Sunday.  12th.  Cooked a very nice lamb roast for dinner with all the veggies.

Lamb roast

Death in Paradise 12.1, some Dotz, and photoshopped (with gimp) a photo of Vicki for Kit to blur out the background.

Vicki

Monday.  Slept mostly ok.  Even got another 20 minutes sleep after I woke up at 5:30. 

Mini capsicum

I desperately wish we had a FOGO bin.  
Need a FOGO bin

Unproductive morning then worked with my newfound method of doing a full config dump to automate a text backup of policies (there's full data backups but you can't easily pull out just the policy from that).  Cooked up some cheesy mince and salad for dinner.  Death in Paradise 12.2.

Tuesday.  Lights out was a little bit late, so then ended up too tired to go to sleep.  Restless for like an hour, then the storm kept me awake for another hour or so.  So, tired day.  Frustration with Powershell that's setup differently in dev and prod.  At least prod works.  Spent the afternoon on the quality script again - made some good progress with that. 

Took this rather spectacular photo of the sun behind one of the epic dandelions in the afternoon.  Had to turn the phone down so the camera was at the bottom, then point it up a the sun.  Could barely see the screen to see what I was doing cause it was so low down.
Sun behind dandelion

Leftovers for dinner then Death in Paradise 12.3, then Mum photo picking.

Chives flowers

Wednesday.  Slept okish I think.  Made some good progress on the quality script, but again it was like one step forward two steps back as you find bugs.  Raced up at 16:30 to pickup the car (they even had a power outage for an hour in the afternoon!), then raced home. 

Impending storm

Beat the storm by just a couple of minutes.  

Hail!!!

Door step hail

As I was out the back watching the hail I realised I'd forgotten to water all the plants out the back that morning, and all my strawberries were all flop :(  And I couldn't even bring them under cover because it was HAILING.  At least they all got some water (and they mostly perked back up later but a lot of the fresh runners died :(:( ).  And the mini capsicum out the front which I *did* water that morning was also all flop :(  Stoopid 30+ degree hot and windy days.

Mini capsicum

After the storm I propped it up on the side of a bucket, and it did recover.

Death in Paradise 12.4.  Some of the murders are wayyy too unbelievable.  Like right in the middle of a wedding?  With the most preposterous setup for an alibi.  Dumb dumb dumb.

Thursday.  Got the quality script mostly working.  Still a few issues.  Drinks at Bar 59 again.  It was a lot more crowded this time!!

Bar 59 beer

XL got sweet potato chips this week - they were amazingly crunchy.  The chef wouldn't tell me how he made them so totes amazeballs!
Bar 59 sweet potato chips

Bar 59 view

Bar 59 view

Bar 59 panorama

Bar 59 view south

Got Dominos pizzas delivered (even though we had stuff to make our own).  Tried to get a vomit pizza but it was a big letdown oh well.  Death in Paradise 12.5.

Friday.  Debugging and fixing the quality script.  Even figured out why a part of it was running so slowly.  Turns out if you have a big array in memory, and make a copy of it with another name, even if you only do lookups on one of them, it's super slow.  I guess Powershell doesn't like having too much in memory at once.  Christmas movie season continued with Die Hard 3.  

Saturday.  18th.  22 years since the worst day of the Canberra bushfires (I wasn't living here yet, but I did mention it in my two week old blog).  A day of All The Things.  Mostly house stuff, hardly time for any fun. 

I really should take before and after photos of this crap
Backyard cleanup

Another week, another 800mL lemon juice.  Jim is very kindly going to take this lot off my hands, as our freezer is very full of the stuff!!
800 mL lemon juice

Cooked up a heap of veggies for dinner, including a potato bake, to have with some leftover mince.

All the veggies

Death in Paradise 12.6, then Darkest Hour, which we'd both watched on our way home from New Zealand in 2018.  

Sunday.  Slightly late night due to tv *and* a movie, which meant I couldn't get to sleep because I was too tired and restless.  Another day of All The Things, altho did have a bit more time to do some hobbies.  No roast this week, oh well.

Poker plants

Bar 59 Belconnen

So in what seems like a ploy to confuse people between Bar 54 and themselves, Bar 59 recently opened in Belconnen.

Apparently the ACT Labor party held their election night party there.

On Thursday we went and tried it out.

It's a beautiful space

Bar 59

Bar 59

With a pretty spectacular view

Bar 59 view

There's only two beers on tap (schooners only) - currently Capital Coast Ale ($10) and Bentspoke Crankshaft ($11). 

Bar 69

Beer with a view!

Bar 59

XL ordered some fries to share, and they were amazing!  Some of the best fries I've ever had!!

Bar 59

So a little pricer than our normal Thursday night, but a lovely setting

Bar 59

Sunday.  5th.  Leftovers for dinner then Death in Paradise 11.7.  They promised rain and storms in the evening.  Got neither.  Early night.

Monday.  Slept somewhat better, but awake around 5.  Managed to have a mostly scripting day (at least in the afternoon).  It started off as a stoopidly complicated script, and I was trying to merge in my code as well as split some functionality out into functions so I could call it from two different places.  It was doing odd things because a couple of times I'd merged things into the wrong order.  But made good progress by 17:00 and got some functionality working which made me super happy.  Then processing museum/Pompeii photos, dinner, Simpsons and museum blogging.

Mini mushrooms

Potato flowers

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok.  Made some progress on the quality script, although it feels like one step forward, two steps back, as you expand testing and find more problems.  Sigh.  Leftovers for dinner, Simpsons, photo picking, Dotz.

Wednesday.  Took a while to get to sleep but slept mostly ok.  Busy morning before work, but only got a bit of the way through my todo list.  Put the six lemons that dropped off the lemon tree overnight out on the letterbox.  Made good progress on the quality script, even ran it over prod to see what bugs still need working out.  Tried again at lunch to get my glasses adjusted, and they're definitely a lot better.  Lemons were all gone by evening.  Finished most of the leftovers from the weekend for dinner.  Then continued the todo list, with a bit of Dotz before bed.

Thursday.  Took forever to get to sleep - tired and restless.  Did you know you can be too tired to go to sleep?  I certainly can.  More good progress on the quality script, actually nearly done with it.  Well part 1 anyway.  Bar 59 after work for drinks.  Made pizzas for dinner.  Death in Paradise 11.8 (end of season 11).

Friday.  Got to sleep well enough even with an early night.  Woke up before 5 though.  Pretended to sleep for another hour. 

Mini mushrooms

Put my script into production to run on a schedule.  Then I realised I did the whole thing wrong, which is what I'm suspecting is making the whole thing run so slowly.  Will work on part 2 the other way and see if it works ok, and if it does will go back and fix part 1.  Then I had a sad because there's no simple way to dump all the rules with one api call.  You have to get the list of all the policies then go back and request the rules for each one.  A couple of thousand api calls later.  But then I found something by pure chance on the internet that provided a solution not only for that problem, but also another problem I've been pondering for months.  Kievs and pommes noisettes for dinner then Death in Paradise 2021 Christmas special.

Kievs and pommes noisettes

Bit of rain came through but not too much

Storm water

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok I think.  A day of All The Things.  Too much house stuff though and not enough time for fun.  Cooked lemon pepper dill chicken for dinner which was very yummy.  Then Death in Paradise 2022 Christmas special.

Mini mushrooms

Potato flowers

Christmas lights

Flutterbies

Lemon pepper dill chicken

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok I think.  A day of All The Things.  Too much house stuff though and not enough time for fun.  Yeah rinse and repeat of yesterday.  I logged onto Access Canberra to see if they'd answered my question about MyWay+.  A week after I logged the ticket, it's still Unassigned.  Hurray.

Got a bit more water in the storm last night.

Storm water

Lamb in the oven for dinner...

I first went to the National Museum of Australia with my parents way back in 2001 on the way home from our trip to Victoria.  The museum had only just opened at that point.

When I saw the braille all over the place, the first thing I did was translate it (what I could see of it).

The Wikipedia article for the museum talks about some of the words on the sides of the buildings, and here's some of my pics of them

This is "Resurrection City", and also "mate" which is all over the building (from 2001)

Museum braille

What's this meant to be?  Totoro is my neighbour??  From 2025

Totoro is my neighbour

But what cracked me up, and they haven't fixed it in twenty three years, is the misspellings.

Instead of "Garden of Australian Dreams", they've spelt it "Garden of Ausstralin Dreams".

Ausstralin

And then whoever did it must have been on drugs, because they repeated it, but spelt it "aaggrgdn of ausstral?n"

aaggado

Hopeless.

And noone's mentioned this on the internet before.  Go figure.  

Also this cracked me up - 23 years of tree growth!!

December 2001
Museum trees

January 2025
Museum trees

We arrived at the museum a bit before 14:00 on a Friday.  School holidays though.  So I took the first parking spot we saw.  Which was wayyyyyy up the northwest end of the car park (literally the second last spot).  As it turned out, it was the only free parking spot we walked past (there was one other one that was instantly taken by someone).  Glad I grabbed the one I did, otherwise we'd have been driving around for ages and ages trying to find a spot.

The Garden of Australian Dreams

Garden of Australian Dreams

Atrium

National Museum of Australia

FJ Holden (1955) and Propert "Trailaway" touring caravan (1956)

Holden and caravan

FJ Holden Special Sedan (1955) 

FJ Holden

Muttaburrasaurus

Muttaburrasaurus

Muttaburrasaurus

Jewellery made from Australian gold

Gold jewellery

Garden of Australian Dreams

Garden of Australian Dreams

Garden of Australian Dreams

Bicycle used by Tony Armstrong on his search for extraordinary things

Tony Armstrong's bicycle

Fluorescent art

Fluorescent art

The problem with this museum is it's one of those "choose your own adventure" museums which I HATE.  Firstly we walked right past the main entrance because we were distracted by the view of the Garden of Australian Dreams.  Like how bad is the design when it's possible to miss the main entrance??  So ended up a side entrance.  Then tried to find a toilet.  Saw a sign that said go downstairs, so had to hunt around for that.  Came up back up and went to the Pompeii exhibition which was pretty good.  And then we went for a bit of a wander.  But we stoopidly didn't pick up a map.  Which meant you have no idea if you've actually seen everything or not.  Hate hate hate hate hate.  Decided not to spend another $40 to see the Kimberley VR movie.  And didn't find the ABC van we saw in 2001.  The British Museum (the old bit) is still my favourite museum - everything is laid out along lines so it's easy to get around and not get lost and feel like you've missed stuff.

This came up some time last year and I thought it would be good for the mother type person and me to go see.

So we did!

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Statue of Apollo

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Statuette of Venus

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Carbonised bread

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Situla (storage vessel) encrusted in lapilli (dried lava stones)

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Statuette of Minerva

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Nymphaeum

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Alabaster hydria (water jar)

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Casts of people and a dog formed by the pyroclastic ash.  The bodies decomposed leaving an empty shell in the solidified ash.

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Garden scene fresco

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Fresco of Pegasus, Bellerephon and Athena

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Herms (carved pillars) featuring Bacchus as an old and young man

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Gold necklace

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Every fifteen minutes Vesuvius erupts.  The big screen at the end of the room and the screens along the sides of the room all show the event

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

Pumice stones raining down

Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia

So yeah it was a pretty good exhibition.  Tony and Jo went the other week and said it was crazy busy so I was expecting it to be bad, but it actually wasn't too bad.  It wasn't nearly as bad as the Pharaohs exhibition in Sydney.  Kellie said the Egypt one in Canberra was also a lot better than the Sydney one.  Maybe they just don't oversell the tickets in Canberra, but also you didn't have the nonsense of audio tours where people would just stop in front of stuff and not MOVE.  Hurray for Canberra! heh

So after the New Years Eve fireworks we should have gone straight to bed.  We didn't.  Rage came on, and as in previous years they play a lot of nostalgia music.  It was too much effort to go get ready for bed, so we just sat there watching.  For like an hour.  Whoops!!

So a very late night.  Of course I woke up at like 5:00 anyway, because that's what I do.  So pretty much a zombie day. 

Potato flower

Did some Lego and Dotz in the morning.  Cooked up some cheesy hash browns.

Hangover hashbrowns

Did some house tidying in the afternoon and might have also tidied up some of the back yard a bit.

Jungle pushback

Finished our Christmas Eve feast leftovers for dinner.  Death in Paradise 11.5.  19:30 is bed time right?

Thursday.  Went to bed early but took forever to get to sleep.  And then woke up early.  Was NEIL at work all morning.  Had a little bit of time to look at the quality script, but it was mostly staring at my code wondering what the stuff I did last year actually does.  Picked up the car from servicing, but it still has the engine light on.  They didn't actually fix anything, they just suggested booking it in for more work.  Hurray.  Pizzas for dinner then Death in Paradise 11.6.

Friday.  Took forever to get to sleep.  Again.  Sigh.  Did sleep in til 6 though.  Not much in the morning, mainly just NEIL.  Then went off to pick up Mum at Jolimont.  Had some lunch first, then headed out to the Museum to see Pompeii, which was actually pretty good, and not stoopidly crowded like I was expecting it to be.  Dropped into Chrissie's on the way home but noone was home.  Had a look through all Mum's recent holiday photos, then Stu got Chinese delivery for dinner.  Dumpling Inn didn't show up online so he got it from Quan's Kitchen which was actually pretty decent. 

Quan's Kitchen food

Then watched Heaven is for Real with Mum.

Saturday.  Took forever to get to sleep.  Restless night, awake *a lot*.  Sigh.  Did some house tidying in the morning, then All The Cooking.  Put on a roast of epic proportions, including *two* potato bakes!

January feast

D/K/S arrived and there were many noms

Mum and noms

Noms

And we did presents and photos and stuff while lunch was cooking

Stu and me

K-S-D

All the feast!

Roast pork, scored with my new Coles meat knife (I probably over-scored it, so it was hard to separate the skin from the fat), home-made apple sauce, gravy, blue cheese potato bake, regular potato bake, sweet potato/brussels sprouts (forgot the hazelnuts)

Pork roast feast

Feast

David and Mum and I then played a game of Monopoly for Sore Losers

Monopoly for Sore Losers

It's quite a different game play from regular Monopoly.  It's faster, not so monotonous, but also more annoying (if you're not playing Mr Monopoly).  We also played a little bit of Disney Trivial Pursuit.  Well we didn't "play" it but picked out cards and just read the questions to each other.

It was a lovely day and I had a lot of fun.  Great catchup with everyone.

The great little-red-bauble hunt
Ball hunt

D/K/S left around 19:50 then I just collapsed.  Much to the chagrin of the Mother Type Person who wanted to keep playing games for hours.  But after several crap nights sleep and an entire day of People I was well and truly done.  

Sunday.  Went to bed super early.  Still a somewhat restless nights sleep, but did sleep until 6:40.  Looked at holiday stuff with Mum, then dropped her at Jolimont.  Came home and collapsed in a heap.  Stu and I both exhausted from a weekend of people.  Had a quiet afternoon of cleaning the kitchen, putting away Christmas decorations and Dotz.



Twenty five years ago on New Years Eve I was out at Homebush partying at NY2K.  We actually only just made it out there before midnight, but then stayed up dancing all night.  Was a lot of fun.  I don't think they played Prince's 1999 though.  That would have been funny. 

Of course that was the year of the Y2K bug.  We spent months and months (well, Houssein did mostly) checking systems for compliancy.  At CIA, I was with Vic and Janelle at NY2K over midnight and we did a cursory check of the systems when we got back to Vic's place to make sure everything was up, then promptly crashed.

Yeah nothing happened with the Y2K bug. 

A quarter of a century later we spent a very pleasant evening at Ian and Cleo's with M&M and R&F.

NYE bubbles

They have an amazing swim spa which was quite warm

Swim spa

Ian bbqed a bunch of meat (which I didn't feel like too much of after pigging out on cheese and other nibbles)

NYE feast

NYE feast

Had a couple of hours chilling in the swim spa, and then decided to beat the Uber rush and come home at 11:30.  Worked perfectly, an Uber was available straight away and we were home just before midnight.

We turned the TV on to Robbie Williams singing You're The Voice .. wtf??  Then we watched the Sydney fireworks.  Best fireworks in the world!

NYE fireworks

NYE fireworks

And then crashed.

Happy new year!!!!!

2024 Year in Review

2024. Pretty standard year really. Busy busy busy!

Our big trip this year was to Tasmania. So no overseas travel, but does overstrait count? We spent a month there and had a great time. We could easily do the same route around the island and see all different things if were to go again, there's that much to see. I took five days off in January so I could get a nine day break, to make up for the shortened break at Christmas (which essentially only felt like a long weekend after the whole leadup/Christmas/post Christmas family stuff). In early February we went to Tumut with Tony/Frank/Karen for the TRBC Tumut River Tap Days. The day itself was hot but it was a lovely afternoon with beer and friends. I went down to Junee/Wagga for the Lego show in Wagga Wagga which was great and uncrowded, then stayed with David the night and caught up with Kellie's family. Sydney in May for a tour of WestConnex, the Ramses Gold of the Pharaohs exhibition, and Rachel and Hayden's wedding, with a couple of days playing tourist with Mum in the middle. In September we went up to Port Macquarie for Jeff's 80th birthday party. It was a lot of driving for just a day there, but Jeff had a wonderful time with most of his family there. Stu went up again in December for Potty's 50th. In October we flew up to Queensland for Ben and Sarah's wedding. It would have been nice to stay longer and have a proper catchup with Chay and also David, but Stu was too stressed with work to think about it.

My job continues to generally be "Sadie" - lots of decom work. A couple of bouts of being the Naughty Email Intervention Layer when Neil was on leave. On one of those I did a bunch of work in the test environment to make it match prod. We setup a new notifications db and decommissioned like half a dozen others. Looked at a proxy as a POC sorry POV. Not overly impressed. Cloud stuff just really is too.. nebulous.. troubleshooting and logging is invariably crap. The biggest project of the year was migrating a couple of thousand VMs to a new environment with a new version of the firewalling software. In advance of the move I spent two days deleting 10% of the rulebase so there'd be less rules to migrate. Then we had to maintain two environments while we spent a month migrating everything. But it generally went quite well, and we did the majority of it during business hours with no outages. Of course none of Daniel's scripts work in the new environment, so with a jump start from someone in security, and a lot of help from Nick, we managed to get a bunch of them working with some new powershell modules. I've learnt a lot about powershell, but I'm still really dumb so it's a struggle. Socially, there was a gin night while I was in Tassie, but was able to have leftovers when I got back. We won a trivia night in July, but luckily someone else volunteered to run the next one, which we were in no danger of winning in October. The social club had a 70th birthday "cocktail" night although it was primarily beer, wine and bubbles. A great night anyway. A couple of work Christmas parties, then my Christmas bbq at the lake in December for 58 people. About the 11th year in a row I've run it. Good times.

I've generally been pretty healthy this year. Other than being fat. Hit the fattest I've ever been in January, so went low carb and did lots of walking up Mt Rogers and managed to lose a few kilos quickly so I didn't have to lug them up mountains in Tasmania. Had the usual bouts of insomnia here and there. Did a sleep study in September. I have a bit of sleep apnea when I sleep on my back. No surprises there, I avoid sleeping on my back, except when I'm asleep and don't notice. Had a couple of sore throats in October, but if they were colds they only lasted a day or two. Got new glasses in November. Should NOT have gone to Specsavers. This time the optometrist was like "eh close enough" with the vision check so I never got that whole "oh wow I can see moment" when I first tried on the new glasses. Also one of the pairs I got was far too small and I can't get them to fit right, so wearing the "spare" glasses that don't have the anti-reflective coating on them.

We've had a relatively quiet year with friends. Stu has simply been so stressed out by work that doing any sort of socialising is too much for him to bear a lot of the time. David came up in January to look at the oven. Met up with him and Shane and Jess for dinner in October, and he came for dinner later in October. Stayed with Mum a couple of days in May and we played tourist which was kinda cool. Kit came to visit with Oreo in February and May, and by herself in June. Had multiple visits to Herbert's with Tony/Frank/Karen as well as with the Chrises and Neil. Had Tony and Jo over for dinner in April. Had cocktails at Molly/Hippo and dinner at Molly/Bar Rochford/Akiba with Luc in April, August and October (busy year for him in Canberra! Here three times!). Picked up the sweetie a few times after drinks with Dennis. Had drinks/dinner with Ding at the Lighty in April. Went over to Nick and Tab's for dinner in May. Met up with Luc and Cynthia in Sydney for dinner in May. Had Fred's 50th at Herbert's in June. Went over to Chris and Geoff's for raclette in September. Had a Rocky Horror night at Rob and Fiona's which was a lot of fun. We caught up with Chay, Daemon and Augie in October, the first time we'd seen them since 2016! James/George/Josh/Rachel took me to afternoon tea in December on their way to Melbourne.

We went out to the club five times all up. See aforementioned notes above about Stu being stressed by work. We went out for a Remembrance dinner near Anzac Day in April. Ian and Chris's anniversary formal night in June. There was a working been in July. I did Christmas in July for like the tenth year in a row (except for 2020, stoopid covid). And Rob and Fiona's Christmas party in November.

Had another busy year of photo processing. I got my Turkey 2014 trip photos culled, labelled and blogged in time for the ten year anniversary of our departure in May. I started processing David's America 2023 photos, but didn't get very far through it because I had too many other projects I was working on. Got Tasmania photos online in time for the six month anniversary of that trip. I got our Queensland 2014 trip photos culled and labelled, but couldn't get them online on the tenth anniversary because Vodien broke my database. So they were a month late. I've also been doing a lot of filing/organising of general Canberra photos, Stu's family photos (pulled out 600 photos of Immy cause she hardly has any of her as a little kid), and pulling photos in case of having to need them for Mum's funeral one day (easier to get that done now rather than being in a hurry if things happened suddenly).

No big changes with the fish. The upstairs two foot has countless guppies, and I'm having to weed all the java fern out of it regularly. The four foot has a loach, three male guppies and two female guppies, and 11 congo tetras (I think). I still have Chrissie's two clown loaches - I've had them for nearly seven years now. The "angel" tank has maybe ten or so guppies in it. The downstairs two foot has a big sucking catfish and two female guppies. I've been meaning to give them a boyfriend for a while now... In January the filter clogged up the outlet on the "angel" tank and water backed up and leaked over the back, which was super annoying and made a big mess. In October the stone I had weighing down the filter wool to stop a repeat of January drifted over the well with the wool and got stuck in the outlet. Water backed up and leaked over the back, which was super annoying and made a big mess. Stumpy's UVB light died in December, but two pet stores and the reptile store at Gold Creek don't have them. Waiting for Gold Creek to get more stock.

I had a big Lego year this year. I've spent ages on Vic's Lego all year. I finished inventorying loose pieces so I knew what was left, then used that to pick parts for some more sets that looked somewhat completable. I then wishlisted all the missing pieces (a couple of thousand of them! eep!) and noted the average price for them (to compare seller prices). I bought a big batch off a dude in South Australia and it's taken weeks to mark everything off and file them into sets. I did build a few of the smaller sets that are complete, but was hoping to do a lot more over the break that I just didn't get the time for. I made a 31x31 mosaic of a QR code that will take you to my blog. I borrowed Jo's (originally Riley's) Winter Holiday Train (10254) and bought some missing pieces to complete it. Of my own I did Scaled-Up Lego Minifigure (40649), Minifigure (3723), Moving Truck (40586) and Notre-Dame de Paris (21061). All a lot of fun.

Jigsaws continue whenever I have time. Which is not often at home. I still haven't assembled the Disney jigsaw as I don't have anywhere I can do it.

I pulled out my Spirograph in January and had a bit of fun with it. Also had a play with my Rubik's Rings puzzles (never could solve those things). I'm still playing the clarinet. I'm still not very good at it. Spent the year working through a Crystal Creations koala. While it was all actually pretty good quality, the colours they provided were all off, so it looks dumb. I got some Diamond Dotz ones for Christmas and have done one and started on a bigger one.

It's been a warm year. Had our usual share of storms, rainbows and even some hail. It snowed out at the club in July which was pretty awesome. The humidity in January and December wasn't fun.

Windows 11 continues to piss me off with its trash - like files opening on a completely different desktop to the one you're on, even if the app is open on your current desktop; notepad search sucking donkey balls and just dumping you at random places in the file when you close the search box (but keeping unsaved files open over reboots is nice, although only at home, not at work); refusing to shut down when I tell it to; refusing to eject hard drives some times. But at the beginning of the year we found it will FINALLY let you ungroup taskbar items. Google may be improving the security of the internet by FORCING https, even without consent, but it did break my blog because Chrome refused to load the http css/js content on a https page. Vodien broke my blog/database in June - from broken CageFS file system errors and script errors, to broken cpanel passwords, to a mysql database reverted to October last year, to a completely broken website. Took weeks of yelling for them to fix it. Then in August they broke my database AGAIN, by reverting the database to the same point in October last year. Took weeks of yelling and pleading to finally get a complete export of my database taken after my last blog entry but before they broke it. I took that database and moved to CloudLoop, who have been amazing. I used the opportunity to do a massive cleanup of all my blogs. I fixed up all the things I'd been meaning to fix up for years, got my holiday blogs to a consistent design, got everything working in https, and cleared 14000 image assets so my blog entries publish in seconds instead of minutes. We bought a new printer in October (an Oki) because the old Brother one had a fault with the fuser and was smudging all the prints. Such a waste. Why is everything so crap these days? We bought a new lawn mower in November because the starter rip cord ripped right off on the old one. Stu has used it once. I've used it three times. In December I coded up some Perl to pull weather data from BOM's API and put a little widget on my blog to show the current weather. I dispute their "feels like" temperatures though!

Around the house. A second element died in our POS DeLonghi oven on New Years Day. After not being able to get a replacement for the previous dead element, we decided to piss it off and get a new oven. The old one was only four years old. Such a waste. Why is everything so crap these days? David came up in January to do the diagnosis on the old one, and did the installation on the new one. So nice to have a qualified electrician in the family! Although funnily enough the new one has a standard plug and doesn't need to be wired directly in, but it did need a new power point. I grew two mini capsicum plants out the front (the ones out the back got eaten by snails in like one night). They're stoopidly slow growing (not helped by completely infertile soil out the front and very little water) so only a few ripened by June before the frost finally got to them. The fridge made a loud clunk in April when it was turning off which sounded ominous. Sure enough the next time it ran it was a lot noisier. But it's still running, loudly, so there's that I guess. I dread having to buy a new one. This one is at least twenty years old. Anything new won't last anywhere near that long. Our Solar Edge solar system for reasons unknown didn't charge the battery at all for three days in April (it was sunny!). Our lemon tree totally went off this year. By June it was completely laden. In August I started juicing lemons that had fallen off. In November a branch with 112 lemons on it broke off. I've given away dozens of lemons and litres of juice, and made multiple lemon cheesecakes and lemon pepper chicken, and there's litres of juice in the freezer. I drink about an ice cube a day. But more lemons keep falling. All. The. Lemons. We had various problems with ancient electronic timers. Either turning on and just not turning off, or losing time. About three have had issues this year. The turdburger crimson rosellas came back again this year to eat the house. The gas heater died in August - nothing on the control panel. Fortunately a complete reboot of the whole heater at the power point fixed it. First poppy of the season flowered on 1 September. There's still one or two left. We had more purple poppies and epic dandelions. In September I planted out a stick of geranium that had been lying on the ground since January!! How is that even possible that it's still alive?? We had a scheduled power outage in October. The Solar Edge solar system dutifully kicked in and kept all the fish tanks running all day, but it didn't charge the battery. That's not what we were sold on. Annoyed. Got lots of strawberries in November/December. Although I didn't get to eat half of them - the currawongs kept stealing them. They didn't find the ones in the pool though, and neither did the snails so that was a win. In December I heard dripping in the washing machine after it was finished/emptied. Seems the thing is leaking. The first time I let it go and it leaked a *lot* into the drum over a few days. And then one day I found water all over the laundry floor. So it's leaking in two places. So now we turn the water off when we've finished washing. I dread having to buy a new one. This one is at least twenty years old. Anything new won't last anywhere near that long. Redid the silicone sealant on the shower in December - further up the wall this time. Our ExtendaLine that David installed in 2020 had another line break in December. Now I can't fully extend the thing which is super annoying.

Did a reasonable amount of eating out this year. Kinn Thai in Civic is a favourite, we went there in February, April and December. Chong Co is another favourite, with delivery in April, August, October. Same with Dumpling Inn in February, July, September and November (twice). Many visits to Herbert's with Tony/Jo/Frank/Karen/Chrises/Neil etc, including tap takeovers by TRBC (farewell tour) and Hopsters Cooperative Brewery. But they gave me grief over ordering from the kids menu the last time, so I lost it, and very likely will never go back. Dumb business decision will (and in fact already has) cost them. Dinners before/after ANU events with Tony at Badger&Co, 10 Yards, Terra. Some new lunch places with Neil at BZ Burgers, Uyghur Cuisine and No. 10, a few team lunches at Ikko (twice), Ramen-O and Vanilla Pod. Molly, Bar Rochford and Akiba with Luc the three times he was in town. Went to the Burns Club in Holt with the Chrises in January, and at Kambah with David and Kellie and some of David's friends during the Airport Open Day. Kimchi in Dickson with David/Shane/Jess and a colleague of David's in October. Cypher for Wello's birthday in October. Raku with Annie and Stu in May. Had Grease Monkey from their food truck at the Belco markets in May. Pattysmiths in January and June. Pizza at TRBC in Kingston in July, which turned out to be the one and only time I'd ever get there. Pappa Rich before Twisters in August. Returned to the Aussie Crepe House (previously Crepe Cafe) in October for the first time in a few years to avoid the mall food court during school holidays. Beess & Co in September and Gang Gang in November. Four Winds with Tony in November, repeat of the previous year. Yat Bun Tong and Kinh Do delivery/takeaways in May/July.

As usual I somehow ended up doing a whole lot of cooking this year. Staples included Sunday night roasts, Thursday night pizza (mostly made at home) and often Brown-Food-Fridays with chicken Kievs. Did slow cooker lamb in January which was amazing. Lemon dill chicken in January, then again in December with my own dill. Cheese mince and cheesy taco casserole in January (keto ftw!). Tried a carbonara from AntiChef in February but it didn't really work with alternative pasta. Might try it again some time though. Barramundi bake in March, although not as good as basa, and a few tuna bakes. Luv-a-duck cheats Peking duck a couple of times - pretty awesome each time. Did three Mexican things from Nagi Maehashi's Dinner book in May - slow cooker Mexican shredded beef, taco slaw, Mexican red rice which were all excellent, and beef ribs from her website in June, which would need a bit of tweaking to do again. Osso bucu on August. Lemon pepper chicken a couple of times in November. French onion soup in December. Also made Not Quite Nigella's peppermint slice a couple of times, and lemon cheesecake a few times.


Theatre/Shows/Exhibitions/Tours
* Canberra Airport Open Day in April. In the rain. But nice in the afternoon.
* Journey of Australian Science series at the Shine Dome
* Lego show in Wagga Wagga in April
* Ramses and the Gold of the Pharaohs in Sydney in May. Too many people and not enough room and no flow made it super stressful for me
* Ralph Heimans exhibition at the portrait gallery in May
* Questacon to see the Ryan "Brickman" McNaught Lego exhibition. During school holidays. Not recommended.
* Beethoven's 9th in August
* Questacon again on my birthday in August. Much quieter and more civilised.
* Dark Matter in the Pub in August
* Mint in September (and back again a week later to swap out the earrings I bought)
* Scrivener Dam tour in October

Movies (at the movies)
* Twisters

Movies (TV)
There may have been more that I forgot to blog about or forgot to add to this list
* The Queen
* Mona Lisa Smile
* Mash
* The Sound of Music
* Fantasia 2000
* The Shape of Water
* The Good Son
* Parasite
* Barbie
* A Night To Remember
* Iron Man 1/2/3
* Miss Potter
* Twister
* 9 to 5
* The Door Into Summer
* Mean Girls
* TRON / Tron: Legacy
* Freaky Friday (2018)
* South Solitary
* Wonka (2023)
* Grave of the Fireflies
* Inside Out 2
* Golden Kamuy
* Salt
* My Old Ass
* John Wick
* Die Hard / Die Hard 2
* Love Actually
* The Santa Clause / The Santa Clause 2

TV
We were getting into a good routine of Death in Paradise on Thursdays, The Orville on Friday or Saturdays, The Crown on Sundays, as well as Mash, The Simpsons and Futurama over dinner. Then they all finished and we haven't been watching as much together. There's a few things I want to watch so hopefully will get into a routine again in the new year.
* Death in Paradise - from mid season 7 to mid season 11
* The Orville from mid season 2 til the end
* Mash from mid season 2 til the end. Fun seeing various people pop up that became famous later - like Mr Miyagi, Larry Wilcox, James Cromwell, GW Bailey, Patrick Swayze, David Graf, "Larry" Fishburne
* Sex Education from mid season 4 til the end
* The Crown from mid season 6 til the end. Although there's 20 years of the Queen's life left so they may make another series.
* Some Big Bang Theory on tv in Tassie
* Shogun all of season 1
* Laid Back Camp season 3
* Start of The Apothecary Diaries. It didn't really grab me (maybe it would have gotten better) so Stu watched it by himself.
* Lego Masters Australia vs The World
* First three seasons of the American Lego Masters, and a Christmas special
* Documentaries - Brats, Pretty Baby, The Movies that Made Us (on Friday the 13th), Feminists: What were they thinking?
* Start of Girl Band Cry. Another one that really didn't grab me.
* Amazing Race season 8 (another celebrity edition)
* Black Mirror - all of it
* The Simpsons - some of season 36
* Futurama - whatever this year's season is

Weddings
* Rachel and Hayden
* Ben and Sarah

Other stuff
* late night on NYE watching the fireworks
* went out to Cotter Dam on New Years Day because it was spilling. It was quite crowded out there. Walked all the way up to the viewing spot.
* took a *lot* of photos of flowers. And food.
* remembered the January 1994 bushfires thirty years ago
* went shopping for jeans in January. Failed. Did get a bra though.
* bought some jeans at Vinnies of all places in January
* also managed to get some "skinny" jeans in January at Kmart because that's all that was left in the store. Hate.
* impressed with a Seiko battery from 1998 that was still working, and has been powering a thermometer all year
* got my first Charlie coin in April
* got grunty at Access Canberra because MyWay cards can expire and they expect you to fork out $5 for a new one (no credit on new cards) so they can transfer the balance. Decided to ignore the problem until the new MyWay+ system came along in December, and Stu could transfer his balance.
* saw a kangaroo in our driveway in May (sounded like it smacked into the fence) but it disappeared before I got outside
* ABC Classic 100 "Feel Good" in June
* had my nails "professionally" done in June
* watched the Olympics opening ceremony but nothing else
* had a play with ChatGPT. It's trash. Asked it to write a trivia night round on current events. Most of the questions couldn't actually be answered because they were wrong.
* saddened to hear that TRBC was closing down in September
* found some five leaf clovers in September
* wandered round Yarralumla in September and saw the old brick works
* saw Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in October. Well, my phone did, I didn't
* found a two leaf clover in October
* visited the Lake Ginninderra spillway and wetlands in November
* encouraged the epic dandelions around the place
* watched lots of Jamie and Julia
* booked another holiday next year with the mother type person
* did the Plonk beer advent calendar
* got a random Blue Screen of Death in December
* got to level 15000 in Candy Crush just before the end of the year
* saw a rat among the daisies under the lemon tree

My biggest stress this year is simply a lack of TIME. I desperately want to retire so I can actually slow down and enjoy life and just do my hobbies and have a quiet life. Even over the Christmas break I spent too much time trying to get All The Things done, and not nearly enough time on my hobbies. Didn't really feel relaxing at all. I have heaps of photo projects I want to work on next year as well. And I'm desperate to get Vic's Lego out of the house, but so little of it is complete. Deep breaths. It'll all be ok in the end.

Happy New Year to everyone, I'll try and have one too!