Pictures from the first week of May

Boggo Road Jail

On Tuesday I went to the new EcoSciences building at Boggo Road for work. I was pretty amazed by the building there. It’s got this central atrium and there’s plenty of wood and stainless steel and architectural motifs treated in a seemingly modern-homage to traditional Queensland housing architecture of the early 20th Century. I found out later via Security that I wasn’t supposed to be taking pictures inside a government building – so the picture above is a tiny bit naughty.

Later that day I took this picture. This was a Communities Department solidarity action against the prospect of cutting the jobs of temporary workers in the Queensland Public Service. And it was such a great turn out. We were hoping for 50 people and we got so many more. They just kept coming and I was in charge of taking the photo and I realised I just wasn’t going to be able to get them all in. So I was taking photos with my arms above my head but that was useless. And then I noticed some blokes up the back of the park doing some work and they had a ladder there. And I kinda just called one of my female colleagues over – who was just the closest, and just quite accidentally — a total babe. And I asked her to run up and ask them if we could borrow the ladder. Just quietly. My logic was I needed to be there to take the photo just in case the speeches ended suddenly and plus, she would have had a much, much better chance in gaining their approval.

Anyway – a long story short, she got their permission (though they said if we got hurt they would say we stole it – LOL) and I got the crowd to wait a moment while someone ran and got it. It was like a pregnant pause and as I tentatively climbed up (have I told you I am not very good with heights?) the crowd was pumped and I got this awesome photo and they gave the tradies the most generous applause when it was suggested we thank them for the ladder.

It was a big day Tuesday. My next assignment was to take a photo in the middle building of the three towards the left of the photo above. After I had finished my work there I was told I could go to the 25th floor if I wanted to see the view. I didn’t need any more encouragement and so the 4 photos below are what I took in the fading light of that day.

In the photo above you can actually see where I work.

The cat has been so chummy of late. She has slept in our bed, taking up a little more bed-real-estate than she should, every night since she was allowed outside un-supervised. I woke sometime this morning and turned on the lamp and took this snap. Note the time on the clock.

This is GOMA. As I was saying before I genuinely like the architecture of Brisbane’s newer buildings which echo our suburban homes from 100 years ago. It’s almost like a bigger version of where our humble Auchenflower home. I also like how there is a plane in this photo. Anyone, including professional photographers, will tell you if you take a photo and there’s sky in the photo, having a plane there just makes it all about 50 times better.

After my ride today – only 55kms – I felt pretty sore and started to worry that 200k ride had damaged my legs too much to recover in time for next weekend. But I tend to worry. In saying that I put on my compression tights – which aid blood flow and apparently speed up recovery. Dee kept singing “Under Compression” like she was singing “Under Pressure” every time she saw me.

Weird, prehistoric-looking flowers I have never seen before have popped up in the front yard. I like them! (Mostly cause they are red).

VINCENT STREET 2011/2012

Today I thought I’d take a few “After the floods” photos. Apologies for the poor (small) quality of the older photos, I lost the full versions when I lost my camera in London. (another story)