MORE

PREFACE

I have decided to do another diary style effort, 10 years since doing The Chronicle of a Masochist, for which I am actually quite pleased with as it provides an interesting record of what I did during my university years. The following 10 years of my life since university are in danger of being forgotten too, which I think would be a shame, so I'll put it all down here, into a 2nd diary. Well here we go again, all from memory. Where do I start...

Steven Enders

September 2002

 

 

 

CONTENTS

APRIL 1995 SOUTH AFRICA VISIT

 

 

pre masochist:

baby sitting job

sport and rec camps - boomerangs

 

Nutritionist

Buy car, sheep skins, loan from Dave.

Kristina red dress.

Go out with CBA girl Lisa

Move to Willoughby Gerry, slept on floor

Chase Raylene, get Janelle/dinner , though not permanent. Roses.

Martial Arts, Rod

Bought earrings after thinking opal pendant. She loved and always wore thereafter, even on subsequent visits.

Janelles 21st Wismans ferry

janelle massage/waxing

Janelle says you could get away with anything (hinting at cheating)

Candle burn

Mid 1993 met jeff going off overseas nov 1993

John would call me wonder boy, dick smith

Natascha came back from os and got a flat in Willoughby. Boyfriend David from Canada. She was poor not much confidence/ quality of life. Epilepsy. Scary. Often picked Natascha up after work and drove her home. Come to my place and eat lots of dried fruit and munchies.

Michael moves in, board room table. weekends away, hanky panky in pool

Robert and susan wedding. Janelle late. beta blocker.

Up to mum. Mum didn't like janelle. Drove in MG up, accident

Janelle says if I had asked to marry her she would have accepted

hanky panky in pool, volcanic eruption in Indonesia

Westfield incident Capri

Rod fine tuning his flirting on janelle.

Janelle said she would marry.

Janelle threesome.

Trying to teach Mr Warman to use a computer

Went with Rod and Kim and janelle to see Kim Wilde

Injections - hay fever, travel ie rabies

South Africa apr-jul 1995. Ill , all wanted to do was call Janelle. not interested - no follow up call. Drifters

split with janelle. Bought Bread CD. Do more hustle, photos of janelle

Janelle and I didnt argue. Said to someone when we broke up.

Photos of janelle

Jeff get back from os

Dinner party, buy plates nov 1995. Jeff back for one week Rachael (Alectus HR) keen, janelle there

John and sarah over Dec 1995-Sep 1996, play squash, Julie superb.

Jelly wrestling

Bridgeview - trivia, Les, Sandra, Kareoke

Meicia on qld trip sun bathing, seat belt, xmas/new year

car money stolen.

Royce moves in

Lisa ANZ

Julie play squash

Natascha back from overseas. fit. arm around her. David nice words. Felt closer to Natascha. Watched telly, played cards, made dinner.

 

 

APRIL 1995 SOUTH AFRICA VISIT

What an opportunity it was to visit South Africa for 3 months. The director of my job in Sydney (at C.H. Warman Group) (I was a slurry pump designer) thought it best I go to the South Africa subsidiary for abit of meeting the staff and see hands on the pump business from manufacture to the happy(?) running of the pumps in the field (usually mines). South Africa was the main location for the business for pump production. Sales were mainly throughout Africa.

I flew Qantas to Johannesburg and met by Rob Fawcett, a happy young bloke a few years older than me (about 28). He took me to me flat I was to stay in which was actually the receptionists flat who was going to stay at her boyfriends place (another employee). It was a small one bedroom flat with bars over all windows and doors. That level of security is usual. South Africans tend to sleep within arms reach of a gun. Even the receptionist keeps one in her desk at work. We then drove out to the assembly plant at Kempton Park (a surrounding suburb of Johannesburg). The whole country felt weird/uneasy/strange. I was handed over a 20 year old Vauxhall car which needed warming up for around 20 minutes. Better than nothing. It was manual which I had barely driven before except when learning and once badly in Perth. Struggled abit with it and the people watching laughed. I had abit of freedom now. I got out a map of the city and surrounds and asked which areas I should keep out of for safety. Rob pointed here, and here, and here... It was nearly everywhere. Aaaagh. Now I'm getting worried. He told me not to take the wrong turn off into a township because I most probably wouldn't make it out again. Also he said if I hit a wandering black person on the freeway to keep going and don't stop as it would likely be near a township and others would come and kill me. Said go to nearest police in this case. Also said don't drive with any windows down and if stopped in traffic, allow space to pull away if problems. Also at night if at lights if blacks around and looks dodgey just go through the lights.

For the first couple of weeks I stayed on site at Kempton Park talking to the designers and draughtsmen. Also trying to understand their requirements for the new database program I was about to start writing (took about 3 years after this trip). Sat in on meetings and felt pretty important. Always in the morning warming up the car I was worried about safety as I was not behind the safety of the house. But soon I would be at work behind more bars. I would occasionally hire videos. The ads on tv were strange. The local shopping center was creepy. Lots of blacks hanging around the entrance. I was told to only go to the shops when lots of people were around and not towards the end of trading hours.

The next few weeks were really interesting. I stayed on site at the suppliers foundry where the majority of pump components were manufactured. I spent alot of time in meetings and talking to the managing director. I guess he thought I had a hotline to god to solve all his problems. He was always late supplying parts and over budget. At the end of every day I would have to blow my nose and clean my ears. You wouldn't believe the amount of black soot I breathed in. But was a really interesting experience from seeing them do analysis on the molten metal, watch it being poured and being cast into moulds on the basic production line.

Then spent a few weeks out with Rob at his regional office in the Eastern Transval visiting customers. Another great experience. We would visit mines, power stations, sugar mills. The power stations were huge. We walked high up inside one. It was like a huge city in a building as it was so big and so high. All the mines we went to were open cut mines. Went to a De'Beers diamond mine. Very high security there. They fly out the diamonds by helicopter each week at a random time. When it was time to exit, I failed the hand sweat test (on a metal plate in an isolated room) and had to get searched (luckily not too personal). I was quite worried as Rob must have already passed through his room and be outside waiting by now. Other mines chopped lovely looking mountains in half. A bit sad really. One mine was fantastic. I was lucky enough to go onto a dragline machine. It is like a digger on caterpillar tracks but its as big as an apartment block and dig deep rows out of the rock, like creating valleys. Inside it was huge. Went into the drivers cabin and saw him operate the machine. Unfortunately couldn't take any photos at the mines. One mine I stepped of a ladder in the wrong place and got tailings (mud) up to my knees all over my suit pants. Rob was in fits of laughter. Had to hose me down. Not to nice in the middle of winter. Most customers were not happy that pumps were being taken so long to deliver.

A few more weeks at the head office. Did a trip out to the new and bigger office location at Alrode. A very dodgy black area. The employees were very worried and talked of arriving and leaving in convoy for safety.

It was the time of the Rugby World Cup being hosted by South Africa. Everywhere I went I was told Australia was going to get beaten (Australia were the reigning champs) and who did I think was going to win. Watched some matches on TVs in pubs. Was a great atmosphere. One day Rob and I were in the car and a car van thing drove past. The drivers door was riddled with bullet holes. We thought aaagh! So many shootings were always happening. Apparently South Africa at that time was the most violent country outside of a war zone in the world. So many murders happened there. It was usual to hear on the radio not to go into various areas because of shootings. People regularly get 'car jacked' i.e. shot in your car and car stolen. Soweto township has the highest ownership of BMWs in Africa and its supposed to be a very poor town! Rival taxi companies shoot passengers at bus ranks and torch taxis. I saw one place where around 20 taxis were overturned and burnt out. It was pretty creepy driving the roads as all the blacks walking by the sides of the roads and freeways, probably on their way to work in the bitter cold and fog. One day I pulled over on the freeway only for a few minutes to get a photo of a township (Alexandria) and police pulled up behind me. I quickly drove off. I think they were just going to check I had not broken down as it could be dangerous.

Went for a day tour through Kruger National Park. It was fantastic. At the crack of dawn when the gates opened we drove through on a safari wagon car and immediately saw herds of wildebeest and buffalo and Giraffes all very close. Fantastic. We managed to see lots of animals all close up even a rare leopard but no Lions. Highly recommend it.

Rob took me to a restraunt with his wife. We tried various African animals from a smorgasbord. Tried crocodile/ostrich and others. Went to Joburg to do a tour of Soweto (stands for southwest township of Johannesburg). Only went into the safe areas. Saw Winnie Mandela's Mansion and Sir Desmond Tutu's house. Also saw very poor areas and wandered around the central bus station. Joburg was a very creepy city. I didn't even want to stop the car. Nearly everybody Id heard who's been to Joburg has been mugged.

Drove up to the Sun City Resort near Pretoria (South Africa's capital) did a tour of this opulent place. Wow. It had luxury hotels, golf courses and big them park. There was a huge artificial beach with wave generator for the waves and sand and palm trees. All in the desert. Impressive.

To end my visit I decided to do a tour of Botswana for a couple of weeks.

 

BOTSWANA

Went on a tour with a company called 'Drifters'. There was about 8 people on a overlander 4x4 (no windows - tarpaulin roof) and it went for about 2 weeks. We first drove into Botswana and had a break in the capital city of ... It was really nice - local people with donkeys on the dirt roads. I was impressed with how well dressed everyone was. Lovely clothes/colours. We camped every night, and I shared with the driver/guide. We visited a number of national parks and did lots of game viewing drives.

The best National Park was in the Okovango Delta. It a huge wetlands area. We went in there in dug out canoes called Mokoros. We went for hours, in each was 2 of us and luggage with a local steering and pushing us through with a pole in the water. It was fun (and scary) watching the elephants charging us down to the waters edge flapping their ears. The locals were most concerned at avoiding the hippopotamus in the river as they can be very aggressive. At one camp site I had to help collect water from the canoe from the middle of the river. As I put the bottle in the water I saw a big elephant shit float by! Also at that camp site I woke up in the morning and everyone was talking about the elephants that walked through our campsite that night. I slept through it. They were worried. I looked around and there were foot prints everywhere. One was inches from my tent! It was great at night as the campfire burnt down when I was last up to hear the jackals call and hippos grunt and elephants pushing over trees near and far. All sorts of animal noises. Fantastic. Saw giraffes a mile away and even at that distance they were very cautious and then ran off. The guide was worried we might come across a lone Buffalo which are usually very aggressive. Saw lots of vultures eating carcasses but didn't see any big cats

Went for a scenic flight over the delta which was great to see all the animals. Went to Moremi Wildlife Reserve and Chobe National Park on the border of Namibia which had lots of elephants which was very impressive. Went for a boat trip and saw elephants swimming, and a Fish Eagle catching food out of the water. Was fantastic.

We drove out onto a huge salt lake so there was nothing to see except salt everywhere. Great sensation. Except the ride out was absolutely freezing. I wore most clothes and was in my sleeping back in a little ball in the back of the track.

Bought a Soapstone elephant that weighted about 15kg tried to get it on the plane but had too much luggage, so luckily someone in the queue with no luggage did a deal with the check in lady to average out the luggage between us. It broke in transit back to oz but fixed most of it. Hope it lasts as its rather nice and had to carry it around delicately for quite a while.

 

ZIMBABWE

Really only saw Victoria Falls here as part of the 'Drifters' tour through Botswana. Victoria Falls town was very nice, except for the locals offering us drugs in the street. Even in the town you got spray mist in your face from the falls which are close by. I went to the falls and had a walk along some of the tracks and got some good photos. Saw an elephant walking along the edge but didn't get a photo of it as it went out of view.

Got a helicopter scenic flight over Victoria Falls which was impressive. My sister Natascha when she went went up in an ultralight aircraft (triangle material on a frame with an engine attached and 2 seats) gutsy!

Lots of people were bungy jumping off the bridge over the Zambezi River but I wasn't brave enough! If the rope snapped they would have hit rocks not the water! I walked across and into Zambia for a quick look around. Lots of stalls for tourists selling their wood and stone crafts.

 

 

 

Motor bike, buying, lots of rides thru Kuringay NP, Old P Hwy.

Rod gets engaged when? Bucks party.

Janelle gets married

Tanya

Lucky to have friends to do things with

Software - amorphous blob

Snappy dresser

teeth dream (anxiety) , maths fail dreams

Up to see Natascha (queenslander, flatmate sees plane arrive) and Ven. Koshrow gone missing.

Back for Rods wedding, house sitted, tennis for rods father. fell off bike.

17K super payout

Janelle has michael?

 

 

 

ENGLAND

My job in Sydney was going nowhere. Salary increases across the board had effectively stalled (when I started, it was the norm to get a 5% increase every 6 months) and there was no prospects of promotion. I had broken up with Janelle 2 years earlier and not found anyone else and the days/weeks/months/years were flying by. I was saving at such a slow pace that I would never afford a half decent house anywhere in Sydney in my lifetime so I had little hope. It was time for a change. I had my German (EC) passport in the drawer collecting dust since my South Africa trip. Lots of stories about good pay rates in the UK, so thought it worth a try.

I sold my (lovely Ford Telstar) car and took 5 months leave from work to see India/Nepal/Germany Denmark and Holland with a quick peek at London. The leave was paid accumulated leave as I guess I was a workaholic especially the past couple of years when I was writing database software for the company to track engineering drawings and parts lists. London seemed great. I wanted to come back to work. When I returned to Sydney I went back to work as I thought I was going to be made redundant (as my software had been completed and not much work was around & the boss Vivian called me in England to suggest as much and recommended not returning!) so I could get a redundancy payout. But it didn't seem to be eventuating so I gave notice and left work after 2 months since returning. During this time I was house sitting a beautiful house with pool in Castlecrag. Then house sat an apartment in Kings Cross for a tenant of David Harris although got there return date wrong and was still in bed with a messy house when they returned! Highly embarrassing.

Flew out to England after holidaying in Japan/Greece and Turkey on the way.

Flew into Heathrow and got the Piccadilly tube line into Northfields station to stay at John and Sarah's for a while till I got settled in (what a great offer). I gave them a call from the station and they walked up and meet me. John and Sarah were on a working holiday in Sydney a couple of years ago when I met them through Jeff. We went up to a local pub and I had local bitter. Nice warm atmosphere in the pub. What a good experience. How exciting to be here.

I soon started on the mission of registering with lots of employment agencies. Looking for engineering jobs with as much computing components as possible. All in all I registered with around 40 after much research. Not much was around. It seemed there were no engineering jobs in the London area! See email

Money was running out. In fact it had run out and I was using the remaining credit on my credit card! I bought an expensive suit and shirts and shoes and ties.

A job interview with The Ford Motor company in Essex turned up so I went to it. It was outside the M25 i.e. quite far out of London. Oh well give it ago. Got the train out to Laindon and was met by the agency rep who drove me to Ford. Gee this was way in the middle of nowhere! Had to register as a visitor and was shown into a small office with just a computer. It turned out my interview was via video on the computer to someone in Germany. Aaaagh, now this is getting serious! I think I did ok in the interview but what the job involved was abit over my head with all the jargon. I walked outside where the rep was and he said 'congratulations you got the job!' He must have got a call straight away after the interview. Wow great. What a company to work for. I had dreamed of working for Ford in Australia. Wow! The pay was to be £21 per hour. See email

Now I knew I was going to work in the middle of nowhere I had to get a car and somewhere to live. I looked in the Loot newspaper for cars and got a really old black 2.2 liter Ford Sierra (thought I should get a Ford!) for £350. After paying for it I drove down the street and wound down the window a little and it fell into the door. I then thought I got ripped off. It needed a wheel balance immediately with a terrible shake at 70MPH. Got insurance. I had almost no money and no income for about 3 weeks. I was living off next to nothing. Boy I need some money.

I searched for a house to stay from an accommodation list in the area with the employment agency one day. Found a house to share in close to work for £30 per week (the price of a CD! - cheap!).

Packed the car up with my few possessions and headed out of London to my new home. Not really where I wanted to be as its so far from London but that's my only option. How exciting to be driving in London LONDON! Woohoo!

The house was on a huge property surrounded by 4 huge crop fields. One was as big as a small airport. They mostly grew pig feed. There was a big tin house to store some of the crops. The house was 2 stories high and a lady (Janice) ran the place. Janice had a spare room because one of her daughters was holidaying overseas. She was about 60 had 2 boys (9&6yo) and an adopted Downes Syndrome girl (about 12). Also her boyfriend John lived there most of the time. It was isolated and quiet quite different to Sydney. The toilet was in an outside building attached to the side of the house. It was September and the temperature was starting to get cold. Going for a pee out there would produce a steam fog. Nice!? They had a table outside mad of a tombstone propped up on legs. Strange. The man loved his Carp fishing and tons of Carp World magazines everywhere in the house. He was forever making up bait balls out of a strange mixture of flavours (a secret recipe). He told me he also uses maggots for bait, and if that wasn't bad enough he would put them in his mouth in winter to warm them up before putting them up on the hook!

Spent alot of my time working on the car. The lights were not working properly and had to do lots of soldering of wires to lights to get them working again, which I was quite proud of. I cleaned it very often. Nearly every weekend, in the freezing cold.

The first month of work was me getting training in using their engineering design software called I-DEAS. The 2nd month I sat around waiting for a computer to become available. My job was to be responsible for putting together all the engineers engineering drawings into a kind of daily progress report to be shared by all users on the vehicle program I was assigned to. This would be a 3 dimensional model of the vehicle which users could then slice sections through and check distances and run motion sequences to see if moving parts would hit other components. It was a nice combination of engineering and computers. The work ethic was fantastic there. Everyone set a high standard of clothes and everyone felt they had a very important part to play in the design of the vehicles. If you didn't do your job properly you would be letting down lots and lots of people. Each week I would have a tv video conference with other 'Digital Buck (vehicle) Mechanics' around the world - mainly USA (Detroit) and Volvo, Jaguar and sometimes Australia although the timing would make it difficult for some.

Over Xmas decided to do a holiday to Egypt. The airfare was nearly the same price as to Australia. In the previous 12 months 60 German tourists were shot in a tourist location in Egypt so I was a little apprehensive There was also some unrest in Iraq with the USA. Thought seeing I'm close to Egypt (in England) I should take the opportunity. It was a great trip although a little lonely traveling by myself. See email

On my return Janice said her daughter was returning back early and I had to leave. I think we were getting on each others nerves in reality. So I had to quickly find somewhere else to live.

I did more phoning around and found another house this time in Brentwood. It was a big house - 7 bedrooms (some of them triples i.e. big enough to divide the rooms into flats in their own right). I had the smallest room but figured it would be cosy in the winter because it had a big wall heater in it. I started off sharing with 3 people but at times in grew to 9 people including a baby.

Was just starting to get to know my 4 flatmates. 2 were sons of the lady who owns the house but lives mostly in Germany. Didn't talk to them too much. The other 2 were both called Tim which I got on well with. Often we sat in each others rooms for a chat and watch a little tv together. One day after only being there for about a month Tim went out in the morning for a driving lesson. I heard him yell out good-bye (I was on the toilet). He didn't come back afterwards which was odd. One of the sons talked to me that evening and said he just had to identify the body of Tim as he had an accident, through no fault of his own (he was parked in a lay-by when a car didn't take a bend and went straight into him). How terrible. To see Tim's room, that night, light off and no Tim in there as always was shocking and sad. We laid flowers by the road side and went to the funeral in Wales (his parents home - he was about 20) a few days later.

Since leaving John and Sarah's place until the middle of winter I went to their place in London to play tennis at a local tennis court. This was great exercise. What fun to see squirrels running across the tennis court and fences. Only problem it was 49 railway stations from me in London's far east to Ealing in the west!

Boy England was cold in the winter. In the mornings and evenings before going to and from work I had to scrape ice off all the windows and external mirrors with a scraper. The house was abit cold inside. For a few weeks in the winter I would squat in my room next to the heater with lots of clothes on and try not to move. The shower was really quite bad as next to no water came out of it. I think if a cat was in there with me, it wouldn't worry about getting wet.

From my programming experience I soon found that my job could be dramatically streamlined by writing computer programs. This meant however I had to learn an appropriate language which I chose to be Perl.I was soon writing code and quickly I wrote a program of about 3000 lines which all the other Buck Mechanics adopted as a core tool in producing the buck. I was a savior! to the tedium involved. I wanted to do more programming. Soon I would have most of my job automated which left me more and more time to do the fun programming. Only problem was that I was addicted to programming as I would be at work from 8am - 10pm nearly every weekday and most Saturdays and Sundays for similar time periods. Wouldn't get paid for the extra hours though. Must have averaged 70 hour weeks for the two and a half years working there. My flat mates hardly knew who I was because I was never there. I ate most meals at the Canteen including dinners. Didn't get out much as a result.

My car, the Ford Sierra was in such a bad shape that it was too expensive to make it road worthy so had to get the wreckers to tow it away for nothing. Found another car advertised on the Ford notice board and bought it. It was a 1.3 liter Ford Escort with manual choke which was really difficult to use. Paid £200 for it. It went so slowly. I couldn't even get it up to speed on the ramps to join the motorway traffic. The car kept flooding itself and stalling rendering the brake pedal inoperable so spent half my time stopping with the hand brake. Also had to keep a foot on the accelerator to keep the revs up to stop it stalling so had to use the handbrake for a brake. It was also full of rust. It leaked so bad in the rain that the foot wells on both sides would fill with water an inch deep. I would get my boots washed whenever I drove. In the summer when it would dry out, green algae would remain and then dry out to a yellow colour.

In September 1999 I took some holidays and flew to Australia specifically to attend my sister Nataschas wedding to Darren. My role was to act as the person giving her away (like a father would) so I had to walk her down the aisle then I acted as one of the groomsmen! Dual role! I gave them as a gift $A10,000 which was nearly all I had saved over the year after struggling along. It was given to them on behalf of me and mum. I thought it important to give them some money like a father of the bride would. The wedding was nice in chapel at a golf resort. The reception was at a marina. We traveled from the chapel to the marina on Uncle Brandon's yacht which made a great entrance. At the reception I had to give a speech which I had prewritten. I was quite proud of myself as I didn't take any Beta Blockers like I did for best man speeches and Roberts wedding and Rods wedding. Also Natascha didn't require me to get a professional hair cut but trusted my own cutting skills. For Both Robert's and Rods wedding I got it professionally cut. They were the only professional hair cuts I had had since I started cutting my hair in High school back in 1983! Met lots of relatives at the wedding which was great to see them. Also to have a dance with mum and Natascha was very good too. Taught Natascha and Darren how to do the wedding waltz which they enjoyed learning and practising. Stayed with Jeff in Sydney for a while and did a day trip out to Canberra to catch up with Leah (who I met in Turkey a year earlier).

I stopped overnight at a hotel near Narita airport (Tokyo) to break up my trip. That day, a nuclear power plant had an accident and released radiation (it was 100km away). That was not such a comforting thought.

Back in England, would occasionally (every few months) meet up with John and Sarah from drinks in London. This was good to get abit of social life happening.

Tim my flatmate suggested driving over to France to do some skiing over the Millenium New Year. As Ford shuts down over this period I thought it was a very good idea. I bought lots of ski gear in preparation. I accidentally left my shopping unattended in the Liberty store (as I often do in Sydney) and came back to it and it was gone! I panicked trying to find it but an attendant put it behind the counter. With bomb scares around London every unattended bag is highly suspicious. I learnt a good lesson then. Had a great week and did very well for a first time skier. Celebrations of the new Millennium happened with fireworks and skiers with flares going down the mountain. Cant wait to go skiing again. See email

Tim and I would do odd evening trips over to Calais in France to do some cheap alcohol shopping, although I never bought anymore than a bottle or two. That was novel to drive across to France for the evening. I did buy quite a bit of men's perfume.

Ford flew me and a few others over to Cologne in Germany to man a stand demonstrating the software we were using at Ford to design cars. That was good fun, although I had a cold and drank too much water in an attempt to scratch my throat that I had to spend a long time at the airport on the toilet with upset bowels.

After nearly 2 years working at Ford and seeing no pay rise, and in fact reduction in allowed overtime, plus new tax rules affecting contractors, it was time to move on. I made threats to leave if things didn't change but all I got was 'there's no money left in the budget' which I think was true because sever belt tightening was happening in a departments. I emphised how valuable I was due to the very significant productivity increases resulting from my software being implemented around the world but no luck. I was openly looking for other jobs while still at Ford. I was looking for computer programming jobs because the rates offered were amazing. A job interview at the BBC turned up. Wow what a dream that would be to work there - the most visited computer website in the world! I had a verbal interview with two people and then had to do a written test to show I was capable in Perl programming. I think I got a score of about 60%. The recruitment agency got back to me next day and said I got the job. You beauty! It was £50 per hour. That's almost the cost of my weeks rent (£60)! It turned out some other people who did the test didn't complete it and disappeared out the door before anyone noticed! (Too hard!) All that hard work of programming at Ford is now bearing fruit.

The people at the BBC (online section) were all young, in fact I was one of the oldest at 31. The work ethic was reasonably good but nothing like at Ford. It was located in London's west end on The Strand in World Service House - the historic BBC building in London. My job was to write a content management system so the girls could use my software to retrieve promos (upcoming program info for radio/tv and internet) and build specific daily web pages as automatically as possible. The software I ended up writing was so well received, I tweaked it abit so another department could use it. That department built the actual BBC homepage (the first page), so my program was largely responsible for making the homepage look fresh with new information each day. Again I was very keen on programming and worked the long hours each day into the night The BBC had a subsedised cafeteria with good food, so I ate there more than at home! I also realsied I was abit short of programming skill in places so wanted to catch up as quick as possible. The Xmas party was celebrated on the London Eye (a huge Ferris wheel opposite Big Ben) and dinner in a restraunt. The 6 month contract was up and they weren't renewing because I replaced a girl who left the company to travel but came back wanting a job again. She had been there a long time and new the systems better than I.

During the BBC contract I bought a dream camera. I thought I deserved it. I always dreamed of owning a medium format camera for better, sharper images. But as it was so expensive it would likely never happen, but I could now afford. It was £7000 pounds, the price of a new small car. People thought I was crazy! I wanted to start taking superb photos as I had outgrown the 35mm photographic system.

Decided to try to avoid the cold English winter instead of looking for another contract, and go to Australia for a holiday. I really wanted to see my new nephew Nicholas who was just born and share the moment with family. I flew over with British Airways with a stop in Singapore for 2 days. BA left my luggage in the UK so I had to go to the hotel without it. Forgot to bring spare contact lenses and the daily lenses I was wearing from England were already over due to get taken off and thrown out. So I was panicking. I didn't have glasses and the prospect of not being able to see anything except shades of light and dark only in a strange country was not nice. The next morning One eye was red from wearing the lens too long, so I had to take it out and throw it away. Oh no, I was down to one. I spent most of the day on the phone to the airport to see if the luggage had turned up. I was praying that the other lens wouldn't need taking out. The next day I went to the airport with only one old lens in waiting for my luggage to arrive as my plane would shortly leave. 30 minutes before the plane was due to fly, my luggage was collected off the baggage system and given to me so I could get out some more contact lenses and then I was raced through immigration to get straight on the plane. The luggage actually came off the plane I was boarding! So, didn't see any of Singapore. Thanks alot BA!

Took some photos of little Nicholas with my new camera. Didn't bring a flash with me unfortunately so photos didn't turn out too well as most photos were best taken indoors. Went to Sydney and took some photos of Sydney. Decided to hire a car and drive to Victoria so I could try to take some photos. Took some good photos around the Great Ocean Road area. Met up with Leah in Brisbane where she was now studying.

Flew out of Australia stopping off in Hong Kong for a very nice 4 day holiday. Took some nice photos. The UK only handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese about a year ago so was not sure what to expect. See email.

On return to England I found there were not many jobs advertised.I bought a mobile phone and plugged it into my computer so I could connect to the internet as there was no phone line in my room. I clocked up 9000 minutes in the first month. Subsequent months were typically 7000 minutes. Goodness knows what it was doing to my health. I took a job at Volbroker a company that writes Futures trading software. It was established by Citibank/Deutchebank and a number of others. Located in the financial district of East London (at Mansion House tube station) It was paying £60 per hour. Wow, that's the same as my weekly rent! Strange job. I didn't do much. They didn't really want any programming skills just advice on website building, from my experience at the BBC. I wanted to work for a smaller company on this contract to see how it would be working for such a company. The work ethic was pretty poor there.

The commute into work from Brentwood (east, just outside the M25) was very tiring. I would drive 20 minutes to the railway station carpark and pay for parking, wait for a train which was typically late (I mean very late, and then have to stand all the way into London, or sit with people crammed in with elbows hitting me in the head. Then have to change trains for the tube train which was usually packed so I tended to let a few pass by first. All this most of the year in the cold and wet. Yuk.

Ever since finishing uni (about last 10 years), I have been having recurring dreams (nightmares) about 6 times a year. They involve me failing more subjects at university towards the end of my degree and try to sort out delaying getting a job, or getting an interim job until the subjects could be studied in the 2nd half of next year returning back to Toowoomba. I would mainly be failing my maths subjects (like in real life). One consolation, though, was I would wake up and think, 'where am I, oh I'm here, I got the Engineering Degree so I must have passed all the exams, Yeah! Its a lovely day!'. They seem to have stopped happening now, finally.

Last September (2000) I applied for and sent in an application form to go into the ballot to attend a Wimbledon match. If you were one of the lucky few you would get a pair of tickets (not necessarily seated together) on one of the 14 days of Wimbledon. Luckily managed to get 2 tickets for seats next to each other on Centre Court on Mens Quarter Finals day. Not bad at all Wimbledon. Went with Rod (Kim was working). Saw Goran Ivanisevic (he went on to win Wimbledon) vs Marat Safin, Henman vs Roger Federer. Also had a peek through gaps on Court One and saw Rafter vs Agassi, and on other courts saw Leconte, Nastase (veterans).

Now I had my new camera and took some great photos on my Australia holiday, I thought it a challange, and fun to try photographing woman. So I thought I dont know any woman Id like to photograph, so I'm going to have to hire models, but how? I searched on the internet and found a big industry available to photographers in England. Also lots of studios were available for hire coming complete with all the lights and reflectors to be required. Tried a studio in London and hire a girl. I was very nervous, not only because of the girl, but also because I'd never used studio lighting before, only read in theory how to use. Also I had been such a failure at using flash on my other camera I held little hope. I hired Mel with the knowledge she would go toppless, but I really only wanted to see if I could get my camera gear to work with studio flash. Took in some books to try to replicate some standard poses. It worked out ok so I thought I would do this more often. I ended up doing this about one day (four hour shoot) every two weeks over a period of about 5 months. All up including film, each shoot would cost around £400 or about 7 weeks rent! Quickly settled on a girl called Amie who I photographed regularily because she had a good mix of nice face and body. I concentrated on figure (nude) photography. She was very easy to work with and would spend the 4 hours completely nude, waiting for further instructions. I would bring in books and we would try to replicate various photos. Amie said after I stopped photographing her, that I was her favourite photographer as I new the type of photos I wanted and they were always artistic. She even got some of my photos done for her portfolio. Some other photographers would dress her up in a school uniform and suck a lollypop for which she didn't like much. She was also being photographed for the Sun newspaper while I was photographing her. I hired a few other girls, but some were grumpy, and others tarty looking so they didnt last long. Had a very nice studio close to me called Kaz studios. They held quite a number of group shoots where they would get in a model and the owner/photographer would set up the scene and the shot and we would take some shots. It was interesting to see how a professional photographer does it. Also classes in still life. One outdoor shoot was with a model, which was fun. I would keep doing it if I could afford it. Need to find a willing woman who'll do it for free! See some of the model photos in my Photo Gallery (select 'People' from the menu).

Tim organised a weekend trip to Luxembourg, with 2 girls and me. We drove to Europe via the Channel Tunnel and wandered around ???? in Belgium on the way through. We camped in a caravan park and did walks around the countryside. We even walked across the border into Germany for a beer in a German Pub! Only problem was it was hay fever season and was suffering really badly. My hay fever pills had little effect.

Decided to go to a luxury restraunt in London this time with Sarah. Thought while I'm earning good money in London, I should take the opportunity. Decided to go to Gordon Ramsey restraunt in Sloane Square. There was only about 6 tables in the restraunt and treated really well. Almost like royalty. We had three courses - all were impeccable. They even provided little meals in-between the meals which were tasty,colourful and delicious. In fact everything was tasty and a work of art. It set us back £290 inc.£90 burgundy which is equivalent to 5 weeks rent. Three weeks later I read in the paper it was voted best restraunt in London

It was time to take my car (1.3 litre Ford Escort) to get its yearly road worthiness certificate. It had too many things wrong with it (leaks, heater broken - froze during winter, choke) so decided it was time to buy a better car. Wanted a Honda Prelude which was not the current shape but was the previous one. One appeared in the paper in Brentwood of all places! The owner was a stuntman who had been in Braveheart and other movie blockbusters. I bought it for £5600. Added my own personal touches to it like added soundproofing throughout because the road noise was a little louder than I liked, top of the range Bridgestone tyres, high quality bright plasma lights, and a cd player. One day soon after I came back to my car and the window was smashed and the Kenwood CD player £300 stolen. Aaaagh! Well I made sure I was right under the camera in the railway station carpark so there was hope of solving the problem. I saw the view from the camera in the station and my car was the only car that fitted into the view. Had to fill in a report. I had to tape the window up with plastic and then a couple of days later took it to the Toyota dealer to get new glass. I decided to buy another Kenwood radio but a slightly better model for £350 and the next day in the station carpark the window was smashed and radio gone and body damage done possibly from a brick. I thought there shouldn't be a problem this time because I removed the front panel so only half the radio was there, but they still took it. They tried to find the front panel in the car but I had hidden it very well but easily accessible. I put it in a case with a string which was hidden behind the ash tray in the rear of the car. Thought I had a great plan. Got a glass company to repair the glass. The police came over and filled out a report and even finger printed the car with the dust kit. They couldn't find any fingerprints! Not even mine! Useless. Nothing eventuated. So for the next three months I got a taxi to and from Brentwood station which was closer but the weekly train fare was £50 instead of £32 from Upminster where I usually went to. So all up this method was alot more expensive. The train was slower too!

September 11, 2001 was at work like every other day. In this job I played on the internet alot of the day. I saw a breaking news story on the BBC website that a plane had gone into the World Trade Center in New York. Thought it must have been a small private plane got lost in the clouds and didn't think much more of it. Then someone turned on the tv and we came over to watch. Couldn't believe it seeing the huge smoke from the building. Everyone in the office was watching. We then saw the 2nd plane hit. Unbelievable. Like a movie. Then each building collapsed. It couldn't be real. It looked like the end of the world had arrived. Our company monitored software which handled trades by banks and financial institutions - some of who were in the WTC at the time and likely some staff were talking to them around that time. We were told to go home early. Jeff was over in London for a holiday and we had planed to meet up for drinks. Tim was also invited but he sent me a phone message that he was too scared to come in to London from Brentwood. Our train station was closed due to a bomb scare so got the bus to Leicester Square and met up with Jeff. I was abit worried as maybe an attack was about to happen to London too. This is an email I sent to mum a few days later.

Jeff and I did an organised pub tour to Hemmel Hempstead. Chatted up a couple of Australian girls on the tour and they gave us their phone numbers but I didn't use it because I didn't quite like their looks but personalities ok!

Took a photo of me with my newish Honda Prelude but my ears were red. This was because I had an allergic reaction to penicillin. Actually came out in spots all over my body but not my hands or face. I was taking it because I told a doctor I had an ear ache. Afterwards I went to a specialist and he said I didn't have an ear infection, it was likely to be referred pain from my tooth. Anyway didn't get to the bottom of it, and the pain slowly went away. Had to endure 2 courses of antibiotics and ear drops. All with little effect.

 

 

 

2nd holiday may-aug 1998 Angela and Ali(son) surprised I wasn't earning more in oz-surred on.

in London with john and sarah? play tennis, apply for jobs, buy suit shirts, no money. Great ties...

job, pictel interview, got in foyer, trip to Cologne

grey hair cut out - now not worried

dream - failing maths, tidying up...

buy car, move to farm, buy stereo, tesco crap as all own brand. like tv, tombstone table, sheep

cairo 1998/9 dec-jan

move to brentwood

march Tim goes

Really bad hay fever

aust holiday sep-oct 1999 nats wedding, stayed at jeff and jeffs, mum has nasty cold, something hit me for a week.

Airshow - Farnborough

John and sarah split up.

Gerry in sumo outfit.

Go out with sarah. Surprised. Restraunts/theatre

Buy escort. Get rid of sierra.

Nataschas wedding, house sitting Castlecrag and Kings cross(!)

skiing france dec 1999 , buy outfit, loose in dept store

buy computer, get accountant

Trip to Brussels

June bad flu?

rod and kim arrive, go tar barrelling

aust holiday dec 2000-feb 2001 Hire a car, broken into, stuff into storage, who saw. Janelle had girl. Talk to ray. Crack onto Leah, Julie. Mum had 3 boyfriends over in the one day.

feeling good with cash reserve. buy phone. Photos done/album

 

 

 

SCOTLAND

I finished my 6 month work contract with Volbroker a couple of weeks ago and didn't know what to do. Should I look for work (my brain was too rubbery from too much work so not a likely option) or have a holiday. I decided to book a holiday to Australia and would fill in the time going to Scotland. I decided to drive up to Scotland in my Honda Prelude which is only a couple of months old (which I love!). That will be a good test for it as Id like to drive over to Europe with it in the near future hopefully.

Left my home in Essex and drove up the M1 and stayed a night over in The Lakes District. It was nice and scenic but not quite enough for me to take any photos!

My first impression after driving across the border was the petrol station rest area which was very scenic with green rolling hills and small lake with ducks. Stayed a couple of nights in an expensive plush Edinburgh Hotel. Big room. Shame I ate take away pizza in the car for dinner one night. Went on a guided night tour of Edinburgh by some literary students. It was very good though. The city was very scenic and quite livable to me. Lots of students and a good atmosphere. A bit cold though. Walked up to the top of the hill that overlooks the town with nice views. Went and visited my accountants office in Dundee. I think I was the first client from London to ever visit them!

Stayed a couple of days at Loch Lommond At Duckview Hotel? to the west of Edinburgh. Spectacular scenery although my photos couldn't show it although I tried hard - lots of driving, mountain climbing in mud etc.

Took a nice photo at Glencoe on the west coast which was good to get after much failure so far. Stayed at Kintail Lodge at Glenshiel for about 2 weeks I desperately wanted to replicate a postcard I saw of Eileen Donan Castle. However the winter weather was setting in with lots of rain. Finally I got that clear morning and got the photo. Didn't quite turn out to be a fantastic photo but pretty good. The hotel was nice. I got to feel the coming and going of life over the 2 weeks I was there. Nice pub, basicish room but quiet. It was not in a town but just by itself in the middle of no where by the river.

Spent a day driving around the Isle of Skye which was reasonably pretty although not enough to encourage me to stay somewhere over night.

Did a super fast drive around the coast north and then East before heading home. On the way stopped in at a nuclear reactor entrance at Dounreay on the north coast but it didn't appear to be the one I was thinking for a photo I had in mind. A security guard came along and wanted to know what I was doing (high security since Sept 11 in New York). Told me to go to the visitors centre but I passed on that. Drove past Loch Ness but didn't see Nessy.

The Highlands scenery verged on spectacular with nice coloured and dramatic landscape. It was fantastic when the sun shone but unfortunately didn't shine much.

All in all a very nice holiday.

Time to go back to Australia. It was a good time to go as Natascha (my sister) was expecting her 2nd child soon. I was taking my camera gear with me with the main goal of my trip to photograph lots of Australian women by hiring studios of photographing them outdoors (which was my preference). I thought staying 5 months of doing very little just photography would be quite relaxing.

 

SINGAPORE

I flew British Airways and had a stop over in Singapore for a few days. This time they didn't lose my luggage so had a chance to see the city this time. Stayed at a reasonable and cheapish hotel a block behind Orchard Road. My days consisted of only shopping on Orchard Road looking for DVD's and CD's. Bought some CD's. The amount of people walking down both sides of Orchard Road at night is mind boggling. Its just a massive sea of people. I thought Londons Oxford Street at Chrismas shopping time was bad enough! Quite a nice visit. I originally wanted to visit Sentosa Island (which is a fun park) but realised that there was nothing much of interest to me and it was very expensive, so I kept on shopping (or more like browsing) instead.

 

AUSTRALIA

Time to go back to Australia. It was a good time to go as Natascha (my sister) was expecting her 2nd child soon. I was taking my camera gear with me with the main goal of my trip to photograph lots of Australian women by hiring studios of photographing them outdoors (which was my preference). I thought staying 5 months of doing very little just photography would be quite relaxing. I flew British Airways and had a stop over in Singapore. This time they didnt lose my luggage so had a chance to see the city this time.

Arrived in Sydney and stayed with Jeff for a few weeks. During this time tried to find models but no luck. Australia was so difficult to find models for photography than back in England. Contacted the only nude modelling acency in Sydney, but he only had a few girls on his books and they were nothing much to look at. I was getting dispirited. Got the plane up to Natascha and Darrens place. Ended up staying there about 2 months! Thought it would be a good opportunity to spend time with Natascha as I figured wouldnt stay over much in the future now she was getting a family happening. During this time I worked intensly on my website, in particular making a section devoted to Star Trek, not because I was a big fan but I was trying some new software and Star Trek seems quite suited to it. (Footnote: after creating it, 99.9% of my hits to my website, 4 months down the track, were for these creations I made). I also tried to find models on the internet but little luck. One girl seemed suitable but her price aspirations were too unrealistic for her level of experience. Spent a few days with mum over Xmas. Decided my model photography plans were falling apart so flew back down to Sydney, not sure what to do for the next couple of months. Decided to buy a 4x4 car and travel Australia. Maybe even find a backpacker who wouldn't mind being photographed! My travel diary is here. I extended my stay in Australia till mid July 2002.

 

Spain

She showed me so much love, I cant believe. She was very open with her emotions

I want you to know me for who i am not pretend to be someone else and after a year and a half you decide you dont like the real me.

When you argue with me it hurts me more than if you were to bash me.

I want you know I would never do anything to hurt or offend you. Remember that when you start to argue.

I just want to please you. I want you to see I have something to offer you.

When we argue it is like all her efforts to please me have fallen in a heap and she is gutted.

She didnt work for the time i was there because 'It is best for me to give you all my attention'

I never loved anyone like you. I would have left others long ago by now, but not you.

She just says somethings, which just blow me over in speechlessness, which can only be said if she has incredibly strong feelings for me.

Loved little Otto. So happy to see me, and play.

 

Went to Madrid for a week. Said if you bring a girl home, dont leave any hairs on the bed.

Cristina says take condoms. If you must, have 'meaningless' sex, after a talk i need more (other boyfriend left and not come back after saying this)

Trying some online dating agencies