Thank you, Sir Richard

Starting 17 days ago and extending all the way through to April 8, Richard Branson has, and will be, a consistent presence in my life.

First, Sam and Sarah arrived in Sydney on March 14. And as Team ASS (Andy, Sarah, Sam) went from Sydney to Hunter Valley to Port Macquarie and back to Sydney, we adopted our slogan for the trip, Screw it, let's do it!, which was taken from the Richard Branson autobiography of the same name* that Sam was reading.

*Amazingly, Branson has written a total of THREE autobiographies. If there were three biographies of him -- hell, if there were THIRTY biographies of him -- that would be fine. Because those would all have different takes on the man, all written by different people. But no. Sir Richard has three autobiographies, all (presumably) written by himself.

Then Robert arrived 11 days ago to form Team RASS (Robert, Andy, Sarah, Sam). And we took the use of Screw it, let's do it! up to a whole new level, as it became the rallying cry for anything for which we were on the fence.

Should we jump into the cold ocean water? Screw it, let's do it!

Should we do a two-hour, hilly cliff walk even though we're ridiculously hungover? Screw it, let's do it!

Should we eat the lamb's brain from the Indonesian restaurant? Screw it, let's do it!

And so on and so forth.

Sam, Sarah and Robert have unfortunately all left. But Richard Branson? He's still lingering. For this past Saturday, V Festival -- as in Virgin Festival -- a musical festival headlined by The Killers, Snow Patrol, Kaiser Chiefs and, randomly, Madness and Vanilla Ice, took place about five minutes from my apartment. I didn't go, but many of my friends did and I could hear it from my place.

And to top it off, come 9pm today, when I fly to LA for Benihana's wedding, I will fly on V Australia -- as in Virgin Australia.

The man is omnipresent in my life right now. His motivation did Team RASS right, and I'm hoping that he'll do me equally right as I go to and from LA.