I was planning to catch a bus around Edmonton but I met a local called John Arnieri on the way there from Jasper who kindly took me on a tour of the city. Random acts of kindness like this are very appreciated. Thank you very much John 🙂 The photo below is of the Alberta […]
There’s some great views of Alcatraz from the shore in San Francisco and from on the Golden Gate bridge.
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is a site worth seeing, particularly around sunset. I skated the full length of it which took a lot longer than I expected.
What an awesome place! People everywhere, nice weather, lots of stuff to see and lots of stuff to do. I could totally live here 🙂 Although I suspect the cost of living would be astronomical unless you lived way out in the wop wops. There’s some seriously steep hills in San Francisco. The photo above […]
Vancouver is a wonderful place I highly recommend visiting if you get the chance. The weather was awesome while I was there. Stanley Park is a huge park area right beside the city center which I skated around while there. I hope to go back to Vancouver some day, might even consider getting a job […]
I kept wondering what these crazily bright coloured but very common birds were in Vancouver. It turns out they’re just Seagulls! I felt a little silly when I found out 😛 This particular shot took about 500 attempts to get. Those darn birds move way to fast!
The weather was overcast. I had a nice meal at a restaurant recommended by Mike Boyle, tried the local brew (can’t remember what it was called and it tasted like dog poop anyway), visited the water front then headed off to the Space Needle. Seattle … been seen and done in three hours 🙂 I […]
We had a completely insane bus driver on the trip from Vancouver to Kamloops, BC at 4am in the morning. As we were coming into Kamloops he came on the radio with a slow drunken sounding voice saying he’d got a bit lost and was having trouble seeing straight! But that we’d be in Kamloops […]
Lake Louise is a spectacular area in the Rocky Mountains. From above, the water is an unbelievable blue colour.
There was lots of wildlife around Lake Louise in the Rocky Mountains. Including chipmunks, birds and although I didn’t see the bear itself, there were even bear droppings on the track I was walking on. Scarily they were fresh droppings!
Princes Island Park is a small island which is separated from downtown Calgary by a small strip of water from the Bow river. There’s lots of wild life, greenery and picnic areas to enjoy.
I’m back playing inline hockey again! I’ve joined the Calgary Phantoms 🙂
Here’s some videos from the finals of the University of Calgary Intramural B-grade and A-grade non-contact hockey leagues. First up are the Stubble Jumpers (the winners). I often played at lunch time with a bunch of these guys and they were pretty pumped to win the B-grade. [MEDIA=27] The next video is of the A-grade. […]
Somehow I managed to end up on the University of Calgary physics hockey team! They were short on players so I signed up and dragged along Janay with me. We had the stunningly geeky name of “Team Group Velocity”. The team was a hotch potch of various levels. We competed in the University of Calgary […]
Cass sent me these pics of her somewhere in South East Asia. Cass is my old flatmate from Dunedin and one of my best friends.
Bode and I at the University of Calgary.
I played in a social outdoor ice hockey tournament in Tuscany, Calgary with some guys I met at the Olympic Oval a while back. The event was great, ice wasn’t the best as a chinook (easterly wind) was blowing through, but it was a heap of fun and I hope to compete in an event […]
The Olympic Oval at the University of Calgary is the best ice rink I’ve ever seen! Two full international sized hockey rinks within the confines of a full long track speed skating rink! I played hockey there at lunch times a lot and I had power skating and hockey lessons there as well. Plus I […]
Here are some photos of my house in Calgary. The window to my room is on the left hand side of the house.
For Christmas, my friend Mike Boyle took me ice skating in the Rocky Mountains 🙂 The weather was great, well as great as minus 20 degrees can be, and there was HEAPS of ice. Unfortunately there was a tad too much snow to make skating viable. [MEDIA=23]
I went skiing at the Sunshine ski field in the Rocky Mountains twice while living in Calgary. It turns out I’m not very good at skiing 😛
A beautiful skating pond near my home in Calgary.
Well what do you do when you’re stuck in a strange foreign land on Christmas day? You have a Christmas orphans dinner that’s what! Gregor and I bought a turkey, got a bunch of other foreigners (Gregor’s from Oz) and then we deep fried the little bugger – the turkey, not the foreigners! The locals […]
My roommate (flatmate in Kiwi speak) and I went tobogganing. Of course those crazy Canadian kids decided it would be a good idea to build a nice ramp exactly where the natural flow of the hill goes so you end up going backwards at full speed over a ridiculously steep jump! We had a scary […]
Ice skating at the Olympic Plaza in Calgary, Canada.
Well what else do you do when it’s -15 degrees outside and you have an itch to play hockey? The idea of the rink came about one day when my roommate (flatmate) Gregor and I were sitting round talking about how his old roommate had built a rink in their backyard. So I was like […]
Anna Williams came to visit me in Calgary 🙂 Unfortunately she wont let me put any photos of her online 🙁 But here’s a photo of the beautiful sunset we experienced while walking back from the Calgary zoo.
Halloween party with chemists in Calgary.
Mike Boyle took me to see a Western Hockey League (WHL) game featuring the Calgary Hitmen at the Saddledome in Calgary. The game was very exciting, lots of big hits, lots of skill and a WAY higher level of hockey than I’d seen before. Unfortunately the NHL lockout was on at the time so I […]
I carved my very first halloween pumpkin 🙂 They sell specially grown pumpkins for the purpose over here. I was very stoked with my effort and proudly displayed on my front door step. After going to a halloween party with a bunch of fellow chemists, I realised that mine wasn’t quite in the same league […]
After a lot of trips with trolleys, moving some massive fridges and packing way too much glassware into too few draws and cupboards, we finally moved into our new lab in the basement of Science B at the University of Calgary. Here’s a photo of my boss Mike Benn. I stole the photo of the […]
30 degrees celcius, blazing sun and a ridiculously cold winter approaching … so what better reason than to have a pool party 🙂 We found a scungy inflatable pool in our shed, got someone to bring along a slip n slide and setup a web cam in our window to catch all the action. Unfortunately […]
It turned out Matt Dakins (an old mate of mine from our undergrad years studying chemistry at Otago) was living in Banff when I moved to Calgary. Thanks for letting me crash at your place Matt 🙂
I’ve visited Banff township in Banff National park in the rocky mountains a few times now. It’s only an hour and a bit away from Calgary. It’s similar to Queenstown but without the lake. There’s lots of hiking (tramping) and site seeing to be down there. The above photo is of Tunnel Mountain. It’s not […]
And the prize for my worst first impression of a city ever goes to … Los Angeles. The stench of smog at the airport was simply foul. The following photos I took from the plane show the yucky smog quite nicely.
Okay, soooo … most people who pick locks in prisons are generally trying to get out. But in our case, we were actually trying to get in! Yes that is as warped as it sounds. My old flat in Christchurch was built inside the original prison walls of the Addington Prison. But the old Victorian […]
The Otago University Falcons inline hockey team won a silver medal in the 2003 New Zealand University Games held in Palmerston North. We were beaten in the finals by Massey University. Clockwise from top left: Ryan Hellyer (me), Simon Lovatt, Kyle Matthews, Daniel Jang, Andrew Sykes, Kerry Perkins, Mark Eatherly (goalie), John Thomsen and David […]
My old inline hockey team, the Dunedin Aces, in Christchurch.
The Dunedin Vixens (aka Dunedin Aces women) in action in Nelson, New Zealand. [MEDIA=16] [MEDIA=17] [MEDIA=18] And the result … um, yeah, they got caned. Seems to be a recurring theme for the Dunedin Aces 😛
Here’s some videos of the Dunedin Aces senior team playing in Nelson (South Island of New Zealand) in 2003. We got totally thrashed, but it was a good trip. I’m number 27 in white with black pants with bright blue stripes. And last of all … here’s a video interview with the team by Daniel […]
The Dunedin Aces are an inline hockey club which was started initially by Daniel Jang and within weeks myself, Kerry Perkins and a bunch of others were recruited to help run the club. We eventually got our own uniforms and headed off to the South Island Regional Inline Hockey Championship where we were promptly gobbled […]
The Dunedin Vixens (aka Dunedin Aces women) were an awesome team. Unfortunately an extra Y chromosome ruled me out of joining 🙁 Although I did play in goal for them once as an honorary woman. The photo below is from their 2002 journey to the South Island Regional Inline Hockey Championships. Clockwise from top left: […]
This was where I learned to play hockey! A random question by someone at the staff club one night about making a chemistry inline hockey team prompted me to go buy a stick, a pair of inline hockey skates and the rest is history! A life long (so far) obsession with hockey was born and […]
Check out the video footage from the mighty home of both the Dunedin Aces and Otago University Falcons inline hockey teams. Note the high quality gravel smooth flesh tearing surface 😛 [MEDIA=6] An interview with John Thomsen who is world famous (within Dunedin Aces members) for scoring us a goal against the mighty Nelson Whalers. […]
My first ever car, a Honda Civic 25i. My mum nicknamed it Peewee due to the number plate (PW5990). By some miracle it was still in working order by the time I sold it despite having the bajeesus thrashed out of it on a regular basis.
Photos from the Rally of Otago.
My first major tramping experience. Myself, Andy Helm, Maree Helm and Vanessa Green headed up the Matukituki valley towards Mt Aspring, then detoured up a ridiculously steep incline. The map showed that we were only travelling 200 m from the bottom to the top of the incline, however that was only the horisontal distance, the […]
Ick, graduation, the most BORING experience ever. I was graduating for my Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry. Here’s some pics of Michelle and I at my graduation dinner. I can’t remember who gave me the photos, but thanks to whoever it was! I graduated in absentia for my Master of Science degree so no […]
My brother Scott and I headed up the Cardrona Valley to see the Queenstown Gold Rush hill climb. Monster Tajima (Suzuki Vitara) ended up winning, followed by Rod Millen (Toyota Celica) and Possum Bourne (Subaru Impreze WRX).
Group room pictures from Kings High School. I just copied these from the kingshigholdboys.co.nz website. Since they didn’t ask my permission to post them, I’m not asking permission to share them 😛 SHm 1993 SHM Group Teachers: Miss S.E. Hume, Mrs C.O. Merriman Row 3: Anthony Henderson, Nathan Johnston, Russell Grant, Neal Kaler, Bruce Hurrell, […]