Go to Sleep My Little Time Bomb

Melbourne was good to me.

I arrived on time and got to my room on track with what I had anticipated. I then headed down to the library and spent several hours working on my exam for my online film studies class. I felt pretty good about the end result. We'll have to see if my instructor felt the same.

After my test, I went back to my room, threw on a jumper and headed to the show. The thing about shows is that they usually never tell you when the show is actually going to start, just when the doors will open. So, when the doors opened at 7:30, I was there. I then waited for roughly two hours before anything happened. That was a bit frustrating. Some local guy from Melbourne opened for Evidence and Atmosphere. He was terrible. Like really, really bad.

Around 10, Evidence went on. I've never listened to Evidence before but he put on a great show and I really enjoyed it. I'll probably start listening to him a bit more. Finally, about 11 or 11:30 Atmosphere took the stage with his outfit of a keyboard player (who was playing four different keyboards), a guitar player, and Anthony, his DJ. It's the same setup he's been playing with for the about the past three years or so.

Atmosphere opened with Became off his latest album and then the set list went something like this (in no specific order):

God Loves Ugly

Onemosphere

Lovelife

Shrapnel

Modern Man’s Hustle

Guns and Cigarettes

The Woman With the Tattooed Hands

Sunshine

Trying to Find a Balance

Bird Sings Why the Caged I Know

Always Coming Back Home to You

Puppets

Shoulda Known

Little Man

Yesterday
Guarantees

She’s Enough

Just For Show  

It was a fantastic show and that's about all I can say about it. The biggest response he got from the crowd was from God Loves Ugly (a track that's 10 years old) and Trying to Find A Balance. There was one point in the show where Slug showed some subtle but sincere emotion after playing Little Man--a song to his son and his father--and Yesterday--a song paying tribute to his deceased father--back to back. I got to thinking about it and realized how hard it must be to play those songs night after night because the crowd wants to hear it, even though it's simply reopening a rather painful part of his life. But enough of the analysis. The show was fantastic and I heard every song I wanted to except for Say Hey There. But I'm content. 

Something I really appreciate about Australia is the fact that you can find banana milk basically anywhere. I love banana milk. It's my favorite flavor of milk. What's yours? 

I really like trains, as well. I love the concept of trains and how predictable they are. You don't have to worry about traffic. You don't have to worry about getting in an accident (and if you do, you're probably not alive to complain about it and you've made it on the evening news). You don't have to power down your cell phone or laptop for "takeoff." You can get up and walk about anytime you want. You don't have to focus on the road and can watch the scenery go by. You don't have to worry about the road being bumpy so it's almost always a smooth ride. And, if you feel so inclined, you can meet some interesting people on trains. I love taking the train fro Ballarat to Melbourne. One of the big reasons I enjoy this train ride is that you can't oversleep your stop. The train terminates in Southern Cross--your stop, is the last stop. If you can see where this is headed, yes, I almost overslept my stop in Ballarat. Yes, I almost ended up in the next city over (wherever that might be). Thankfully, a V-Line worker woke me up and asked if this was my stop. He was nice enough to tell the conductor to hold the train so I could get off. But even if I hadn't gotten off, it would've made a pretty good story. 

It's eerily quiet on Res. Everyone's gone home to be with their mothers for Mother's Day. Mine is just a bit out of reach right now. It's weird, this is the first Mother's Day I won't be with my mom. 

Ash is still here, though, and tonight we're making pizza. He wants to make some sort of veggie pizza (cause he's healthy and stuff) and I'm making a BBQ chicken pizza using my Secret Sailor Jerry sauce that I've been saving in the freezer. I'm stoked. 

Right now, all of my lifeguard friends are at Bootcamp, which is the Park Board's annual recertification training for all the guards. It's notoriously hellish but I've always enjoyed the challenge. I'm actually missing not being there right now. I'm missing the controlled chaos, the antics, the team builders, the assessments, the leadership meetings, and the inevitable breakdowns of rookie guards. Oh the memories. In fact, here's a photo from last year's bootcamp. The theme was indians...

 This is Katie, the awesome head guard I had the privilege of working with all last summer. She was helping me put on my war paint. 

This was the finished product. I was in charge of giving people their first instructions. I was every rookie guard's first impression of bootcamp. (and yes, that is a hint of a dirty mustache I have)

Speaking of dirty mustaches. I'm debating growing it out again. That is to say, I've started growing it out again. We'll have to see how far it gets this time. 

Take care guys. 

~D