Note to Self: Card locked!

The last couple of weeks have flown by, relatively unchecked. You see, I thought my camera was broken. 'Card locked!' it screamed at me every time I tried to use it, even after my repeated attempts to fix it by turning it off and on again. So I worked at Golden Plains and only managed a few iphone photos - which frankly, don't cut it.

It's not as if there wasn't stuff to take photos of. For instance, when Beci and I had a few drinks and went on the ferris wheel.

We were seated in a carriage thing with these two, Mel (I think!?) and Jamie, he of Architecture in Helsinki fame (the band). They were really nice, big fans of Raph's burgers and even had bought some of my jeans! We had so much in common! We stalked them for a while afterwards.

Good view of the place from that ferris wheel.

Closer view of the stage while Os Mutantes played. They were pretty good, but it did seem like they were a bunch of session musicians playing Os Mutantes songs. That's what my friend Jamie from Architecture in Helsinki thought anyway, and I agreed with him.

The vast majority of my time was, of course, spent working in the Beatbox. We killed it.

I was tired for a whole week after that. Then one day, I was lamenting to Scottie about my camera's 'Card locked!' horror story when he grabbed it, flicked a tiny switch on the memory card and made it work again. 'Amateur move, Maxi'.

Hallelujah! I could take photos at my work's national conference day at our new office in Collingwood! This is the crowd giving Penny and I their undivided attention as we launch into our talk.

Penny gave a great, impassioned talk on writing, which everyone asked for notes on afterwards. 'Tell it, don't sell it' and 'think of the third thing' were amongst the inspirational highlights. I gave a talk about taking photos of a grey bag, which was slightly less awe-inspiring.

After we finished up with the talking and the listening, we started on the drinking and the skating.

Penny was really into it!

Here's a letter from Bob Hawke's secretary after a young Penny suggested Australia and the rest of the world would function better without money.

Scottie came along to our dinner, where we sampled a cocktail called the 'Karate Kid'.

Here's Rachel, putting on some lipstick, or lip balm perhaps.

The night culminated at our very own karaoke room, where Frunch had dressed as Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Barrie dressed as himself. I had never sung karaoke before, and kicked it off with a duet with Scottie of 'Be with you' by Mr Big.

Penny is quite the consummate karaoke pro, with impressive performances of several numbers throughout the evening. The crowd loved her 'Livin' on a Prayer'.

This is Alex from Sydney, a great chap. Not to be confused with Alex from Melbourne.

Kane was also a very impressive performer. There's Wilfred in the background, and the other Max, the one who knows about money.

It was our Alex's goodbye night from work, as he's off to New York to live, the bastard!

Another karaoke pro, Rosie gave a beautiful, ego-warming rendition of 'Stand by your man', though she complained the version they had was in a different key to the original.