimmy Davey’s farm out just beyond Mudgee in Central NSW. We had great times there that’s for sure however one of the most fascinating places we visited was a farm where Jimmy’s uncle (Scott McGreggor) kept his train set. A few weeks ago my mum found this link about what has transformed from a couple of carriges on the side of the hill to something fantastic. Check it out!
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By Peter, on September 30th, 2007
The other day Richard digging in his cupboards unearthed a mask that we used in a fancy dress management party a few years back. It is a pretty tame mask really but when you aren’t expecting to see it on someone it does take you by suprize. So Richard prancing around the house creeping up on people and scaring them seemed pretty funny from his perspective until. . . .
 He took a look at himslef in the mirror with the mask on. A couple of short deep breaths and then screamed and ran into the bedroom in hysterics. Several minutes of cudling and soothing brought his breath back but still sobbing some 10 minutes later. Mum asked him, “why were you scared, you put it on?” He replied “but I didn’t see it on me so I wasn’t scared.”
Now he knows better not to scare people!
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By Peter, on August 6th, 2007
 The metro in Moscow is full of suprizes. Usually not very pleasant ones but the pictures below tell a different story!
I’m not sure how long this train was running but it certainly was nice to ride on.
I’ll try to get a comparison picture in the next few days so you can see the difference!
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By Peter, on June 5th, 2007
The proportion of people who smoke in Moscow (probarbly all of Russian actually) seems much higher than it is. I live overlooking a metro station in central Moscow and (depending on the time of day) the proportion of smokers Vs non smokers is about 60 / 40! Really, it is! I can explain though.
 As smoking is not allowed on the metro and people generally spend at least 15 and up to 60 minutes underground, smokers are usually gasping for a nicotine fix by the time they finish riding the long, long escalators to the nice fresh air above. As soon as the chance arrises they light up joinging those at the begining of thier journey who are taking their last puffs before making the descent into the metro. As a result of this some times frenzied smoking the average passer by has little option but to catch a couple of breaths of second hand smoke as a hazardous by product of using the Moscow Metro.
Another scene that takes some getting used to is seeing people walking and smoking. Just beyond the metro is the most obvious place to see this of course. The amount of people that I have seen walking at a brisk pace, not just wandering around smoking is amazing. It’s like a double trauma to the body, increase the heart rate and at the same time replace the oxygen that your body is trying to get with smoke???
The final most amazing scene unfolded this evening while I was cycling along the Moscow river approaching the Kremlin. It was about 24 degrees c with a slight breeze rippling the river making the sunset very impressive indeed, perfect cycling weather in a perfect setting. I approached a young girl (about 17 or 18 years old) riding along at a not to fast, not to slow pace and as I got closer I could smell cigar smoke. Sure enough there she was cruising along smoking a thin cigar! Now that is taking smoking just a bit too far I think.
Just to finish off. I’m not out to change the world about smoking I just can’t believe that people spend so much time trying to live in environmentally healthy areas, complain when nasty air conditioning systems make them sick, complain when someone has bad BO near them (especially so on the metro!) and then light up creating a mini poison zone all around them???
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By Peter, on April 24th, 2007
1120pm sitting in a wagon at Kievskaya station (central Moscow) with several other youngish folks. Doors still open waiting to move off toward Smolenskaya station one stop down the line (also central Moscow) and a purposeful, intelegent looking lady in her mid 50s steps in. Announcing to the whole wagon and to nobody in particular ‘is this central?’ (Eto v senter?).
Being completely ingored was to be expected with a question like that on that train at that station as we were in the center of Moscow on a train line with several central stops either side of our station one of which is the end of the line. So in short she was already in the center and only going to stay in the center or stay on the train and head out of the center.
Anyway the whole carrige kept blank faces or continued thier conversations only to be interrupted by a now agressive and not so intelegent looking lady repeating her question only louder, ‘is this central?’ (Eto v center?).
Another pause with still no answer saw her demanding, ‘answer my question!‘ (atverchaet moi vopros).
The guy opposite me broke the impass and asked her politely, ‘center of what?‘ (Kakoe v center?)
Snapping back, ‘center of Moscow!’ (vsenter Moskva).
Still politely the guy replied ‘this is the center!’ (eto vsenter Moskva!)
Realizing that she wasn’t going to get the information that she was looking for she got off. The guy didn’t say anything after that, just looked as amazed as I think I looked wondering what the hell just happened there.
Moscow Metro is great!
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By Peter, on April 4th, 2007
Today I dropped into an upmarket supermarket Azbuka here in Moscow. A brand new location for this famous chain but none the less they managed to fill it up with cashiers with diplomas in antibusiness majoring in organizational destruction.
As I aproached the line of shiny new cash desks I was faced with a choice of at least five neatly uniformed young to middle aged cashiers. How to choose? Well the cashier closest to me was an easy option which I soon regretted. As I placed my 112ruble ($4.35) loaf of freshly baked wholemeal bread on the conveyor she caught sight of the 1,000 ruble note that I was preparing to pay with. . . . This is where the troubles started!
Quite calmly but matter of factly she announced ‘Without change I won’t’ (bez zadacha, ya ne budu)! Quite often it is the case that shops run short of change but it’s just as common for the cashier to ask for small change quite politely, even in Russia. So I showed her all the small change I had, which wasn’t enough of course and we stood staring at each other wondering who was going to break sentense next. I knew if it was me she would come off much worse.
Before long she said, ‘give me the 10 rubles’ refering to the note that she saw in my small change. I handed it over knowing that it didn’t help her reduce the amount of change that she had to give me. Snatching it from me and angrilly punching the amount into the key pad was expected and acceptable behaviour from her now so I let it slide without incident. Next though was different.
When she opened the till to place the money and get the change I noticed that there was money of all denominations in plenty sufficient quantity for our transaction. Here is the exchange that followed:
[Me] Rudely but not as bad as I could have been ‘what’s that’s not enough?’
[Her] Point blank ‘If I give this to you then there will be nothing left for the next customer!’
[Me] ‘There is plenty there so what was the point in telling me that without change you won’t sell it?’
[Her] No response, just a stupid direct stare.
[Me] Still calm but getting ruder ‘this is complete rubbish, not my problem and anyway doesn’t mean you have to talk like you did!’
By this time I had my change, had made my point and was on my way with my toasty warm and expensive bread. Looking back the cashier was of course recounting our conversation from her perspective to the remaining cashiers.
Each time I make it through an incident like this I think, how much money can a good well run business with polite staff make in this town???
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By Peter, on October 8th, 2006
 Today we went to a market (Rinok) near our house and found out what really happened to the three little pigs! One of them was being prepared for dinner and the other two were ready to go!
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By Peter, on October 3rd, 2006
Well not often I make it to a news paper. Today was an exceptional exception making when I made it quite accidently to Mir Novesti (НОВОСТИ МИРЕ) a popular weekly journal in Moscow
 Our PR manager sprung a last minute oppertunity onto us to show Russia’s first ‘Narodny Artist’ (People’s Artist) Alexey Goman what a day in the life of a dealer in a casino is like. With no time to get together people to look like players I managed to get in a few photos and one of them became the lead photo for the aritcle.
Alexey was pretty amazed at our industry mostly how it differs from what people imagine as portrayed in the movies. There was no smoke, no agressive customers, plenty of women (young and old) playing slots and most of all nice, intellegent, polite young staff.
The clipping says that the punters (players) were at first suprised to see Alexey in the property and then confused when he put on a dealers vest. They crowded with much interest.
Still doesn’t beat meeting Bony M during a promotion in Shangri La but is up there with meeting Malikov, Penkin and Hi-Fi in previous promotions.
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By Peter, on August 30th, 2006
 Well it is that time in life to leave the comfort of home and the easy life in pre-school and head off to school. For Mum and Dad this was a major process. After deciding against the English school options in Moscow (after negative feedback from various sources) we settled on Russian schools with English as a second language from the early years. We found school Arbat 1234 which has English from the 2nd grade. They even have kids who started there with no Russian skills at all!
After a scary interview with the director where Richard clammed up only managing to wisper a few answers to the easiest of questions we took a look at the sports hall. The director was searching for other skills in the kid which may make up for his apparent lack of speaking skills and then we found English. As soon as this was known we were in, with only the medical exams to go!
 So off to the clinic to get a battery of tests done not unlike the ones recently done in Baku for his citizenship although in Moscow the surrounds were much more inviting. Passing the tests in flying colours we moved on to see the psychiatrist to get an all clear on his preparedness for shchool. This is a mandetory step for kids under 6.5yo in Moscow even though the kids can go to shchool from 5yo here.
New shoes, uniform, books, bag, and suit for the first big day!
Just a matter of waiting now. Roll on September 1st!
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By Peter, on August 29th, 2006
Richard has just started calling me at work now to find out when I am coming home. He hits the speed dial for my mobile and voila, he can speak with me!
Today he called me to ask what I was doing. I told him that I was going to have dinner in the restaurant at work. Very excitedly he asked if he could come to as he likes restaurants. I told him that this is a restaurant for grown ups (inside a casino) so he can’t come. Thinking quickly he asked if it would be possible for me to move the office to Mcdonalds so he can come and have dinner with me.
What a nice thoughtful kid.
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