I’ve been down and I’m wondering why these little black clouds keep walking around with me.

hmm.

Have you ever noticed that when a cow starts looking at you it stops chewing. Then slowly starts chewing again with really long exaggerated chews? I find it hilarious. I think they are doing on purpose. The crafty swines… err bovines.
Cows, and bulls in particular are one animal whose vocal noises do not match their physical appearance. That moo, must be heartbreaking for those massive horned muscular beasts…
Maybe thats why they just sit in a paddock and eat salad rather that taking over the world….
Yeah, thats why. Have a good Thursday.

I return to Melbourne on Saturday from two weeks in Mackay.

I never want to see sugarcane again for a long time

I have flown over at least 1 million of these in the helicopters this last fortnight. I will now be ordering my coffee without sugar.
Although these pic’s are pretty.. click here

Okay, this will be a familiar story for each and every one of you readers. Although the subject may change, essentially the central theme will somewhat be constant.
Tonight I wandered out of my humble little hotel room in Mackay (North QLD), and ventured out to do some laundry. The need was dire, considering I was somewhat unsupported beneath my trousers and due to these being skinny jeans, this could lead to damage. So I shuffled over to the laundromat, which just quietly, is NOTHING like the ones in the movies.
So I did my washing and threw it all in the dryer… EXCEPT one tshirt, a very special one that I didn’t want to be put through the rigours of the tumble dryer. So I pinched two pegs from the clothesline and wandered back to my room. Now SOMEHOW in the short distance between my front door and my bedroom, I lost a peg.
While this may not be an issue to most people, it was to me. I needed that peg. I chose that peg. I wanted THAT peg. So I looked for it. I looked for 2 hours. My hotel room is far from big. In-fact it is made up of two rooms. The fact I couldn’t find it, made me very annoyed. What had I done wrong to lose this peg. WHY did this higher power find it comical, to hide not both pegs, just ONE. I refused to go and get another, as I wanted that peg.

I must digress for fear of losing the reader at this point, but there is a point to this story.
I find it quite interesting about the human mind that we can find something that essentially may seem replaceable, not realise it’s worth, do something stupid and lose it…. then go to extremes to get it back. Sometimes, you have to give up and learn from it, other times if you do get that chance to get it back. Never let it go.

Ps. I found the peg in the morning. It fell in my camera bag.

(Whilst I have clearly written this little post and personified a peg, the statement is based on a material object and must be rewritten in your head if applying this to a person, I do not think of people as objects, but if I wrote it that way it wouldn’t make sense)

It has been a crazy few weeks for me. Three of the biggest people in my life have all left and moved away. Constants became variables. Routine and the norm became unusual and unpredictable.
For all my life I’ve talked to myself and thought a lot. Over-thought I feel, I often tend to think far too much.
Lately the cacophony of voices in my head and thoughts was all but overwhelmed by the constant changing going on around me, with loved ones leaving and being so incredibly busy with work and my career.
This weekend I started to slow down and attempt decipher all of these thoughts. I thought my head would explode.
But a beautiful quote came back to me this morning. I was once told something during a moment of despair when I was 19/20 living in Italy with $17 in my bank account. A very old American track coach saw me with my head in my hands and told me “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”. I later found out whilst this kind gentleman had given me motivation to keep going it was a clear plagiarism of the amazing Albert Einstein.
I think we need to remind ourselves sometimes, that life is full of little tests. Tests to see the power of your spirit, your ability, your faith and of course your love. They will often throw you off balance, but as long as you don’t let it completely halt your momentum, you can get back on track by just going through the motions and keep moving forward.
You can’t dwell on the past.

“Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need”

- Voltaire

This is a shot of me working in North Queensland. You get a whole new perspective on the world from this angle. The world we live in suddenly becomes smaller, yet the world around us suddenly becomes bigger. Apply that to your particular little bubble of existence and you realise that we really are minuscule in relation to the world. It’s humbling, calming and provokes a lot of thought!
I am extremely lucky that work can take me to places like this, although I work hard, it truly is amazing to be distracted by the world by sights like these… oh and these

Early yesterday, bleary eyed I trudged down from my hotel to for another early flight. I happened to see an amazing butterfly, just chilling by the elevator.

Now all day I thought about the butterflies. What an odd creature, the metamorphosis of this stunning insect from a hairy little bugger into a beautiful colourful flying creature is something that bewilders me.
A caterpillar is not an elegant insect, infact when insects were made I can imagine the caterpillar’s reaction when he looked in the mirror. Its little hairy green face would full of disappointment, the poor thing would have been gutted to see all the cool insects.

From a masculinity perspective, the caterpillar looks at the other insects. It sees ants, with their enormous power to weight ratio; cockroaches, the armoured car of the insect world; and of course the spider. Come on, 8 legs, fangs and venom.

So… the caterpillar thinks… “hey maybe, I’m the effeminate critter of the insect world”.
I have no hesitation in saying that it would have been said with a lisp.
The caterpillar would then glance around at some feminine insects, like the ladybug, beautiful harmless little creature; the queen bee, the Julia Gillard of the bumble bees, although more of a yellow rather than an orange tinge; and of course the dragon fly, the geisha of insect air travellers.

So the caterpillar wanders off to be, well. A caterpillar, and to do… umm… look. its a caterpillar.
Then after what seems like a lifetime to our furry friend, it is at its wits end. Its life of listening to the Dido cd on repeat and watching romantic comedies alone on its little caterpillar dvd player in its little furry apartment was bordering on unbearable. Its life of mediocrity as an insect was eating at its existence.
Then, a commercial came on. It was for snuggies. As it was a bit cold, our caterpillar friend was pretty keen to know more so it kept watching. After whacking it on his Mastercard, the caterpillar eagerly watched its mailbox.

A few days later the package arrived, and it snuggled up in its snuggie, and wrapped himself up. Like a little cocoon. It dreamed of a life far from mediocrity, it knew it had more in its life than to be, not only an uncool insect, but scary, furry, with beady red eyes and most importantly not achieving its potential.
The little caterpillar’s thoughts were exhausting it. So it shut its eyes. When it awoke, it yawned. Stretched its legs. Rubbed its eyes. Farted. Then scratched its wings. Wait… its wings. Thats right it had transformed into a beautiful butterfly, the most beautiful of all insects. It could now fly around and make little kids smile and squeal. It would be a symbol of beauty. Hell if it was arrogant it could tease all the other insects and play ‘I’m too sexy” by Right Said Fred, on its little insect ipod.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is. You never see change. Time makes it happen before you know it.

The difference between our furry friend and us is, that the capacity to change the perception you have of yourself isn’t to dwell on physical obstacles, you can change your perception of yourself by changing how you act and going for what you want.

DISCLAIMER: Nic does not endorse purchasing a snuggie to make you look like Miranda Kerr or Johnny Depp. But it will keep you warm.

Don’t forget to check out the photoblog and portfolio… this is updated regularly also.

So I’m working in the Whitsundays and watched the Australia versus Ghana game surrounded by a mixture of tattooed locals, and British backpackers.

I came to realise how ‘football’ has idiosyncrasies that are common with my life and life in general.

Now i’m not a football fanatic, and let’s be honest, before Australia made the 06 World Cup it was called soccer, and it was played by wogs that couldn’t play AFL. Bandwagon anyone?

The juxtaposition of emotions are similar, when you are up, you rise to the highest of highs, and when you are down you can sink into the lowest of lows.

Both are a mixture of chance, skill, strength and also unfortunately can be heavily dependant on someone else’s decisions.

You can be loved or hated in a matter of seconds, and forgotten about in the blink of an eye.

But… the most interesting idiosyncrasy however between life and soccer is how everything can change in the blink of an eye. A red card, a goal in the last minute, an injury or a fumble and a goal…your world can change just like that.

You can look at this in a pessimistic way and dwell on the negatives, or you could view it in a positive way. When you are up ride it, and try and make the most of it, and when you are down just think, score that sneaky goal, or just play hard and something could happen that will change your life.

So, since my last update much has happened in my world. I said I’d enforce changes so I have….

Only one of which I’ll mention at this stage….

I am penning these thoughts perched in the penthouse of a resort in Airlie Beach.

On a whim I took a contract here with my lovely housemate David Higgs from Snapt Photography. Our task, to take and process hi resolution, geo-tagged images of power infrastructure, this is so the energy companies in Queensland can zoom in and check for damages.

BUT… we are taking these images from moving helicopters, whilst strapped to the outside, with a $28,000 camera.

This is a big change from the norm, of my stale white walled office, but I feel like i have a new lease on life.

I’ll continue to update images and my thoughts now I am settled into this new role… I’ll be based between Melbourne and Queensland…

A maybetmrw reader contacted me yesterday who enjoyed my writing and at the end of the correspondence told me…

Live in the moment – it’s the only guarantee.

I think that I’m beginning to do that.

Watch this space.