Tinks

Spoke with Grant yesterday after the completion of Emily's final treatment. That's right, after 33 days of general anesthetic Emily has completed her radiation treatment. Emily has handled the treatment very well. In listening to Grant's voice yesterday he was clearly wrapped that it was over and that the Tinker family could try and get back to some form of normality.

Grant was not clear as to the next step of the process, but this significant hurdle had been cleared. I'm sure if he gets some time over the next couple of weeks that he will update us all.

The Fitzgeralds are looking forward to having the Tinkers back over to our home in SA in the next couple of weeks. Although the pool temperature has dropped a few degrees over recent weeks, I'm sure that the kids will enjoy catching up, whilst the adults consume some high quality local produce!

Cheers
Bruce

Taking a Wiz in Melbourne

The whole family will be coming down to Melbourne for Easter. We will be flying in on Monday 10th April, and going back to Brisbane on the 19th. This goes over the Easter break. I'm not really sure what everyone else is doing at Easter.

Our plan is to spend a few days at Anth's Brother's and Sister's places, as well as some time up at Deniliquin so that the kids can see their grandparents. We'll likely be in Deni at the start of the trip.

Its a shame we didn't get there a bit earlier for the 7th April dinner, but them's the breaks. I'll try to catch up with others over the course of the holidays, but if there is going to be a general get together over Easter at anytime (like people going down to a holiday house somewhere), let us know and we'll see what we can fit in.

Cheers, Whiz.

The AFL is back

Tonight I took Ethan to his first Australian Football League game. It was a practice match between the Brisbane Lions and Collingwood, played at Carrara, down on the Gold Coast. They had a practice game last year which I also went to, and this year they already have had a few games. As it says, AFL is Back! Brisbane won 14.15.99 to 12.10.82 in the end, although we didn't stay for the whole game, as Ethan got tired into the last quarter. That was ok, as I didn't really want to leave at the end with the rush out of the only exit from the carpark. They got just over 10,000 people there. Not bad for a practice game when Rugby League games struggle to get that many.

It was an interesting affair. We arrived late, just as the first quarter ended. We went to rush in, then got told we had to go an buy our tickets at a separate booth, so of course, although there was no one waiting at that time as we walked over to it, all of a sudden these Collingwood supporters came out of no-where, and jumped the queue. Ethan and I waited whilst they argued about whether they could get a seat in the stands, and there was only one ticket window open. Can you imagine how frustrating it is to stand in front of 7 ticket windows, with women behind each counting ticket sales, and wait for Collingwood supporters? Ethan also wanted to go to the loo. Fortunately, our saviour arrived when this guy offered us complimentary tickets. I took them, and we got in for nothing.

The interesting thing about Carrara is that there is a massive push to get an AFL team up there. the Southport Sharks are alledgedly trying to get North Melbourne to relocate up here, with half their games at Carrara, and the other half in Melbourne. They're supposedly very cashed up due to their Pokie revenue. Its interesting that the focus of AFL news up here, other than the Lions, has been on this. Maybe Age, you'll have to move up here!

Cheers, Whiz.

7th April Dinner

Ok, now that we have established some preliminaries, what we know is that we are going out for dinner, Friday 7th April.

Venue is yet to be decided but we will probably start to gather around 6pm for a few looseners.

Acceptances: Scott, Paul (Ted), Paul (Nais), Dave, Rohan, Age

Appologies from: Bruce, Grant, Erv and Wiz.

I think Bretty may have responded, I will have to sort through my email.

More info as it comes to hand, please check the comments below for updates.

CSIRO Update

Well, after 9 weeks on the CSIRO diet, I have reached my target weight of 90 Kgs. That's 12 Kgs from the start date of 2/1/06. Now i'm in maintenance mode. Looking forward to my first donut of the year. Actually, i'm not really!

I would like to thank my sponsors, The Meat and Livestock Association of Australia as well as the Vegetable Growers Association. They have both profited highly from this exercise. It's definately cheaper eating Carbs!!

I actually had a large pizza last night and I couldn't finish it without feeling like my stomach would explode. I think my stomach has shrunk. May have to order a medium from now on. I finished it all anyway :-)

P.S. Donna has lost 4 Kg as well. Not bad for a girl who turned 40 today!!!

How to do a Post

I thought I'd put up a quick message to remind people how to put up Posts, because you're probably sick to death of just reading my diatribe. I also thought I'd include a picture of me from Movie World, because I just signed up for a yearly pass, but I still haven't got to go on the Superman rollercoaster yet. I have to work out a way that I can sneak down there by myself, but I digress.

To make a post, you have to login. Over on the right menu there is an icon which says "I Power Blogger". You can just click on this. Alternatively, go to http://www.blogger.com and login that way. You will need to use the same Name/Password that you chose to Contribute with.

That should take you to an area where you will get an option to Create posts. Have a go and see what you can put up. Don't worry about stuffing up. A few of us have already tried, and if I can do it, anyone can. You'll get a simple editor where you can just type stuff in. If you've used Word you'll be sweet.

If you have a new topic to start, ie organising the next boy's get together, create a new post.

If you want to continue a thread about what someone is already talking about, just click on the "commment" link under the original post and post a comment for that post, ie, responding to an invitation to attend a boy's get together. etc etc.

Remember to check the number of comments under each main post as someone may have entered a comment there and gone unnoticed.

Cheers, Whiz.

Goaty Famous Again

Anth told me she saw Goaty on the Telly tonight. See if you can spot him here (You'll need broadband connection to watch the video). The evidence does show that he has lost all of the weight too. Go Goata!!!

Apparently he was also on some of the other news channels, but I couldn't find any other feeds.

Cheers, Whiz.