Tuesday Musings

Could Paris Hilton change the world for the better if she wanted to?


Will the Spice Girls tour Australia or Dubai later this year, and if so will I call sick for work to get my hands on tickets?


Is K-Rudd fever on the decline?


Can Roger Federer win 5-in-a-row at the All England Club?


Is Martina Hingis injured or over?


Will Channel Seven continue to pip Nine every week once all their big series finish?


How long until I get to come back to Australia?


Will I be a good service trainer when I am let loose on fresh trainees next Sunday?

It's time to go....Andrew

Well he's gone! With a huge gender imbalance of 3 ladies and 8 men, Big Brother decided it was a boys only nomination week which didn't impress many, least of all Andrew...

And in a a surprise double eviction it was my big cousin and Thomas who were given the boot.




Now I have to have another favourite, and I think I may set my sights on the Brazilian beauty Daniela :)

Geelong's Favourite Baby Awards 1981 - Highly Commended

On my most recent visit to Geelong I raided some photo albums at Dad's and these are some of the gems I came up with!


At Eastern Beach in the days where it was acceptable for kids to fall off playground equipment and break bones without suing anyone..

With Dad and Ben on the day he built our first cubby house at Chancellor Place in Highton... and on my first birthday with Mum and Dad :)

Family glamour in 1988. Gotta love the hair, the fashion, the haze around the edges of the photo for effect!


Emily and Beetle (my youngest siblings) a few days after he was born in 1994...

...and 10 years later in 2004.

Dad and Jessica when she was about 5 or 6 in the early 90s

With Dad, Deb, Ben and Jessica on a family holiday to Warrnambool on the Great Ocean Road

This one should have been burned and it's quite possible that every individual person in this picture will want to shoot me for publishing it! RollerSKATING not blading was still cool, as were parachute pants, Simpsons tshirts and fluoro in general!

Shower time! Just after I went to South Africa again in 2000, Jodie came with me to visit Dad and Deb in Geelong. I love this photo...not so much my hair!

This was taken a few short weeks before Alaina and I became engaged in February 2001 - we were babies, but we were in love :)

Size counts!

Now I think any Jube Eye blogger would have a feeling in his or her waters that I have a mild obsession with the BURJ DUBAI building currently under construction not one kilometre from my apartment. Every day I see it I'm in awe at it's size and can't wait for it to be finished. Nicole on the other hand is convinced it will fall down one day and has therefore sworn never to grace the lobby with her presence when it's open to the public! Giorgio Armani has designed the interior and his first hotel in the world will occupy the first 37 floors.

As it stands it is the second tallest building in the world at 500 metres, and when completed next year it will be the tallest structure ever created in human history. Dramatic or what!?

Dubai's traffic is set to get a shake-up next week when the very first road toll is imposed on the most overused bridge in the city. There are only three ways to cross the Dubai creek and get from one side of town to the other, and it so happens that the toll is being slapped on the one I need to get from home to work and back! As a consequence, we have been trying out our alternatives of late, trying to find ways to avoid paying $3 a day... These photos of the Sheikh Zayed Road strip from a distance at sunset, show you just how ENORMOUS the Burj Dubai is compared to everything else. They work best when you click on them and see them enlarged...

Today it was a lovely 44 degrees in Dubai, with delightfully high humidity!

At this very moment at 10.49pm Friday night, the outside temperature is still 33 degrees with 79% humidity.

Back to you, Bob!

Batch 1039, take a bow!

As you are probably aware (due to the fact that I tell anyone who will listen) that I am now well on my way to being a service instructor with Emirates. Yesterday was the graduation ceremony for my first batch of trainees who did me very proud! I was mainly observing the training style of the senior instructors and learning the course content but it was hard to not bond with such a fantastic bunch of young people! Last night we hit Zinc on Sheikh Zayed Rd to celebrate their achievements and I am feeling pretty sorry for myself today! So I thought I would pay my blog some attention and provide some happy snaps from my last two weeks...


My classroom, and the view from the window. If you blow it up (the picture, not the city) you'll see some interesting stuff including the new A380 terminal at Dubai airport...

Inside the cabin service simulator. In July we are moving to a brand new facility next door which will be awesome, apparently...

Emirates Aviation College, and sunset driving home on Sheikh Zayed Rd (for the record, I wasn't driving the vehicle and operating a camera at the same time)

My first batch on Graduation day! So proud! (4 Aussie girls, 3 British girls, 2 Thai girls, 2 Lebanese girls, 1 South African girl, 1 Indian girl, 1 Romanian guy, 1 Filipino guy and 1 Mauritian guy)

Tour de Geelong, Melbourne, Brisbane, Caloundra, Perth

First port of call on my last trip to Australia before bunkering down for a life at training college, was Geelong to visit Dad, Deb, Emily and Beetle. My sister Jessica was also visiting at the time which made for a full box of crayons except for brother Ben who had visited the week earlier. I arrived on the Monday morning and on Tuesday Jessica and I headed for Melbourne to visit one of our other sisters, Brooke. While I didn't capture that particular reunion, I did get snap happy with my friend Sammy who you may recognise as having worked at Emirates. She left in December and is working in Toorak, right next door to Brooke! Small world. Anyway, here are a couple of photos before we move on!


It was great to see our cousin Louise when we went to Nanna and Grandpa's for coffee and cake and spend some time playing with our 11 month old cousin Brodie (he'll be 1 on July 3) - he's really cute as you can see, and very well behaved!







Later that night we got a chance to catch up with brother Aaron which was really good.


Emily loves Prince Eddie who more or less rules the house these days. Queen Daisy is heading to retirement. She still has the final word but I think she is getting ready to abdicate the throne and relax in her old age. (We are talking about dogs here so you know!)


I am quite certain I get my vanity streak from my father! Pictured here after a day of intense shopping to update his questionable non-work wardrobe...



On the last afternoon of my stay I insisted on a sunset walk down at Eastern Beach, Geelong's most famous place. The promenade around the beach was restored about 13 years ago and was in part funded by the public who purchased personalised brass plaques to go on each plank of the walkway. As you can see, our family got involved quite early on in the piece! And finally we headed off to dinner with our mob, the Coles and Ebbotts to celebrate me leaving!


Next stop on my Tour of Oz was Brisbane where I had only a very short time to see some of my friends before I went to see Mum and David and co in Caloundra. The pictures more or less end here, but Mitch and Tracy, Macy and Ava, Nathan, Paul and Drew, Sue, Tania, Jodie and Ben all kept me entertained even if it was for a short time each and even that was pretty exhausting. So for those I didn't get a chance to catch up with, you'll be first on my list when I'm home next :)

Then finally it was off to Caloundra to spend a couple of days with Mum, David, Jessica and Georgia. It was David's birthday on the middle day and I'm sure he must have enjoyed it, because I had a ball. We finished the night at the nicest restaurant on the Sunshine Coast (The Spirit House) and Ben and Julie came to that - this time it really was a full pack of crayons!

No mishaps this time on the way back to Dubai via Perth, where I began my trainers course last Sunday. Photos and words to come really soon!