A year and a half ago I got 76% in the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) exam the required pass level is 70%
I just got 85% J
I felt whilst taking the exam I was heading for the 90% area. I can’t believe in a year and a half I only know my VMware infrastructure 9% better, goes to show how little real world problems and thinking are applied to the exam more remembering specific information. I’d love to see a VMware design type exam where real world skills could be used more J
I have just realised I joined the Aussie Elise’s forum one year ago on the 22-October 06 and I thought I would remember my Lotus ownership expericen since then with the fun I’ve had since that date.
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I ordered the new Elise R 12 months ago from Jayson at Rick D’s after a long decision on wether I actually needed a sports car or to go for a sensible car. In the end after a few persuasive comments from my lovely other half and even from my parents in the UK who loaned me a bit of the money they said “to enjoy myself while I was still young†and “to go for it sonâ€
I went to Rick D’s and very nervous I put down my deposit for a $120k+ car and started the wait…….
Jayson handed me on a piece of scrap paper the words aussieelises.com and told me ‘if im into the internet I should check it out’. Well being in the IT industry I thought I would, and I found myself a wealth of knowledge and information at hand.
My car didn’t take the 3 months of build and shipping as expected but in fact 6 months, but during that time I was hanging out on the forum not posting at all but really watching and learning about what I was to expect in owning one of these cars.
During the wait the long term forum member and owner of a Blue Exige Cup 240, Rob240 contacted me by private message and through conversation we became friends along with many other forum members who made contact and gave me much advice which I was very grateful for and which proved very useful for the future.
Lotus apologised for the extended wait of the car during the build process and sent me on a track day on Eastern Creek in a Lotus Exige S where I met Rob in person and Mat (found on the forum also) who taught me how amazing the car is and how amazing a driver he is with hsi racing experince of many years 
So 6 months in and the car arrives. I got a call from Jayson to come pick it up tomorrow. I rush down with the misses and in Rick D’s storage area, fresh from the factory in Hethel UK is the car of my dreams all new and shiny and waiting there for me.
Over the next 6 months I have been enjoying a Burrows Drive Day at Sydney Eastern Creek racetrack every 2 months along with meeting up with some of the guys on the forum for drinks and thoroughly enjoying the ownership of a modern Lotus.
It has given me no technical problems, has returned a great Km per litre compared to most other cars on Aussie roads and has given me so many enjoyable drives on the country roads surrounding Sydney, especially the Royal National Park, the Putty road up to the Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains Bells line of road.
Everyone I meet when with the car just wants to talk about the car, its design, its look, its uniqueness. I offer for them to have a sit in it and to explore its features with me and it makes there day it seems
So now we lead to today where I have been a member of the forum for 12 months now signing up on the 22-October 06, and I have gained so much enjoyment with participating in the postings online I have decided in becoming a forum sponsor, effectively paying for my involvement in it’s great worthwhile online AU based community. I have signed up to join the large forum members trip organised by forum member Ashton and others in November and generally look forwards to hanging out with the fun and friendly Lotus ownership community they seem to have here in Australia in the future.
Overall I just wanted to say that after one year of ownership I am glad I have purchased a Lotus car with the fun it has given me, im grateful in all the help everyone on the forum has provided and I am glad in finding such a great online community and with my family for helping me. 
Last weekend was a long weekend in the NSW state Australia so Sanna and I booked a holiday away somewhere hot and tropicial but not international so it was cheaper. Sanna was up in Brisbane for work for the late part of the week so I flew up on Friday night to meet up with her in Noosa just 1 hours drive South West to the coast.
In the morning we left our hotel in Noosa and drove to Fraser island which is 1 hours drive north. Fraser island is famous for being made totally of sand. There is no rock on the island at all, all the plants and tree’s roots hold the island together to stop it from falling apart and washing into the sea.
As soon as we got there we went for a walk to a lovely lake, it was very hot near to the 30’s, coming out of winter this felt really hot to us.
There were some huge sand dunes like small deserts patched around the island. This long stretch fo sand led to a beautiful lagoon.
The lagoon was just truely beautiful, one side huge sands and the other a forest of tree’s.
lovely photo I took as we walked away from the lagoon in the middle of the desert looking back.
A little bit of paradise all around
Surveying the path beyond
Here are some of the locals pushing their truck through one of the deep sand channels. Unfortunatly this channel was one of the main routes across the island so they had to use it and everyone was getting stuck, very funny to watch.
A major landmark of Fraser Island is the shipwreck of the S.S. Maheno. The S.S. Maheno was originally built in 1905 in Scotland as a luxury passenger ship for trans-Tasman crossings.
The wreck was very interesting to wander around, time had eroded it very well, it was once a very large ship.
We spotted a dingo whilst driving along the beach, they were very common at around 2000 on the island at their peak, but there were a few attacks on humans and so the government made a huge issue of it and they were culled down to now a figure of just 200.
Day 1 was over and We started day 2 after breakfast with a short 20 minute flight over the island and the sea to spot some marine wildlife.
Look there’s the lagoon we walked to and had a swim in on day 1, looks just as beautiful form up here.
These plants are called Antler ferms and they are plant parasites that stick to the tree from a seed carried on the wind. They grow in this shape collecting any leaves or small bugs that drop from the tree and consume it for food. If you look carefully you’ll even see it has legs!
What out killer dingos about!
The only way to get about the island is via a series of sandy tracks through the middle of the island. These are VERY rough and play havoc with the suspension of the 4WD’s as you drive about the island.
I had good fun sitting up the front of the 4WD tour bus talking to the driver as we were drivng down the bumpy dirt tracks.
Driving along the beach for endless kilometres, the beach is the fastest way to get around the island as opposed to driving on the inland tracks.
On the third day we left Fraser Island and drove an hour South to the coast front town of Noosa. We deceided to hire bikes for the day to explore the coast and town.
On the cliffs walk we spotted a some dolphins.
This is a view of Noosa from a lookout we cycled up to.
A lovely holiday, very relaxing and felt worlds away from Sydney and was really good fun 🙂
Here’s a short video of flatmate Damien the crazy Frenchie hunting down moths in our Sydney apartment Mothbuster style!
The last week there’s been hundreds of months attacking our apartment it seems, some crazy moth mating season or something. Damien has been having great fun every evening ridding the apartment of months with his moth busting vacume cleaner! Cleaning time has never been so much fun for Damien 🙂
It was my 2nd ever track day yesterday and I was back at Eastern Creek Sydney again for another very well run Burrows Drive Day affair where the rich get to play with their toys.
As it was my 2nd time on the Eastern Creek track I opted to try and jump into the intermediates group for which I was accepted which was good. I knew the track in my head a bit this time, and being in the intermediate group I was allowed to get to the pits and warm up the car after just 20 minutes of safety briefings this time.
There were a few Lotus club people that came, with Rob and his Blue Lotus Exige Cup 240, James in his Red 8 year old 111s Elise, Angelo (my new dentist) bringing his Lotus Sport Exige GT3 car that he’s currently mid championship with for the 2007 Australian GT championship and lastly Mal with his Black Lotus Elise (not sure exactly what model).
The weather held out well all day with just enough cloud cover to stop it getting uncomfortably hot but enough to make the track surface hot enough to help the tyres start to melt for grip nicely.
During the day one of the best Lotus drivers in Australia maybe even the world currently, Dean Evans drove me in my own Lotus Elise, he’s a great driver and after near 10 laps of tuition of me in the driver’s seat he got me to shave around 4 seconds off my lap time! Here’s the now famous video on YouTube of Dean racing in the Elise Trophy that’s been all over the internet in circles.
Another highlight of the day was for me and my friend Rob to take the keys to a brand new Black Porsche GT3 (one of his friends) for a few km’s drive outside of the racetrack. We were on public roads so we couldn’t experience what it was capable of really but needless to say its power was almost brutal being the fastest naturally aspirated production Porsche ever created. It would be a dream of mine to experince this car in a proper situation some time and a dream to own one, one day.
In the pit garages, Rob’s lovely Blue Lotus Exige 240 Cup in the forground checking oil/water levels e.t.c before we go out on the track for our first session. Note the large dice, I think these are an extra 10 hp for Rob’s car im sure!
My Elise in the foreground with James and his Red Elise and Angelo Lotus Sport Exige GT3 in the background
James and Rob getting to know each other.
The inside of Angelo’s Exige GT3, built purely to win a GT championship in which it did in the UK 2006 GT championships.
A close-up of the cramped drivers cockpit area and large drivers LCD display
My favourite and dream car of now in my favourite colour, the Porsche GT3 RS, unfortunately for me new for new price its nearly 3 times the cost of my car also 🙁
I can’t get enough of this car, when I’m bored on the internet I just read up pages on this car.
From all design perspectives it is just the perfect offering of a track car from Porsche’s motorsport division
Cars cooling off in-between sessions, time for water and a discussion for the drivers.
Of course Ferrari were very well represented again, with 6 owners bringing their cars this time.
A stunning Lamborghini Murcielago was also there with its owner
Always a very menacing looking car. I’d have one over a Ferrari any day by choice.
Yes ‘Sidney’ that’s what president Bush called our city last week in his US press statement.
It was all down to APEC, if your outside the Asia Pacific area you probably haven’t heard of it but its the equivalent of the UN in a lot of ways just for our side of the planet. APEC stands for Asia Pacific Economic Community.
It’s a week where all the Asia Pacific area world leaders come to one conference to talk about economic issues and to form deals between the countries. This year 21 world leaders were in attendance with the 3 biggest being the US president , the Chinese president and the Russian president.
To say there was extra security in place in the city was an understatement, for days the city has been in LOCKDOWN. As you can imagine Mr Bush brought 1000 support staff with him, that’s an actual figure, 250 of those were CIA security specialists, even his own snipers were brought inot the country. The Americans were the only allowed country to bring their OWN weapons into the country. The Russian’s asked for permission but were denied.
A photo of Police blocking off main streets into the CBD with riot ready police buses
Police buses filled with police ready to go if riots started up, this is taken on Park st right next to Town Hall.
All Bins were taped up for a week leaving people to put rubbish on top of or by the side of the bins.
A look into the restricted zone in the citys CBD.
A sign showing the seriousness of trying to enter the restricted zone
The Opera house in lockdown as 21 of the world’s leaders are inside discussing their issues between countries. All the tourists that come to see the famous landmark were just greeted by 3 meter tall steel fences and armed police.
Some of the peaceful protesters, a group of Chinese protestors and a police sergeant discussing with their leader what there plans were to do and urging them not to block the entry/exit of any APEC delegates.
I knew they were around but it took me an hour to find a sniper. This one I spotted was on the roof of the InterContinental Hotel, the Hotel US president bush was staying in, could of quite possibly been a US brought in sniper.
Lockdown central, all the fences keeping us the public away from anywhere near any APEC officials and goings on.
A helicopter hovering over head with a sniper sitting on the door ledge. A helicopter was in the air all day and all night for the entire duration of APEC, that’s a lot of tax paid fuel to keep it in the air.
Australian Army members manning the security checkpoints scanning cars on ramps for bombs and other devices as they drove around the city.
Well it was a long way but a motorbike and one of your best mates and your favourite sports car makes for a good days blast through the Australian countryside and what a blast it was, here’s the summery:
Here are the photos from Saturday’s road trip with AC to the Hunter valley and back in a day. He was on his bike he’s had for 5 months now and I was in the Lotus. We left at 8am and arrived back home after dark at 6:30pm. It was a long day of hard driving and we covered 520km in one day. We visited a couple of vineyards, we bought some wine and visited the Hunter valley olive centre and bought some Olives and some Jam for Sanna. We stopped at some quiet places on the way and met a few of the locals. We arrived home very tired, I fell asleep with the TV on in bed at half 9 but it was worth it.
Keep on trucking, were getting the km’s under the wheels now, long straight roads for many km’s followed by twisty sections for many km’s.
A quick stop to stretch the legs were needed quite often.
Cruising along at a nice 60kph, time to look around.
Ah Broke the south West gateway to the Hunter Valley as we come to a rest from driving the lovely ‘Putty road’ famous for being one of the best driving roads in the Sydney region.
Lots of fatalities on the front of the car from driving at high speed for many hours, but they were fun hours and we saw lots of different roads and sights, oh there were some vineyards along the way and the bottles of wine made it in one piece in the small boot back safely too.
Next trip we made a plan to do the south coast roads, Wollongong and beyond, date TBA.
Hi yah all,
Sanna and I made longish road trip out into the countryside past the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney. We covered 660km’s in 2 days, I drove 550km’s of that and was great fun getting a good distance run in the car. We were battered by wind and rainstorms as winter in Sydney is starting to say its goodbyes and the car stood up well and got us home warm and safely.
I met up with Ben from the Lotus Elise’s forum on-line who arranged some cheap accommodation, when I say cheap it wasn’t rubbish, far from it, it was a 2 floor, sleeps 5-6, really nice huge apartment (huge by Sydney standards) for half price. He arranged for me to have secure parking underground for the car for the night too. He had a lovely Yellow Elise 111S model. 5 years difference between his Lotus Elise and mine but from the outside you just wouldn’t know. It’s a tribute to cars design when they don’t change it or change very little over the years, just like the Porsche 911, refined for over 20 years now.
Bathurst is famous for its racetrack being the biggest and most famous in all of Australia’s motor racing history. Although its hours and hours drive from Sydney and days drive from anywhere else, people drive there in their 1000’s during the V8 Supercars race season known as the Bathurst 1000.
Here we took to the track as normally it is a 2 way public road limited to 60kph. The police check the straights for speeding but never the twisty upper ‘mountain’ section where we had some fun.
As I took Ben around in my car to see the difference 5 years of design improvements can make to a car, Sanna drove his car, she said it was VERY nosey, which it was as it was fitted with a special exhaust from Europe, made mine sound like a Mini Metro with its standard exhaust!
In Big W (that’s Woolworths in the UK) we found Sanna’s model of the family, her niece Basima, she did some modelling for big W and is in all their stores and in the catalogue too, good on her, but I think the one of the left is cute’r ïŠ
The last highlight was that Ben who I had never met in person before said that he found out that the new Porsche GT3 RS is my current dream car and being his family is in the picture/art business he framed up a lovely photo for me for a surprise and gave it to me as a present, I was really chuffed!
Me Troyski and Damien aka ‘Super Frenchie’ went for a bush walk South of Sydney a long way from anybody on Sunday. We went to a part of the trails were it seems there were really not any other walkers. We walked for 7 hours and only saw about 4 people in total on the bush trails.
Near the beginning we found a huge pipe that seemed to lead on for a long distance so Troy suggested we carry out part of his family tradition of what him and his dad used to do of ‘Pipeing’ the Rose way!
Basically you find a pipe somewhere in the countryside and walk along it and follow it for Km’s. So a bushwalk turned into a pipeing adventure. Damien wasn’t impressed with walking along the pipe for km’s with his half metal leg so he stuck to the bush track. The pipe went forever, eventually ending at a dam.
Bush wacking super frenchie posing with the pipe
Ninja Troyski on the pipe
We ended up at a dam and this impressive bit of human construction or should I say digging was the emergency water runoff for the dam, this thing was cut SO deep into the ground, must of taken a hell of a lot of explosive to make.
We found a big mirror at the dam so had some fun 🙂
and some more fun
and some more fun
its amazing how much fun you can have with a mirror 🙂
at the end it got very dark QUICKLY and we got lost BADLY, in the very end we staggered up a hill and onto a road, we were saved, back to humanity!
We found the nearest train station and sat down and waited for out train, very tired after 8 hours out in the bush in the winter time.
Sannas moving on from Nestle after 3 and a half years to her new postion with World Kitchen Australia and to celebrate she had a leaving party at the London hotel in Paddington.
The theme was super heroes and Action heroes, here was the invitation:
Batgirl and Super Frenchie!
Huw the Dirty lifeguard on the deck!
Lara Croft, Mick Dundee and Super Geek in the background tryign to get in a photo to show he has friends.
‘Ask a Ninja’ and Batgirl and Spiderman
2 characters from Xmen
Catwomen and Cathy and Kevin
Clark Kent and Spiderman and Batgirl
Super geek on the decks!
Super Frenchie playing pool with his baguette, which he then ate.
Super heros ready for action!
Girl power!
