intrepid

intrepid is offering 20% off their au & nz trips. if you’re thinking of coming down this way, check out the tours. intrepid has a good reputation too.

it must be sale time

qantas has a great deal from nyc. nyc to several au locations for U$1148. you have to book by july 31st so hurry. this is a fantastic price from nyc.

you also get a free stopover in LA and you get get another stopover in au for $100 (which is worth it as you’d pay more for a flight here). book for melb, sydney, and several other places that aren’t worth it (hobart, canberra) and some that might be worth it (cairns, alice springs, darwin, perth).

if u click thru the see the deal page, you’ll notice direct from LA is like u$848/948. so if u have freq flyer points or see a cheap fare to LA, might be better to do that.

great

while i was typing that last post, the news was on and they broke into live cnn re: new ‘incidents’ occuring in london. that lasted for about 15 minutes and then they (channel 10) decided to go back to normal programming (which is their sports program…..). they were the only channel showing anything about london.

but then about 5 min after they went to ’sports tonite’, channel 7 starting running live sky news. which is much better since they have a chopper hovering over the bus.

how am i supposed to reorganise methodology when this is happening? distracting.

melbourne grafitti

one of the things i like about melbourne is the art. see there are things i LIKE about this place!!! there is a lot of public art here – sculpture, grafitti & these cool citylights project installations.

tonite we went to see a movie called rash about the melbourne street art scene. there is a lot of grafitti here. in the last 6 months or so i’ve noticed a lot appearing along the train line on my way to uni. great stuff too. i’ve always noticed some in the city too but last week i wandered down a laneway while i was on the phone & walked into 2 laneways FULL of very cool grafitti.

tonite’s movie focused mostly on the artists with only a small amount of the council people saying how they have a zero tolerance on these matters. there were also 2 mayors who said they are working to keep the graffiti and do productive things with the artists (including a mentoring program in schools!!).

overall it was a cool look into the culture of these people. since it was concentrated on melbourne artists, a lot of them were in the audience. it was quite inspiring. i don’t think i want to be out sneaking around at 4am to ‘bomb’ but it made me want to go create something.

just sucks that i need to finish off the thesis before i could think about being creative.

but anyway, if this makes it to nyc or elsewhere, i’d recommend seeing it. and if you want to see some of the work, check out state of flux and stencil revolution. i liked this guy ha ha (and yes, he did name himself after the simpson’s nelson’s laugh).

more trips – autumn time frame

bestfares.com is advertising U$859 rt la to melbourne for sept 30-oct 28 travel.

also for august & september travel there’s U$839 from la, $1039 from lauderdale and other locations

aug is a good time. it’s winter here but my schedule will be fairly open.

fyi, there’s also some other fares listed here (scroll to the bottom). going into sydney is cheaper (U$779) and there’s one that lets you have a stopover in NZ.

thesis update

fyi, got my thesis on monday so am fixing some stuff up. actually, not a hell of a lot to fix but have been busy with work & sleeping.

united package

united has a package right now. from LA/SFO, it’s U$1599 for 15 days in sydney & melbourne. flight, 4 nites hotel in sydney, car to drive to melbourne, 4 nites hotel in melbourne & the flight home. good through september and you get a bonus of 2500 miles.

london bombings

tonite i had coffee with one of my friends & then went in search of a book. ended up at borders spending waaay too much money. when i got home boy, who was pretty much asleep on the couch, said, ‘have u heard about london?’. turned on the tv & wow. i have a lot of friends in london. at this point i haven’t heard from many of them.

i started sending out emails & it reminded me so much of 9/11. except then i was in sydney in a net cafe reading emails people sent hoping i was ok & friends replying to my ‘are u ok?’ emails.

one of the tv channels here is showing cnn. who just interviewed rudy. wouldn’t you know… rudy is in london AND was having breakfast in a hotel near one of the tube stations when they heard an explosion. maybe they were trying to bomb him?!

fyi, londonist seems to be updating frequently. there’s lots of pix on flickr though most seem to be what i’ve seen on tv. hope everyone out there is safe.

update

found this great site the other day americans are dumb.

haven’t posted in a couple weeks. been busy but i’m not quite sure what i’ve been doing. we went to sydney for a few days. pix here. i cleaned up all the papers & files & books that were lying all around during the thesis flurry. i think i’ve slept a bit. but yeah, i dont really know what i’ve done. oh! i’m starting to email folks i’ve ignored since i started the mba. i’ve been crap at communication so i’m beginning to work my way thru a long list.

and am waiting to hear from the uni that the examiner has dropped off my thesis so i can make changes. wait wait. wait. grr.