My Happiest Birthday Ever

I set off on my third road trip for the year with one purpose in mind, to see the football team I've supported for most of my life win their first NRL grand final.
Of course, they had to beat the team that knocked them out of the finals to the score of 39-0 last year, so this was going to be a major hurdle to getting to the grand final ... and it was going to be played on the night of my birthday, September 23rd, of all nights to play it.

Happy birthday to me?

So my plan A for my third road trip of the year involving watching the Sharks play was to stay in Port Macquarie one night, Sydney two nights and then go down to Canberra for the rest of the week and then come back and watch my team win the grand final and spend one day in Cronulla celebrating the win with other Sharks fans, before heading back to Brisbane via an overnight stop in Armidale.

My plan B if the Sharks got knocked out again by the Cowboys was to go watch the AFL grand final down in Melbourne and then head to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road, which in hindsight would have been an almost complete disaster, as Adelaide was hit by a massive storm causing road closures, flooding and major power outages.
Luckily for me the Sharks won that night, and my plan B was shelved.
Ironically, the team the Sharks would meet the following week in the grand final were The Storm.
SA weather: Power outages hit as storms sweep across state

I got to the stadium really early to take in the big day atmosphere and knew there was one thing in my favour of the Sharks winning this match.
Out of about a dozen games I've watched my Sharks play away from my hometown of Brisbane they have never lost a match.
The closest they have come to losing a game I traveled away from Brisbane to watch them play was when they drew at the Gold Coast earlier this year.

As I sat there that afternoon, I wondered just how many Sharks supporters would fill this stadium.

I was stunned by how many Sharks fans would fill this stadium by kick off.

I said to the lady next to me before kickoff that I hoped the Sharks could win the game for me since it was being played on my birthday and she looked at me in surprise and said that it was her husband's birthday today as well and she and her two daughters had bought him tickets to the game to celebrate his day.
So, I shook his hand and selfishly wished him luck on "his" birthday.

The Sharks won this semi-final quite comfortably (32- 20), even though they let in a few late trys, but now I would be heading down to Canberra for the rest of the week and then back up to Sydney to watch the Sharks play in the 2016 grand final.
Hip, hip, hooray!!
Me and My Shadow Visit Berrima

A lot of us fans hung around well after the game celebrating until we were virtually kicked out.
A night I hope never to forget for the rest of my life.

It wasn't until after I saw this restaurant sign featuring the postcode for Cronulla the day after the Sharks had won the grand final that I realized all my personal answers as to when the Sharks would win their first grand final in my time frame were all there in the postcode numbers.

My birthday is on the 23rd and it wouldn't be until I turned 52 (22+30=52) that the Sharks would win one for me.
Also, my life path number is 7 (2+2+3+0=7)

I was also born in the Year of the Dragon and am a Brisbane Lions supporter when it comes to AFL football, so to see The Lucky Dragon restaurant not far away from restaurant 'Twenty Two Thirty' was personally quite amusing to me.

Although the Lions finished second last on the table this year.

Oh ... and I realized today that the final score of this match (32-20) adds up to the age I turned that night ... 52 ... and that 5+2=7 ... my life number. 

The Quest for a Good Motel Room?

Did the 'Back to the Future' Trilogy Predict the 2016 NRL Grand Final Teams?

Is that a big fish like a shark
in that lightning bolt?

The Sharks and The Storm?

Sharks for 2016 NRL premiers?

Cowboys for 2015 NRL premiers?

Since Marty would have traveled to the end of October 2015, The Cowboys would have already won the 2015 NRL grand final by beating the Broncos.

Great (Matthew) Scott!! 
Co-captain for the Cowboys

The Sharks/lightning/Storm combination in BTTF would be foretelling the teams in the 2016 NRL grand final then probably, right?-)

Cowboys vs Broncos in the 2015
  NRL grand final?

Sharks vs Storm for the 2016 NRL title?

That Spielberg sure puts a lot of work into those films of his;-)

Oh ... and who was the man of the match on grand final night?

Man of the Match grand final night,
the Shark's Luke Lewis.

The man with the twin pillars on his back?-)

Luke LEWIS ... and the news?-)

BACK TO THE FUTURE predicts 9/11?

"You Sharks supporters are
 just too darn loud"

"Remember, lightning never strikes twice"
from the song 'Back in Time'

Isn't a LEWIS something to do with Freemasonry?-)

Yesterday's Heroes

I mentioned  in the post linked above that -
"At the height of Super League, the Sharks bought the song rights to play David Bowie’s hit: “We Can Be Heroes’’.
Gow adds: “I would love that song to be played again, because it was very appropriate for the Sharks."

Well, it was played at the 2016 final after the Sharks won it, which being the same year David Bowie passed away sent chills up my spine.

Blair Walsh Lived A Kicker's Nightmare

Blair Walsh: Anti-Hero on the Day Bowie Dies?
Some stuff not even Hollywood could write when it comes to real life.

Anyone for TV Dinner Duck?

Anyone for some TV dinner?

I bought a glass duck on a spoon at the Canberra Glassworks called, 'Anyone for Duck?', made by an artist named Luna Ryan and then found a You Tube about her and her art and how she melts down used TV screens to make her art.

Seems kind of appropriate to make art out of recycled glass we are used to keeping our modern eyes glued to.

Luna also talks in her You Tube above about making burial poles out of glass instead of the traditional wood for Tiwi people, as it is thought to represent the inter-dimensional world of the spirit.

I'm glad to finally see a real use for the TV in modern society:-)

TV screens and dinners can be a feast for the eyes when it comes to art.

Fascinating stuff and the weird thing is on my last day in Canberra when I went to visit the National Film Archive in the city centre of Canberra there were ducks on the footpath, as well as currawongs, which I was hoping to see up close, as they filled the tree outside my motel room every morning with their song.

Currawongs in the tree outside
my motel room in Canberra

I first thought they were crows until I heard their weird call.

Currawongs on the footpath outside the
National Film Archive in Canberra.

Ducks on the footpath outside the
  National Film Archive in Canberra.

Currawongs outside my motel room
  singing in the trees.

Currawongs on the footpath outside the
National Film Archive in Canberra.

I was surprised that I could get up so close to these birds.

The National Film Archive in Canberra.

A stained-glass DUCK billed platypus on
 the roof of the National Film Archive.

An old TV in the National Sound
and Film Archive in Canberra.

The Canberra Glassworks

I also bought the duck on the spoon because it reminded me of my duck encounters on my last road-trip to Tasmania, which I wrote about in this post -
Revolver  
But I would find out that Canberra is full of strange birds also -
A Black Swan Event in Canberra

And on the subject of revolvers there was a piece of art I nearly bought of a glass nut and bolt, because as a stupid kid, me and a friend used to make bolt bombs, where we would get two bolts and one nut, scrape off match heads and place them in-between the bolts and then throw the bolts on to a concrete surface and watch them explode and fly off into the air.
The trouble was these things were like playing with bullets, which being kids we didn't realize that we were basically playing Russian Roulette with our lives every time we would throw one down on to the cement.   

The last time I ever threw one, the bolt landed on and angle and blew off just past my right ear with the force of a bullet.
It was then that I realized how stupid and dangerous these things were and how I came within inches of putting a bolt through my face at bullet force.
So, these glass bolts I saw in the Canberra Glassworks bought back some rather creepy nostalgic childhood memories with the thought that it is only sheer luck that I'm alive standing here looking at art when I could have easily died that day the bolt missed my head.
Of course, I have had many near misses since that day (although not with bolt bombs) that could have easily snuffed my life out, but I'm still here, which is rather miraculous when I think about it.
So, maybe next time I'm in Canberra I should buy one of these works of art as a reminder of how stupid and lucky I was to make it to where I am today.

The upper level of the Glassworks
looking towards BrodBurger

There is also a great burger joint attached to the Glassworks where you can get more than a glass duck on a spoon, if you are feeling like eating more than a TV dinner at the time;-)

Bon appétit.

Michael Leunig at the BBWF
I've now taken duck off my menu ... and it tastes so bloody good ... but I've had too many duck encounters on my road-trips to continue to eat them and not feel guilty about it.
I'm not judging anyone who eats them, it's my personal hang-up.
Chicken, curry and rice from now on ... and you probably thought I was going to go vegetarian, didn't you?-)