Alli's Blog

Phew, what a week. It started on Sunday for me (well, it started a year ago really). Rusty and I arrived late morning and started collecting speakers from the airport, checking out the venue and generally getting in pre-conferenece mayhem. Had dinner at our favourite Melbourne eatery and then crashed.

Monday was spent collecting speakers from the airport, with Pete and Rob helping out too. You guys were fantastic and prevented me collapsing with fatigue before things had even started with all your help! Thanks. I was at the airport most of the day greeting people, but was suffering from a tummy bug (which kept me up most of Sunday night) and struggled a bit. We had dinner with Marc Merlin and Jennifer, Paul McKenney and Dave and So-young. Unfortunately I had to leave quite abrubptly as lack of sleep and illness caught up with me at a great rate knots once seated.

Tuesday I was slightly recovered but Rusty insisted I try to rest a bit at the conference instead of going to and from the airport all day. I obeyed, and roped Pete and Rob in again. Speakers Dinner was that evening. The food was good, I had some really interesting chats with various people. I generally dont like catered food, but Peter Rowland Catering did a reasonable job. I had several speakers thank me personally for all my work for them, which was touching. I was told by several speakers that "LCA treats their speakers better than any other conference I have spoken at" , which is super feedback.

Wednesday we were up early and despite our taxi being involved in a car accident on the way, we managed to get to the conference in time to help out with a chair-related emergency at the keynote venue. My day was spent fighting small fires, and helping out. I enjoyed the Night Markets venue for the conference dinner, I'm a fussy eater and so choosing my own food was fantastic. I even had vouchers left over that I gave someone else to use before I left.

Thursday I had to come home as we could only get a farm / animal sitter until Wed evening. All in all I enjoyed the conference and wish I could have stayed longer. I may have even gone to a talk or two. There were a few that looked interesting to even a non-technical person like me. I had some really interesting chats with a bunch of people I had never met (Martin Sevior, Martin Krafft, as well as Stormy Peters and Amanda McPherson). I also got a chance to catch up (albeit very breifly) with some familiar faces too. Loved LCA08.

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My mood: frustrated, and a bit grumpy

My music: Chris Isaak, best of

I want to use Bittorrent to download a TV show I like. I suspect my ISP is blocking me doing that, as whenever I try it from home it never fetches anything, yet when I was at a friends I could do it. Is there a legal way I can do this? I would be happy to pay money for the service. I really really miss this particular TV show, and I cant wait until it comes out on DVD!!!

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Mood: Calm

Music: Snow Patrol, Eyes Open

People have bitched and moaned that I havent updated this page in forever. In my defense, we have sold our house, moved out to the country, I've had a sick horse, bought another horse, adopted 2 labroador puppies and had oodles of contractors working on the new house. Plus I have had the joy of trying to get through all the red tape council wants to get a few things built on the new place. Plus when I started getting complaints, I was a little freaked out that people actually read my blog. Sounds obvious, if you blog, eventually someone will read it, but I found it just a little weird to have people comment about my posts. I guess I just assumed it was mainly my Mum who read this...

Congrats Sarah and Andrew, I'm a bit behind, but hugely thrilled for you both.

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Mum arrived at some ungodly hour this morning, interupting my sleep to plait my mane and generally make me look all prissy. I was having a lovely lie down and a nap when she got to my stable, so I was a bit grumpy at first. Then she gave me some brekky, so I forgave her. We arrived at this big show ground, there were lots of other horses, and there were jumps, lots and lots of jumps. I was really excited. Auntie Caroline got on me, and rode me around for ages. I didnt feel like doing what she asked much, there was so much to look at. Eventually I got a bit tired, and she took me into the dressage arena. I did ok, I cantered at the right spots and everything. Heres a picture of me (how sexy do I look?) After the dressage I was in 9th place (out of 20 horses) so I was pretty happy. Then we went and did some show jumping, I loved this, the jumps were nice and small, and not scary at all. I didnt refuse any of them, Aunty Caroline was very strict and kicked me if I even thought about it! But I showed her, I decided to knock the very last rail, just as she thought we were going to have a clear round. hehehehe Heres some pictures of me in action: (Thanks to Aunty Flight who took these of me) After the show jumping, I was still coming 9th. Finally they let me out onto the big cross country course. I had been eyeing it off all day, just waiting. It looked so much fun, and I was hanging for a big flat strap gallop! Just before we went in Mum made a big fuss of me, she was so nervous, lucky she wasnt riding me, or she would have made me nervous too. Right from the beginning Auntie Caroline let me just have my head, and I powered along. A couple of the jumps were a bit scary, and I wanted to gallop straight into them. Auntie Caroline made me slow a little, back to a more sedate canter before she let me leap over them. They were only 45cm, I know I couldve flown over them, but I think she was worried I'd fall and hurt myself. She is probably right, I was pretty excited, and not really thinking straight! Anyway, heres some pics of me out on the course. Its hard to see how fabulous I look as they are a bit far away and blurry, but you can still see my style over the log jump: I jumped clear, and we found out later that I was the 2nd fastest horse on the course that day, not just in my class, but out of everyone! How good is that hey??? Mum and Auntie Caroline kept talking about time penalties, blah blah, I didnt care about that. I ended up in 5th place, so I got a pretty green ribbon to wear, and a bag of Mitavite Economix! Woohooo!!! I love Economix. biggrinjester Mum said later that if I had slowed down a bit I could have got third place, but hey, I got Economix!!! Aunty Caroline was disappointed her stop watch wasnt working, because she reckoned she would have made me trot some parts (yeah right!), so we could have got closer to the optimum time and placed third. Once we got home, Mum gave me a lovely hot dinner, and some hay, lots of pats, and told me how proud she was of me. Apparently later in the week I am going out to the paddock with the other horses for a holiday. I'm really looking forward to that.
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Went to a show jumping and cross country jumping clinic on the weekend. I'm not really any good at jumping, but it was awesome fun. Simon is a fabulous instructor, no fuss, just gets you going and doing stuff. No mucking around, but if you are really truly frightened he tells you not to do it. Mostly for me, it was just getting past my nervousness. I've never jumped anything except poles, so logs and tyres and things were kinda scary. The ground hurts at my age when you hit it from 1.5m up! You can see some more photos here.

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My mood: tired

My music: Kendall Payne - Scratch from "Grown" Album

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get your lower leg forward on the girth, your horse goes so much better......

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