February 2008 Archives

We're a major bunch of pisspots at work....  :)

One of Stu and my guilty pleasures of recent weeks has been watching Kid Nation.  When I first saw the ads for it I was like "haven't these parents ever read Lord of the Flies??"  But it didn't degenerate that badly (until they got the arcade lol ;) ), and there were rewards to inspire them and keep them from going completely off the rails.

We fell in love with Sophia from day 1 and were very excited she won the second gold star.  And amazed that so many of the green district got gold stars.  So all up quite entertaining.

Went and visited someone that works at our reception venue yesterday.  Was quite useful in answering some of our questions and some tips and info.  And she gave us some brochures we can send out with the invitations for their onsite-accommodation.  She also said we could come along next week as there was to be a wedding in the same room as we're having, and it'll all be decorated up.  Someone mentioned the word fairy lights and I'm sorely tempted... ;)

So tonight Stu had his first book club meeting with the girls.  I went along because I wanted to have dinner with Stu, and the alternative was to just go home alone.  Natalie and Andrew came along for dinner, as Natalie was going to bookclub too.  So that was all very pleasant.  And then they started the meeting, and Andrew and I were told in no uncertain terms that we were a distraction, so we removed ourselves from the scene.  And went inside and chatted about all sorts of crap.

And pondered the physics of the carbonated straw, and why it didn't tip over the edge.  Things like surface tension, volume of coke in the straw, lip of the glass, etc.  :)


Then Andrew mentioned he had a blog, but wouldn't tell me where it was, because obviously that would be no fun!  He gave me a clue of "it's a town" and I quite randomly guessed a town a mere 30 minutes drive away!  But it was a challenge to find a map of the said location, as Google maps hasn't ever worked on this blackberry.  Until tonight!  When somehow I managed to click on a link that reinstalled it, and now it works!! I was very excited. :)  Looks like I have a couple of years of posts to meander through heh

Afterwards we investigated the spiral stormwater drain and played in it for a bit before heading home.

So I was thinking last night, oh it's two months and a day til the wedding.  Then Stu freaked me out by saying we'd need to send out invitations..!  eeeep!

While we've come up with a preliminary guest list, we haven't refined it yet.  It's still quite a number over our initial estimates. 

I'm lucky in that I don't have any feuding relatives (except perhaps one of the aunties, but don't think she's getting invited).  My problem is with feuding friends.  There's certain people I'd have liked to invite, but can't if I invite others.  It'd be like putting matter and anti-matter together.  Catastrophic universe implosion potential.  I suppose that will help reduce the numbers, but I'm a bit sad I can't invite everyone.  Not being able to invite friends I don't see much of anymore is also a bit sad.  Also vaguely annoyed that will have to invite four of my parents friends.  That's four less of my friends I could have. 

*sigh*

So anyway, this week is trying to design invitations.  Talking to the reception venue peoples on Thursday to get some more details and hopefully decide on a menu.  I ordered stamps last week which are pretty nifty.  With any luck I'll be able to send out the invites next week.

Fancy material has been bought for wrapping up sugar-coated almonds which have been ordered.  Necklaces and earrings bought on ebay.  Doing as much buying of stuff through the internet and ebay as I can.  Anything that takes paypal is a big plus heh :)  Decided not to hire a professional photographer.  Will be asking a couple of people that have fancy cameras to be semi-official photographers and everyone else to download their photos to a computer at the reception if they're willing.  Sure to get plenty of good photos that way.

So it's all slowly coming together....

So Friday afternoon, we all meandered down to the coast. (If you're reading this in Google feed reader you might want to jump to the page as the page goes a bit screwy with the way MT4 does things..)

We arrived with enough time to wander down to the beach to play in the sand.

When we got back to the flat there were kangaroos in the front yard

Kerry cooked a nice stir fry for dinner, and we drank beer.

Saturday morning saw Kerry up before dawn to get photos of the sunrise.

And this nice shot of a seagull.

The flat has a bird feeder and visitors are encouraged to feed the birds.
So we did.
There were lots of birds.

After breakfast we all drove up to Myrtle Beach. It's a nice walk to the beach..

And we saw this cool lizard looking at us and catching ants.

Myrtle Beach.. covered in seaweed.

Unfortunately it was very rough, so we couldn't really swim there. So we went back to Maloney's Beach. Had a nice swim there. Saw this nifty hexagon-shaped house on the way back..

This is the view from the flat.. nice huh? :)

After unhealthy lunch of fish and chips, we headed down to the beach again.

Saw this.. thought it was a spider pushing a bug, but it was a bug dragging a spider!

Found a sand worm in the sand (strangely enough!)

And dug a big hole for Jake to play in.

Kerry and I went for a walk up to the end of the beach.

There were more birds back at the flat.

Kerry cooked dinner again Saturday night, this time pasta. And we drank beer.

Sunday morning still more birds. The most so far.

After bacon and eggs for brekky, we went up to the end of Long Beach again to go snorkelling, but couldn't see a thing due to all the crap in the water from the onshore wind.

But Scotty caught a couple of fish, which he let go.

And we dug another hole for Jake.

And then we came home.

A very pleasant and relaxing weekend. And cheap too - the place was only $85/night which we split between two families. Definitely need to go more often wethinks.

Went away to Bateman's Bay for the weekend with Scott and Kerry.  Several hundred photos were taken, less than half of them by me :)  I picked out thirty-odd of them, will blog them tomorrow night.

Is it just me or has this blog been really quiet since I changed styles?  There's still the same regular people that comment occasionally, it just seems to have been less than usual...

It was my dad's turn today to get pieces of him sliced out.

Apparently he's doing ok, but has not talked to his doctor yet..

I have nothing interesting to say.  Haven't for several days.

Stu and I went along to a pre-marriage type course on Saturday.  It was ok except for the fact it took up the whole day :(

Had a bit meeting at work to discuss the restructure.  Don't know what I'll be doing in the new world order yet..

Busy planning a wedding and a honeymoon.

Stu sent me this for Valentine's Day.. how cool is that? :)


There's this school kid who catches my bus in the morning who always reminds me of Violet from The Incredibles.  He's always stooped over with his long hair hanging around his face.  So it kinda cracked me up this morning to see him carrying a bright red love heart balloon and a bag with a Valentine's gift in it.  It just seemed a little incongruous.  :)

Watched Borat at Scotty's tonight.  It was lame.

So it was another one of *those* days.  The big boss calls us in and announces a restructure.

Yet for some reason it didn't hit me nearly quite so hard as it did last time. 

But it was still enough to call a section meeting at the local to debrief and discuss *issues*..

I had to register my car this week.

So last week I had to get it inspected.

$1105 later.

oops :(

The most annoying thing was they didn't like my sports steering wheel, complaining it was too small for the ACT.  So now I have this massive thing.  It didn't feel like my car driving it away.  David suggested I put the old one back on now that I have it inspected heh :)

Registering it at the ACT Govt Shopfront proved to be time-consuming (45 min all up), but otherwise painless, me having all the appropriate documentation as specified here. I was fortunate enough to not have the problems other people have had.

My car does look a little forlorn without plates attached... but at least the new ones match the colour scheme a lot better :)

Saw this floating over Canberra this morning.  That is one nice thing about Canberra, getting to see these on a semi-regular basis...

I tried to electrocute myself yesterday.

I failed.

ok so I wasn't doing it deliberately. And the house decided it didn't want me to die so it switched itself off. Stu would probably think that a good thing :)

I'm really rather annoyed at myself. One, because I usually check to make sure the cord is not touching the toaster oven, but didn't this time. And two because now I can't use it :(

Yesterday afternoon Damien came over and stayed for dinner.

Aside from a lot of talk about miniature wargamming, conversation and nibblies were very pleasant.

We watched an episode of Star Trek while eating our dinner of roast kangaroo and potato bake, which the boys were quite impressed with.

Afterward we played The Gardens of the Alhambra, which Damien won (pictured purple below), and Gloom, which I won significantly by some stroke of luck.

Talk turned to musicals, and The Fiddler on the Roof, so we actually started watching that a bit before eleven. At midnight decided we were too tired and gave up watching.

A very pleasant evening.

Went and saw our wedding planner ..er.. celebrant rather.. yesterday ..

Really just to get a copy of the standard order of service and decide if we want to modify it and which readings etc to use....

When we were at Bella Vista a while back, we sampled some Mount Majura Pinot Gris.  Well the mission then became to find some.  Turns out Dan Murphy's in Belconnen sells it...

It was yummm :)

Spent a hideous amount of money today.

But one of my life-long goals is a step closer to reality...

Watching "Out of the Question" ..
It's pretty lame and drawn out, but it has Fifi Box in it tonight.. which kinda reminds me of Sydney and I kinda miss it and listening to her dramas ..

*sigh*

So Stu and I went along to see Juno tonight. Everyone I know that's seen it said it was brilliant.. which is always a little dangerous for me because I expect too much of it (I had the same problem with Amelie).

But it was indeed quite good. Very funny and very sweet. Ellen Page as Juno is great. I liked her parents too, and it was cool that they made the "stepmom" nice and not narky.

Perhaps a little unbelievable and not going deeply into the many issues she was sure to have had, but a lovely movie nonetheless.

I wonder if, like Amelie, more could be picked up with repeated watchings..

This little sparrow came up to us yesterday hoping for a handout..


Stu got this at Cancon.  A word of warning though - these are incredibly "cheap" t-shirts (in quality if not in price - $25!), and this one split open (not even on a seam) after its first wear.


Some of my Australia Day weekend was spent built making models.

Hence the need for a trip to Fyshwick yesterday to get some paint.

When we were getting lunch, this little brat was moving his chair to deliberately make a horrible and very loud high pitched squeal.  Over and over again.  I actually told him to stop because it was so distressing, but when he could see that I was upset by it he grinned and did it all the more.  If I had a kid like that, I'd either be committed to a mental asylum, or to prison after killing him. 

Of course the drop-kick father didn't even try to stop him.

People suck.

#24.  To buy a 10mL bottle of paint costs 50km on your car and four and a half hours of your life.

That's one reason I dislike Canberra.  Stuff is just so far away.  You can't just do anything "on the way home".  You have to dedicate a whole day to it.

And of course by the time you actually get home (in this case after 4pm), you're too exhausted to actually do anything, and the day may as well be over.  *blip* there goes half my weekend :(

*sigh*

Started watching Ali tonight.

I say *started* because it was just too crap to watch it all the way through.  I seriously *never* give up on watching movies, but this was an exception.  Unless you actually knew the story about this dude (which I don't really), you'd have absolutely no clue what was going on.  So I'm sitting there wondering what the hell is going on.

Life is too short for crap movies.