Well. I somehow within working time once again got ADDedly (new word) side tracked reading previous blog entires on Windows Live, or whatever this site is called, after close to three years. And I had an epiphany (or at least a small thought) that whilst I recently got "into" Facebook and had for so long neglected the Microsoft blog space thingy (MBST) as this page shall now be eternally known, that FB is more of a speed, "wham bang thank you Madam" internet junkie space, whereas MBST is more of a refined long drink of vino, "love ya all night long" space, where you can take your time talking nonsense rather than just prematurely release. OK enough of the sheep innuendos.

 

Now a lot has happened since my last major blog entry (as opposed to the short "oh do I still have this site?" entry at the end of March) about 2 1/2 years ago. Too much to cover here for sure, particularly as a significant amount of the "missing years" involved me making an ar*e of myself (again). Oh weak and brittle and particularly STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID heart!! Its ok I'm fine really!!!

 

Once again back in Victor Harbor with my girls, still working on my business and enjoying life again :). I have spent about half the year to date in Singapore on business and consequentually catching up with many firends in Sing. Steve and his wife Irene have put me up so often in Singapore that I asked them if they cared to adopt me. They declined but gave me the honour instead of being their latest sprog, James', godfather (Italian music in background). Father of three (known), best man at three weddings, perfect marriage /divorse record, and at long last some friends have asked me to be a godfather to their precious little bundle of joy!! I am chuffed to say the least.

 

Anyhow, back in Aus since Monday morning (having spent a whole month in Sing) and I have the girls staying over tonight through Sunday. Should be a blast. We will be eating squid tonight as I caught a huge one last night together with steak and bbq'd potatoes (ok we'll have some salid as well - stop nagging).

 

Anyway have to get back to work then clean the house (yuck).

 

Be back soon.

 

Kenny xxx 

Well I am back on this site after$ more than two years!! Thanks to Microsoft for not closing me down!!

 

More to follow.

 

MacP

Well its now officially mid-December and I'm clearly at enough of a loose end on a Friday afternoon/evening to bore the a*ses off friends and family once again.

 

Perth was fun. Caught up with Nelly as expected (who says I'm not remotely organised) as well as Peter who was flying the morning after I arrived to Sydney. Spent the Friday night at Nelly's parents place prior to flying back to Adelaide. It was the coolest place I've seen in a long time. Very interesting design and peacocks swanning around the property (sorry for offending any peacocks, or swans for that matter). Thanks again to Nelly and co.

 

Headed off the next week to NZ for Alistair and Theresa's 20th Wedding anniversary. Arriving at 1 in the morning I picked up my hire car and stayed the night at one of the local airpoirt hotels. By mid morning headed north to meet A in Whangarei. The drive up was spectacular. The scenery was truely something to behold, even for someone whose attention span makes Mr Magoo look like Sherlock Holmes.

 

Met Alistair for coffee in Whangarei before picking up James from pre-school and heading to A and T's place where met up with Maggie and her bo, Andrew. Everyone very welcoming and hospitable and A and T's friends very nice (or at least patient with me). Friday night was spent in practice for the main event Saturday, drinking wine, followed by a trip to the pub (I'd describe what one but there only is one) where Theresa and her cousin's wife (whose name eludes me) kicked all our backsides at pool.  My excuse is local knowledge and being particularly sh*te faced as I know for sure there are not supposed to be 27 balls on the table plus three whites (I kept on aiming for the one on the right, subsequently claiming mulligans)!! Rest assured that particular drubbing was brought up on more than one occassion over the weekend and patently not by me! Ah Hmm!! 

 

Apart from recovering Sat morning Theresa's family came round which was a good thing as there was a marquee to put up and A had disappeared to the bottle shop, rumour has it to avoid the work. In any event Therea's Dad, uncles and brother Rob appeared to be the very keen sort to problem solve marquee erections, so to speak, and being the gracious , "I'll let you have a go first" type that I am, I was equally keen to let those who actually enjoy the work do the work, sit back and add eductated advice and input such as "is that a granny knott?" whilst sipping a pinot or six!!!  

 

Sat night and the main event. A complete blast. I'm sure everyone had lots of fun. Had a long chat with Aunt Joan, who despite her years in NZ still makes Billy Connolly sound like a Windsor. Good old chinwag really. Now the next information I am about to give is admittedly third hand so should be taken with a pinch of salt. Aledgedly I got a wee bit drunk and these funny people decided it would be a good idea to play spoof with me. Seemingly it went this way: "Kenny think of a number between 1 and 10". Me "8". Them "Oh so close it was actually 7, darn. that will be $20 please". In the morning someone was good enough to return my money, but I ask you if I had $1,000 in my pocket rather than just $80, would the outcome have been the same? That said as I recollect, NZ$ 80 is about one pound 50 p so not a big deal really!! I'm also told that it was just as well I didn't fall asleep on the sofa as Al's friend Shamus is a notorious eye brow shaver and willy photographer of possibly drunk people!!  The man has no shame :). Thanks to Eren for giving up her bed that evening - or did I kick her out?

 

Anyway after various other events returned to Aus the following Tuesday morning, earlier than a very early thing, for some meetings which went really well. Stayed with John, Alison and Lauren who have an unerring ability to put up with me, although apparently Lauren appreciates that someone of the same mental age sleeps over occassionally. Back to South Aus Wed morning for one day and then I had to go up to Perth for two days of meetings with my client there which went well. I also attended their Xmas function on Friday night prior to returning to SA on Saturday last.

 

This week has been a combination of Xmas shopping, working and hanging around with the kids. I also issued my new biz's first invoice today, a historic moment for sure. Work is starting to get really interesting from a potential revenue perspective and I am very, very optimistic that great things are just over the horizon.

 

Love and best wishes to all, happiness for the Xmas break, and mucho luck for the New Year.

 

K xoxox

 

here comes 2007...........   

G'day as we say down under, or as my mate Scott would say I only speak two languages, English and profanity.... Love that one!!! Anyway been a couple of months since my last entry (careful Stuart!!) so here's an update on what I've been up to since avoiding being arrested in Singapore as previously predicted.

 

Firstly, Singapore, way back in September, was a blast and pretty productive on the work front, if that combination can be believed!! I stayed with my mate Chris and he was a great host, very welcoming and put up with me for just short of a week, which would also puts him in line for some form of beautification if he wasn't a complete pagan. In addition to Chris caught up with a few other mates there, including Stuart Peerless and Chris Jones who wanted to remind me of the local culture of my past in Singapore, by meeting me for lunch in Molly Malone's, a lunch I would add that included 8 bottles of wine and finished at approx. 2 o'clock in the morning. Ah. Singapore culture. What's like it??

 

Also caught up with Glenn Porritt for a jar or two off and on over the week (do you notice a theme here?). Would have caught up with my old secretary Annie Abdullah (who is now Glenn's secretary), but she had gone for a girl's weekend to Manilla and proceeded to get robbed of everything, including her passport, whilst out at some seedy Makati night haunt!! Ah well there's always next time Annie!!

 

John Bonsor came up from Sydney the day of my return to South Aus and we had a few meetings during the day and then caught up with Chris and Chris (no typo honest) in Boat Quay that evening. I think it was about 9:30PM when I remarked that, I wasn't exactly sure, but I think my flight leaves for Aus in about an hour. After serious head scratching everyone agreed that it may be prudent for me to grab a taxi. I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

 

Back in Aus and finally got my new shed put up which is good at least for the overflow clutter from two households (the existing Shack stuff and the stuff M and I brought back from the USA in two shifts) in addition to my ride on mower thingy.

 

I left for New York on the 18th of October for just over three weeks as I try to sort out my long term stay visa in Aus. To be honest I checked the time of my flight back to NY on the 15th afternoon, a Sunday, having not checked for a few months and that was interesting as I realised that I was supposed to be flying that morning and had missed my flight. Thank god for frequent flyer points as I immediately went on line and booked a return flight with Qantas for the 18th, the day I thought I was leaving on in any event. By the way those b'strds at American Airline refused to give me any credit for my missed flights..... Hmmph!!!

 

Stayed at Scott's in NY. Ever the consumate host, Scott usually has boat loads of people staying at his place and I spent the first two nights on the sofa as Craig Vaughen's daughter and her friends were crashing there as well for a few days. Couldn't even use my own room there despite the fact that I have a Thomas the Tank Engine name plate on the door. Seriously not right!!

 

Spent a weekend up in Toronto with Alex and Jacqui who were brilliant hosts. Got on first name terms with the bar maids at Alex's local, the Black Dog, all of whom were seriously disappointed when I returned to NY on the Sunday, or at least were good enough actresses to pretend they were disappointed until I left, when I'm sure I saw the bunting coming out. Great to catch up with Craig as well and I spent a somewhat chilly Saturday afternoon watching his team play rugby north of Toronto having had a few with him in the BD on the Friday before!! Tried to catch up with him and his team on the Saturday night but fear they were all totally ripped in some seedy backhaven in downtown Toronto and didn't want an old fart like me to spoil their fun!! Craig's excuse being "my battery on my mobile went flat" Lame, lame!!

 

Also in NY caught up with most of the old ANZ'rs as well as Ben and Paul from Stan Chart, Doreen's friends Evelyn and Stephanie, and Dave, Brian, Francesca, Lori, Ted, Nicki and Tommy, etc.  from the pool team and Heyho and Jeff et al from my old darts team. Also caught up with Noelle, Gayle, Sharon, Martin, Mark and Mark, etc, etc from St Andrews and Stout and met Renee, Tatiana and Heather in Scruffy Duffy's when I only intended to go out to play a few games of pool. Thanks in particular to Renee for taking me out a few times after that and introducing me to all her friends. I feel I know more people now in NY than I did when I lived there!!! I hope to be back soon and indeed probably need to return on biz in January for a deal I'm working on. If I've missed anyone by name don't be insulted. I have a crap memory and not intentional. I did have a few drinks with Sangita one night and it was great to catch up with her!!!

 

Returned to Aus on the 14th (having left NY on the 12th). I really, really missed my babies those last couple of weeks so good to be back.

 

Scott is moving to Seoul at the turn of the year so I guess our next meeting will be in Boat Quay in Singpore some time in the New Year.

 

Off to Perth tomorrow for  few days biz and will also meet up with some of my mates there including Frenchie tomorrow night, and Nelly, who is down from NY for a month on biz at Poten and Partners Perth office.

 

Towards end of next week head for Auckland and will attend Alistair and Theresa's 20th wedding anniversary over the weekend and have meetings in Auckland around it before returning to Aus on the 5th for meetings in Sydney then back to Victor.

 

On strict orders of the kids that will consumate my travelling for the year as I hope to have a great time with them over the Xmas break.

 

If I don't publish another blog before years end I'd like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and prosperous 2007 (quite possibly in lieu of Xmas cards!!!! - come on you all know me).

 

Cheers

 

Kenny

 

 

 

Hello All,

 

Well Thursday night here and thought I'd publish an entry in the old web page for anyone remotely interested!!!

 

It's been about six weeks since I arrived in Aus so here's a quick update on what's going on.

 

Starting with most recent events, I took the girls to the Royal Adelaide Show yesterday for which read big, crappy, busy and unproportionally expensive fun fair, but that's clearly me talking and not the girls who had a blast on rides (and weren't paying). Tag teamed with M after her school and she kept the girls there for a few more hours whilst I sneeked off back to Victor claiming headache from the additionally crappy loud music fun fairs seem to play!!! Like I observed in a previous entry, sounding more and more like my dad, though he wouldn't say CRAP!!!!, so substitute for darn or blinking if of a mind......

 

Reasonably busy and productive day on work front interspersed with an hour's fishing during which I (or as I'm becoming known in my garrage by me at least the "Master Fisherman") catching another squid, which Maddie and I ate whilst the other girl weren't around so don't tell them please.

 

I bought a ride-on lawnmower last weekend. had it for a day, and stuffed up the blades on some of our lovely rocks!! The repair bill approximated to a reasonably priced lawnmower in Scotland but a valuable lesson learned. Biting at the bit to go and mow something else, like the dog for example, but raining today since I got the damn thing back, so had to work instead. Also bought an industrial strength (technical term novices) whipper snipper (translated to strimmer for the Scots out there), so I can whip in the rain when too damp to play Nigel Mansell on the lawn mower!! In actual fact Nigel Mansell wouldn't transverse our property. Too much gravitational pull as we say in ride on lawnmower circles, or in other words its a wee bit steep - I ask you how many other people do you know who've bought a four wheel drive ride on lawnmower? you think I'm kidding? -  so the vision is much more Nigel Stalone in Cliffhanger: fast and scarey downhill, snail paced uphill with some interesting rolls a high probability on the turn!! Put in more eliquitable context, its fair to say the only skid marks on my lawn are on the seat of the ride-on!!

 

Also got the chain saw renovated, I think I mean serviced, and since I made the remark about mowing the dog the cats have gone into hiding!! Go figure!!

 

I usually run out of steam writing these things at some stage and it seems to be about that stage with this particular blog. Everything else good, everyone else well (me too if asked). Off to Singapore for a few days next week and will stay with "Aussie" Chris as he was called when we both lived in Athens (but seems less fitting now that I am based in Aus)!!! Will catch up with some other friends and business contacts and hopefully make some money soon!!!

 

Until next time the phone number of Changi prison is +65 123 456 7890 (or is it?) and my lawyer is called Nigel from Athens if you need to contact me and something has gone awfully wrong in Singapore!!!  Bye bye.

Here it is......

Well I've now been in SA for three weeks here, with 5 days in between in North Queensland. Brilliant to be with the kid and settling in getting some stuff done like new mobile/blackberry, new landline, etc,etc,etc.

 

Attached are a few pics from the Edinbrgh Mac's recent visit. They're still in Port Douglas as I write but off to KL tomorrow for a day and then back home to Scotland.

 

Bye for now,

 

Kenny