Wildlife World, and the Web Album

20070101 Wildlife World

On New Years Day, we all decided to go to the new Wildlife World in Darling Harbour. As I remember it, Shane in particular had enjoyed the previous day's exercise so much his knees were really happy to be going walking again... well, after a couple of decent cups of coffee anyway.
Craig and I decided to host a little bit of a party for New Years Eve. With the weather forecast advising rain for most of the weekend, we opted for NYE fireworks from our own spot by the harbour, Pyrmont. That decided, we had Craig's Mum Lorraine and brother Neville come in from Penrith to join us. And from Wyee, my sister Lisa and family - Shane and the two kids Haydon and Erin. Our apartment is not so big, but, we worked out there would be just enough room for the four from the Central Coast to sleep on the floor to avoid a very late night drive on the freeway.
Once all the visitors arrived early afternoon it was time to catch a movie courtesy of eight free tickets from Michelle. (Thanks mate, we used'em on the very last day!). We saw Night in the Museum - quite funny. If you like Ben Stiller. I think Ben Stiller is hilarious, ever since Zoolander. However, some people have recently advised me that they cannot stand Ben Stiller. I do not think these people are very hilarious, however, I will respect their right to miss out.
We walked up and back from Broadway, a distance that Shane's knees measured at 10km each way. Google Earth tells me it is more like 2.5km each way. I guess your knees are four times worse than "standard" - so sorry for making you walk it Shane :-)
Back at Pyrmont we had time for a bit of a rest and some dinner and then a fireworks show!
The midnight fireworks lived up to expectations of course. How to blow a couple of mil in 10 minutes. It is a pretty good view from the top of Pyrmont Point Park. We're on the "back" of the bridge on a bit of an angle, but plenty close enough. We could also see (or glimpse in some cases) the four pontoon locations up and down the river - to quote my niece Erin halfway through the main event "they're all the same". After a short moment I realised she was not bored, she meant that they were synchronised!!
It was an enjoyable day/night. Followed by some enjoyable coffee the next morning. Introducing the COFFEE MACHINE! My chrissy present. You bung in the beans and press a button. You steam the milk. You add a little powdered chocolate.... mmm delicious indeed. Better than the cafe makes.
And after the coffee, it was time for Wildlife World. Check out some pics in my web album, via the link above. It was very cool. The web album is a story in its self - essentially, they broke blogger! The picasa upload to blogger option is broken (I asked for a refund on every cent I paid for picasa, and they gave it to me). Then, frustration vented I moved on. I tried the other option for single-click photo uploads to share my favourite photos - picasa web album. The web album seems to work pretty good, and does not require any more work so I am likely to use it. You know, updates and stuff :-) (If I was paranoid, I would theorise that in fact this is Googles plan, to stop me posting photos on blogger and force me onto web albums. I'm not too paranoid today, so I'm sure Google wouldn't do that to us loyal members).