The Car Of The Future, Today!

Sadly this news clipping was found in the local paper today..."Kaiya hasn't updated her blog in more then a week, she must be dead, did the giant turtles get here? That's what I imagined happened. Thinking she's so speedy then turn around and get eaten by a turtle for shame. All that speed walking for nothing. We won't have to get her a coffin either, the turtle will be excellent We'll kill the turtle and turn him on his belly and it'll be the perfect resting spot for Kaiya." -- The Deidre Post

I'm sorry to disappoint you all but there will not longer be any more post on this blog due to the unfortunate event mentioned above.

TWO, FOUR, SIX, EIGHT! What currency depreciates?! US DOLLAR! US DOLLAR! US DOLLAR! Luckily for me the Australian dollar is about equal to what we have in the states so I can't complain too much and have it be a legit complain. *snaps fingers* I do love a good ole legit complain! Helps even the best of friends have a reason to throw water on you.

This is the post of a new adventure because I started a new zone and I went to church for the first time, so let the tales be told!!! *takes the superman pose and flies to the story time lounge chair*

So I escaped from the turtle, luckily, but that's a tale for another time. I ended my time with the crabs (hallelujah!!!) last Friday. Which is good because I don't know how much more I could stand being bosed around by that zone leader *narrows eyes* but it's over being under her thumb all the time so it's all good now :)

Saturday I went to the Gold Coast. I didn't do much worth telling. I walked around a mall, which was boring and hung out at the beach the rest of the time. It was windy and kind a chilly. I wanted to go hiking but alas I had no way to the mountains so a hiking I did not go. I did however learn the valuable lesson of rising off after a swim in the ocean. Well, I didn't really swim in the ocean it was more like bouncing with the waves if that makes sense. When I was finished doing that I decided it would be fun to ride a big wave in to shore. Bad idea. I closed my eyes and was thinking 'weeee!!' just as I was slammed into the shore and tossed about. That wee quickly became an 'ouch!' and I realized I had made a terrible mistake ;) I laughed it off and dried off while reading a book. As it started to get cold I realized that the itch around my waistline of my swim shorts was because I had a good handful of sand in my swim shorts. Being nearly dry, I didn't want to re-wet myself and clean up so I did the next best thing and brushed as much of it off of me as I could and did my best to remove it from my shorts. What a fun three hour ride back home that was. Almost as nice as riding home on trax commando. Before we headed home they stopped at Andrew's friends house where I was dragged into this man's life and learned his wife and him had separated  They had two boys, the oldest being thirteen. The friend told us that the wife said she hadn't loved him for the last twelve years. So that was a nice comfortable visit for me. Oz man I'll never see again, I hope the best for you.

Sunday was Merlin. YAY MERLIN!!!! I love MERLIN!!! Morgana sucks!!! >:( She needs to die!!!! Why Merlin doesn't just sneak up on her and kill her I'll never know. It would save him so much grief from always protecting Arthur!! I also went to church and met some nice people. They all sing loudly and some sing loudly and off key so that's different from the whisper singing you usually hear at church. They also had a ysa (young single adult) sunday school class which was weird because it was a family ward. We'll see how it turns out. That was only the first visit so I'm just waiting to see how everything is.

Monday was my first day in my new zone but tragedy struck and I spend most of the day bare foot and in water. In the downstairs part of the freshwater zone the pump that pumps the water out and away from the systems broke because somehow a scrub brush ended up in it. So while all the water was being pumped into the system there was nothing taking it out and away so the system flooded. Because the floor slants, at parts the water was up to my knees. It was pretty bad. So I spent all but three hours of the day bucketing water out. Oh so much fun!! It really was fun to run around without shoes all day tho :)

Tuesday my real first day in freshwater started. There are some cool animals in this area. Fresh water croc and swordfish, frogs, turtles, and monitor lizards. Really cool :) One of the tanks is low and open and one of the guys in the zone was showing me what to watch and what did what when water suddenly hit me. I had been the victim of an archer fish. It had liked the metal on the clipboard I was holding and had shot water at it. Apparently they can shoot water at bugs that are 33 feet away and that's how they hunt. I got to feed the lizards today and that was cool. It's going to be a fun zone to work in :) To clarify for those of you who are confused at what I do I maintain tanks and the health of the fish in the tanks. So I'm learning about water quality and all the fun aspects of that. I'm learning how to manage aquarium systems, feed fish, treat for disease and parasites, and other marine biology things. It's pretty good :)

Wednesday was a crazy nuts day. Just as I was starting my first day of doing freshwater start up, checking all the animals and systems to make sure everything was alright, my manager and the dive manager come booking it up from down in the tunnel practically stripping. They said that our gray nurse shark, Joker, was down and so they were suiting up to see what could be done to help him. The last six months have been tough on this shark. Some idiot let him bit off and swallow the end of a feeding stick, he got a skin infection, there's been a disease outbreak in the tunnel, and he was transported into the tunnel with the broken stick in his gut. All that stress or something must have gotten to him because he just stopped breathing and had laid down and wouldn't respond to anything so the divers brought him to the locke where they could try and help him. Eventually nothing they did helped and he died. After measuring him and weighing him they did a necropsy on him. That was interesting to see what the inside of a shark looks like. It wasn't quite as interesting to discover what they smell like inside but I will say they smell better than a dead horse. and not quite as appetizing as a dead cat.

Gray nurse sharks look ferocious because their teeth are nuts and point everywhere but they are really very nice sharks. They are also endangered and so since we lost ours we won't be able to get another one. It's sad to have such a cool animal die like that but realistically they shouldn't be stuck in little tanks . The wide open ocean is where they belong. It's where they will be the happiest.

Friday, happy day!! And it was a happy day :) So to end my week of adventure and my first week doing freshwater, the two guys in my zone were both gone. I've never really gone thru all of the zone because of how crazy this week has been. It was a little sketchy getting thru it all today but I think I did alright :) In the middle of start-up this morning I got told I'd be working with the seals today because they were short some people. I ended up being the volunteer that get's pushed into the water by the seals. I'd be picked from the audience and then bending down a bit posing for a picture with a seal and it would come up behind me and push me into the water. Where I would grab onto the floating island and a different seal would swim around me like a shark with one flipper up in the air, the whole time I was wriggling my shorts off under water. After circling me twice it dove under the island where I would throw my short down and at the seal and push myself under water as if the seal had grabbed my pants off. The trainer would then have the seal give me back my shorts. It was a lot of fun and ended up doing it twice :) If I wasn't going to be pushed in for whatever reason I had to pretend to trip in, luckily I was able to practice both a few times before the show. I say luckily because my first time getting pantsed I went under the wanter before the seal dove to grab my shorts. Bad craic :( The first time I practiced tripping into the water was the worst tho. I was told to pretend to slip my toes off a step and into the water. Easy enough right? Nope not for this little idiot. When I went to trip, instead of tripping I just pushed off of it and pretty much jumped into the water. What did I win, oh yes, that's right the babbling idiot award. Ah yes!! For a moment there I thought I was undeserving of such prize, but I can confidently tell those second placers to back off because I will always, unfortunately  prove I am the first place winner. All in all it was a fun day. I swam with seals twice, using the cover name of Sam, and feed the fish in freshwater. That's pretty much all I did Friday :)

And so ends my tales for this week. What Saturday and Sunday hold for me I know not but wait to find out. Enjoy all your snow and cold weather, I think I'm going to go to the beach :)

The Boy From Armagh

Hey howdy hey. I don't know about you all but today was definitely a "chocolate pick-me up" day. Now, sitting here, munching on my chocolate honeycomb, that isn't quite as delicious as sea foam but does the trick, I am feeling quite content and ready to begin telling you the happenings thus far. The day I have no views on a post will be the day that I stop writing on this blog. So I'm just waiting for the day when my life stops being interesting to you folks because we all know that I'll never stop being hilarious so something will have to drive you away. 

I went to the ward on Sunday, Andrew was nice enough to drive me there, and I heard conference playing in the sacrement room so I slipped in and caught the last five minutes of Pres. Monson's closing talk, the closing hymn, and closing prayer, or was it the opening prayer? I forget now. After whatever was going on finished I went over to some sister missionaries and asked if there was a meeting flowing this one. They said normally there would be but this week everything was all over. Of course it would be. I thanked them, said I'd be there Sunday, and headed out. Andrew had gone to the beach to swim after dropping me off so I decided to walk back, plus he doesn't have a cell phone. I had to walk past a shopping center that I'd wanted to check out to see what it had and ended up picking up somethings I needed but forgot to buy the day before. I know, I know, horrible me. Miss church and then go shopping. If that will really get my bones sent to rot in hell then I'm gonna have to start a mutiny on the whole system of the universe. Once walking the never ending sidewalk back to my room, no my room does not have a side walk in it because the never ending sidewalk ended because the world is flat, and did not much the rest of the day. It was quite relaxing :) I did watch Merlin, but I'll get to that later :D :D :D

It seems that even though I have been here almost a full month I still am a moron and do something very wrong. Though, looking at where the DNA that created me came from it really shouldn't be that much of a surprise. My zone manager found out I was 23 the other day and she was really surprised and told me that she thought I was younger than that. Normally I'd be totally cool with that but for some reason I don't think she means I look young I think she means I act like a babbling idiot that just graduated from high school. Tati and Jaden don't take it personally because you haven't graduated from high school yet so you still know everything. 

Monday I managed to overflow a tank and get water everywhere. *bows* Yes, thank you, thank you. I'll take my babbling idiot ribbon now. Oh it's blue, how lovely. Monday we were short staffed and so after doing morning start-ups for all my zones tanks I was wrangled to clean all the turtles tanks and feed them. Other than that I did normal stuff such as feed and whatnot. 

Tuesday I helped do a water change on a tank and cleaned out all the gross soggy smelly sand from the hermit crab display. Who know things that stay burred most of the time could make such a smelly mess. Mom you might want to search Kelcie's room for hermit crabs because that might be why her room.... odors. I don't know why she'd have crabs in her room but really why does she have most of the stuff she has in her room? Speaking of slobs I got told I was a slob yesterday as well so I guess it runs in the family. I was told I need to watch my cleanliness and that I'm leaving food smeared everywhere and dropping food bit when I feed animals. I didn't think I was smearing food because my gloves are always sopping wet from putting my arm in the water and throwing food down to the little fish but whatever. I'm a slob, so I've been watching myself to make sure I don't follow in my sisters footsteps for too long. Sorry guys but you'll have to get someone else to play the tris amigo. 

Wednesday l did a start up and then vacuumed out a tank. There was a brittle sea star where it shouldn't be and I was told to fetch a bucket to take it somewhere else. It was inside this big rock so I got the bucket and carried the rock and sea star to the area and placed it back in the water. I figured it wouldn't be that much of a problem not to fill the bucket with water because it was a thirty second walk but I got in trouble, again. My zone leader asked if I had filled the bucket up with water and I told her no, thinking to myself it was already heavy enough carriying the big freakin rock. Upset she asked then what the purpose was of getting a bucket in the first place. I told her that I thought it was so I wouldn't get sea water everywhere. She said, "Well yeah, but also to not stress the animal out because it needs water to breath." I told her I was sorry and that I'd fill it with water next time. I'm brilliant, I know. I'll take my babbling idiot trophy now, thank you. That was really my day. Apparently we are getting two sword fish and a black sting ray in tonight. So people will probably be tired tomorrow. 

Ok :) Just barely I got a call from the old mostly deaf neighbor lady down the driveway in the first unit. After some mild confusion about me being Andrew, Andrew being gone or asleep, and what the problem was, she agreed to have me over quickly to see if I could fix the problem. When I got there she  told me she had recently had the tv guys come by and fix up everything and they told her that channel seven was preset to button six but that there was no signal and no response when she pushed the button. She demonstrated and handed the "remote" to me. It looked like a phone that you'd see about the house. I stood there puzzled for a moment not sure what to do. For a brief moment I was in awe at the technology Oz had that enabled your house phone to also be your remote but after looking over the phone I realized it was just that, a phone. I asked her if her phone was also her remote and she exclaimed 'ohhhh!' very embarrassed. Laughing she picked up the real remote from under a book and pushed the six button and the tv came to live and lo and behold, channel seven began to play!! I could tell that she was really embarrassed but when she asked me not to tell Andrew about the whole thing I knew it. *shakes head* Old people, and you wonder why us youngins think we know everything?!

I was thinking I'd send this on Saturday but I think I'll send it today. You're welcome all you ramble on addicts ;)

Ok, to the part everyone as been waiting for!!! MERLIN!!! Don't worry I won't give any spoilers, unless you want me to that is. It was SO SO good!!! Ahhhhhh!!! It ended on a giant cliff hanger so I've been dying to know how it finishes!!!

That's all for now. More maybe later this week. 

Honey, What Do You Do For Money?

Alright, so this week.....hmmm what's happened thus far? It has been an interesting week so far. Monday the girl in charge of the section I've been assigned to this month had the day off and one of the tanks started overflowing because the filter was clogged. We radioed the manager and she came to help us out. Luckily we had randomly re-entered that room to do something else just as it started over-flowing. After fixing the water problem we were re-attaching  a part of the water pump system that we had cleaned when all the power for the tank went out and the water almost overflowed again because the pump that takes out extra water wasn't on. The manager came back over and sorted it all out. That was stressful. I also watched the sharks feed and I think I'd rather have a Shayli than a shark over to eat any day. Man!! Are they messy eaters or what?!! Tuesday the big task was cleaning out the storage unit and taking things to the dump or as my mom likes to call it the Dino ;)

Wednesday I went to the beach to help remove the old water in-take. Almost all the water the tanks use comes from the ocean and they got a new in-take so the old one had to be removed. I also helped clean up a mini flood as one of the tanks over-flowed and soaked the carpets. That was exciting!!! Don't sit so close to the edge of your seat, you might fall off and my lawyers have told me if I get another lawsuit from on the edge sitters my quickly growing career in professional blogging is going to be over. Don't worry because that won't happen if I continue to write about fish. I know everyone loves fish and all but.....Later that day we got some cool weedy sea dragons. I guess they're very hard to keep and ours are acting kind of funny so they are putting a sheet of plastic on top of the water to stop them from bobbing at the surface and drying out.

Thursday morning I just went around and did a quick check of all the fish and turned on the lights and one of the areas had flooded overnight. Someone forgot to turn of a small hose and water got everywhere. My team leader doesn't get in til late Thursdays so one of the team leaders from another area came and helped me quickly clean up. After that it was back to the dump. There was a nutrition meeting at the end of the day and in the middle of the meeting there was a call about some of the sharks in my area being dead. Brown banded bamboo sharks, two of them, were dead. They aren't very big sharks. It was a weird thing because all of them had eaten earlier in the day. After looking at their gills and testing the water quality everyone decided that the tank was over-saturated with oxygen and that's what had killed the sharks. Crazy stuff.

Friday was a relatively uneventful day. Did normal feedings, watched sharks eat, helped with water quality testing, changed bad water, and fed some turtles.

EXTRA, EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! The Lazy Leaping Lemur Leo can read the future and predicts that you will click here!! He hope that after you have clicked there, like he saw you would, you will buy anything you like. If anyone ever has anything they'd like me to post on my blogs please let me know. If you like to hoard your money like I do you can click here alternatively.

Continuing on in case you still haven't figured it out, I am THE man.

Oh yeah!! I'm still working on getting a six o'clock shadow but details, details. I think that there should be a law or something that says every time someone gets your gender wrong they should have to pay you a dollar. Not because I hate being called a man everyday, that does not bother me, but because by now I swear I could be a millionaire  I'd be rollin in the confused gender cash baby!!! Though if there was a law about that I'd probably get called 'it' a lot more. As long as I got my million dollars I don't care if I'm Kaiya the shemale from Draper, the land of many winds, and not just because my dad lives there ;) Hehehehe, sorry dad I just couldn't that opportunity slip silently by. That would be a deadly mistake. Hehehehehe :)

Saturday I didn't end up doing a whole lot. I walked around a fair bit. Just seeing what I have around at walking distance, tho technically anything is walking distance, it just might take you days or years to get anywhere. I bought a deodorant spray which I'm not to such about because I've never used anything like that. So if you see me and I have extra arms or another head growing out of my armpit don't be too surprised and please still love me. My host parents went to a wedding so I was on my own tonight and it was kind of nice to be able to do my own thing and have some quiet for a bit :) I've been watching old episodes of Merlin a lot lately because Sunday the new season starts!! Yay Merlin!!!! :D :D I can't wait!!! Lucky for me I get to watch in now and don't have to wait like all you in the states do!! Ha ha!! >:)

Tomorrow I'm also going to that ward here so that should be interesting. It's kinda funny because my host parents have been pushing me to go since last week. I think they want me out of the house and with friends almost more than my mom did. I said almost ;) They want me to go to church so I can meet people and do things. It's slightly amusing. Anyway, that's all the new news with me. Hope yous guys all have a good timey wimey :)

Re-Nu

Hello family, friends, and random others. This is just a quick little blurp about what I've been up to recently. Nothing much happened until Sunday. On Sunday I went on a bike ride with Andrew and saw a bit of the "hinterlands", which is just the Australian way of saying mountain area. Crazy Ozians :) It was kind of smaugy because of fires but I took a few pictures. The pictures of the bikes are all of Andrews friends bikes.

I also finally took pictures of where I work and got some video of me feeding a turtle. Things are going well and I'm enjoying the work. It wears me out everyday *yawns* so look at pictures here and have a groovy day. I'm going to bed :) Oh, and just so you all know I will be deleting all my pictures from my trip to Ireland off the internet here soon so I can have more room to put new pictures. Just so yous know. Ok, night night :)

Violet Crumble

Hola, cómo son todos ustedes? Estoy es muy bien, ahora :) I say I'm doing good now because about an hour ago I was about ready to puke my ever-loving-freakin guts out. I hope you enjoyed that strange hyphenated string of words as much as I did typing it. If not the micro calories I used to make my fingers type it were wasted and you owe me, or else.....*stares down unappreciative audience members aka random South Korean visitors*

I got "yelled at" today for not marking down what I had fed the animals yesterday morning. It was more just telling me I need to really make sure I mark down what I feed and to which animals. So besides causing chaos by not marking down what animals I feed(what can I say? I'm just a rebel at heart. Ask grandpa Micky, he gave me coal for Christmas) I cleaned the windows of the tanks with these floating magnets. You put the magnet that goes in the water in this fuzzy sleeve/pocket thing and wrap a towel around the other one and stick them to each other, one in the tank and the other on the outside. You then wipe the inside of the window off by moving the outside magnet around. Very clever I know and know I didn't come up with it ;) So I got the magnets out and I didn't realize they were so strong. I was holding them and they suddenly clapped together skinning one of my fingers. That really sucked be it was worth it because while I was cleaning the window for one of the tanks something priceless happened.  :D Those females who have short hair I'm sure have been called a man before. This doesn't bother me. But at least I was given a gender. I now know how the "its" feel. I was a "nothing" three years ago and now I guess I've progressed on to an "it". I was cleaning a window and a mom with kids walk by and I hear the mom say, "Kids, do you know what the man *short pause* woman *shorter pause* person is doing? They are cleaning the window with magnets so that we can see the fish." I couldn't help but laugh a little. I was called a man multiple times while cleaning the windows but that was the only massive gender confusion I got :) Other than that magnetic fun I got to spend a good portion of the day driving to the airport to pick up some new fish with one of the works, his name is Noel. Sadly this isn't my Noel but an older gentleman. My Noel is stubbornly waiting six months before showing me his face in person, jerk.... ;) The ride wasn't bad and before I knew it the day was over.

After work I bought some Tim Tams which are famous Australian cookies. They are pretty freakin awesome. Maybe if it's not too expensive I'll send a few packets home.

Today was kind of a crazy day because the day started out with only 3 of us and ended with a ton of people running everywhere. I did both the morning and afternoon feeds by myself so I'm hoping that I marked down what I feed and to who because I didn't get my "yelling" today until after I finished feeding. They got a new huge ray and so that showed up half way thru the day. After they put it in the big tunnel tank a few of us went to release a turtle. Dad, I'm sorry you paid for 26 weeks because after two weeks I'm starting to think that marine biology isn't something I want to do when I get back. Aunt Tara, you can celebrate because that means I probably won't be living on one of the coasts. Maybe it'll change as I get to work with more animals and different animals but so far I don't think this is something I really want to do for the rest of my life. It's a lot of fun and I'm learning a lot but I think I like things that don't swim more. I know that I don't like being out on the ocean. Bleh!! I found that out the rough way. I shouldn't have been surprised because I got sick on our cruise but when we went out to release the turtle I very nearly puked. At first I was thinking it was so cool and I felt like a pirate with the sea breeze and the waves, but after a minute of that I was ready to be on land again. It was cool tho because I was able to see some humpback whales and a sea turtle on our way out. Humpback whales are migrating thru the area right now so that was really cool. We didn't get close to them because the dove down deep to get away from our boat but it was still cool :) All the same I was very glad to get back into the little channel with flat water. I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon. I had intended to stay late today and take pictures but no way that was happening today, not haver the boat ride anyway. Tomorrow I'll get pictures for sure. Just you wait.

Hazel Nuts Suck Too

Man, I hate brazil nuts!!! They taste like dirt and are big and clunky! Almonds on the other hand are delightful. They are so nice and delicious. They are shaped like a tear drop because they are what angels weep. I don't remember what I told you last so if I repeat anything too bad for you :P Sunday I didn't do much of anything other than take a bike ride with Andrew and plan out my hiking excursion for Monday. I'm suppose to go on a day long bike ride with Andrew next Sunday so hopefully that goes better than this time is all I can say for my butts sake.

Monday I took a bus and then a train out to the Glass House Mountains to hike around because Monday was a public holiday. Guess what the holiday was.....the Queen's Birthday! As far as I know Australia is its own country so why the freak do they care about royalty from the country and sent their ancestors there because they were unwanted criminals?! Who knows. Anywho, I got to the visitor's center at eight o'clock to start my day off nice and early to get as many hikes as I could in. The day was overcast and rainy most of the day. But I got there at eight only to find out it didn't open until nine. That would've been a good thing to check before waking up at five twenty in the morning....It was alright because i read for an hour until people showed up. I got a map from them and headed out on my way. Turns out this park was kind of like Arches National park. If you've never been to Arches I recommend it, but the layout of the park is such that you really need a set of wheels to see the whole thing. This was the same so I picked a mountain that had the most to do and set off for it. About 1. 5 hours later I got to the "parking lot". I walked around the base of the mountain(this mountain is only about 1,194 ft above sea level. To put this in perspective the Salt Lake valley floor sits at 4,226 ft above sea level.) After walking around the mountain I thought I'd go as far as I could up to the summit. It was a very misty/foggy day and you couldn't even see the top of the mountain. The description of the hike said it was for experienced hikers and did a bit of rock climbing. Well I've never really rock climbed and I was wearing my Tevas but I thought I'd try it out anyway and quiet when it got to much for me. I got to the rock climbing part but only went a bit up because the rocks were slippery and my Tevas aren't the best shoes for rock climbing stuff. The view from where I made it was so neat so I can't even imagine what it was like at the top :) I was somehow able to get back down without falling/slipping to my death and now my legs are sore today. I think I need to use them more. I wish I had a horse to ride... :-/ I spent the rest of the night watching old Merlin episodes and cuddling with my blankets.

Today at work I helped with turning everything on, giving some tanks a water change, cleaning some tanks, moving crap around in storage, prepping buckets for use, fed, and fed turtles. Not to bad :) Tho of course I can't have an accident free day. Today I was cleaning out this tank and I had to keep an eye on the water supply so that it didn't overflow, well it started to get high so I turned the inflow down but the water level kept rising so I turned it off but that didn't stop it. I freaked out and ran to get my leader. I told her how I turned it off and it did nothing. We got in there and it had overflowed. She looked and the pipes and told me I had turned it on full blast not turned it off. Good job moron!!! I had to use the infamous shop vac to clean my mess up with. After that the day was good. That's all for now! I hope you enjoyed it!! Because it put me to sleep writing it!!

This is how long the grass is in every yard

The view from up high

On a scary ledge

The grass, isn't it thick?

I could be a posh young lad

Crazy dino sounding birds