Time Goes By

Picture it, Sicily current day 2007

Well its been quite some time since I have last blogged. What has changed - if anything???

According to records I have not blogged since October last year and several things have occured since that date - so lets round them off.

• I have now officially turned 30 - the less said about that the better
• We own the truck outright - yay
• We purchased a motorbike - yay (which is the opposite to what our families are saying)
• Have resided in many different dwellings
• Am paying off a kick arse pedal car - the ultimate
• Got so drunk for Xmas and New Years that I cant remember them - the only thing that I remember is the day and a half it took for the Hang Overs to subside!
• and TODAY is my last day as Tomorrow I start my Plumbing Apprenticeship - holy shit.......

So, will I have more time now to blog? And will there be some funny stories that come out of my new career? You can be certain that if Kim Dundee is behind the creation and/or manipulation of events, then...... stay tuned

This is Kim Dundee reporting from outside the Territory

Hang Over Kit

Picture it, Sicily Mothers Day. We are out cruising the streets of Vegas with my trusty mini-me neice in the back seat of the SAAB. Snapped by my trusty partner, mini-me utilising my hang-over first aid device. Too cute for her own good and no tears from the bump on her head that required kimmy's present to be used.

Pedal Car Story

Picture it, silicy 1921.

A fire fighter is polishing a fire engine outside the station when he notices a little girl next door in a little red pedal car with little ladders hung off the side and a garden hose tightly coiled in the middle.
The little girl is wearing a fire fighter's helmet and has the car tied to a dog and cat.
The fire fighter walks over to take a closer look, "That sure is a nice fire truck," the fire fighter says with admiration.
"Thanks", the girl says.
The fire fighter looks a little closer and notices the girl has tied one car leash to the dog's collar and one to the cat's testicles.
"Little Partner," the fire fighter says, "I don't want to tell you how to run your fire truck, but if you were to tie that rope around the cat's collar, I think you could probably go a lot faster."
The little girl pauses for a moment to think, looks at the pedal car, at the dog and at the cat, then shyly looks up into the fireman's eyes and says.....
"You're probably right, but then I wouldn't have a f**king siren, would I?!"

Ah, doesnt everyone love a good pedal car story, I know I do..........

This is kim dundee reporting from outside the territory, where she is now closer to her beloved pedal car collection.

Is this the Start

Picture it, Sicily 1918. We are back into the swing of things being back in our old haunting grounds. So when back in Rome, we go out with Romans and do what they do (and what i use to do). So we find ourselves back at Myther Bowls Club. A favourite of many Romans. We walk end to end, having a few rolls and most importantly, enjoying the 1985 price of alcohol. So it is in my endeavour of enjoying this past time normally reserved for our old folk of the population, that my beautiful, now pissed, partner is standing over me awaiting the end to be won, when low and behold, like the monkey she is she was picking at my hair when she finds............my first "sparkle hair". Not beleiving the numerous Corona's that she spoke, a fellow friend concured. Chickens Bum it was a Sparkle Hair...........

The moral of this painful story is - Dont play old peoples games as you start to look like them.

This is Kim Dundee Reporting from Outside of the Territory

C U Northern Territory

Well the rumours are true – Kim Dundee has LEFT the Territory. Yes that tripping cape crusader has up and left town. The word came through while she was in Alice in Wonderland seeing if the Todd would flow for her again. However something else flowed during her last night there – bloody Crowne Largers. So she returned to Darwin, praying that the plane would crash as she was in a house of pain ready to kill that ministerial advisor that she was sitting next to – cause she could sleep, to return to her digs to find her trusty partner had also played up while she was away and was too nursing a hang over from hell.

All pain aside we packed the truck ready for our sudden departure of the Territory the following night, after returning from a days work.

But where has she gone? Where is she going to pop up at?

Could she be heading to the place that had a brand new SAAB convertible sitting in the driveway of a house that was being vacated for a while??????

Well your style indicator is correct. After 5 days on the road and an enormous “ah grasshopper” plague driven through, we arrived at our destination to take possession of a whole lot of style. Tonka swapped – well she was still stinking of dead hoppers – into the nice leather seats and the top down of the new SAAB. Ok, so karma got us back as we got sunburnt cruising around are new digs, but hey it didn’t stink of dead hoppers.

Apologies to all we didn’t get to say farewell to in our haste to exit the Territory, if only we had 25 hours in the day and 24 less Crowne Largers in a night.

This is Kim Dundee reporting from Outside of the Territory

Cultured

Picture it, Sicily 1919. You’re sitting in your office, no doubt either watching a DVD as my boss was located on another campus way way away or surfing eBay for that elusive missing item for your collection, when in walks your Asian mate, Booger. Now Booger is a great guy and is a fellow collector and Vespa rider – so in my books he is too cool for school. Except he collects things from Hong Kong. If you see a walker, it mush have “Made in Hong Kong” stamped on the bottom of the foot, he is made in Hong Kong and isn’t stamped with “Made in Hong Kong”, but despite that, he moved to Australia with his family when he was six, (some many decades ago).

So he is one of my immigrated mates. Actually looking back, I think he is my only immigrated mate. Australia is made up of many immigrated individuals, hell knows my family immigrated over 200 years back after stealing bread. And by the way, that doesn’t hold up at home after you return from school learning that we (white fellas) are descendants of convicts. So when you get in trouble you can’t use “but it’s in my genes” to get out of it.

So Booger comes into my office and drops something off on my desk to send for him. Upon looking closer I noticed that the item was of all things - his passport! He wants me to send his passport overseas in just normal Australia post not insured or protected in any way. I don’t think so. So after giving him a full serving about identity theft and you must protect all things that contain personal information especially your passport – he opened the book. Well how the hell was I meant to know that they dont have IMMIGRANT printed on the front of their Australian passports!

This is Kim Duddee Reporting from the Territory

Picture is of Boogers Artwork. To view more of his work check out the link to his website on the right hand side of my blog.

Recent letter to Booger regarding the same artwork.

Dear Jonathan
The National Library of Australia will tour National Treasures from Australia's Great Libraries around all States & territories after the exhibition has closed in Canberra. We are delighted to include your book "Portrait of an Australian" which is held in the State Library of Queensland's Collection, In this exhibition the book will be placed in a wall case with different page turnings at each venue and the exhibition designer would like to use pages which are not open reproduced as a graphic on the wall panel.

Supporting material for the exhibition will include a high quality printed catalogue, web site, flyers, a poster, advertisements and a television commercial.

We would like to request permission to use reproductions of "Portrait of an Australian" in the supporting material.
We have not yet made any final decisions on exactly which exhibition items will feature in the promotional and supporting material but need to obtain copyright permission for all objects which are included in the exhibition.

Kind regards
XXXXXX XXXXXX
Project Officer, Exhibitions Branch
National Library of Australia

Speed Bump

Picture it, Sicily 1917. We are camped at Captain Billy’s Landing on the NT side of QLD’s tip just south of Weipa, still on our Cape York trip. It’s a crap place, don’t ever visit there. But needless to say, we took advice from my sister’s mates and tracked all the way in, stayed one night, and tracked all the way out. It’s probably one night that you don’t want to remember as to this day it still brings me nightmares.

So tensions were already running high, and patience levels are becoming non existent and the following event occurred.

We are looking for the good camping spot. There were people already there but that’s ok, it’s a bloody big beach. So the Yota goes on the beach and nearly gets bogged. It had the camper on the back. Hope no one was listening on the 2-way as some language was artistic and colourful coming via those airways and it was quite certain with all concerned of what was actually being said in each of the vehicles without the use of 2-ways. We searched for a camp site and find one further down the beach.

So my brother-in-law drives Yota (evidence # 1 your Honor) in first as to set up the camper. Tonka is parked nearby. Camper set, we are quickly losing light and showers and dinner are required. As my sisters car is rigged to have a hot shower the car was unhooked from the camper and parked bullbar equal with rear of trailer side by side (evidence # 2 your Honor), but on a slight angle (evidence # 3 your Honor). The shower structure was set up at the front of the Yota (evidence # 4 your Honor) as the hot water shower runs through the engine. My beautiful niece and sister were first to share a shower, of which I was instructed to turn the car’s ignition on to run the engine to create the hot water.

Here are some key facts to this story.
* My sister’s car and Tonka are fitted with turbo timers. Each set to different times of shut down to ensure longer life of the turbos.
* As we are camping on the beach Yota drove to its position in Low 1, 4WD.

So I squeeze myself between the car and the camper to turn Yota’s ignition on. Open the door and as it’s my sisters car with the turbo timer, prior knowledge is that I can just start the car without doing crucial checks as we are both impatient individuals, a trait we received from our father, that can not wait for the car to shut down after the turbo has cooled down. Already naked my sister and niece were in the shower shelter, when I turned the car ignition on.

And then the car started to move. In low 1 Yota was slowly moving as it was parked in gear. Screams of “turn it off, turn it off” were coming from all concerned as my brother-in-law was right there at the campers kitchen. Simone is now feeling the spotlights intrude on the shelters wall, followed directly after with the steel bulbar. Shelter now starting to tip over, Tim is trying to skull drag his girls out of the way. Now how he was doing this was through the small opening in the top of the shower shelter. Time is of the essence. As its moving the space between the car and camper was becoming tighter and tighter. Tim is reaching in further and further to grab a hold of his beloved girls but the shelter is being run down and has now collapsed. I reached for the brake and gear stick, but couldn’t reach them. What to do. What to do. Working quickly and sacrificing my own temple of a body, I was able to turn the key off……just in time before the turbo kicked in and we would have had to wait 1 minute for it to shut down - of which you can be assured that Yota would have been 20 metres further down the beach with 2 squashed naked showering family members in its tracks.

Phew, what a life saving move I made. Towels thrown into the crumbled shelter, the girls came out a whole lot shaken from the recent proceedings.

After some minutes to allow heart beats to return to normal and tears to dry up they are back in having a shower, of course that is only after I started the car back up and they were meters away observing with vested interest that this time it wasn’t in gear and wasn’t in Low 1, my niece turns to her mum and ask “why did Kimmy try to kill us????”

This is Kim Duddee reporting from outside the Territory