Melbourne Mews

That was my attempt at using alliteration to be cute. Sorry, it won't happen again. I will, however, deliver the intended message: an update on some local news. To start us off, the bushfires are still going, though I'm not sure if any of the ones currently burning are left over from the original fires. I do know that new ones have been lit and that there's a suspected sort of copycat arsonist thing going on here. I have hypothesized that it is a phenomenon not unlike the Columbine shootings in the States; it becomes a sort of "fad" for a while. Sad, but could be true. I'm pretty sure that no one has died from the fires except on that first day, though the count from then is up to 209. Firefighters have been flown in from all around the country and internationally to help fight the fires, and they're still hard at work.

Kane's dad and stepmom were in town for one night last week and will return next week for a couple more nights. They are finishing up a cruise that went around New Zealand and ends in Sydney via Melbourne; we were able to have dinner with them on the night they docked in Melbourne. After the cruise they will drive back down to see us for a couple days next week. It was really good to see them and we're looking forward to hosting them next week as well.

Work has been pretty good; our office is still very busy even with the downturned climate of the economy. Kane and I put in our three months notice and advised our bosses that we will be leaving in June. We haven't sussed out the dates yet, but we intend to do our East Coast of Australia road trip in June, then head over to Europe in July. We have only been doing half-assed planning for both of these trips up until now and we'll need to get it together in the next couple months. We will surely keep you apprised, beloved reader.

I finished my photography class the week before last and I think it was really good for me. I learned the basic functions of all the buttons and gadgets on my camera and how to set them to "standard" settings. We then learned when to deviate from these settings and why, etc. Photo shoots and sharing helped emphasize the points the teacher was making. I feel that I got a lot out of the class and am hopeful that I can use some of the skills that I learned in our upcoming travels. Here are a couple shots (some in collage format) from a shoot we did in the class at Montsalvat.


Next weekend is our big trip with Marc and Alana to Uluru! Will certainly have pics and news (not mews) after that.