While JB and I went up north to Rockhampton/Yepoon for a friends wedding this weekend, we happened to find a stray chicken on the side of the road! A chicken! Of all the stray animals you could find on the side of a road in the middle of no-where ... a freakin chicken. So rather than letting it become a dingo's next meal, JB jumped out of the car and easily caught it. I wrapped it up in a rag and gave it a cuddle as we drove it back to his grandparent's house. We made a little nest and gave her some food and water and prepared an old bird aviary which became her temporary chicken coop.

I really fell in love with this gorgeous little chicken, so we gave her a name - Margaret. We had a playful afternoon just hanging out on the grass. With Margaret pecking around chasing bugs. My mum had shown me how she can get chickens to go to sleep upside down, if they're really relaxed ... here's how to do it:

» How to make a chicken fall asleep

Thankfully JB's grandmother knows a lady who has chickens and is willing to take good care of Margaret.

Labels: Personal

I'm always saying to myself that I want to do more illustration. As I'm already comfortable with and have a love for electronic media, I have been toying with the idea of getting a graphics tablet - though the price has always kept them out of reach.

Thanks to zazz.com.au, I purchased a Genius G-Pen Graphics Tablet for less than $60 delivered!

So what did I do as soon as I got it working? Started drawing rainbows of course!

Labels: Design, Personal

\(^o^)/

So it's time again to make resolutions and take the time to reflect on (and sometimes cringe over) our actions and accomplishments over the past year.

What 2006 meant to me.

Overall I'd probably give 2006 an 8/10. While it couldn't top 2005 (moving to Brisbane was one of the best decisions I've ever made), it was still a pretty darn good year. It started off at a killer party in Toowong, making some spur of the moment resolutions which thankfully only a few friends were there to witness, which in light of what happened during the year took on umm, ... extra meaning.

Things were so cruisy for me at the beginning of 2006. I think I'll always reflect upon this time as the happiest in my life. Things were just so incredibly great and the best part was, I knew it. I was healthy, I had a pumping social life, work was satisfying, I was single and having the time of my life.

It wasn't possible to maintain that high throughout the entire year, and I did have a few low points, mainly centred around personal relationships and work uncertainty but things seemed to thankfully repair naturally before the year was out.

As far as achievements go, there's a few to mention ...

2006 was the year I bought my first house!
I finally plucked up enough courage to buy my very own home. I've been wanting to/saving for years to do it, though my overseas trips set me back. Years ago, the thought of doing it on my own terrified me but like most big decisions, I warmed to the right choice and made the leap. So now I'm living in it, it's pretty comfortable, though a bit empty. Not quite milk crates on the floor or anything, but outdoor furniture is currently living indoors due to lack of proper seating. So for the time being I'll keep shopping for a comfy couch.

The year I graduated from University
I changed my enrolment to an Associate Degree in Multimedia Studies rather than the Bachelor and graduated! Hooray to me!

The year I bought my first gaming console
That's right, I even went to the midnight launch of the Nintendo Wii! It took me about a week to recover from missing what was almost an entire nights sleep - that's a story in itself, but now I have my Wii and I'm a happy girl.

The year I was interviewed on TV
I have blogged about this previously - I was interviewed by ABC2's Good Game, and my interview was aired on their premiere episode in September 2006. Talking about World of Warcraft, which I'm now taking a break from. LOL. My account is still active, I’ve just had restricted internet access since about November so yeah I've taken a break.


So I think that's about it for 2006, bring on 2007!

Labels: Personal

For JB's recent birthday, I thought instead of getting him some useless present, I'd try my hand at cooking a cake and decorating it in gamer theme, a mario bros coin box:



Not exactly a difficult task, but it did mean I had to go buy cake tins, a beater, etc as I don't think I've ever really cooked a cake (which wasn't packet mix) before!

I cooked the two square butter cakes (omg yummy!!!!) the night before, and planned to decorate it right before we were due at his birthday party. Time got away from me, so I had my room mate help me out with some of the decorating so we could make it to the party in time.

I was pretty chuffed with how it turned out. It wasn't quite in proportion, but given more time I could have easily added an extra layer with the cake I had left over.

Labels: Gaming, Personal

Having started at a new job a couple of weeks ago, I wandered down the road on Friday afternoon with some of my work mates to check out The Fox, a bar in South Brisbane. Most of Brisbane is probably already aware of it, but it's new to me! It's got a great rooftop bar with a really cool view of the city. My lovely workmate Laura took a pic and has kindly let me publish it!

Labels: Personal

I spent a very exiting 6 of my 15 minutes of fame lastnight when my interview on Good Game was aired on their premiere episode.



I was asked to talk about a game that I'm really into, World of Warcraft. I was actually a bit worried about how it would come across - I found it difficult to talk about the game without using too much tech speak. So there was a bit of umming going on but generally I think it turned out okay. :)

» watch the video stream on the good game website

My name was mispelled though, they sometimes used kara not cara - only in some places though. Oh wells!

I have to say it was so exciting to watch - when junglist hearthstoned to my house we all cheered and our eyes were glued to the screen! Though to be honest I was more excited to see my character on tv than my own face - very funny to see me and 4 guildies (all level 60 characters) owning up Ragefire, dancing on the Orgrimmar bank, and footage of my priest with a sword equipped. My roomie rang afterwards - he was so excited to see his fridge on TV! Hehe!

I'm so glad that there's now a TV show like this. The guys did a great job presenting and it was really enjoyable to sit around and watch with my friends and have a laugh.

Labels: Gaming, Personal

Whoa, well I'm home from a verrrry long weekend at Byron Bay where I went for Splendour in the Grass Mud. What an amazing festival. While not dancing along to some great acts, I was walking around in mud/chipbark/hay/puddles trying to navigate around the other 17,449 people at the event.



Note to self: Next year buy Gumboots well in advance. I thought it would be a great idea to get gumboots a few weeks ago, but before leaving Brisbane for our trip to Byron I went shopping and decided that it was all sunny and it wouldn't rain so I didn't buy any. Silly mistake.

I got to see the likes of Youthgroup, Bob Evans, The Grates, Pnau, Dj Shadow, Matisyahu, Ajax, Presets, Pete Murray, Scissor Sisters ... though there was one performance that stood out as my favourite live music experience to date ... Paul Mac. I was amazed, I was thrilled, I was totally blown away by the performance. It was just so much fun to dance around to some really great music. The girls sang perfectly. I could have left splendour straight after and know I got my moneys worth.

Photos:
» JB's Gallery
» View the Splendour 2006 Triple J Gallery

Labels: Personal

My cousin had a house warming party with a G or S theme. We found JB a Super Mario costume, and got the matching Princess Peach costume ... well, she has a game called Super Princess Peach now.

Here were the results:

Labels: Gaming, Personal

I was running low on orange juice the other night, so I decided to mix in some lemonade to make it go that little bit further ... my new addiction ... orange juice + lemonade .... its so, ... fruity, and fizzy!!

Labels: Personal

it's good friday, i'm sitting in the passenger seat of JB's car, in heeeavy traffic just below the qld/nsw border. after sitting almost stationary for around half an hour, i wanted to have a look online and see if i could find out what the hold up was. so with JB's powerbook & wireless internet connection i read: "Heavy holiday traffic. 10km queues with delays of up to 1 hour." Great.

at least I have the internet :P

Labels: Personal

i'm so badass there's a knife that shares the same name as me:

· the cara cara knife.

Labels: Personal

Wow, I'm not so sure where to start ... it's been a while, huh?

So much has happened, I can't believe I haven't blogged any of it!

I guess I should just start with a bit of a summary of the most major events that have happened in the past year ... I've got a feeling this is gonna be a looooong post.

Some time in May last year, I decided that after living in Sarina/Mackay my entire life, the whole 23 years of it, it was time to branch out and see a little bit more of the world. I had a fantastic job in Mackay, which I loved, but couldn't help but feel I needed to see a bit more of the world while I was young and relatively commitment free. I had seen so many of my closest friends move away from Mackay and I always thought I would do it too, I just needed to build up the courage. When I was given an opportunity to venture down a different path, I took it. It wasn't a decision that I made lightly, infact it was one of, if not the, toughest decision I've ever made.

After making all the necessary arrangements, on Friday the 27th of May last year, I finished up at my full-time job and one week later moved to Auckland, NZ. That week was definitely one of the most intense weeks of my life. I'd worked at Central Queensland TAFE for 3 years and had made close friends there so it was really sad to leave. I also had to pack up and move out of the place I had been living in, and leave two great room mates who were also a couple of my closest girlfriends. I was moving away from my mum & dad (I'd always had a problem with getting home-sick! lol), and just to throw another thing in the mix, I had a uni assignment due (worth 50% of the course), and ... a job interview.

Now, the interview was actually for a job in Brisbane (where I am now, but I'll get to that). It didn't really fit into all my plans of moving to NZ and setting myself up there and living happily ever after with my boyfriend within arms reach. But, the job was a fantastic opportunity and one that I couldn't possibly pass up. I'd always wanted to move to Brisbane (note: all the closest friends that I mentioned before, that had left Mackay, had moved to Brisbane) but it just turned out that I had a boyfriend who was set-up in Auckland and so that was my destination.

Some would have called my trip to Auckland a holiday, and now with hindsight being 20/20, it was just that. At the time however, not sure of what was around the corner, I had made all the arrangements for it to go either way. By that I mean, I didn't know if I had a job in Brisbane, or if I would be living in NZ more permanently, or if I would end up back in Mackay.

I arrived in Auckland at 4pm on a Friday afternoon and experienced Auckland's peak-hour traffic, gusty ice-cold winds, and dark and rainy weather all before reaching the door of my boyfriends house. But thankfully, the weeks that followed were bliss ... I had about 5 weeks of annual leave up my sleeve so I was still getting paid and I just indulged in having some time off and kicked my feet up for a while. I took a contiki tour around the North Island, went on a ski trip, had a weekend at an Omaha beach beach house, had an amazing lunch at a vineyard, and umm, caught up on A LOT of sleep -- sleeping in on a cold Auckland morning was just too good. LOL. I was also able to indulge in my World of Warcraft addiction as I'd hauled my whole PC across the Tasman with me.

So then, some time during my stay in Auckland, I got the phone call that I had the Brisbane job ... and I took it. A few weeks later I left Auckland, destination: Mackay. I had a few days to visit friends and family, and pack up as much stuff as I could into my little car ... then made the road trip down to Brisbane.

Since moving here, I haven't had a shred of doubt in the decision I made. I started my new job at Southbank Institute, moved in with a friend from Mackay, had some great times catching up with my old friends, and become friends with some of the best people I've ever met. I've done some of the tourist type stuff, but there's still lots more to be done here, especially with the Sunshine Coast in one direction and the Gold Coast in the other.

Skipping forward 7 months, and I'm still pinching myself. My heart still flutters when I drive down a road which has city views. 2006 has brought for me, far more tears of laughter than of sadness, that's a certainty.

So that's about it in a nutshell.

Peace out!

Labels: Personal

Hooray! I'm on holidays for the first time since my overseas trip in dec 2003 / jan 2004. After a 3 day stop over in Brisbane/Gold Coast, we (me and tony) made it to Auckland. The rain and chill hit us as soon as we walked out of the airport doors, but apparently this cold snap has only just hit in the past few days. I went from a Mackay summer (well, autumn, but some days still felt like summer), to an NZ chill. Yesterday I was so cold I just wanted to hide under the doona but I managed to get rugged up (thermals under my jeans, 2 pairs of socks under boots, 3 layers under my jacket) and go for a drive/walk around to see where tony works and used to live. We walked about 800m to the bus stop which was up a slight slope and tony had to pretty muchly drag me up the hill, I was just so cold and, well, lazy. :) But me struggling to keep up with tony is an odd thing - usually its me who has the speedy feet and im constantly hurrying him along or he is asking me why i'm in such a rush.

We went to dream world on saturday and had sooooooooooooooo much fun. We didnt get there until around 11am, but we certainly got our moneys worth. We ended up going on 10 rides during the time we were there. We went on "the claw" twice, "the tower of terror" twice and "the big drop" twice. We said we would work our way up to the big rides but when we got in there we just couldnt help ourselves. We had been on a few rides and in between we had seen people on "the big drop", I said to tony "that looks cool, lets go do that", so we went up and stood in line for a while, got on, and up we went. I was alright going up until we got about half way and then I started to get totally scared. We got all the way up to the top and then just sat there. The suspense was killing me. We knew it could drop at any time but we had no warning of when. Then there was the little fake jolt and everyone screamed and after sitting there for a few more seconds, we dropped and down we went, free fall, for only about 3 seconds but it felt like longer than that! When we touched ground again, I was white as a ghost, my hair was all over my face and I couldnt get my buckle undone - a total mess. Laughing but shaking we made our way out and tried to settle the nerves for the next ride.

Labels: Personal

Googlism.com will find out what Google.com thinks of you, your friends or anything! Search for your name or for a good laugh check out some of the popular Googlisms on the site.

Googlism for: cara ...

cara is dead but it's too early to celebrate
cara is a great legacy for future generations
cara is an rdf api written in perl
cara is a free lunch we can't afford
cara is a stunning girl displaying beautiful breed type
cara is originally from a large italian family in glasgow and returns home after nearly 10 years in london
cara is not dead
cara is in trouble and it is quite understandable why
cara is a threat to property rights
cara is good for all alaskans
cara is the 523rd most popular female first name in the united states
cara is dead
cara is fiscally irresonsible
cara is excited about the opportunity for exposure and is planning on moving to los angeles as soon as the taping for the show ends
cara is the most special person on earth
cara is reborn
cara is the danbury area's general
cara is one of ireland's largest indigenous IT companies since its establishment 30 years ago
cara is back and appears to be on the fast track
cara is assigned to escort devereaux's majority stockholder around town
cara is a national science foundation science and technology center
cara is a bad idea
cara is correct
cara is pl's top rookie
cara is fascinated by dark things
cara is a breath of fresh air
cara is the most important wildlife
cara is "totally screwed up" with "raging eating"

Labels: Personal

Before I started developing my site, I sat down and constructed an overall plan of what my site is going to be about, what its not going to be about and why I want to do it. I know many designers have their experimental sites, and this is mine. I do work as a web designer but I also like to try new things out at home and in my own time before applying them at work. Although I am an advocate of web standardisation, I don't want this site to simply regurgitate the opinions of other designers and developers out there, but if read about something interesting that someone is upto in web land then I'll definitely give them a thumbs up and throw in a link.

I have always been a bit wary of writing about my work as a web designer because of the fear that what might be a new discovery for me, would often be old news for other designers. There are some extremely talented and forward thinking designers out there and I can't help but feel there's little for me to contribute to the living web. But in all reality we are all learning, and the way we work is always changing. Every day a new technique is being discovered as a better way of doing something.

This site is going to be primarily for my own benefit, and if I attract a few visitors then great, but its purpose isnt to keep them entertained. Besides, unless I'm doing it for me, I probably won't update it. I also feel that I can communicate better through visuals rather than writing about something. So expect more development with the extra styles and features, rather than articles.

Labels: Personal