blads blog

Well, its all over bar the shouting and quite likely there'll be a few sore bodies after last night's BDANT Building Design Awards and 10th anniversay celebrations, held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Darwin. I was here to help out the dedicated committe here in the NT with their Powerpoint presentation and to catch up with old friends... One of the first to arrive was, BDAA National President, Ray Brown and his lovely first Lady Leslea. The evening was MC'd by friend & fellow building designer, Chris Renehan and was an outstanding success - my congrats go to BDANT's Riarna MacCarthy and her team, along with overall Design Excellence winner, Bennett Design. Friends, Pam Martin and John Berryman were also amongst the winners, last night, congratulations guys... well done. One of the highlights of the evening, was the introduction of the BDANT's past presidents that they've had over the past 10 years, namely... John Berryman, Chris Renehan, Wayne Gabbert, Greg...

Yesterday was a relaxing day, still getting climatised to this heat, although it felt marginally cooler yesterday and there was at least a breeze to cool you down. The varied flora up here is absolutely amazing as evident by a selection of images...

OK so I flew into Darwin yesterday for a week, got off the plane and got hit with a wall of heat and humidity ~ temps overing just over 100F ((or about 38C) in the shade) and humidity @ about 95%. (OK maybe it wasn't quite that but it sure felt like it... ) For those you don't know, Darwin is the furthest Northern mainland city of approx 120,000 peeps. The region, has a tropical climate, with a wet season and a dry season. It receives heavy rainfall during the Wet, and is well-known for its spectacular lightning - currently it's the beginningof the wet... So before heading to my "digs" for the next week, we (my friends, Pam & Grant and I) headed over to Parap markets for some fantastic foody bits and pick up "bowls" of Laksa, a spicy coconut-based soup. I'm mainly here for the Building Designers Assoc Northern Territory (BDANT) 10th birthday celebrations, design awards and some training... more later... when its a tad cooler :)

Well October 10th is finially upon us - today is the last day for early bird registration. So if you're planning on attending Las Vegas for this years' Autodesk University, but haven’t registered yet, you may want to head over and take care of that TODAY in order to get the early bird registration fee. A few of the highlights for me at this years' exciting event incude: Community Leadership Conference The International Reception Autodesk University 2008 Blogger Social The AUGI Annual General Meeting The AUGI Beer Bust Revit & Sustainability Sessions The exciting things happening at the AUGI Booth just to name a few.... See you @ Autodesk University 2008!

One of the best things I have ever done was to nominate for the AUGI Board of Directors, and now it can be your turn... As announced in BLAUGI and on the AUGI Forums ... October 1st is just the beginning... of what? A fantastic and rewarding experience for any hardworking volunteer! So what’s happening that Wednesday? Members are given yet another way to be involved with AUGI. You can do this either by nominating someone for the Board of Directors or throwing your own hat into the ring for the next term. Do yourself a favour and nominate yourself... you won't regret it :)