May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.

Who knew that losing you would hurt this much. We lived in different cities and I never got to know you that well. Somehow your friendship transcended that though. The time was brief, but I hope I will always remember what you taught me, you won't have to remind me when we see each other again. I wish more than anything you were still here. I wish that I hadn't been so consumed in the pettiness of my own life of late, and dropped you a line before it was too late.

I believed in my heart that Anaplastic Oligoastrocytoma was no match for your heart. I believed that no amount of cellular proliferation could outrun you. I believed that some day soon, we would be riding BMX bikes together in the Brisbane sunshine, and this time was not this fleetingly fragile thief, that we had an endless supply of endless summers, wherein we met, and the catch ups would wait until then.

How could I have been so naive? Last I heard you were doing so well, and now your gone, and the world has lost such a light. Ah, that's why it hurts. It is not that you didn't live life while shredding it to pieces, not that you didn't fight a fight against that tumour as hard as anyone could have, it is that nobody else will ever get the privilege that was everyone's who knew you, to share time with someone wise beyond their years, someone who loved and laughed without inhibitions, and taught them to do the same.

Ride on Dave. Hope there is loads of perfectly transitioned empty pools where you are.

-your amigo Joe.

A new year, a year too late

Some photos from New Years day, 2011. I honestly can't believe it has been a year since we were in the sunshine at this swimming hole. The time in between was apparently eclipsed by long nights in front of a computer , erratic sleeping patterns and a drinking habit. Here I sit infront of the first year in my known memory that I haven't been a student of one form or another. No tests to study for, no papers to review, no data to process, no chapters to finish writing. I wish this new found freedom was every bit as joyful and exhilarating as I had always imagined it would be. I wish I could forget all my failings and step into this new year unencumbered. Instead, I console myself with the knowledge I did my best, and the promise to stop living for other peoples expectations, and to finally demand my own.

Hope you like the photos.