Friday evening at the BBQ, Geoff Bowers and his wife Julie put on a scrumtious spread and live in a very lovely home. Beer was flowing and geeks were chatting, the music was provided by a very powerful alarm clock that was outputting rather crisp/loud music, which confused most of us. Didnt look right! Most of us said our farewells at the end as they were heading off home. Me and a few others decided to give the Casino a whirl back at Star City, the venue of the conference.
We all decided $50 was enough to gamble and more than likely lose but sure enough, i managed to gamle away $160 by the end of the night. We had some real luck on the roulette and spent 3 or 4 hours on it. At one point i had $500+ worth of chips on the table but the dealer changed and then my luck disintegrated and soon the chips were wearing thin, by the end of the night… most of the guys had made a healthy profit. I left with $150, $10 down, but i/we had great fun so it was a small price to pay.
At 4:30am we retired, Peter Hall offered the spare room he had in his hotel apartment, to save me taxiing home. We decided not to sleep and chatted bollox all night (Peter is suprisingly silly when deprived of sleep). Peter and i managed to rack up a $150 phone bill calling the UK to organise our trips to San Fransisco for FlashForward (Peter decided to come along at the spur of the moment). We took lots of photos as the night turned to morning and then ate breakfast on his balcony.
The rest of the day we spent walking around like zombies exploring a little of Sydney. We went on a boat over to the Circle Quays and then another boat over to Manly Island, were we went to an Aquariaum and came face to face with Sharks etc… Lots of photos of the Opera House, The Bridge, the bays and big cruise ships as we sailed to shore. A few more games of pool at the Irish bar in the Conference Center (i believe Peter won 3 games and i won 3, he he…. he is alsorather crap at pool when deprived on sleep) then we split and Peter went off to Geoff Bowers home in a taxi, for his bed for the night.
Today is a lovely day in Sydney, myself, Mark and the other guys in the house went down to the beach and had a little swim. Now we are getting ready for a playboy style party in a mansion by the Tuma Tuma beach. I leave tommorow, so i suspect a presurised hangover will be coming my way.
Id like to say thanks to Geoff Bowers, Deamon and all of the speakers/attendees for making MXDU 2004 a wicked conference! You made us foreigners feel very welcome 