What Regis has been up to

Believe it or not, since we moved here we haven't been on vacation the whole time.  Most of the posts so far have been about short little road trips and what not but that has only made up about 1% of our time here so far.  With Laci starting work this week, I thought it would be fun to show you how I have been spending a good amount of my time.  FULL DISCLOSURE: This is going to be quite nerdy.

To most people the idea of not working for over 3 months seems like a dream.  I can't believe I'm saying this but I cannot wait to start working.  I am actually jealous of Laci being at work right now.  You might be thinking, "didn't you accept a job a month ago".  You would be right, but HR being HR has still yet to process my offer and thus I won't start work until Monday the 13th at the earliest.  

So in my vast amount of free time I have been doing the usual things like running, long boarding on the beach esplanade, going out with friends and so on.  Thats not what I'm going to discuss in this post.  What I am going to talk about are the various projects I have taken up due to my boredom and just the fact that as an engineer I get pleasure from engineering shit.  So far I have taken on two large projects;

1) Designing and building a Sim Racing Rig

2) Brewing Beer

To those of you unfamiliar with a Sim Racing Rig its basically a cockpit you sit in with all the normal vehicle controls to play racing games.  You can buy pre made ones, but wheres the fun in that.  For mine I have designed my own steering wheel with a 4.3 in lcd display in it, a fully modular 80/20 aluminum chassis that is fully adjustable and flat packable.  The wheel base, the thing that provides force feedback will be an industrial grade servo motor capable of producing 32Nm of torque (Has the potential to break children's wrists).  And lastly a custom built pc to run it all. 

This project is in its infancy as it is quite large and expensive,  two things that I cannot deal with at the moment but I have some screenshots for those of you who give a shit.

                           

Here is a video of the dash in action when it is all finished

The second project is almost complete.  Beer here is quite expensive, so I have decided to start brewing my own beer.  I have all the required equipment now and the ingredients for my first batch arrived the other day.  The first beer I am going to make is going to be a clone of Wooden Robots "Good Morning Vietnam" which is a vanilla coffee blonde ale.  This just so happens to be Laci's favorite beer from Charlotte.  I plan to make this project its own post but the steps behind it are pretty straight forward.  

  1) heat water

  2) put grain in and wait 1 hour

  3) remove grain

  4) boil water & add hops

  5) cool water

  6) add yeast

  7) wait 2 weeks

  8) bottle

  9) wait 2 more weeks

10) drink

Like I said, I plan to document this process start to finish, so be looking for that post in about a months time.

Im sure the next post will be more of the same from Laci, i.e. cool photos of stuff and things and probably something about her first week of work.  

Check back soonish,

Regis

Laci is Employed; A Celebratory Road Trip Ensues

As of a week ago today, I’m officially employed! So, clearly a celebration was in order for my final week of unemployment, and since Regis should be starting his new position soon as well. This week is also the last official week of summer (the first day of fall here was the first), so with the amazing sunny weather, we decided to re-do the Great Ocean Road. We did a little tour when we were here last year but had cold, rainy weather. It was much more enjoyable this time around. Thanks to Scott for letting us borrow his car! :)

Before I get into that, I’m pretty excited to land a job! I actually started interviewing with this company while we were still in Charlotte – the first time they called me was a little awkward; it was 1am my time because they didn’t realize I hadn’t moved over yet, but we moved past that and I think it will be a pretty good fit for me! I’ll be doing communications and project work for a financial communications company. Is it my dream job? Probably not, but I will have 6 weeks of paid time off per year and it will give me great project management experience. It’s also a huge step in the right direction for me in the fact that my degree will be of somewhat good use since it's in my field - I can sort of justify my huge amount of student loan debt. Haha. To be honest, other than being a travel writer, photographer, or bartender on an island somewhere, I don’t really have a dream job anyway.

So, our road trip! The Great Ocean Road is a 243-kilometer-long road on the Southeastern coast of Australia in Victoria. It starts in Torquay, which is an internationally-renowned location for surfing, and ends in Allansford. For the entire stretch, there are gorgeous views of the forest, the Great Otway National Park, beaches, and windy roads. Regis loves driving on fun roads and I like looking at everything, so it works out pretty well for both of us. There are cute beach towns and breathtaking landmarks every so often, so it's a pretty fun weekend trip. 

Torquay Beach

We started out by driving from the city to Torquay, which takes about an hour and a half. We stayed there overnight in an Airbnb I found the day before (yay, tax return money!). Our parents think we are nuts for staying in random peoples' houses while they're home, but it's pretty interesting and also great if you're on a budget! The host made us breakfast and everything, and it was a really close walk to the beach and restaurants in the area. We ate more seafood than I have ever consumed at a time that evening. It was glorious.

<3

The next morning, we packed up and headed out. We stopped in Apollo Bay for some lunch and a little shopping. We went to a cool little brewpub for lunch and walked around on the beach there, which is really beautiful. We didn't do as much exploring as we could have last year since it was absolutely freezing and we were ill-prepared for the weather, so this was really nice.

Apollo Bay

After that, we continued driving and decided to stop at a wildlife park along the road for some kangaroo and koalas! I was pretty disappointed there weren't any koalas, since the animal sanctuary last year didn't have them either, but there was no shortage of cute animals! We got to hang out with some goats, sheep and wallabies in a petting area, and there were other ones outside of there too. I fed some goats and got chased after by an intimidating emu. Emus terrify me and this one was no joke! He scared me so much I dropped the bag of animal food I was carrying around, then he proceeded to eat all of it. What a jerk!

After that, we drove along the road and checked out a few of the amazing landmarks. We skipped the 12 Apostles, mainly because we saw them last year and because there were about 10 tour buses full of people there that we didn't feel like dealing with. Since we live so close, this trip will probably be a more regular thing for us, so we aren't worried about missing out! We checked out the London Bridge and Bay of Martyrs this time around - two landmarks we missed out on last time since we were in more of a hurry. They did not disappoint - these photos hardly do them justice! We hung out on the beach for awhile and watched some very brave paddle boarders before packing up and driving back to Lorne, where we stayed for the night. 

London Bridge

Bay of Martyrs

We had planned our final day to be our chill beach day, but it was pretty overcast, so after we had some breakfast, we headed to Erskine Falls, which is right outside of Lorne. This was the second waterfall I have ever seen in person and it was so amazing. In our typical fashion, we ignored the "do not climb over the fence" signs so I could get a better photo! 

Erskine Falls

After that, we stopped at a winery before heading home. Victoria, along with many other parts of Australia, is extremely well known for producing great wines. I actually know nothing about wine, other than the fact I like white wine and Regis likes red wine, so going to wineries and doing tastings is pretty fun and informational for both of us. I also had my first spider encounter while exploring the vineyard!

Ugh. :(

All in all, it was a great way to spend some of our last few days of unemployment. I start my new job on Monday and Regis is starting the week after. We probably won't have much time off before the end of the year. Hopefully this inspires a few of our friends to visit! :)

-L