Ben Galt

Australia day was a few weeks ago now, which makes this post a tad belated, however better late than never I say. The video below tells the weekends story better than I can. Enjoy!

As another year disappears into the history books, the birth of a fresh one spawns new memories of yet another awesome holiday. This year it was Merimbula, a small beachy town on the far east coast of Australia where the hustle and bustle of festive families were a plenty.

Now I’m not going to bore you with all the minute details of where I went and what I did, however I will share some of them, despite the fact they may seem lame or insignificant.

The first marks a new record for me… The biggest salmon I’ve landed to date. But before you get all excited I can’t tell you how much it actually weighed, though it easily dwarfed all my previous catches. I had a conservative guess at about 1.5kg.

Following the climax of catching that massive salmon was the anti-climax of eating the smallest flake fillet I’ve ever seen. This poor excuse for a fillet was not only small but it was expensive and far from fresh. Not quite what I expected from a supposedly premium coastal Fish and Chip shop. Let it be said though, that I don’t mind paying good money for quality, however sadly, this was far from it. You can see below it more resembles a fish finger than a fillet.

(The Coke bottle is 600ml)

Nevertheless this didn’t hinder my vacation one bit. Nor did getting seasick on a charter boat or breaking a chair leg and falling over like a retard.

Merimbula was a beautiful town filled with friendly locals, plenty to see and do, and was a great place to have a break. However not all credit can be given to the place we stayed as where you go is only a small part of what makes up the total experience, the rest goes to the company. I have to give extra special thanks to Luke, Webley, Ayman, Beth and Orch for making it one to remember.

Cheers guys!

After 7 hours of bucks party shenanigans last Friday night, I found myself in the company of a fellow handyman (Liam), standing next to my car soaking wet, trying to answer the question, which window will be the cheapest to replace?

How did this come about? Well, I locked my freakin keys in it. An honest mistake though, one that many have made before. However this is not your everyday, run of the mill keys in the car mishap. I managed to go one up. I locked the spare key in there too, AND I left the interior light on.

In case you hadn’t realised, I’m skilled!

After an hour and a half of cramming everything from box strapping tape to kitchen utensils between the rubber seals of every possible gap, it was very clear that the Hilux fortress was impenetrable. It also didn’t help that the worst rain Melbourne has seen all year decided to join us. The inevitable was now obvious, brute force was the only way in.

With force the only option, the obvious question arose, which window would be the cheapest to replace. Upon reflection of my previous car (a Morris mini) I took an educated guess that the quarter vents would probably be the rarest and most expensive. Confident with my decision I put a neighbors retaining wall rock through the rear passenger side window, a logical choice I thought. However as Murphy’s Law would have it, that was the most expensive window, and the only one that no window repairers had in stock. Thanks Murphy!

You might ask why I didn’t call the RACV, well im not a member. You might also ask why I didn’t call a family member to bring a spare, truth is I didn’t think they had one. But alas Murphy’s law strikes again… Turns out dad did indeed have one on his key chain. Arrgggh!

So was there a lesson learned?

I think I’d have to say I yes, given that the next day I went and got 3 spares keys cut and gave one each to the rest of my family!

Ok, so my previous video hasn’t proven to be a crowd pleaser. Matt and Callum, your kind words seem to follow a common trend. I guess it’s an acquired taste… haha!

You may well find this one more entertaining. The pain and retardation of others has long been a cheek tweaker. So enjoy!

Sunday night I returned home to my humble sanctuary only to receive an unpleasant surprise. My bedroom had a lingering odor which reminded me of a pooh-ey nappy. But how could this be? My niece hadn’t been over that day and all of my shoes had clean soles… Something was amiss!

After eliminating all the possible culprits I remembered that only a week earlier I had heard the scratching of tiny claws in the roof. As I connected the dots it became clear… A pesky rodent had gone and karked it in the most inconvenient place possible, the roof of my bedroom. By the time I figured out what had happened I was too tired to deal with it. So off to bed I went.

The following night, what had started out as a bad smell, was now a nauseating slap in the face, and something had to be done. So into the laundry and up the manhole I went with a bag in one hand and a torch in the other. After 15 minutes of crawling around in awkward positions, and still no sign of it, I was beginning to lose hope. So I took a breather and mum went up for a girl look. 15 more minutes of searching and the elusive rodent was still nowhere to be found. It had to be there somewhere… Surely!

With newfound determination I ventured back up the ladder to rejoin my mother in search of the source. We weren’t quitting until it was found. Period!

Then, only minutes later I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Over in the corner, in the most difficult place to get to, was the karkus of an expired rat. EUREKA!

Armed with a plastic bag and my limbs at full stretch I was able to secure the culprit. As quickly as possible and with minimal dry-reaching the rat was shown its new home outside in the wheelie bin. Things could now return to normal.

A good team effort mum.

Once again I found myself sitting in a McDonalds restaurant faced with the challenge of devouring an unhealthy amount of chicken nuggets… Thanks Paul!

It’s my own silly fault I guess, I opened my big mouth and reminded everyone of my un-challenged 40 nugget record, which while legitimate and impressive, apparently required confirmation.

So with 40 nuggets staring me down, an audience, and my reputation at stake, I got to work. 10 nuggets down, then another 10… It was all going swimmingly until number 27, it was then that things began to hurt, and in strange places. It became evident very quickly that my stomach simply didn’t have room for 40 nuggets. Maybe I’m not the beast I once was, or maybe it had something to do with the medium cheeseburger meal I smashed prior to accepting the challenge. You decide!

Any which way, 30 nuggets is a valiant effort… trust me, that’s a lot of nuggets!