Name: Peter O'Dwyer.
'Hardy' is a nickname that I acquired during my university days that's
just seemed to stick ....... could do worse I suppose.
Where do you live?
Albury, NSW Australia. It's located on the northern side of the Murray
River, the border between New South Wales and Victoria. (Hometown of 2003 WNBA - MVP Lauren Jackson)
Employment: By day
I'm a Town Planner and until recently after hours I was also a part time fitness instructor. There
aren't that many jobs where you get paid to yell at people :-)
Favourite books: Anything by Greg Bear & Roddy Doyle
Favourite Australian bands:
Paul Kelly, Ed Kueper, Pollyanna, Something for Kate, Spiderbait, Grinspoon
Favourite international bands:
REM, Little Feat, The Cure, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, BoDeans
Current desert island
discs: Radio Head "Hail to the Thief"; Pearl Jam "Lost Dogs"; Neil Young "Live at Massey Hall 1971"; Cure "Disintegration"
Favourite movies of 06/07:
Romulus My Father, Sunshine, Transformers, Breakfast on Pluto
Sports heros: Cathy
Freeman (400m); Reggie White (NFL); Louise Sauvage (World champion wheel
chair athlete) & Emma George (World champion polt vaulter - home town
Beechworth)
Who would you like to
meet?: Billy Connelly; Penny Russell; Michael Palin
Favourite junk food: Hot chips
NFL Highlight: America
Bowl 1999. Did ya see me??? I got interviewed by a TV crew before the game
out on the concourse at Stadium Australia because I was wearing my cheesehead.
[CLICK
ON MY TICKET FOR SOME PHOTOS OF THE BIG DAY]
Inside the stadium I only
saw 6 other people wearing cheeseheads as I was walking around taking photos
etc. so I was pretty proud of the fact that they are obviously a rare collector's
item down here.
Without doubt the most common jersey and supporter's jackets spotted on my travels were those
of the Mighty Green n' Gold. AND something learnt one and all........the
official jersey of
Gridiron Australia was at the time.............(you guessed it) the Packers Jersey.
Made sense to me because Green and Gold are the Australian team colours
for international sporting events.
The game well......let me
put it this way....11 hours driving.....1117kms (694miles) travelled to
watch the Chargers snatch defeat from the jaws of victory could have been
a better result. BUT the up side is that I had a hoot of a time. My cheeshead
and No92 jersey attracted zillions of comments and cheers as I walked around
the stadium and I remain convinced that Green Bay is a team of universal
appeal. (I even got lots of cheers [and a few jeers] from other team supporters
which was great.) And my choice of team is even sweeter as it was
also the Australian jersey that I was wearing. How kewl is that: TWO
FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!!!!!
Do you have a soap box issue? Well now that you ask, I'm still one real cranky rural Australian. At the end of the 1997 season that rupert "bastard" murdoch took away one of my small joys in life when FOXTEL moved in and acquired the rights to NFL matches downunder.
No more free-to-air replays of the match of the week.
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Luckily in 1998 the
SBS network broadcast "Touchdown" on a Sunday morning at 11.30am. Better
late with a highlights package of one of the previous weekend's games than
never I thought.
Then in 1999 the situation got even worse. SBS dropped the program and I found that for the first time since the early 1980's there was no free to air coverage
on any station!!!! HOW COULD THIS BE????
Thankfully a number of Packer's fans in the States including my good friend Penny in Kodiak, Alaska tape some of the games for me is all I can say.
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Talking of
Penny, here's a picture of her home. Click on it and get a full image.
Spectacular stuff. It snows near Albury too but not quite like it does
in Penny's neck of the woods. The best place to ski around here is Mt Hotham
in Victoria which is about 1.5 hours drive away. |
Thredbo in NSW is also a great
place about 2.5 hours to the east of Albury. The snow season in Australia
only lasts about 13 weeks from July to October. You can check out the snow
conditions at all Australian resorts via The
Sno-cams provided by www.ski.com.au
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