Toby!!!!

Today at school, Toby visited!!

Who is Toby you may ask? He made the last 5 of Australian Idol, and then pulled out to let someone else have another chance. He's a local school teacher, and eventually decided that teaching was more important than being an Idol. What a guy!

Needless to say he charmed everyone. Gemma gave him a card from all of us, and he answered questions from both Sam and Alyssa (he thinks Stan will win).

We've been following Toby's progress on Idol as he's related to someone in Gemma's class.

You've heard of 6 degrees of separation? Well, Adelaide has only 2!

Our Dad went all around the world and all we got was ...

A DALEK!

Yes, the inflatable Dalek shown in my photo of the Stamp Centre on The Strand in London somehow made it back to Adelaide! And it didn't take long to attack the kids.

A Few Spots Along the Way

Although the trip was largely business, there were a few opportunites to see the sights. While in LA, we stopped at Griffith Observatory, where there's a great view of the LA Basin, and it isn't that far from Hollywood.

In Alexandria VA, I stopped by the old neighbourhood, and drove past our old church. This year's VBS subject is AUSTRALIA!
In London, first stop was my favourite store in all of Europe, the Stamp Centre which sells all manner of SciFi paraphenalia.

Nearby is the Australian High Commission which was flying the South Australian Flag. It is a much more impressive building than the Australian Embassy in Washington.


With friends out for my last night in London, we went to a Malaysian Restaurant, then walked along the bank of the Thames past the Globe and were confronted with this view.

On my final day in London, I visited the Science Museum and Museum of Natural History, two places I hadn't been before. Here's two of my favourite exhibits from the Science Museum, Stephenson's Rocket and Thomson's cathode ray tube - I know geek, geek, geek.

And then I came across this exhibit, and I thought I had been time warped. I've used most of the stuff on display here (and still own some of them!)

Here's the main hall of the Natural History Museum, very iconic.

Around the World in 18 days

I recently had the opportunity to travel around the world in 18 days, stopping off in LA, DC and the UK. And the great thing was every spot I stopped, I had friends that I could catch up with and spend time with.

Los Angeles

Alexandria, VA

London UK

Flat Stanley in Adelaide

Gemma and I drove to Windy Point to show Flat Stanley the view of Adelaide. Windy Point (and Mt Lofty provide spectacular panoramic views of Adelaide - very few other cities in this world have these sorts of views).

As you can see we have taken good car of Stanley, to the extent of making sure he wore a seat belt on the drive.

The Return of the Red Dwarf

Those who know me well, know that one of my favourite TV shows is Red Dwarf. So when we recently bought a small red Suzuki Swift, the custom plate was an obvious choice.

All this to look forward to.

How would you like to find out what the future holds for you? Well Sam found out recently.

In unpacking our stuff, we found an old class photo of mine from when I was around Sam's age. Sam thought we had a photo of him! (you may ask what happened to me - Sam did)