So far I haven’t really done a lot. I’ve been to visit my friends mother who is 99 and after that went to my friends wife’s barn to see her 3 horses. One of which is a new baby horse who was born a few months ago.

On Saturday we went to the cinema to see Captain America in 3D. It was a great movie overall but especially a great movie to see while on holiday in the USA. I got some popcorn as well and all I can say is Americans love their butter on their popcorn. It was so greasy but it tasted so good!

For food I’ve tried Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Olive Garden so far. Pizza Hut and McDonald’s are basically the same just in bigger sizes and Olive Garden is just fantastic. It’s a great italian restaurant here in America which I had for lunch today. I of course had my usual Spaghetti Bolognese which on the menu was “Spaghetti and meat sauce” and the bread sticks are very tasty. I’ve noticed so far the waitresses are so much nicer here because they work for tips instead of just a salary. My drink glass was always full and as soon it got low she brought another glass over.

I’ve uploaded 7 photos to my Flickr account so far, I’m hoping to get some fantastic photographs of the landscape here this week and much more as I start to explore the state more.

Until next time!

I have a 2 hour layover in Melbourne, Australia before getting aboard QF093 which happens to be a A380 (I really can’t explain how happy I am that I get to fly on one of these…). I arrive in Los Angeles, California around 11:25pm Adelaide time and then have a 6 hour wait before my final flight of the day to PDX. I’ll probably be posting once again during my 6 hour stop in Los Angeles just to let you guys know I made it and let everyone know my thoughts about Qantas International Services and the A380 :)

Wish me luck flying!

I will be making frequent blog posts here with journal entries along with one or 2 pictures every few days, However I will be uploading ALL my pictures to my Flickr Profile as I go along. Along with pictures and a journal entry every few days here on the blog, I will be tweeting through out some of the days via my iPhone and my shiny new iPad 2**. So you can check out my twitter tag @ShaunLorrain however I will also be setting my twitter account to post the status updates to my Facebook account. So really there’s many ways to get in touch with me!

I hope you enjoy some of the photos and things I have to share while I’m away as I’m sure I’ll have a fantastic time.

*I leave July 20th and am returning September 16th.
**If insurance has replaced it due to me breaking the thing… 

On Friday night a few of us met up at Brunelli’s Café in Rundle Street for dinner, We stayed there drinking and socializing until around 10PM and then everyone left to go home. It was a fun but early night as everyone had to go home and those that were going to go out with me after, unfortunately couldn’t make it.

As that was the get together with friends, I thought it was only appropriate to also have a family dinner so we went to Café Primo Saturday night to have a meal. The food is always good there and you get a free pancake afterwards so its a win win!

So once again, thanks to everyone for the Birthday Wishes/Presents :)

Wednesday August 10th – Leave Portland, Oregon and arrive in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Thursday September 1st – Depart Minneapolis, Minnesota and arrive in Columbus, Ohio.

Sunday September 4th – Depart Columbus, Ohio and arrive in Los Angeles.

Wednesday September 14th – Depart Los Angeles, California at 11:50pm.

Friday September 16th – Arrive in Sydney at 7:25am and leave at 9:45am to arrive in Adelaide.

My email address also changed to the .com.au domain however all email sent to the old .com address is forwarded to the new email address.

I did this move for a number of reasons, mainly because I have a few things coming up in the next 2 or so years which will look much more professional on the .com.au domain.

I’m continuing the work on the move as I have to change all the image paths. But everything should be working!

Let me know if you find something broken!

Just now I’ve booked my flights to the United States of America, I’ll be gone from the 20th of July and will return on the 16th of September!

All I can say is this year so far has exceeded last years stress levels and we’re only in February.

So I have a question for you, when planning your holidays do you find it this stressful? Currently what’s stressing me out is choosing when to go to what city and for how long to stay in each city. I just never thought this would be so hard. Leave your comment below and don’t forget to answer the question in the poll!

I had the idea to create a website that had a family tree and a page for each family member with their birth/death dates and any information I had + pictures.

Well this week I finally registered the Lorrain.id.au domain. That’s where I’m going to put said website. Things will probably move slowly as I don’t know a lot about my family so I will have to do my research! I just hope it doesn’t take me as long to finish as it did to start.

This pretty much sums up what I bought, except I only paid $450 instead of the listed price. It’s not a bad laptop considering the price/specs. I only wanted something to write/browse on so I’m quite happy with it. I went in to buy a 10″ Net-book but this laptop was the exact same price and almost double the specifications so I got this instead because the 10″ while good for portability, the screen size is way to small and distorted.

Lets all hope they sort out my medical problems soon!

Continuing on from part 2 of my series of blog posts, I went back to my GP on the 11th of October and asked about the gastroenterology appointment I was supposed to get. She told me she would look into it and because the hospital said my heart was a worry she wanted a 24 hour heart monitor test done as well which I had done on the 21st of October. The 24 hour heart monitor just revealed that I do have Sinus tachycardia with my heart normally around 160-200 beats/min, She said if I was to experience chest pain I would have to be placed on medication and in a few years I would have to go on it anyway because a human heart cannot last beating that fast for long at all.

Around the end of November I started bleeding more from places you shouldn’t so the doctor pushed my hospital appointment to “LEVEL 1″ which is an urgent/priority appointment. Later in December I received a letter from the hospital saying I had an appointment scheduled for 2PM on the 11th of January which happens to be today.

Today I went to my appointment and was told by the specialist I saw that it could possibly either be hepatitis, cancer or another incurable disease he mentioned which I can’t quite remember how to pronounce or how to spell to look up. He has ordered a Colonoscopy and an Endoscopy to be done in the next 3 months and he has also ordered a full range of blood tests, roughly around 20 vials of blood over the next few weeks. Also a 24 hour 5-HIAA urine test to see if I have high amounts of serotonin in my body as well as to test for renal failure. Unfortunately my specialist I’ve just seen today for the first time is retiring at the end of January so he won’t be the one following up with me after the procedures I have done. I’m sure I’ll be in good hands with whomever takes over my file though.

As you can imagine, the thought of possibly having cancer or hepatitis is quite daunting and worrying me beyond imaginable, however I’m just keeping positive thoughts and I have to say thank you to a whole bunch of you supportive bunch on twitter. I’ll be sure to keep you updated if anything changes! If you don’t hear from me about health stuff before the procedures, I will most definitely be making one shortly after I have the 2 procedures done in the hospital!

Currently the new domain redirects to http://shaunlorrain.com and all email sent to shaun@shaunlorrain.com.au will be automatically forwarded to shaun@shaunlorrain.com.

In news on a similar note my business cards arrived Monday afternoon so I have started giving those out too! Things are looking up for me in 2011!

I still can’t believe some of these, they used to be so good!

PS: These were epic shows! :P