Mail Order Bride

11 August - Well, had been getting a little concerned by the lack of bicycle to arrive from Melbourne. Ozzie Andy (aka Trackc**t) had assured me that a rebuilt Farleigh had been sent to Sydney via Greyhound Buses. Now, as a delivery professional a tracking number, date of post and estimated time of arrival should have been supplied but I didn’t want to pester him. Apparently Greyhound would deliver it to the closest depot to Glebe and give me a call. Well, noone was calling. Dropped into the Greyhound Terminal at Central and asked if bikes were delivered there and they gave me the number and address of their freight depot out at Banksmeadow which I duly called and found that yes, there was a bike waiting for pickup by Saxifrage Cucvara. A bit of a stress to actually get out to Banksmeadow (a place i'd not even heard of prior to that day) involving an attempt to borrow a car (which failed due to conflicting shower schedules), a thought of getting a bus (i hate buses) and an eventual rather expensive taxi ride. The unassembled track bike was there waiting for me - a broken valve on the front tyre and a stripped thread in the cranks meant I couldn't ride off straight away but managed to get a bus into town where Cheeky Monkey fixed the crank and the tube (making it ridable) but didn't have any brakes that would fit. Went to CBD but they didn't have brakes either then Clarence St Cyclery who had the brakes (but not the lever I wanted) but didn't have the time in the shop to install them. Bought the bits and took it back to CBD and all was sorted out, just in time for me to hightail it over to North Sydney for my induction with Crisis (it appears that they are willing to hire me after all - and apparently Sam, my overenergised 'trainer' hurt himself running into a pedestrian t'other day, meaning they needed me to start sooner -can't imagine how that could have happened). Met the dispatcher (operator), nigel, who seems like a fair minded fellow and filled out a bunch of paperwork and went over the technology (bit more high tech than Novex) and subjected Chevette (guess who Chevette is) to an inspection (which she passed with flying colours). So, Crisis, here we come aye?
Headed down to Macquarie Hotel for beers with a bunch of old chums. Rowan, Tom and I all lit a cigarette off one match which apparntly is bad luck but according to Groucho Marx three people lighting off one match is a sign that they only have one match or one with the matches is Scottish (and he was). Off to the Little Snail for Sandy's 30th (eek) where we ate overpriced but halfway decent Frog food. All got a bit traumatic when a couple of invitees turned out to be a little lesswanted than others and I got stuck with having the responsibility of dealing with one of them (pilled out drunkards are never that much fun to deal with especially when they're your friends) and somehow lost my house key over the night (landlord was thrilled to be woken up at 130am from a mostly sober tenant with a wastrel in tow) - ah, back in Sydney ... How I missed this crap ...