Time has taken my tomorrow and turned it into yesterday

I would like to introduce everyone to DeLorean/Delilah, an 84’ Toyota Celica, the illegitimate vehicle of Bryan and Brendan. Talk about a surprisingly difficult birth.  

Upon returning from Sydney, I was offered my old position as a Car Detailer, but due to the “economic crisis” demand was slow and I was placed on-call. After a week or so without work I approached my housemate Bryan about possible employment at his company, Bryan was able to set me up with a job as a Trades Assistant at a CNC machine shop. We slightly exaggerated my skill level in-order to get the job. If anyone needs comical relief I should make a video of me using a hammer. As a Trades Assistant I perform a variety of tasks such as grinding steel into a smooth finish, deburring (by hand or using the mill), pressing plugs with a hydraulic press and washing/packaging products. The downside to the job was the 3-hour a day commute, thus leading to the purchase of the Celica. We purchased the car for $425 ($212.50 each), a far cry the asking price of $800. The car runs well and for anyone that noticed; there is a towel covering the dashboard. It seems that the previous owner did a hack-job re-fabricating the dash. The car is manual and unfortunately I never learned in Canada. One of the conditions of purchase was that Bryan had to teach me. I can now successfully drive a manual transmission, but occasionally get nervous when cars ride my ass at lights on steep hills. I have been considering making a sign for the back window: Leave space, I ROLL!! The cost of insurance is substantially cheaper than Canada, $150 per annum for third party injury and damage. It’s crazy I know. Back home I was paying $100 per month with a clean record. 

Why did we name the car DeLorean/Delilah? As with most parents, deciding on a name is a difficult task, we could not come to an agreement and therefore did the most logical thing with a car so nice, and named it twice. My obsession with Back to the Future led to the name DeLorean, in addition to my realization that this car is the closet I will ever come to owning a car resembling a DMC DeLorean. Now that we have a vehicle, we spend almost every weekend at beaches along the Sunshine and Gold Coast. 

Brett, a fellow colleague and avid gun enthusiast took Bryan and I shooting one afternoon. Check out the pictures below, especially the video of me shooting a .44. It was a great afternoon at the range, we shot the following guns: .44, .22 and.323. The .44 had strong recoil and after a handful of successive firings makes the shoulder a bit tender.

Over New Years, several of us (Bryan, Leslie, Graham, Carly, Ashley, Sally and I) rented an 11-person 4WD Toyota Troop Carrier and spent 5 days/4 nights beach camping on Fraser Island. “With huge dunes, wide ocean beaches, mighty rainforests growing on sand, abundant wildflowers and wildlife.. little wonder the world’s largest sand island is a World Heritage area”. The island is home to the purest colony of dingoes in the world. On our first morning, I awoke at 4:55 AM and decide to do some fishing. I grabbed the tackle and headed over a small dune towards the water. As I came over the dune I checked the beach for dingoes, none were within sight. I stopped to fix my sandal, as I stood up I notice 3 dingoes racing through low beach brush towards me. I stood tall and still, the dingoes came to a halt. As I slowly retreated, the dingoes began to run once again, I dropped all the tackle and sprinted for the tent. Safely inside the tent, I decided that it was too early to go fishing and went back to bed for a few hours. 

Traveling along the beach meant having to drive during certain tidal times. Driving along the beach was by far the quickest way around, but access to the inland lakes was only accessible by rough and sandy trails, the average speed was 5 KM per hour. We got bogged down a few times but were able to push the truck free. It not advisable to swim in the ocean surrounding the island as they contain strong rips and are the known breeding ground for Bull sharks and Blue Bottle jellyfish, all swimming should be done at the inland lakes. On New Years Eve day we spent the day basking in the Champagne pools, an area where the waves crash over rocks and into small basin. 

Perhaps the coolest part of the trip was our hike up Indian Head, where we could see Sea Turtles, Manta Rays and Sharks in the water below. The temperature was stifling during the trip; by 6AM all of us could be found sleeping outside of the tents, in one instance even sleeping under the truck for shade. With the lot of us excessively hung-over from New Years, combined with the heat, we decided to venture into the ocean. I knew from speaking with a South African man while fishing where the channels were along the beach. A channel is an area where shallow waters drop off, only to become shallow again further out. The channels are where larger fish wait for smaller ones. The channels on either side of our “frolicking area” dropped to about chest height. There was no channel in our immediate area until much further out. Bryan and I decided to grab our bodyboards and catch some waves; I was only ever out as deep as my waist and shore was 20 meters away. With Bryan at shore, I decided to catch the next wave and head in; I did not want to be out by myself. As I caught the wave, Ashley (in knee deep water), who I was directly headed for, started screaming and pointing to the water to her right. Just I heard her scream and point to the water, a wave hit me in the face and I could no longer see. In a panicked state I fell off the board (knee deep) and tried to scramble to shore, continuously falling over as my eyes still had water in them. As it turns out she saw a stingray, I could not help but laugh. 

The trip to Fraser was absolutely amazing and I recommend that if any of you visit Australia to see the island. It is such an amazing feeling being so isolated (no towns or hospitals, just an occasional store)

Check out the following artist: Josiah Leming and his song “One Last Song”. The video is down the left of the site, be sure to stop the music that streams when the site opens before starting the video. I think he is pretty good, you may think otherwise.

www.myspace.com/josiahleming