SpunOut Revisited
April 30th, 2008 Matt
Colin has uploaded a 20 minute video of the SpunOut weekend to MySpace. I can’t wait for next year!
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Is that a flaming bicycle?
April 14th, 2008 Matt
I have just got back from a weekend at SpunOut which was absolutely awesome. SpunOut is the annual weekend camp of the Perth Fire Group where we all get together and learn stuff (poi, staff, double staff, diablo, juggling, unicycling etc). This year was the biggest yet with around about 100 people staying for the full weekend.
The weekend started on Friday night with some contact fire (rubbing flaming sticks up and down your arm) and fire eating (sticking said sticks in mouth). The workshop had to be cut short because we set off all the smoke alarms in the building. I think I went to bed about 3am that night, I remember playing LED frisbee in the dark and sitting around the camp fire. I also helped Gnor screen print a heap of T-shirts (with the odd pair of jeans thrown in).
Saturday was the first real day of workshops, I didn’t really take part in many of the workshops, instead I wandered around taking photos (in the end I took about 1700 over the weekend). For me the weekend was more about the environment, atmosphere and most importantly the people. I did attend the excellent fire safety and fire first aid talk.
Saturday finished with the fire show. Basically, anyone who wanted could join in the show and show off what they’d learnt that day (or what they were teaching that day in a few cases). However, the highlight of the fire show was Az and his amazing flaming bicycle. He rode around, wearing only his boxers and a cycle helmet, on a child’s bike with the wheels and handle bars on fire. Later in the show all the performers got up together and Az was riding like a maniac through and around them.
Az on the Fire Bike
The fire show finished with the burning of a little man, which Gnor, Dan and I think Beddy had made from bamboo. Earlier in the day I’d helped Jedly and Angus rig stage pyrotechnics in the man. Angus set fire to the man with his flame thrower and Stu chucked a bucket of fuel over for good measure.
After the show the doof (bush rave) started up with Rusty on the decks. Lots of people played with their fire toys and Angus let a few of us loose with the flame thrower. I also got to ride the flaming bicycle through the dancers and fire twirlers.
Me and the Flame Thrower
Az pulled out his fire soccer ball and a few of us proceeded to play fire soccer. We had a few close calls with Rusty’s DJ gear (for the record I think Az kicked that one), a rather dry looking bush and the underneath of a car in the car park. However, no damage was done. (Steve bought a soccer ball the next day so we need to go down to the beach at some point 
)
By the end of the night we had gone through about 65-70 litres of fuel and ran out. I think I went to bed about 4am that night after dozing around the camp fire.
Sunday morning I had to be up and ready to teach unicycling by 10am. Somehow my name ended up as an instructor along with Colin’s. I spent the hour with the kids while Colin took the adults to the other side of the building.
At some point I spent some time in the chill-out zone watching Tarra and Mark trying to poke each other with sticks. This involved gathering sticks (without leaving the hammock) and tying them together with bits of string pulled out of the carpet. It took about 90mins for Mark to finally win by poking Tarra (although it was very close). I also wandered down to the lake with Gnor and a few others. Gnor and I sat for about an hour watching as the others went canoeing.
Other events on the Sunday included the water balloon fight (which I managed to stay out of because I was taking photographs) and the Olympics which I also took photos of.
Kurt running for cover
Sunday night I was up until 4am again around the camp fire watching Az trying to get chocolate sauce out of a plastic bottle and accidentally dripping it up his nose. We warned him that it’d solidify up there so he was trying to snort and fish it out. It was very amusing but I suspect you had to be there for the full effect.
Monday morning I helped pack up before leaving at about 11am. I arrived at work at about 12:15 having had a quick shower stop at home.
I doubt this is even a quarter of the things I did and saw and I didn’t get to see everything.
I am now absolutely shattered and I can’t wait for Burning Man . SpunOut was a hundred people for two days, Burning Man will be 40,000 people for eight days , I’m going to be stuffed after that. However, as Geo said “You don’t go to Burning Man to sleep!”
Photos One, Two, Three and Four
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A case of mistaken identity
March 20th, 2008 Matt
So, Kurt and I were sitting on the wall outside building 599 waiting for Worlynn to turn up and do some juggling and poi with us. We were successfully distracting Gloria from doing her homework by talking about the Bike Hike.
After a while Worlynn came walking up the hill and stopped next to us. The conversation then went something like:
Worlynn: Hi
Us: Hi
Worlynn: So is, er
*pause*
Worlynn: I can’t think of his name
Kurt: Steve?
Worlynn: No, er, er
*pause*
Worlynn: Is Matt here?
Me: Yep, I’m here!
Apparently shaving your head and wearing a bandana and sunglasses is a good disguise 
Things got better from there and Worlynn did some poi while Kurt and I juggled and unicycled. At one point Mo walked past dressed in a white bunny suit carrying a basket of Easter eggs. An hour in the life of Curtin Uni.
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Freeway Bike Hike
March 16th, 2008 Matt
I got up this morning at about 7:30 in order to drive to Steve’s place in Como. From there we rode our unicycles to Canning Bridge Station and caught the train to Perth where we meet up with Colin, Daniel, Kevin and Ben. We then caught the train north to Greenwood where we meet up with Kurt and a young blow-in Jarrah.
At this point we all joined the queue of bikes waiting to start the 10km portion of the Freeway Bike Hike. Every year the southbound lane of the freeway is closed so that cyclists can ride 60km, 30km or 10km up the freeway to Joondalup in the north. We thought 10km was probably the limit for unicycling
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Steve in front of me before he decided to catch up with Kurt and Ben
We set off at 10:10 and headed out of the station car park and down on to the freeway. Unicycling on smooth surfaces is fairly easy but it still gets a little uncomfortable after awhile. We started from the front of the queue and throughout the ride were gradually overtaken by most of the other riders. I was pleased that I was overtaking some people as I rode up the exit ramp at the northern end of the freeway and in to Joondalup.
I finished at 11:00, so did the 10km in 50 minutes which I didn’t think was too bad. I wasn’t the last unicyclist (Colin, Kevin and Jarrah were behind me) and I certainly wasn’t the last cyclist. In Joondalup we met up with Elissa who’d done the 30km ride and then hung around on the grass before catching the train from Joondalup home.
Don’t forget to check out the photos.
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Unicycling Photos (and Video)
March 2nd, 2008 Matt
Took some more photos while out unicycling this afternoon. However, as Mike pointed out, only two of them actually have unicycles in the pictures
The following video shows the end of the ride back to Central TAFE where Con and Paco are waiting for us. The total ride was probably about 6km. In a fortnight we’ll be doing the 10km Freeway Bike Hike on our unicycles so this was good practice.
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Unfortunately, my reflection in the glass didn’t come out very well.
For the record, I’d like to point out that I did check the traffic before crossing the roads, I just didn’t do it with the camera
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Lego Unicycle Robot
February 29th, 2008 Matt
Just came across this YouTube video of a unicycling robot made from Lego.
Pretty cool
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Perth Unicycling
February 24th, 2008 Matt
Every Sunday afternoon a bunch of us get together and unicycle around Perth. We organise our get togethers through the PerthUnicycling.com website setup by Mike. Today was just Mike, Daniel and me as Steve and Kurt are in the USA. I took the new camera, I was never comfortable carrying the DSLR while riding, and took some photos and video.
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