Megan and I went horse riding on Monday. I am still sore from sitting on the saddle. I can now sympathize at cowboys for walking with their legs wide open. Nearing the end of the ride I almost wanted to jump off and walk back. Megan as usual always gutsy, enjoyed her first ride. I was a bit nervous. I think the horse knew I was nervous as she refused to listen to me. Half way through the ride she decided she wanted to return back home and would not follow my orders. On the way back she and I reached an agreement, that I will not force her and she will take me home safe. worked well!

This is the first time that I have ridden or got so close to a horse. They are taller, stronger and much more adamant than I previously thought. They need to be lead but my horse won the battle and took me for a ride! On the whole I was too nervous to enjoy the ride and was happy to get off the horse!

Megan and I went to Melbourne this weekend for Chinese grocery shopping. It was a quick trip. We bought a lot Chinese stuff and now the freezer is full at home.

While shopping for Chinese tea in one of the shops in China town, I noticed a lady taking pictures with her Nikon D50. She had the 70-300 zoom lens. I had a chat to her and she was very kind to let me have a look at her camera. She’s got quite a few good pictures on flickr. Now that I have seen the 70-300 lens, I am tempted to get one myself.

For some reason I feel this is going to be a fairly expensive hobby I think I need to sel my motorcycle.

Soccer: I personally had a good game. Lasted longer than I usually do and got a lot of ball touch. Scored my first goal of the season but it was ruled offside Anyway it was disappointing to have a draw after leading for a while. Hope to get fitter through the season.

Went soccer training last night after a month long break. I could hear my muscles cry out in pain and I am soar all over today. The season starts on this weekend and I it does not look like I’ll will be fit to play a full match yet, neither do I think my quad injury has cured All through the training yesterday, I was never confident of shooting. I should probably start some strength training and see how I go. I don’t want to strain my quad again. Looking forward to the season.

Yes, I am not a big fan of him, just because with his skilful bowling comes a lot of arrogance, sledging, doping . . . . . .

This is not the end of him though. He is joining the Channel Nine’s commentary team.
So even after he has stopped bowling he intends to keep doing the rest of the things I hate about him

Edit: Here is an article about Monty’s enthusiasm and Warn’s arrogance

I know India and South Africa are playing cricket but here in Australia the Ashes are on which looks like Australia will win. I am starting to enjoy watching Monty Panesar. It’s refreshing to see someone like him enjoy the game and let his bowling do the talking. Arrogance is such a turn of in sports, so I am not big fan of sledging.

After watching the Ashes telecast last night, I watched a bit of India vs South Africa on Fox Sports. I was disappointed to see Andre Nel sledging and Sreesanth’s ludicrously reacting after hitting Nel for a six. I thought the teams from the subcontinent where not as bad, but I guess I was wrong. Whatever happened to Cricket being called the gentleman’s game? I guess umpires should be given enough authority to give players something like yellow/red card (like in soccer) to punish these players. So the team suffers immediately for the antics of these players, instead of slapping them with a fine later on. They could also telecast what players say on the field on TV, so I know which player to hate more.

On Saturday I hit double digits by completing a 11km run. I am not sure if I have done this long a run before, as I have never bothered to measure it during my college days. In the last 4 weeks of running every day, I have done one 7km run (three weeks ago). It seems an average distance a soccer player runs is around 10kms during a game. This should be a good measuring stick for me to improve on the time taken to run 11kms. I mapped my run on MapMyRun – A free web site which uses Google maps to map runs!

Megan and I have been running for the past three weeks or so. Megan has been out for a week after she got sick. I reckon, I am getting better at it. I do a 3.5km run everyday and on the weekend try and do a 7km run. I have lost around 1.5kg! during this time. Megan is so impressed that she is going to set herself a goal to loose some weight before she goes back home to Thailand.

Bought myself some running gear: two singlets, two shorts and a pair of running shoes!

Got to do something about thigh chafing Doesn’t feel very good when I have to stop running because of chafing. Have been reading up on the Internet and it looks like it is a common problem among runner/walkers. Some suggest using Vaseline. I will probably try wearing tights and see if that helps.

Soccer worlcup has disturbed my biological clock. My pets Henry and Lama have been very supportive, they try and watch as much of the match as possible with me! Although henry feels a bit cold at night and needs to rug up.

Last week I went fishing for the first time. It was rather interesting to walk up the river throwing lures, although I did not catch any fish and lost my mates lure . We caught one but it was too small and had to let it back into the river. Last Friday we went fishing again but this time to a small lake. It was four of us and all we did was throw in the bait, rest the fishing rod on a branch and drink beer! The rods had bells on the top end of them so we could hear it getting pulled by the fish. I caught one fish! This was my first fish I had ever caught. I was not impressed that the fish was not worth eating and it was illegal to put it back into the lake, so we had to kill it Fishing ended when we had almost no more beer and just as we where ready to pack and leave we got attacked by swarm of mosquitoes. They where biting everywhere, It was like they where waiting for a perfect time to attack us. Anyway I am planning to go fishing more often, though I am not very comfortable with piercing live worms for bait.

At last Australia qualifies for the world cup after 32 years and heads to Germany. I was quit impressed by the game and the support shown by the fans. The game was dominated by the Socceroos and the pressure was intensified in the second half. May be the Socceroos coach Guus Hiddink (with his Dutch accent) politely reminded the Socceroos that its do or die time. It was disappointing to see Mark Viduka under perform on home turf unlike his brilliant game at Montevideo, on the other hand Harry Kewell who looked out of the game in Montevideo had a brilliant performance last night. I would have preferred the match be won on field goals rather than penalty shots but then the better team won, so it was all fair. The game was fun to watch except the booing of the Uruguayan national anthem. I am not sure if this was the same in Montevideo but irrespective of where it happens it is shame should be condemned. I always love watching the national anthem being sung. It kind of shows the patriotism on the players face.

Anyway now I have two countries to follow during the world cup. Brazil and Australia!