How spoilt am I?

I’m spoilt

It’s awesome that after 8 years of marriage – my wife can still manages to “get me” with a surprise

A couple of weeks ago I did my first triathlon. I did this for a number of reasons, personal satisfaction, a challenge, a promise to a fallen friend and an attempt to get fitter for the summer. Within a minute of crossing the finish line, I said to my wife “that was awesome, I’m going to do another one”

After I had recovered and caught my breath, I was still very excited about the prospect of doing another one and as I had borrowed a road bike off a mate, I started to look around for a bike of my own.

Well – on Sunday we went out looking and was referred to a certain bike shop so we went along and spoke to the owner. He was a really good guy who listened to what I was after and really took an interest (this is why I was referred to him) so he set me up on a couple of different bikes to try in the car park. While I was doing this my wife whispered to him that she wanted to buy this bike for me as a surprise and could he take care of it – this sparked a chain of events that I still find difficult to understand how she managed to do this. Speed forward to yesterday afternoon and I was sitting in the office with a client in front of me and another one waiting to see me when in through the door comes a guy with a brand new Avanti road bike and a shoe box under his arm. He said, “is Steve here?”, to which I replied, “That’s me” and he said – “I have a present for you – enjoy !!!!”

My client was looking at me with disbelief and said that it was obvious that I was not expecting that. I wasn’t. Some questions were asked to which the reply from the delivery guy (the bike shop rep) was – “ask your wife”

I called her and asked her if there was anything that she wanted to tell me, she said no. I asked her if she was sure, she said yes. I said to her – I have just had something delivered to the shop. She said “oh, that was supposed to happen tomorrow – surprise”

Did I mention that she is just the best. I am spoilt in so many ways.

Now I have to try and plan something for her. Hmmmm, wonder what I can come up with?

Bye Bye Baby

Bye bye baby
It’s hard to say goodbye to one of your babies and that is what I’ll have to do tomorrow.

I’ve sold one of my boards – it’s a beautiful Legend Point 7’6” “gun” – I have surfed this board in Fiji, Indo, West and Eastern Australia and around some big breaks in the South Island of New Zealand but age catches up with you and it has.

It’s sat in the board rack in my garage starved of attention, almost neglected and hasn’t been used in a few years. Sadly age and a few extra kilos have put paid to that so it’s with sadness I say goodbye.

I have some amazing memories of it and probably the best one that springs to mind is getting tubed on a very nice right hander at Wilkes Pass in Fiji.

Water was warm and crystal clear, a gentle offshore blowing and about 5 guys out – this is etched in my memory and will remain there for the rest of my days and all I have to do to relive it is close my eyes. What a session !!
Goodbye fair board, thank you for the memories and good times. I’ll let you go so you can bring pleasure to someone else and I promise there will be no jealous thoughts had. Get back in the ocean and do what you were born to do.

I'm not Important

I love travel, I love being at a destination, I love doing stuff at a destination- I just hate getting there and getting home.

This is what happened to my wife and I last Friday at Melbourne International. Picture this – we were standing in line at the security checkpoint waiting our turn to walk through the body scanner and I’ve taken my laptop out of the bag, my wallet, keys, phone and sunglasses are in the plastic box ready to go along the conveyer belt when all of a sudden about 18 guys come through in a huge hurry and walk straight through the scanner and all you hear is beep after beep after beep.

It was about 14 federal police and bodyguards with their “people” – one has to assume that the beeps were the police badges and guns and whatever else they had under their garments etc. I found out later, while we were in the airline lounge enjoying the airlines hospitality, that the “people” were VIP foreign ambassadors and they too were in the airline lounge “schmoozing”.

Anyway – back to me in line – I sent my belongings through and the wife walked through, no beeps at all BUT then I walked through and beep it went. “Please step back sir and walk through again” said the security dude, so I did AND again beep, “take your belt, shoes and watch off sir and walk through again” he said again – to which I complied AGAIN. Sure enough, it beeped again and he said “step this way sir” – at this stage I was just about over this and said sure thing. He used the hand scanner and “scanned” me again and at this stage my wife is starting to look like a pack horse with all our belongings and then the security dude just said – “that’s fine sir, thank you”


Oh to be an international ambassador huh !!!!

Out of Town

I’ve been off the radar for a week – took a short trip out of the country to Melbourne, Australia. My wife had a conference to attend and I thought I’d tag along and have myself a real break. I booked a nice hotel for us and it fulfilled all the criteria i need – it had a pool, spa, sauna and a gym. We had an apartment with full kitchen facilities so even better.

She “conferenced” and I swam, used the gym, relaxed, walked around the city and had some time to myself – this was just what I needed. We also timed the visit to be able to see an NBL (National Basketball League) game between the Melbourne Tigers and the New Zealand Breakers. It was a good game but not the result that I was hoping for or supporting - the Melbourne team won – bugger !!!

Checked the surf yesterday, good swell running but as the water temp is still only 11 degrees Celsius or 51.8 degrees Fahrenheit, it’ll still be a few weeks until I brave the conditions. There is still a bit of snow in the mountains which keeps the ocean temp low so another few weeks and I start to consider it.

I’ve been for some bike rides through the forest and had a few pool sessions to get the fitness levels up and have entered my first full triathlon this weekend – I’ll let you know the result but my goal is to finish and still be able to walk !!!!

I’ll post a few pictures of the basketball game when I get home.