My new room

So today Piet and Dave came to build a wall for my room on level 9. (Turns out Dave actually lived in the alcove for a year without a wall.) I mostly just helped them get the timber and plasterboard up the stairs (some of it wouldn't fit in the lift), and continued cleaning up level 7. This evening I started filling in the gaps in the plasterboard, and Jeff is going to finish filling them in tomorrow while I'm at work. Then it has to dry for a couple of days before I can plaster it.

I'm hoping to have all the moving and cleaning up done tomorrow, so I can go down to Inverloch for New Year's Eve.

Moving

Been moving all my stuff up to level 9 over the last few days, into the alcove that mark used as a study. Piet (a guy who lived and worked here before I was around) is coming in for the next two days so that we can build a wall and turn it into a proper room.

This is the view from my new window:

Christmas Day

Christmas Day I went out to my parents' place in the morning. This is the Christmas tree Dad got from next to a train track or somewhere:

Adam and Grandma and Uncle Mike came over for lunch.

After Grandma and Uncle Mike left we used the giant skateboard I found in the street last year.

In the evening we went out to Uncle Philip and Auntie Wendy's place, to have tea with dad's family. Adam was going to give me a lift back to Noble Park so I could catch the train home, but his car ran out of petrol, and stopped while we were going up a hill. I had to get out and push the car up the hill, until it would roll on it's own. We got more petrol, but I missed the last train.

'Trav and Christop talk drugs'

There was recently a rave at Kryal Castle (just out of Ballarat) where fifteen people ended up in hospital because they used to much methamphetamine. Trav wrote about this on his blog because one of his friends used illicit drugs at the rave, and he was pretty upset about it:

Everyone who took drugs decided to go beyond what our society thinks is acceptable behaviour. When they overdose, it's society who has to deal with it. I'm glad my friend isn't dead, in hospital or in jail but i'm not please to see these events running.
('Raving Mad')

He also sent me an email asking me what I thought about it, and he's published some of my response on his blog, which is here.

Christmases and such

On Tuesday last week we had a barbecue in the laneway:

Tuesday night we (the Urban Seed residents) went out for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately the batteries on my camera ran out, so I only got photos of me and Nomes opening our Christmas presents, and I didn't get any of karaoke afterwards.

Thursday we had the Credo Christmas party. We normally have it down by the Yarra, but because of the storm warnings we decided to have it in Credo - and it was actually a lot less work and more enjoyable.

We spent Friday cleaning up Credo, and starting to move everything out of level seven, because the church wants it back next year. It looks like I'll be living on level 9 with Gin and Jeff and Gemma. At the end of the day I got Marcus to take a picture of us (the 2007 resis) because it would be the last time we were all here...

Last night was the Christmas party for the cleaning company I work for and we had an excessive chocolate fountain fondue.

John skewered Seb's head and dipped it in the fondue.

This morning we went to Footscray Baptist Church for Marcus' induction.

One-raquet totem tennis

Urban Seed staff breakup

We had our Christmas party last night at the Mess Hall (Andy's work) in Bourke Street.